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Search engine marketing continued to grow at a rapid pace during the second quarter, with conversions, search spending and impressions increasing nearly 50% year-over-year, according to the Performics 50 index. Sales during the fourth quarter will surpass last year's by 53%, Performics estimates. Active keywords grew 58% year-over-year and total clicks rose 32% year-over-year, according to the report. However, after increasing throughout February and March, the average cost per keyword remained relatively stable throughout the second quarter, increasing only 14 cents, or less than 0.5%, from first-quarter averages. (See story below). The report also found that more expensive keywords. those over $1 per click, received 20% more impressions in June, up from 14% in March. This increase in expensive keywords came both from increases in existing keyword prices as well as the addition of newer, more popular keywords, Performics says.
Ask.com has launched version 2.0 of their sponsored pay-per-click listings program. The new features include a daily budgeting solution, a variable refill account self-service feature, an hourly billable data report, bulk upload enhancements and dashboard reports. As part of the launch, Ask Sponsored Listings has expanded the paid search inventory available to direct buyers. Now, marketers can bid for the top three listings on IAC properties, including Ask.com, Evite, CitySearch and RealEstate.com. <http://sponsoredlistings.ask.com/> ++++++++++++++++++++++ Google has opened a new unbranded, experimental site with the trendy name of SearchMash where it plans to test user interface ideas without Google's brand somehow skewing the tests. Combining words and pictures, SearchMash allows users to get web and image results presented side-by-side. Web results are presented in the main left-hand column after a search and appear to be ranked the same as at Google. But presentation is quite a bit different. By clicking on the URL line, a pop-up box presents options to: open the listing in the current window, open the listing in a new window, view see more pages from the Web site in the found results, or find similar pages. Infinite scroll: After the first ten results, there's a "more web pages" link at the bottom. Click on this, and you get another 10 results magically appearing on the same page, inserted below the first 10. You can keep going, adding 10 more results at a time.
Amazon's A9 Search engine, once a promising SE contender offering breakthrough features like city sidewalk, street level views, "block-by-block," a unique space for storing search notes, a useful toolbar, and even a discount on Amazon purchases for racking up A9 clicks, is in a slow fade out mode. The Amazon-sponsored search engine, which lost its founder and Chief Algorithm Officer, Ubi Mander, to Google a matter of months ago, is removing the above mentioned feature-set and reinventing itself in reductionist fashion, from a flashy search engine to a minimalist meta-search service. Rumors abound that Amazon's very snazzy "city block" view may one day re-emerge over at Microsoft after a recent partnership with Windows Live between the two Seattle icons. It's clear that Amazon no longer feels obligated to support its own global search entity, and can see that search is not going to take over shopping (at least not yet).
Have an eBay store? How about a Yahoo store or an Amazon store? If yes, and you want to get your products into Google Base, you can now do it with one direct export. Google has released Google Base Store Connector, a tool that allows you to export your products from eBay, Yahoo or Amazon and bulk upload them to Google Base. The listings will then show your products and link them over to your eBay listings, or Yahoo Store or Amazon Store. Some more details at Google Operating System blog. <http://base.google.com/base/storeconnector> ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Search marketing costs held steady in the second quarter, according to data released late last week by DoubleClick's Performics unit. The monthly "cost-per-keyword" increased 14 cents--or less than .5 percent--throughout the second quarter, according to Performics. Last quarter, the monthly "cost-per-keyword" fell to around $30 in the first quarter--from around the yearly high of $59 last December, according to the report. Year-over-year, cost-per-keyword was relatively flat. To arrive at a monthly cost-per-keyword, Performics combines cost-per-click with the volume of clicks; the figure represents the average cost to a marketer of purchasing a keyword for the entire month But while pricing held steady, the volume of activity continued to rise. Year-over-year overall spending on search and impressions grew by almost 50 percent; active keywords grew by 58 percent while total clicks increased by 32 percent, according to Performics. Performics attributed the increase to both a spike in pricing and a surge in new, popular keywords. The company reported that terms that previously cost between 21 and 99 cents now go for more than $1, while other, new $1-plus terms now are in play.
A new law might land some people using meta tags in trouble, if they are trying to mislead children. Specifically, a new U.S. law says "whoever knowingly embeds words or digital images into the source code of a website with the intent to deceive a minor into viewing material harmful to minors on the Internet shall be fined under this title and imprisoned for not more than 20 years." Meta tag controls were added to the Stop Adults Facilitating the Exploitation of Youth (SAFETY) Act. Now we all know, meta tags have almost no impact on the rankings of a page, but anyone putting those types of keywords in their meta tags most likely are trying to do it with the intent of improving their rankings for those keywords. US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said that "America's children will be better protected from every parent's worst nightmare-sexual predators," thanks to the law's passage. It has been passed by both houses and awaits the US President's signature before it becomes law. From the bill: 2252C. Misleading words or digital images on the Internet (b) MINORS. Whoever knowingly embeds words or digital images into the source code of a website with the intent to deceive a minor into viewing material harmful to minors on the Internet shall be fined under this title and imprisoned for not more than 20 years. The term "source code" means the combination of text and other characters comprising the content, both viewable and nonviewable, of a web page, including any website publishing language, programming language, protocol or functional content, as well as any successor languages or protocols.
One of the easiest ways to lose a customer is in the navigation. Visitors to your site are looking for answers to a specific question. Those questions can be uncovered through your Website analytics where you can get a sense of what was in their minds. People are searching for an answer, which inherently means that they have questions. Can I be more descriptive in explaining what makes my site different or By using your Web site's analytics, you can narrowly define a group of visitors coming to your site, ideally by keyword group. From this, you can determine a conversion rate for that specific group of visitors -- are they finding what they are looking for? Using this information, you can begin to determine the problems on your site at a granular level, which will work together to improve the site as a whole. ********************** |
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