SES Magazine May 2009 by Incisive Media

sneak preview ses toronto MO RE INFO INS ID p.1 E 5

SearchEngineStrategies.com

MAY 2009

With country-specific search engine optimization, you can reach local audiences in lands near and far

Get Found on Google.ca p.10 Keyword Selection p.20 Widget World p.22

$3.01

ALL ABOARD! Punch your ticket to a better 2009 with a better online marketing strategy

The OMS Regional Whistle Stop Tour

May 5 - July 1, 2009 —Coming to a City Near You! Online Marketing Summit hosts premiere educational events for marketing professionals focusing exclusively on providing actionable content and executable strategies so attendees can leave with the knowledge they need to feel confident in all facets of online marketing. OMS offers the following: • Panels, sessions, and workshops led by the leading authors and practitioners in the industry • Beginner, intermediate, and expert sessions for each component of online marketing • Unparalleled networking opportunity with hundreds of peers in a “salesperson free” environment • Topics Include: Social Media Strategies, Search Marketing, Website Usability, Web Analytics and Tracking, Email Marketing, Integrated Strategy, Testing & Targeting

Tour Cities • Boston, MA (5/5)

• Denver, CO (6/4)

• New York, NY (5/7)

• Atlanta, GA (6/9)

• Washington DC (5/12)

• Orange County, CA (6/16)

• Houston, TX (5/19)

• San Francisco, CA (6/24)

• Austin, TX (5/21)

• Portland, OR (6/29)

• Chicago, IL (5/27)

• Seattle, WA (7/1)

• Minneapolis, MN (6/2)

OnlineMarketingSummit hosted by

Visit our website at: www.onlinemarketingsummit.com to sign up for updates about the OMS Spring Tour.

Advance Your Ca reer & Learn Best Practi ces

Get Your Online Marketin g Certification Spanning: Email, Analytics, Social Media , Website, and Search

http://institute.onlinemar ketingconnect.com

SES20 for 20% off The Price of Admission

search & psychology [ 2 articles ]

SES Toronto Preview

Mag rea azine d S AV e r s : E 15 %

pages 7-9

Are you here? [ cover story ] page 12

contents Features Are You Here? Country-Specific Search Engine Optimization.............................................. 12 SES Toronto: Sneak Preview..........................................................................................15-18 Glossary............................................................................................................................ 32

Columns search & legal [ 3 articles ]

pages 27-30

Google SearchWiki Preempts Social Media Competition....................................................... 4 Landing Pages and the Decision-Making Process................................................................ 7 Will Use Versus Can Use: Influencing Your Visitors to Increase Conversions........................... 8 Get Found on Google.ca..................................................................................................... 10 Mobile Search Has a Second Coming................................................................................. 14 What to Expect After a Site Relaunch................................................................................. 19 Keyword Selection For the Short- and Long-tail................................................................. 20 Widget World: Monetizing Your App.................................................................................... 22 Turning Blogs and User-Generated Content Into Search Engine Results.............................. 24 How Search Marketers Can Fight Trademark Infringement................................................. 27 Protecting Your Reputation Online: Sue or SEM?................................................................. 28 Search Functions and Marketing: Be Careful Where You Click............................................ 30

Tell us what you’ll be searching for at the June 8-10 event, and you could

attend SES Toronto for free! § What types of exhibitors are you looking to meet? § What will be your top business goal while at SES Toronto? § What do you hope to learn from the sessions?

E-mail your three answers by Friday, May 15, with subject line “SES Magazine Giveaway,” to: magazine@SearchEngineStrategies.com

Win a F con REE fere n c pas s! e

We’ll be giving away one free conference pass. The winner will be notified before June 1. Learn more about the event: www.SearchEngineStrategies.com/toronto

Staff

about SES Magazine

Magazine Managing Editor Drew Eastmead Contributors Chris Aarons, Tim Ash, Julie Batten, Travis Crabtree, Erik Dafforn, Dave Davies, Andru Edwards, Kathleen Fealy, Robert Friedman, Xavier Lanier, Mark McGrath, Steve O’Brien, Melissa Ortiz, Helen Overland, Erik Qualman, Ezra Silverton Cover Design Erik Hageman

SES Magazine is now in its third year and will reach a print circulation of more than 100,000 in 2009. In this issue, you’ll find articles on the latest trends in digital marketing, as well as a preview of our upcoming event, SES Toronto (June 8-10). We are grateful to our contributors and readers alike, and we’re always interested to hear your feedback and learn about what topics you’d like to see (e-mail us at magazine@SearchEngineStrategies.com). For more information about advertising, contributing, or subscribing, or to view past issues, visit www.SearchEngineStrategies.com/ses-magazine.

PROGRAM DEVELOPMENT VP, Content Development Stewart Quealy Senior Program Director Marilyn Crafts Program Coordinator Jackie Ortez

Drew Eastmead | Managing Editor, SES Magazine sneak preview nto ses toro

SALES & MARKETING VP, Publisher Matt McGowan Sales Directors Andrew Katz Elaine Mershon Elaine Romeo Peter Westerholm Account Executives Elizabeth Huston Katie O’Hea Marketing Director Angela Man Marketing Manager Christian Georgeou Event Client Services Mgr. JoAnn Simonelli Web Designer Rebecca Holz Online Operations Manager Louise Laberge Online Operations Assoc. Aleksey Gershin

optimization, search engine near and far y-specific lands With countr local audiences in you can reach

Advertiser Page Acquisio.......................................................... C4 Clicksor............................................................ 5 Idearc............................................................... 3 Information World Review................................. 6

OPERATIONS

SEarch engine watch

Clickz Anna Maria Virzi Zach Rodgers Enid Burns Kate Kaye Erin Brenner

corporate CEO, North America William Pollak SVP, Events Kevin Vermeulen MD, Operations John Klein

Please recycle this magazine! 10/1/08

10:44:38 AM

Advertiser Page NVI................................................................. 11 Online Marketing Summit............................... C2 Outrider.......................................................... C3 Website Magazine.......................................... 26

SES Advisory Board

Managing Editor Kevin Newcomb News Correspondents Greg Jarboe Nathania Johnson Frank Watson Contributing Editors Tim Ash, Michael Boland, Eric Enge, Liana Evans, William Flaiz, Justilien Gaspard, Carrie Hill, Mark Jackson, Ron Jones, Sage Lewis, Elisabeth Osmeloski, Joshua Palau, Erik Qualman, Kevin Ryan, Aaron Shear, Gregg Stewart, David Szetela

enviroink.indd 1

For information about advertising in future issues, please contact sales at sales@SearchEngineStrategies.com or (212) 457-4993.

.ca on Google Get Found Selection Keyword Widget World

Director, Operations Michele McDermott Operations Manager Dan Hoskins

Executive Editor Managing Editor, News Managing Editor, Stats Senior Editor, News Copy Chief

Advertiser Index

Comprised of both industry thought leaders and real-world practitioners, the Search Engine Strategies advisory board brings together top players in the field of interactive media and search. Led by Kevin Ryan, the team works to deliver continually cutting-edge search techniques, more integrated and relevant content, and professional development resources to SES attendees. Kevin Ryan, Chair CMO WebVisible

Chris Henger VP, Affiliate Marketing Performics

Matthew Bailey President SiteLogic

Anne Kennedy Managing Partner Beyond Ink

Ron Belanger VP, Agency Development Yahoo! Search Marketing

Jeff Levick Director, Global Industry Dev. & Marketing Google, Inc.

Bryan Eisenberg Co-founder Future Now, Inc.

John Marshall CTO Market Motive

Jeff Ferguson Director of Online Marketing Napster

Pauline Ores Sr. Marketing Manager, Social Media IBM Corporation

Andrew Goodman Principal Page Zero Media

Erynn Petersen Sr. Manager, Advertising Platform Evangelism Microsoft

Mike Grehan Global KDM Officer Acronym Media

Randy Peterson Search Marketing Innovation Manager Procter & Gamble

Incisive Media, U.S. 120 Broadway, 5th floor New York, NY 10271 tel (212) 457-9400 fax (646) 822-5237

Incisive Media, head office Haymarket House, 28-29 Haymarket London SW1Y 4RX, UK tel +44 (0)20 7316 9609 fax +44 (0)20 7930 2238

To advertise, subscribe, contribute, or view past issues: www.SearchEngineStrategies.com/ses-magazine Comments? Want to unsubscribe? E-mail us: magazine@SearchEngineStrategies.com

searchmarketing

§ FOCUS: relevant results

Google SearchWiki Preempts Social Media Competition By Erik Qualman

oogle owns about a 75 percent market share in the search engine wars because it’s the best at helping us find what we’re looking for. While it’s the best, it still has room for improvement. Google is a great company with smart people, so it recognizes its products are not perfect. To date, Google hasn’t moved rapidly to fix these imperfections, primarily because its competition hasn’t forced it to. Can anyone blame Google for not wanting to tinker with something that continues to gain market share? AOL’s Platform-A garnered 172.6 million unique visitors However, in to its ad network in February, the last year, earning 90 percent reach in the marketplace. Google has come Source: comScore to realize that its Find out how the other ad networks rank at ClickZ Stats. stiffest competition in the future will most likely not come from MSN or Yahoo, but rather from Facebook, Wikipedia, Twitter, and other social media. If you search for someone famous or something factual, a Wikipedia page is likely the top result. That’s why more people go straight to Wikipedia or use tools such as Powerset. After performing a Google search for a product or service, you’re bombarded with advertisements all touting the same thing in 35 characters or less — cheapest fares! best value! lowest price guaranteed! — with the top advertising placements going to those that generate

172.6 A

SES § May 2009 {Toronto Preview}

the most revenue over the long term for Google, rather than the most relevant result for you. Everyone receiving the same search results is analogous to going to Nordstrom to buy a dress, and the sales clerk offers you selections without determining what size you are. Let’s pretend that we’re in the market to purchase a baby seat for our newborn. Do we care more about what our friends say we should check out, or what Google recommends? Most respect their friends’ opinions about products more than the Google algorithm. If this isn’t the case, you need new friends. This means there’s plenty of opportunity for Facebook, which already has the technology to track user purchases on outside websites. For example, Facebook Beacon can track books I purchase on Amazon.com. As a user, it’s much more helpful for me to see a list of results of which baby seats my friends purchased, how much they paid, and what their reviews are, combined with supplier ads (think Google-sponsored ad listings) than the results Google displays today — results that don’t include anything about what my friends think. If Facebook can cobble the good technology it already has (Connect, Beacon, etc.) and assuage privacy concerns, then it could steal literally billions of dollars in revenue from Google. Google recognized this deficiency and launched Google SearchWiki, which enables users with Google accounts (Gmail, Google analytics, etc.) to rate

and comment on the search results. On given search listings, you can also view other users’ comments. This is a significant step Most respect their for Google into friends’ opinions about the social media products more than the space. Some Google algorithm. § pundits guess that Google will capture this user-generated data and adjust the organic ratings based on what the public feels should be No. 1, rather than Googlebot. Mircroblogging tools like Twitter also capture Google’s interest, since it seems possible that users may tweet, “Having issues setting up my Apple TV, please help!” This frustrated user would receive suggestions from friends, be contacted by Apple Support, and also receive pay-per-click messages from manufacturers with products for the Apple TV. Just like in Google SearchWiki, someone on Twitter would be able to give the responses a thumbs up or thumbs down. It will be interesting to see how everything plays out, but in the end, this technology arms race and increased competition greatly benefit users and advertisers. § Erik Qualman is the global vice president of online marketing for EF Education. His book, Socialnomics: How Social Media Transforms the Way We Live and Do Business, from Wiley Publishing, will be in stores Aug. 28 and can be pre-ordered on Amazon today. Previously, Qualman helped grow the online marketing and e-business functions of Cadillac & Pontiac (199497), BellSouth (1998-2000), Yahoo (2000-03), EarthLink (2003-05), and Travelzoo (2005-08).

Contextual Advertising

www.clicksor.com

Online advertising that works Unlimited keywords, countries and channels targeting Pixel code optimizationwww.clicksor.com

Pay Per Click advertising just got better! Targeted traffic

from ONLY $0.05/click. Take advantage of this offer today!! FOR MORE INFORMATION:

CALL

1.212.400.7685

cpcads@clicksor.com

or visit our Blog for tips and updates about Clicksor!

http://blog.clicksor.com

As Advertisers/Ad Agencies: • Powerful targeting and reporting • Automated billing and payment system • Increased traﬃc and extended market reach

As Publishers: • Accept only those creatives meeting your specific criteria • XML feed for CPC/CPV • More ads, resulting in higher online revenues and profits

As Advertising Networks: • Dynamic partnerships with other networks • Increased ad inventory and traﬃc • Additional targeting features for existing clientele

rom

ing f start

3 0 . 0 $

CPM

es her fe t o s *plu

FOR MORE INFORMATION: CALL

1.905.763.9735

info@myadmarket.com

*Offer subject to change without notice. A $200 Monthly Subscription Fee and a one-time $1000 Private-Label Setup Fee apply in addition to the $0.03 CPM Ad Serving Fee.

www.myadmarket.com 5 SearchEngineStrategies.com § SES

Reach professional information users and information managers in corporate, academic and public sector enterprises with Information World Review. FACE TO FACE

IN PRINT

ONLINE

• news and comment • daily blog • web channels including science, business & market, legal, medical, academic & humanities, news & reference, information management, library

To advertise contact: John Steward, john.steward@incisivemedia.com Editor: Peter Williams, peter.williams@incisivemedia.com Telephone +44 (0)20 7316 9000 6

SES § May 2009 {Toronto Preview}

www.iwr.co.uk

Landing Pages and the Decision-Making Process

FOCUS: psychology & conversion §

By Tim Ash

anding page optimization and testing is a complex activity that requires knowledge of many fields, including usability, copywriting, math, and web design. But at its core, we are still trying to influence the behavior of people, and human nature has not changed. In 1898, Elias St. Elmo Lewis pioneered a framework for describing stages of consumer interest and behavior. In effect, he created the modern concept of the sales funnel. All people were thought to progress through four stages, represented by the acronym AIDA (see box). The key to properly applying this model to landing pages is to ensure there’s contiIf your conversion action nuity and flow typically has a long support delay, then try to provide to a visitor’s mechanisms to record your visitors’ progress. § progression through each of the steps. None of the steps can be skipped, and all of them must happen in sequence. That’s not to say that equal emphasis should be placed on each within your landing page, nor that visitors will spend an equal amount of time in each step. But there should be a clear path and the proper support to keep them moving toward your conversion goal. It’s also helpful to realize that AIDA applies to different scales of tasks and different time frames. If

Awareness

Someone realizes that some number of possible actionas is available to them.

I’m a consumer researching the next computer to buy, I may take days or weeks to make my decision. My interaction with your website may be only one of dozens. I may have long ago forgotten about your website by the time I make my ultimate decision (depending on when I visited it, the intervening research that I have conducted, and the uniqueness of your company and its selling proposition). At the other extreme, the web supports small-scale and short-duration micro-tasks that may happen in a fraction of a second. Sometimes the task that you want the user to perform is simply to click through to another page on your site. Yet the same four steps must still happen during the visit for the conversion action to occur. Ultimately you must help to answer two questions for a visitor to pass through all of the AIDA stages: Do you have what I want? Why should I get it from you? This process may not happen during a single visit or interaction. The ultimate goal may be weeks or months away. But you must provide a clear path to that goal, as well as support along every step of the way. If your conversion action typically has a long delay, then try to provide mechanisms to record your visitors’ progress, and restart them in the most recent and relevant state upon their

Interest

actively self-select and show a subsequent visits They preference for a particular course of action. to your landing page. esire The typical Their enthusiasm grows as they investigate the course of action. time spent in the awareness and ction interest stages They are moved to act and reap the benefits on the web is of the course of action. very short. Most of the “Do you have what I want?” question is answered during the desire stage. However, without attention and interest, desire cannot even happen. Similarly, although the bulk of “Why should I get it Search Terms from you?” is answered of Endearment during the action stage, it cannot even be “Coupons” topped the search terms in the “shopping reached without passing rewards and directories” through the other three category in February. Other stages, in order. queries looked for values of more detail, such as “grocery If you take a discicoupons” and “free samples.” plined approach to Source: Hitwise Top 10 search terms are listed ensure that every AIDA monthly in ClickZ Stats. step is addressed for your visitors and their specific conversion tasks, you should be able to significantly improve your conversion rates. §

D A

Tim Ash is the president and CEO of SiteTuners.com, a landing page optimization company. Tim is a frequent speaker and writer on conversion improvement, and is the author of the bestselling book, Landing Page Optimization: The Definitive Guide to Testing and Tuning for Conversions (John Wiley & Sons Press, http:// LandingPageOptimizationBook.com).

SearchEngineStrategies.com § SES

Will Use Versus Can Use

Influencing your visitors to increase conversions By Kathleen Fealy

ost websites have a common goal: conversions. We want the site visitor to perform an action, be it purchasing a product, calling about a service, making a donation, or signing up for a newsletter. A website’s usability plays a key role in driving these conversions, and the role of usability is evolving from a state of can a person use a site to will the person use it. Traditionally, usability centered on who the targeted users of the site were, and how effectively and efficiently they could perform specific tasks — could they find information, navigate the site, and complete tasks? Or did they run into roadblocks that deterred them from taking action? Overall objective: Make a website a person can use. This usability 8

SES § May 2009 {Toronto Preview}

principle is still important, as is testing the site with actual users. If visitors can’t use a site, they can’t convert. However, usability today is focusing on both the “can do” and “will do” aspects of websites. It’s not enough for your visitors to be able to use a site; they need to want to use it.

In today’s fast moving world, it’s more important than ever to have visitors who will use your site. There is strong competition for people’s attention and dollars. If your site can persuade the visitor to become engaged and take action, then your conversion rates can increase. How often have you gone to a website and after looking at it, quickly left? It may not have met your

FOCUS: psychology & conversion §

needs, or perhaps it didn’t appear to be trustworthy. Something stopped you from taking any further action. If you had stayed, you might have found the site easy to use and completed various tasks, but it didn’t persuade you to stay. Your emotions told us to leave and to look elsewhere. Persuasion methodologies aren’t new. They have been around since the 1920s, and many usability, psychology, and marketing professionals have implemented decades of research and findings into websites. The adoption rate of these methodologies appears to be increasing.

Persuasion/Motivation, Emotion, and Trust

Persuading your visitors, appealing to their basic needs or desires, drawing on their emotions, and providing them with trust factors are all components that will influence them to interact with your website. When people come to a site, they look for visual cues that they’re in the right place. They process information quickly and draw on experience, comprised of past emotional and intellectual information, to decide whether or not they will use the site. By focusing on the targeted visitors’ desires and fears, motivation can be uncovered. When people are asked why they need a product or service, their answer may not reflect the real reason; often, people aren’t even aware of the true reason. Their motivation is most likely rooted in the basic human instincts of fear, insecurity, peer pressure, or scarcity. In addition, their value systems will also influence their decisions. Emotions play a key role in decisionmaking. Researchers Jeffrey Saver and Antonio Damasio suggest that without emotion, people cannot make decisions. People want to believe that when they make a decision, they are being logical, not emotional. They are basing their decision on facts and experience. But, emotion is playing a large part in

that decision-making process. Experience, at first glance, can appear logical. If the outcome was good, then the experience should be repeated. In essence, the outcome had produced pleasure, not pain. This is emotion. Logic does play a part; it frames the decision, processes the information, and allows for action to take place. Decision-making is both emotional and logical, with emotion providing the driving force behind the decision. Trust is the last component of the conversion trilogy and is probably the easiest to implement. Visitors want to feel safe and secure. They want to minimize the risk of the interaction. They’ll look for cues such as: Does the site look professional with no broken links, misspellings, or unexpected content? Is there a privacy policy, and can it be easily found and understood? Is there a FAQ section where people can receive answers quickly? Is there information present on the site that they know is true to inspire further confidence in your content?

Applying “Will Do” Elements to Your Site and Online Marketing Efforts

Let’s apply persuasion/motivation, emotion, and trust factors to a possible real-life scenario. Your company sells life insurance, and one of your targeted user groups are married men with children. What is the underlying desire or need of this group? Maybe it’s a fear of not providing for their family, or of not leaving enough money for college. Before the father even gets to your site, did the search engine result pages display a title and description that motivated him to click onto your site? When visiting the site, he’ll look for cues to see if he’s in the right place: Is the site professional, are there headlines with the words “life insurance” and perhaps a tagline, “providing for your family”? He’ll see an image on the page. What

response will it evoke? Will he relate to it? Will it cause an emotional response, and if so, what will that be? Will there be clear calls to action, keyword-embedded text links that use phrases that are appropriate to his needs? Are they phrased in ways that would appeal to his emotions? Will the copy speak to him and address his concerns of having enough insurance? If he needs to provide information, is there a privacy policy? If this is a broker’s site, is there a Better Business Bureau seal or a list of associations or licenses? What about other online marketing vehicles? Will the ad copy and landing pages, press releases, or videos persuade him to take action or to click?

Testing Provides Guidance

Before changing your site to take advantage of these concepts, consider testing the effects of your changes. Try a new image, change a headline, a call-toaction or placement of content, and see how it influences your conversion rates. For onsite changes, Google Optimizer is a free tool that allows A/B testing of changes. By testing changes, you can have a better understanding of how they will affect the performance of the page.

A Win-Win for All Involved

By applying the principles of persuasion/motivation, emotion, and trust, conversions can be increased. It boils down to providing a better overall experience for the targeted visitor. If the visitor finds what he wants and is convinced that it will satisfy his needs, it’s a winwin situation for all involved. § Kathleen Fealy is president of New York-based KF Multimedia & Web, Inc., which provides website strategy, SEO, and usability consulting and training. Specializing in organic search engine optimization since 2001, she is a speaker at Search Engine Strategies conferences and regional events. Kathleen is the education committee co-chair for SEMPO and a peer reviewer of SEMPO Institute’s advanced SEO courses.

SearchEngineStrategies.com § SES

§ FOCUS: international

Get Found on Google.ca By Ezra Silverton

s a web searcher on Google.ca, you may have noticed the options available to you under the search bar — the choice between searching “the web” or “pages from Canada.” The search results between the two options are quite different. But what determines this difference? Google, as well as the other major search engines, filters and displays search results that are local to the searcher. To accomplish any search engine’s mission of providing the most relevant results for each keyword query, the algorithm What vertical saw the most considers varigrowth between January 2008 and 2009 in display ous factors advertising impressions? B2B when determingrew 110.7 percent. Source: Nielsen Online ing a website’s Check out ClickZ Stats for more data. relevancy within country-filtered search results. Each search engine uses its own unique algorithm to determine the best search results for the searcher. For natural (a.k.a. organic) search results, factors that contribute to a website’s display within “pages from Canada” filtered results may include: a .ca domain name extension a Canadian address within the domain’s WHOIS information the location of the website’s server the IP address location the address displayed on the site links to other Canadian websites setting of the targeted region to Canada within a Google Webmaster Tools account

110.7 A

Note that not all of these factors need to be implemented in order to get listed. 10

SES § May 2009 {Toronto Preview}

From what I’ve seen, having both a Canadian domain extension and location of the web server’s IP is most impactful. Remember that while your hosting company may have a Canadian address, this doesn’t mean that their servers are located in Canada. Since many web searchers may not realize that their results are countrytargeted, you may be missing highly relevant visitors to your website. Conduct a test. Search for some of the key phrases that your ideal visitor would commonly use and compare the two filtered options. If your business only serves the Canadian market, you may decide that having your website listed on Google. ca within the “pages from Canada” results is sufficient, or you may realize that your website is not on the Canadian search results at all. On the other hand, you may want your website listed within both search results. To have your website listed within the Canadian filtered search results, the factors outlined above should be implemented. We often introduce one at a time and wait a few weeks to test the impact and results. As I mentioned earlier, it’s unlikely that all of them need to be implemented. As a savvy searcher, you may also have noticed that searching on Google. com, the traditional U.S.-based search engine, will display results with an entirely a different setup. If you want your site listed in both places, depending on your current setup, things can get more complicated. First, I suggest you talk to a professional Internet marketing company. If you rely on the search engines to bring in most of your visitors, leads, or sales, the wrong changes can be of significant detriment to your site’s positioning. Some primary factors like

the domain’s extension and the location of the website host can have a major effect on the operation of your website. The last thing you want to do is provoke both a technical and a search engine positioning calamity. An alternate strategy is to have different websites for each country you target — each with appropriate addresses, domain extensions, and content targeted to the respective country. This is a viable solution if your product or service offering differs significantly between countries. However, you do not need to go to this extent to have a website listed within the varied search results. Duplicating your website to get found on Google. com and Google.ca is a method that’s discouraged by many experts. Google will eventually uncover the duplicates and remove the site it determines to be least relevant. If your website is critical to your business, it’s just not worth risking major changes in positioning by experimenting with these factors. Talk to an Internet marketing provider. An SEO professional is able to analyze the current situation and plan any changes in as much of a controlled environment as possible. Continual review and evaluation is needed during this process. § Ezra Silverton is the founder of 9th sphere (www.9thsphere. com), an award-winning website solutions firm, providing effective Internet marketing services that include search engine marketing, search engine optimization, social media marketing, reputation management, and more. With over 11 years of website experience, 9th sphere provides significant insight in developing effective solutions for a wide range of businesses.

interactive strategy

SearchEngineStrategies.com ยง SES

With country-specific search engine optimization, you can reach local audiences in lands near and far By Helen Overland

Many organizations have branches in multiple countries, but few have the brand power necessary to rank highly in country-specific search engine results. This can lead to lost market share in countries where you do business.

ou are a marketing executive, responsible for bringing your products and services to an everexpanding global audience. You are successful in the United States and have the rankings, traffic, and sales revenue to show for it. Now you’re looking outward, to Canada, the U.K., and beyond. Although you’ve set up offices in each country, you’re having trouble convincing the search engines that you belong in the search results for the people in each country. Although you rank strongly in Google.com and are driving significant U.S. traffic to the website, you are nowhere to be found in the search results in other countries. Worse still, search traffic is also slow to trickle in from non-U.S. locations. What can you do?

Know the Field

Before embarking on any SEO project, always remember the ultimate goal of a search engine: a large number of happy, satisfied searchers. A successful search engine’s business model 12

SES § May 2009 {Toronto Preview}

COVER STORY / FOCUS: international §

is fundamentally rooted in constantly regenerating a strong base of satisfied searchers. So it’s in the search engine’s best interest to provide users with businesses that serve their exact needs, in their exact location.

Make Your Case

If you want your site to rank and drive traffic from country-specific searches, you need to make a good case in the court of public search results. To do this, you need to indicate to the search engines, and to visitors, that you are here to serve the local market. This may mean having different content — or even a different website — for each local market you serve, in order to better customize the local experience of your business. Some of these indicators are stronger flags than others, so be wary when creating your local online targeting strategy. Here are a few of the more important flags to fly when trying to reach a local search audience: Country-level domain: If at all possible, host the local content on a country-specific TLD. For Canada this would be yourname.ca; in the U.K., this would be yourname.co.uk. Host on a server in that country: You don’t have to use a countryspecific web host, but do host on a server that registers as physically being in that location. Try using www.digitalpoint.com/tools/websitecountry/ to find out where your website is identified as being located. Hosting location can be especially important if you can’t use a countryspecific TLD. Country-specific inbound links: It’s essential to back up your claims of belonging in a country by having local organizations link to you. Consider joining the local chamber of commerce, business and consumer groups, and other organizations to prove you are active in the location. Steadily build relationships and links with other local groups and websites.

Other tactics worth considering are including content specific to the locality, and local spelling and grammar that speak directly to the audience. You may also try setting your geographic location in Google Webmaster Tools (www.google.com/webmasters/tools), although note that this will only affect searches where people have selected the “pages from” (country) option. Once your site is verified by the system, you’ll be able to set geographic target, currently at the “country” level, which can sometimes help increase your relevance for searchers in that location. Finally, if you do have a local presence in the form of an office or address, it doesn’t hurt to verify your address in Google’s Local Business Center (www. google.com/local/add). Once this is complete, your business address could also appear in local searches in Google Maps and at the top of some organic searches.

Serve Your Market

Keep in mind that searchers can be fickle. Generally people use a search engine because they don’t want to spend hours casting around for what they need; they want to find things easily and now. More importantly, searchers from non-U.S. locations know that not all businesses effectively serve their given locale. Many have had the deeply negative experience of shopping on a site, choosing products, and learning during checkout that the business either doesn’t serve their location or that shipping costs are extravagant. Savvy non-U.S. shoppers investigate businesses a little before committing the time to look at products. Therefore, a successful business removes the barriers of suspicion and mistrust inherent in experienced online shoppers. Make it an easy and pleasant experience for people to do business with you: Give clear and comforting reassur-

ance that you are there, literally, for your customer. A country-specific domain, a flag image or welcome message, and country-specific messaging all help in building that initial foundation of trust that’s vital for a successful new business transaction.

Get Buy-In

Sometimes, change can be hard for organizations that have been humming along happily for years. When search traffic has Prove you are been strong in active in the one area for location by a long time, steadily building the expectarelationships with tion can be that local groups and the site should websites. also do well in similar foreign markets. It can be a bit of a shock when a site struggles for visibility in a market where dominance would seem to be a simple matter. Getting buy-in for implementing country-specific content, domains, links, and local efforts isn’t always easy, especially if company messaging is tightly controlled. Just remember that there isn’t one magic bullet that will make your website more visible in local search results; the trick is to build a case using the most appropriate flags for your market and business model. Designing a strategy of approach specifically for local markets is a wise first step toward succeeding in foreign markets. § Helen Overland is the director of search engine marketing with nonlinear creations, a technical services and online marketing firm. She’s been marketing online for almost a decade and has generated significant results for small and enterprise organizations, including TD Canada Trust, Petro-Canada, and The Canadian Press. Find out more at nonlinearcreations.com.

SearchEngineStrategies.com § SES

§ FOCUS: mobile

Mobile Search Has a Second Coming By Julie Batten

obile search is among the fastest growing uses of the mobile web. A recent press release from comScore stated that “the number of people using their mobile device to access news and information on the Internet more than doubled from January 2008 to January 2009.” And a recent study by ABI Research found that 70% of respondents reported using their mobile phones to conduct search queries. This reflects a 14% increase between 2007 and 2008. ABI also noted that “the jump in mobile search use is nearly double that of respondents who said they accessed mobile websites generally.” Now that’s substantial. But how many people regularly use mobile search? According to comScore, 35% of cell phone users now access the mobile Internet daily. This represents a 107% increase from 2008 to 2009.

Mobile Web Usage Factors

Mobile Internet usage continues to grow due to many factors. An obvious one is continual improvements in technology and user experience, including data transfer speeds, screen sizes, and accessibility. Even with an older Blackberry — which is not necessarily optimal for web browsing — I’m often “googling” to find quick information like a phone number, a restaurant, or a statistic. Another factor that is poised to dramatically increase the prevalence of mobile search is Google’s recent announcement that it will now offer the full Adsense platform on mobile devices. As the official Google Mobile blog states, “AdSense for mobile search is a quick and easy way for carriers and mobile publishers to embed a Google search box on their mobile portals and websites.” Basically 14

SES § May 2009 {Toronto Preview}

it’s a co-branded partUnique U.S. Mobile Phone Users nership in that both Three-month Averages for Accessing the Mobile Web* parties — Google and Access Frequency Jan ’08 (millions) Jan ’09 (millions) Percent Increase the mobile network Daily 10.821 22.369 107 or website owner — Weekly 10.312 19.283 87 At least once per month 36.870 63.182 71 can receive ad reve*Excludes social networking Source: comScore, Inc. nue when searches are conducted on the On the flip side, there’s much discusparticipant’s site. Mobile carriers and sion about whether .mobi sites are even publishers will no doubt quickly jump applicable anymore, given the prolifon this bandwagon, and as more sites eration of the iPhone and other smart offer Google search technology, mobile phones, which enable easy navigation of search engine usage is poised for unprecfully functional HTML websites. After edented growth. all, you don’t necessarily need a .mobi site for your website to be accessed by The Year of Mobile mobile browsers. Many industry veterans are touting If you do elect to create a mobile 2009 as the year of mobile. Now, this version of your site, the first step is may have been said in 2006, 2007, and selecting and securing your domain 2008, but I think they may just be right name. Even if you’re not yet ready to this time. Considering all of the factors proceed with a mobile site, you might cited above, mobile search may finally want to snag your domain before somebe ready to make significant inroads into one else does. becoming an essential daily activity for At minimum, you should take steps the majority of us. In five or 10 years, to make sure your website is compliant we’ll probably all be questioning how with W3C standards for mobile. This will we ever lived without it. So if this is truly ensure your users have the best possible the year of mobile, what does that mean experience accessing your website from for search marketers? their mobile devices.

Jumping on the Mobile Bandwagon

If you don’t yet have a mobile version of your website (dotMobi), you might want to consider creating one. Nothing pains me more than navigating to a website on my handheld, only to endlessly scroll past headers, navigational, and image elements to actually get to the good stuff — text. To easily get your website into optimal mobile shape, dotMobi offers a service to “adapt an existing website into a mobilefriendly version.” Try out the “Test Your Site” feature to see a preview of your site in mobile mode. But be warned: Some websites, such as those built entirely in Flash, won’t generate a preview.

SEO for Mobile Sites

Once you have a mobile-compliant website, how do you make sure it’s optimized for mobile search? Most experts agree that if you are applying SEO best practices on your regular website, these should more or less translate to the mobile web. § Julie Batten is the e-marketing manager at Klick Communications. She is responsible for developing and managing online marketing campaigns for world-class brands. Having written several white papers and articles, instructed online courses, and spoken at various seminars, Julie is well-versed in all things search.

SES TORONTO June 8-10

——— sneak preview ———

use you r key cod e!

www.SearchEngineStrategies.com/toronto

SearchEngineStrategies.com § SES

This June, Search Engine Strategies will take you behind the search box. From online video to link-building to social media, the sessions at SES Toronto will help you understand how search works, how it’s changing, and how you can use it to your company’s advantage. A

To register, or for more details, visit

SearchEngineStrategies.com/toronto

Speakers include

Agenda Day 1: Monday, June 8

Andrew Goodman Principal Page Zero Media

Track

Nuts & Bolts

Corporateville

9:15-10a

Opening Keynote

10-11a

Anne Kennedy Managing Partner & Founder Beyond Ink

11a-12:15p

Expo Hall Grand Opening SEO Then & Now: What’s the Same? What’s New?

12:15-1:15p

Networking Lunch

1:15-2:15p

Orion Panel: Is PageRank Broken? — The Future of Search

2:30-3:45p

Universal & Blended Search: Comprehensive Visibility Challenges

Beyond Linkbait: Getting Authoritative Online Mentions

Optimizing for Video Search: Virgin Territory?

4:15p-5:30p

Sponsored Session

5:30p-6:30p

Networking Cocktail Reception — Expo Hall

Day 2: Tuesday, June 9 Track

10:30-11:45a

Nuts & Bolts

SES § May 2009 {Toronto Preview}

2:15-3:30p 4-5:15p

Corporateville

Geek

Keynote Presentation Introduction to Paid Search

11:45a-12:45p 12:45-2p

For more information on an upcoming 2009 SES conference near you, visit SearchEngineStrategies.com

Signals: What Relevancy Indicators Are Search Engineers Watching Today?

Internationalizing Your Campaigns & Sites

9-10a

Shari Thurow Founder & SEO Director Omni Marketing Interactive

Geek

Analytics for Search: ROI, Engagement, Attribution, & More

Follow the Carrot: Cool Mobile Apps

Networking Lunch — Expo Hall Canada-Specific SEO & PPC Issues

Information Architecture, Site Performance Tuning, & SEO

Tool Time: The Search Marketer’s Free-toCheap Goodie Bag

Social Media: Do Big Companies Get It?

Paid Search Quality Scoring: 201, 301

TBD

How to Speak Geek: Working Collaboratively with Your IT Department to Get Things Done

Extreme Makeover: Live Site Clinic

Campaign Performance Tracking: Basic Tips

June 8-10 | Sheraton Centre Toronto www.SearchEngineStrategies.com/toronto E-mail: registration@SearchEngineStrategies.com Phone: +1 (212) 457-7906

SES TORONTO DISCOUNTS Early Bird Special SAVE $150 CAD Register by May 22

SES Magazine Special SAVE an additional 15%

use you r key cod e!

Your keycode begins with “KEYTR” and is located above your name on the mailing label, found on the magazine cover.

Agenda: Sample Session Descriptions

Venue & Accommodations

Monday, June 8 ¢ SEO Then & Now: What’s the Same? What’s New? If you entered a time capsule in 1999 and stumbled into a search engine optimization assignment in 2009, you’d be startled by an array of unfamiliar challenges. News flash: It’s not all about title tags and meta keywords anymore. Reciprocal linking? Yawn. Search engines too stupid to index dynamic URLs? Not anymore. Panelists cover proven SEO fundamentals, and then update you on the latest trends you cannot afford to miss. P.S. Yes, title tags are still important.

As a Search Engine Strategies Toronto 2009 participant, you can take advantage of a discounted nightly hotel rate. The hotel is expected to sell out before the event begins, and the discounted rate is subject to availability:

Tuesday, June 9 ¢ Tool Time: The Search Marketer’s Free to Cheap Goodie Bag If you are responsible for your company’s search engine marketing, then you know that you need all of the various tools of your trade close at hand. This session will describe the tools that will help you accomplish your tasks, including indexing, competitive analysis, site ranking, diagnosing and remedying problems, page-level information, sitelevel information, on-page optimization, and more. The Canadian Agency Landscape When it comes time to outsource web strategy, digital marketing, or search-specific marketing campaigns, the array of agencies and consultants can be confusing. In Canada, who’s out there? Panelists map out the landscape of large agencies, interactive strategy, and high-tech development shops, and niche providers of services like SEO, social media, paid search, and more. Vendor selection guidance, the value of credentials and certifications, and a view to the future of the agency world will all be covered.

Internationalizing Your Campaigns & Sites As the world becomes smaller and search marketing becomes more complex, the era of “ranking well in Google” is over. This is especially true for companies who are targeting multiple markets or countries. This new opportunity also brings many new complexities to be considered other than standard SEO. This session tackles key issues critical to successfully developing, optimizing, and launching global websites that meet those next-generation marketing goals, without losing control or your mind.

Optimizing for Video Search: Virgin Territory? According to comScore, YouTube is now the No. 2 search destination in the world. While the good old organic results pages still attract tens of thousands of experts probing the latest algorithmic quirks and optimization techniques, video search remains relatively uncharted waters. Panelists discuss the importance of optimizing for video search, and probe into tactics like keyword research, copywriting, reputation enhancement, and sponsorships and special programs.

Paid Search Quality Scoring: 201, 301 How are ads ranked in the paid search auctions run by Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft? Each keyword in your campaign is assigned a “quality score” based on past performance. Sounds simple, right? Well, it’s a bit more complicated than that. In any case, you must achieve high quality scores to keep your paid search costs in line. Expert panelists explain the workings of the latest algorithms, discuss case studies and testing techniques, and explain how to troubleshoot problems.

Sheraton Centre Toronto Hotel 123 Queen Street West Toronto, Ontario M5H 2M9 Phone: (416) 361-1000 www.sheratontoronto.com This sleek, high-rise hotel is centrally located, near Toronto’s downtown business and entertainment districts. Many of Toronto’s main attractions are within walking distance. The hotel is 27 kilometers (16.5 miles) from Toronto’s Lester B. Pearson International Airport — about a 25-minute drive.

Airfare Special:

SES Toronto attendees can use the promotion code below to receive 10% off any flight (executive class through tango plus class) with Air Canada, the official Canadian airline of SES Toronto. Travel can begin as early as June 5 and must be completed by June 13. Go to www.aircanada.com and use promotional code MNJK4NU1 If you need assistance making airline reservations, please contact Advance Travel: Tel: +1 (516) 799-9150 Fax: +1 (516) 799-6105

Sponsors include

SEM Training Workshops: Wednesday, June 10 TM

Search Marketing Boot Camp (8a-5p) If you are not yet familiar with the nuances of search engine marketing, link building, viral marketing, and online reputation management, this workshop will provide you with a crash course in all things related to search marketing. ¢

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Workshop (8a-12p) A search engine-friendly website is a user-friendly, search-friendly, and persuasive site that converts visitors into buyers. Sites must meet the conditions set by the search engines.

To register, or for more details, visit

Google AdWords Tactics to Improve Your ROI (1-5p) Spice up your AdWords account by applying tactics learned in this session. We’ll dive into the psychology of search that shows how consumers think and act throughout the search process.

SearchEngineStrategies.com/toronto/training.php SearchEngineStrategies.com § SES

Universal Search • Vertical Search • Paid Search • Local Search • Mobile Search • Social Search • Image Search • In-House Search • Blended Search Paid Listings • Organic Listings • Search Advertising • Keyword Research • Ad Testing • Contextual Ads • Landing Pages • Dynamic Websites • Domaining • Web Analytics Web 2.0 • Social Media • Viral Marketing • Blogging • Affiliates • Online Video Optimization • Podcasts • Link Baiting • Link Building • Click Fraud • Pay Per Click Widgets • AJAX • CSS • RSS Feeds • Content Syndication • Duplicate Content • Content Development • Search Engine Optimization • Search Engine Marketing

use you r key cod e!

www.SearchEngineStrategies.com/toronto

SAVE $150 CAD through May 22, and SAVE an additional 15% when you use your keycode* *Your keycode begins with “KEYTR” and is located above your name on the mailing label, found on the magazine cover.

SES § May 2009 {Toronto Preview}

What to Expect After a Site Relaunch

FOCUS: redesign §

By Erik Dafforn

ebsite redesign is an issue that typically generates a lot of feedback. People often write — not before the new version of the site is launched — but shortly after. They’re confused about exactly what should happen during a launch in terms of rankings, crawling, and indexing. Here’s a brief field manual for what to expect during a site relaunch.

The First 30 Days

Similar to how people watch a president’s first 100 days in office to glean some insight about how the administration will function, you should closely observe the first 30 to 45 days of a new site’s existence to understand how to proceed with the site’s long-term optimization. First, make sure you’ve prepared for the relaunch as best you can. When you finally flip the switch, the first few days of analytics frequently show either large gains or large dives. Most of the time you can relax, because in both cases they usually don’t last long.

The Rise

After launching the new version of a site, we often see a large spike of organic search traffic for a day or two. Perhaps your site is benefiting from the crossover of old and new URLs. I wish I could offer a more in-depth explanation. Regardless of the logic behind it, the spike typically tapers off after time, often between two days and a week. At this point, traffic settles into what I call its new track. Ideally, this is greater than the old track, and it should then begin a more gradual growth. This

longer — but more shallow — growth often represents the gradual processing and evaluation of your new on-page data, navigation, and the consolidation and winnowing of old URLs. Don’t be alarmed when, for example, Google Webmaster Tools tells you that your site has 4,000 “could not be found” URLs during the long weekend that you launched, or that your “time spend downloading a page” shot briefly through the roof. In my experience, if your site is down, or even sluggish, for 15 minutes a year, search engine bots will hit you during that time. Ensure that the pages are fine, and then exhale. The gang will come back. One more caveat: If you’re launching a site for the first time, much of the discussion of relaunch doesn’t apply to you. An initial launch of a site has many more crawling and indexing obstacles that are beyond the scope of this article.

The Fall

If you see a significant decline in traffic during the first 48 hours after a launch, it’s often just a temporary glitch, and it should at least return to prior levels soon. Still, no one likes to sit on their hands during those long two days, so there are things you can check. First, don’t just check rankings. Instead, check the traffic sent from specific keywords to specific landing pages, and contrast that with historical data from before the relaunch. This is a far better micro-level diagnostic, and it can help you spot URLs that haven’t been crawled yet, those that have been and are performing well, and those that have been but aren’t yet performing well. Surf through the new site as a user.

Too often, people diagnose launches solely through error logs, header checkers, and Webmaster control panels. Click through 50 or so pages and see exactly what a user sees, including load time, redirection, and overall user experience. Also, if you see a dramatic fall, make sure it’s real. Is your analytics code installed in your new pages? I typically recommend adding the analytics code during the development stage but enclosing it in comment lines so that all of the testing traffic doesn’t skew the real traffic numbers. Then at launch, it’s very easy to remove the opening and closing comment code. Similarly, did you change your conversion and funnel URLs so that true conversions actually get counted? I’ve seen several instances of site owners believing their conversions have completely tanked, when in fact, someone simply forgot to update their analytics program to account for the new URL structure.

Conclusion

Similar to most addiction programs, search engine marketing requires a firm understanding of what you can control and what you have little power or influence over. There’s a leap of faith required every time you relaunch a site, and the more you prepare upfront, the softer the landing typically is. § Erik Dafforn is the executive vice president of Intrapromote LLC, an SEO firm headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio. Erik manages SEO campaigns for clients ranging from tiny to enormous and edits Intrapromote’s blog, SEO Speedwagon. Prior to joining Intrapromote in 1999, Erik worked as a freelance writer and editor. He also worked in-house as a development editor for Macmillan and IDG Books. Erik has a Bachelor’s degree in English from Wabash College.

SearchEngineStrategies.com § SES

Keyword Selection For the Short- and Long-tail

By Dave Davies

o step in the entire SEO process is more important than keyword selection. Choose the correct strategy, and all the work you’re about to put into the SEO process will pay off in spades. Choose incorrectly and you’ll miss opportunities — or worse, your focus on the wrong keywords will waste all your efforts for a very low ROI. Because I don’t like to use others’ missteps against them, I’ll list our own errors, what they cost, what we did to recover, and how this information has been applied to others successfully.

Learning From History

When Beanstalk launched, our company name was Beanstalk Search Engine Positioning, Inc., as research had shown that “search engine positioning” was searched — albeit not highly — and had a low enough competition level that we thought we could perform well in a reasonable period of time. We selected a few secondary phrases and off we went. The extent of the research? Guesswork. There was problem number one. 20

SES § May 2009 {Toronto Preview}

About five months in, we ranked for the phrase “search engine positioning services” and a few other secondary phrases. We then proceeded to put in another six months of efforts to lock down “search engine positioning.” Once attained, we started pulling in stats for the phrases and discovered that the majority of traffic came from “search engine positioning,” but guess how many conversions came from the phrase? If you guessed none, you’d be right. Lesson learned: Not all traffic is created equal.

What Could We Have Done Differently?

Hindsight is 20/20. First, we should have focused on conversion phrases that included terms such as “services,” “buy,” and “company.” These are the words to target. If we could do it all again, I’d stick with the efforts we put toward “search engine positioning services,” but rather than spend another six months getting the generic phrase, I would have moved onto other conversion-oriented phrases, at least for the short- to mid-term. You won’t always know if this is the case with your site and with the phrases you’re considering.

FOCUS: keywords §

We only learned this through trial and error. This brings us to the second “could have,” which is pay-per-click (PPC). Now, I prefer organic optimization. PPC is its own animal and not one we specialize in at Beanstalk. Still, it’s very useful for testing keywords. If you are unsure as to which keywords will work the best for your campaign, and you’ve got some money to put toward finding out, PPC can be a very helpful, though often costly, resource. When we’re unsure on keywords, we will, budget allowing, advise the client to set up a PPC account and bid into the top positions for all possible target phrases. We’ll then determine the best possible targets based on conversion information and overall search volume. This method provides invaluable data, but remember that it’s very expensive: You need to bid into the top positions and collect a large amount of data. In our case, had we done this, it would have saved six months of work targeting a non-converting phrase, and we would have had a head start on more worthwhile targets. This method would have easily paid for itself many times over.

There’s Theory and There’s Reality

Once we’ve assessed what the best targets will be based on search volume and conversion data, we now need to determine how to proceed in the organic world. This is when competition analysis comes in. You’ll need to take all of your keyword data and assess what the competition level is for various phrases. Had we run this test early on, we would have determined that “seo services” was going to make a great target, and, had we gone in blind, we would have ignored “search engine positioning services” as it was the lowest searched phrase with a conversion indicator. This would have been the completely wrong tactic for us. When Beanstalk launched, it was just Mary (president) and myself. Basically – we didn’t need a lot to keep things going, so the lowest search volume phrase was more than enough. This is why we picked phrases we could attain quickly and later

went after higher search volume (a.k.a. higher competition) phrases.

Two Types of Websites

Generally, there are two fundamental types of sites: sites that sell a service and sites that sell a product. The reasons are different, but the strategies are the same in how you should approach keyword selection and staggering. If you sell services, then one of the biggest concerns you need to consider when selecting keywords is your capacity. Typically you will need to grow more slowly if you sell a service and thus, scaling your phrases serves both your physical limitations and increases your ability to rank more quickly. For example, take a law firm. If you were operating a small firm and suddenly ranked for “lawyer,” you likely couldn’t even keep up with the influx of phone calls, let alone provide the services. And that assumes you’d rank quickly. The reality is, if this was your target, it would take years and cost tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars to attain good position. If you targeted a phrase such as “divorce lawyer Michigan,” you would hit your goals much faster and likely be able to keep up with the inquiries. With the revenue generated from this promotion, you could reinvest some back into further promotions and target phrases such as “lawyer Michigan” and continue from there. Now you’ve got a scaled promotion that provides growth control, faster ROI, and revenue that can be more quickly reinvested into future promotions. If you sell a product, your considerations are very different. Assuming that you sell a product that is produced elsewhere and you can order an infinite supply of it (let’s use ink cartridges as an example), then you can view the process differently, but the strategy will remain very similar. Given that you will not be limited by your resources to produce the product, you don’t need to consider that; you do, however, need to consider the speed with which you’ll begin generating revenue.

The dream of this hypothetical site owner would be to rank for “ink cartridges” — but that’s a highly competitive phrase and will take time to secure. Given that, he’d likely be far better off targeting phrases that are less competitive but which will help longterm goals. If I owned such a site, I would likely focus on an incredibly strong internal linking structure. I would also build deep links to specific brands and even specific printer model numbers to get the longtail phrases. During this time, I’d also build links to the home page and the site in general to strengthen it and increase the overall weight of the cartridgespecific pages. Such links would help boost the relevancy of the site to the generic phrases (“ink cartridges”), but the main focus early on would be to branded and cartridge-specific phrases. These phrases, being less competitive, will rank faster, producing sales. And that, as in the services example above, will generate revenue that can be put toward further promotions.

Slow and Steady

Too often I have seen overzealous site owners and SEOs go after the big phrases right out of the gate. While there’s a time for this (if you have a huge budget and time to wait for ROI, or if there are truly limited options in your industry), the majority of cases are better served through attaining faster results on lesssearched phrases. I’ve seen businesses come very close to failure for lack of revenue, which could have been coming in had they taken a route with their keywords that focused on faster revenue generation, with a longer-term eye toward the top phrases in their industry. § Dave Davies is the CEO of Beanstalk Search Engine Optimization, Inc. Beanstalk offers performancebased SEO services, consulting, training, link building and SEO copywriting. Visit them online at www.BeanstalkSEO.com for more information.

SearchEngineStrategies.com § SES

Widget World: Monetizing Your App

§ FOCUS: widgets

By Melissa Ortiz

he popularity of widget integration and distribution has recently gone through the roof. Who would have guessed that a small application on your desktop or web page could build brand awareness at such a rapid rate? Through the power of the Internet’s viral capabilities, widgets offer a cost-effective way to reach millions of users via social networking sites and increased ad opportunities. Monetizing your widget consists of a few simple steps: Build a customized widget, place an advertisement in it, distribute, and watch branding flourish. It sounds that simple and it pretty much is. While these things take time, it can be well worth the wait, as little crumbs can add up to big bucks. Consider building your own widget if you have the resources. Otherwise there are many third-party vendors who specialize in designing, customizing, and distributing your widget; they’ll also maintain analytics to render for your ROI. If you use an agency, be cognizant of your cost per install (CPI) — it should not become costly, especially if you clearly indicate you’re working on a tight budget. In addition, find out if the agency networks with an API to help maximize your widget’s visibility. APIs can increase visibility by up to 10 percent.

Types of Widgets

On-page widgets allow a fast and easy method of sharing applications, whereas an in-widget gives users the ability to share their app with others directly from the installation point. Either way is effective and is a great means to jumping on the viral bandwagon. Today many users are addicted to sending a plethora of apps on Facebook and MySpace. Widgets can also add useful flare to blogs. As a blogger myself, I have run 22

SES § May 2009 {Toronto Preview}

into brick walls and writer’s block countless times. Tickers, news, and embeddable widgets make blogs more interesting, and the content runs itself. If you’re building a new site or revamping an old one, consider the utility factor. Visitors enjoy interactive, user-friendly experiences that offer more than a typical static site. Widgets provide an array of interactivity, from polls to games and so much more. For example, if the widget is a slideshow of the top 10 places to eat chicken, I might just click on it and browse each restaurant. If there’s a celebrity photo gallery filled with pictures of a red carpet event — especially with advertisements of the celebritys’ designers and their bling — then I’m definitely hooked. Better yet, if I want to view products posted in a widget, then I may be inclined to go shopping and buy one the featured handbags. Even a gadget as simple as a calendar or the weather in your area can be shared with millions of users. Solicitors may contact you and ask if you’d like them to place a widget on your site for a special promotion they’re running; they’ll do a rev-share model with you. It’s entirely up to you whether you want to try it, but testing out a few widgets might not hurt.

Tracking Performance

Behavioral targeting is key in maximizing widget performance. Understanding your audience through blogs, social sites, desktops, and bookmarked sites will help you accurately track user behavior through different performance metrics. Identifying your widget’s on-page views, in-widget views, clicks, unique visitors, and where the widget is installed and shared will optimize your marketing and advertising strategies. In fact, you can pay-per-widget, like you would pay-per-click in SEM. There are a handful of ad network sites that

offer ways for you to target e-commerce through the integration of pay-per-click shopping widgets. The theory works like this: The network will use its own algorithmic system to automatically identify and target the most searched keywords on your site. Based on of the consumer’s behavior and specific keyword searches conducted on your site, a shopping widget is rendered, and consumers can instantly become engaged with the widget. The red flag here boils down to the CPM. Some networks claim to see up to $8 CPMs, which sounds great, but that’s definitely questionable. Networks typically deliver under a $2 CPM.

Sharing Widgets

Widgets are a great tool that will only enhance your site and make it more interactive and attractive to users. One online tactic that seems to be working is viral marketing and sharing videos and other media-rich files. As users familiarize themselves with new widgets, they will download them, view them, and share them with online communities. And that’s the bottom line: user engagement. If the widget elicits a positive response, users will feel inclined to share it with others. In the ’90s simple gadgets were placed on thousands of websites to maintain counters and act as tickers; now widget-world is for everyone, so the sharability of your widget is key. § Melissa Ortiz is a proud recipient of two master’s degrees who has specialized in interactive digital marketing, search engines strategies, web analytics, and linguistics for the past decade. Her knowledge and implementation in branding major Fortune 500 firms has made her an asset to the online marketing world. Melissa’s expertise focuses on organic, paid search, and the integration of social media to maximize growth and performance. She is actively pursuing her doctorate in integrated marketing and competitive intelligence.

Connecting employers to interactive & search marketing professionals.

http://jobs.SearchEngineWatch.com

Post Your Resume • View Openings • Get Personal Job Alerts • Post an Opening • Manage Your Online Recruiting Efforts SearchEngineStrategies.com § SES

Turning Blogs and User-Generated Content Into Search Engine Results

By Chris Aarons, Andru Edwards, & Xavier Lanier

he increasing involvement of consumers on the web and the resulting growth of user-generated content (UGC) have introduced new, powerful ways for businesses to leverage their customer base. According to MarketingVox and Nielsen BuzzMetrics, “More than 25 percent of search results on Google for the world’s 20 largest brands are links to [user-generated] content.” Additionally, ClickZ cites data from marketing firm Compete that found UGC “spurred 24 percent of [surveyed] consumers to alter decisions about a vehicle purchase or travel reservation.” During the past five years, two factors have led to online audiences becoming more engaged. First, the introduction of tagging marked a big shift in how content was located by search engines. Tagging empowers authors to determine exactly which categories of content will be retrieved when a user searches for the tagged words. Second, visitors are contributing content in 24

SES § May 2009 {Toronto Preview}

a variety of new ways. For example, publishers have learned to relinquish content control to readers, through blogs, YouTube, and other means of participation. Due to these changes, people are emerging as manual search engines. Individuals now have the opportunity to, and often succeed in, taking over the conversation and growing the discussion into something more than a simple article. Within these conversations, two unique subsets have emerged from the online community: the community engagers and the accidental engagers. Community engagers actively participate in an online community on a regular basis and, while they may not be experts on the topic, want to be heard by other members of the community. Accidental engagers visit the community by chance — from Google searches, for example — with the goal of posting their opinions and returning only to view comments that address their postings. To successfully harness the power of these types of communities, companies must empower

FOCUS: social media §

visitors to express their thoughts openly and honestly. Even if the engagers contradict your own thoughts, it results in more dialogue, more keywords and, ultimately, better results on search engine results pages (SERPs).

Best Practices

At the very core of generating better SERP results through the use of UGC is well-written content; it beats everything. Write in a style that encourages visitors to express their own detailed opinions. Posing questions in blog posts and rewarding contributors with direct response, recognition, and prizes can boost the amount of UGC on your site. Having content that appeals to your readers and is easy to follow eliminates the need for Google ads or other promotional tactics driving traffic to your site, as visitors are driven to you through search engine listings. Adding multimedia content like videos, slideshows, and images that are properly tagged can help pages rank highly on SERPs. Having unique multimedia encourages other bloggers and forum users to link to your pages. The second key to ensuring success is giving your site a personal feel. Respond to a large number of comments and interact with your community to remind them that you are a real person with opinions and thoughts, even if there are occasional disparities between your thoughts and theirs. Finally, engage visitors once they arrive

at your site. The best way to do this is through a clear call to action. Invite visitors to do something, ask them what they think of a particular topic, or engage the community in a promotion. For example, by asking the community a simple question such as, “What is the most valuable thing you’d lose if you lost your hard drive?” — it’s not unheard of to see over 7,000 comments.

Keys to Successful Promotions

When considering offering promotions on your site, see that the following criteria are met: Select a group of blogs that already link to each other and comment on each others’ content. This can produce remarkable SERP results, as the online communities link to one another and pool traffic around the online event. Make sure the promotion is a natural fit between the sponsor and the blogs. Asking a mother who blogs about parenting to participate in a muscle car promotion may not be the best fit. Users will create more content and participate more often if they are interacting with people rather than brands. Instead of having the sponsoring company give the product away, the participating bloggers and managers should take on that responsibility. Don't make it too complex. Make it easy for people to produce UGC — don’t make them jump through hoops like registering for the company’s site before submitting content. All promotions must be independent and must maintain journalistic integrity. Beware of the lure to trade integrity for traffic.

By keeping these tips in mind, you can take steps toward successfully elevating your SERP results. While the center of this success is well-written content and allowing your community to The number of bloggers who post content or tweet daily. openly respond Source: Netpop Research to content, workFind out more at ClickZ Stats. ing with bloggers will provide more interest and support better blogger relations, while building a broader, more targeted online community. §

54% A

Chris Aarons, co-founder of Buzz Corps, is a seasoned marketing and public relations professional who is breaking ground at the intersection where corporate communications and social media meet. With his in-depth knowledge of online communities and influencers, Aarons has successfully tackled challenges for industry-leading companies, including HP, Dolby Laboratories, Philips Electronics, and Kodak. Andru Edwards is the CEO of Gear Live Media, a weblog publishing company that contains some of the most popular technology and pop culture blogs and video podcasts on the web. Andru and his blogs have been quoted in USA Today, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Seattle Times, Seattle PostIntelligencer, and NPR, among others, thanks to a focus on social media engagement. You can find him on Twitter under @andruedwards. Xavier Lanier is the publisher of Notebooks.com and GottaBeMobile.com, two mobile technology enthusiast sites that rank highly in search engines for some of the most coveted search terms in the technology industry. You can find him on Twitter under @ XavierLanier.

SearchEngineStrategies.com § SES

Win an iPhone in Toronto at Booth 18! Subscribe today and get real-world solutions for Internet success in every issue. Download our new mobile apps so you’re connected wherever you are.

#1 Industry Magazine with +140,000 Subscribers

SES § May 2009 {Toronto Preview}

How Search Marketers Can Fight Trademark Infringement

FOCUS: legal §

By Steve O’Brien

he debate over how to handle search advertising traffic from parked domains and typo squatting rages on. But one potential bright spot in the controversy is the insight advertisers are beginning to gather on how domainers illegally use trademarked names to boost their revenues. By sifting through paid search traffic, search advertisers are discovering they’re often charged for traffic from their own trademarked names that should have been theirs for free. Equally troubling is that some of their traffic is also being redirected to their competitors. Bidding on branded or trademarked terms has always been an effective SEM strategy. Search marketers often include the names of competitors in keyword target lists. For example, if you search for “rolex” then you will see an ad for the Rolex site as well as several ads for stores that sell Rolex watches. Search providers take additional steps to ensure that the ads displayed do not include the trademarked term unless the site associated with it is promoting that brand. Plus, search providers make sure brand names aren’t used in a negative context, such as “Don’t buy Rolex.” They also don’t permit ads that say “Buy Rolex here” and then actually take you to a site that doesn’t sell Rolex watches. These policies are fairly standard across search providers. But it’s up to the advertisers to ensure the policies are being enforced. If brand owners discover other advertisers exploiting their trademarked names or brands, there is a clear process for submitting complaints, and the major search engines are usually quick to take appropriate action. They’ll even go so far as to prevent an offending advertiser from ever using the trademarked term again. Another more insidious form of brand infringement that’s causing consternation among well-known brands running

search campaigns occurs when parked domains include a trademarked term in their URLs. No one knows the impact of this kind of trademark infringement better than the auto insurance industry. Keywords in the auto insurance market can fetch bids as high as $50. These more expensive terms are lucrative targets for online fraudsters, including those using trademarked names in their URLs. A good example is what’s happening right now with the Allstate brand. If users type “www.allstateinsurance.com” into their web browsers, they’d expect to be taken to the official Allstate site. Instead they’re presented with a list of ads for insurance available from other companies. An Internet searcher looking for the best deal on car insurance might click on those ads. Allstate loses that visitor as a prospective customer even though the user’s first attempt was to get information from Allstate. Even worse and often more common is what happens when someone accidentally misspells a URL. For example, typing “www.geicko.com” when looking for car insurance from GEICO will bring you to a list of auto insurance providers that use the “GEICO” name in their advertisements. The page is actually a parked domain in a major search engine’s publisher network. A visitor might click on those links or be attracted to offers from GEICO’s direct competitors. In the first case, GEICO would end up paying for a visitor who was looking for its site — costing the company money it never needed to spend. In the second case, GEICO loses a prospective customer to a direct competitor. Adding insult to injury, the prospective customer was actually looking for the GEICO site in the first place. Research we’ve done at Click Forensics found that the traffic from brand infringing sites is actually some of the best traffic out there, with conversion rates exceeding 50% for some customers.

These web searchers are clearly ready to buy. Search marketers can capture these high-quality leads simply by applying a fresh eye to the analysis of campaign results. By looking at the sources of paid traffic that drive conversions, brand owners can quickly identify trademark infringement and prioritize those sites requiring corrective action. Brand owners can take two courses of action when they find trademark infringement occurring. First, they can submit a complaint to their search ad provider. All major search engines and ad providers have trademark protection policies. However, as stated previously, most of the policies apply primarily to the content of the ad and the intent of the landing page. Cleaning up the content/ publisher networks is happening, albeit slowly. The second and more effective course of action is to submit a complaint directly to the domain name registrar. All domain name registrars now conform to the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (www.icann.org/en/udrp/ udrp.htm) published by ICANN. This policy is widely acknowledged to be friendly to trademark owners, and filing a complaint is a relatively inexpensive administrative procedure. It’s up to trademark owners to protect their brands and enforce protection. The good news is search engine marketers can help identify trademark infringers by analyzing campaign results differently, and by acquiring tools and services that track and identify the most harmful offenders. § Steve O’Brien, VP for Click Forensics, oversees sales and marketing activities for the company. Previously, he held management positions with Unica Corporation, Fireclick (acquired by Digital River, Inc. in 2004), Red Brick Systems, and Sun Microsystems. Steve holds an MBA and a B.S. from Cornell University.

SearchEngineStrategies.com § SES

Protecting Your Reputation Online: Sue or SEM? By Travis Crabtree

onsumers review and rate everything and everyone online. Sometimes, the review crosses the line to actionable slander that appears on the first page of search results. When that happens, what should you do? Does it make sense to file a lawsuit, or work to manage your reputation online? Actionable defamation generally requires the publishing of a false statement that harms the reputation of another as a result of intentional or negligent conduct by the author.

Cons of suing

Let’s start with the cons, because litigation is not a pleasant experience for anyone. First, you have to figure out who to sue. Any website that is smart enough to appear on the first page of search engine results has structured itself to be immune from defamation claims. Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act provides 28

SES § May 2009 {Toronto Preview}

immunity from defamation and related claims to websites as long as they are not the content providers. Websites like www.ripoffreport. com have already won several cases on Section 230 immunity grounds. That trend is likely to continue until the law changes or plaintiffs get more creative. That leaves you with going after the person who actually wrote the review — if you can find out who it is. To identify the anonymous poster, you usually have to subpoena the website to reveal the identity. Many states are still developing the law in this area, but most are following Delaware’s lead in the case of Cahill v. Doe, which held the person seeking to force the disclosure of identity must articulate the basic elements of a defamation claim before the court will allow it. Hence, a court will determine whether the comment is defamatory before the website or ISP has to disclose the identity of the anonymous poster.

FOCUS: legal §

Even if you know the identity, truth is a defense. That means you will be put under oath and be questioned about the very topic of the post. Although the actual post may not be technically true, if there is a grain of truth to it, the gory details will come out in pretrial discovery. That leads to the biggest prohibition to suing: cost. Lawsuits are expensive and after spending more than $100,000, you may get a piece of paper that says the offending party owes you money. Will angrycommenter@yahoo.com be able to pay? Litigating against people without substantial means seldom makes financial sense. Finally, there is a non-legal phenomenon known as the “Streisand Effect.” The term comes from Barbra Streisand’s efforts in 2003 to prevent the publication of satellite imagery showing her house. Before Streisand complained, the pictures received little attention, and there was no special demarcation showing her home. Afterward, the pictures became popular on the original website and in major traditional media outlets, resulting in millions of people looking at the photographs. The same lesson applies to review sites. Although they may appear on the first page temporarily when your name is searched, a public lawsuit could result in more widespread distribution of the original complaint. It can also make the story drag on much longer than it would have had you simply ignored it or addressed it quickly — think Roger Clemens versus Jason Giambi in the baseball steroids scandal.

Pros of suing

Despite all of the cons, there are times when filing a lawsuit is necessary. If the person making the comments is a competitor or a repeat offender, you should consider a lawsuit as a way of

fighting back. If it’s already a public matter, then you can publicly defend yourself through a lawsuit and tell your side of the story. You can receive monetary damages and sometimes injunctive relief through a lawsuit. More importantly, however, your reputation and integrity are often vindicated through a well-publicized trial. The public will view a victory as confirmation that the offending statements were not true.

Pros of SEM

I won’t go into too many details about how to use SEM tactics to manage your reputation online. I don’t expect online marketers to know the minutiae of defamation law, and likewise, I leave the online marketing tactics to them. Basically, an online reputation management campaign tries to create positive references and search results to push the negative comments off the first pages. The pros of online reputation management are that it does not involve litigation. In addition to pushing the negative comments to obscurity, you get the benefit of the positive references you would often seek through a traditional marketing campaign, whether it be on your websites or other sites. Tim Doyle of TopSpot Internet Marketing says, “Online reputation management meshes very nicely with search engine marketing because the consistent addition of fresh, relevant, and positive content about your company and its products and services is a key component in search engine optimization.”

Cons of SEM

The biggest con is that moving negative references off the first page is difficult and takes time. There is no guarantee of results, and search engines prohibit intentional manipulation. “The key to successful online reputation manage-

ment is consistency,” Doyle says. “You must be consistent in adding positive content to your website and other online vehicles, and you must continually monitor the web for negative comments about your company.”

The Middle Ground: Using Honey Rather Than Vinegar

Sometimes, you should just ask for the negative comments to be removed — just ask nicely. Many of the websites brazenly challenge you to sue and claim they will not take down any reviews. In the past, having the client (not the lawyer) make a simple request has actually worked. In one case, a client (let’s call him Joe) sent a simple e-mail stating: To whom it may concern: I have viewed the Jan. 1 posting on your website by angrycommenter@yahoo.com. The posting is inaccurate, misleading, and defamatory. I categorically deny angrycommenter@yahoo.com’s allegations that I XXXX. As such, I respectfully request you remove this posting from your website. Thank you for considering my request. Sincerely, Joe

It worked. The post was removed. The client saved both attorneys’ fees and online reputation management costs. The only caution is that whatever request you send to the website has the potential to actually appear on the website. As a result, I’ll give the same free advice I give to people about e-mail: Don’t put anything in there you wouldn’t want your momma to see. § Travis Crabtree brings a unique perspective to his internet marketing, online media and commercial litigation practice with the law firm of Looper Reed & McGraw, P.C. Travis graduated from the University of Missouri School of Journalism and spent several years in television news before taking on a law career. E-mail Travis at tcrabtree@lrmlaw.com or view his blog at www.eMediaLaw.com.

SearchEngineStrategies.com § SES

§ FOCUS: legal

Search Functions and Marketing: Be Careful Where You Click

he explosive growth of the Internet has changed the ways companies and entities market themselves as well as their products and services. Likewise, the evolving methods in which search engines report results to end users — such as metatags, changing algorithms, and other forms of search engine optimization (SEO) — have many benefits from a business standpoint. While the web and search engines may be a vital part of marketing strategies for many, it may also have unintended consequences, including the possibility that a company may subject itself to a lawsuit in a location where it never intended to conduct business. “Personal jurisdiction” under the law generally refers to the location in which an individual or business can be sued. This is a crucial issue and sometimes determines the outcome of a case. In the United States, there are typically two types of personal jurisdiction that can exist over a company: general jurisdiction and specific jurisdiction. Many tests and factors are involved in the evaluation of whether either type of jurisdiction exists, and those tests and factors often vary from state to state. However, in most instances, general jurisdiction exists when a company has a presence in a state (such as offices, bank accounts, employees, agents, etc.), and the company does some amount of business in that state. For example, general jurisdiction would normally exist over a company that has its headquarters in the same state as where the lawsuit was commenced. Conversely, specific jurisdiction generally looks at whether the company that’s being sued had contacts with the state, and the lawsuit relates to those contacts or whether the actions of the company being sued caused any injury in that state. For example, a court may find specific jurisdiction if a defendant

SES § May 2009 {Toronto Preview}

By Robert Friedman & Mark McGrath

is allegedly infringing the trademark of another company that has its headquarters in the same state as the court. Many of the reported cases that involve challenges to personal jurisdiction involve allegations of trademark infringement; such cases set forth a number of facts that you may wish to consider in formulating marketing and advertising strategies. For example, is your company or client employing a pay-per-click (PPC) advertising strategy with search engines? While the benefits of a PPC campaign are obvious, this strategy could lead a court to find that jurisdiction exists over a company that engaged in a PPC campaign. One court found that the purchase of keywords from a company operating a search engine — together with the use of metatags, the purchase of a domain name that included another’s trademark, and just over $37,000 in sales over a five-year period (which was less than 3% of sales) — were sufficient to subject a New York corporation to jurisdiction in North Carolina. The court said the lawsuit could go forward in North Carolina, even though the defendant had no contacts in the state except for small sales arising from the PPC campaign. The rationale for this decision was, in part, that the company was using the PPC program to increase traffic to its website, which prompted sales to customers located outside its home state. Just like PPC strategies, SEO programs are generally meant to boost website traffic. More visitors, while certainly beneficial, may increase the chances of being sued in a state the company never imagined. One case involving a Finnish company held that the use of metatags on a website of a wholly-owned subsidiary, along with ownership of the copyright and content of that website, was sufficient — to the company with no other connections to

the United States — to jurisdiction in the United States. This case is instructive, given the lengths to which it appears that the Finnish company went to avoid doing any other business in the United States. Thus, it is possible that mere ownership of copyrights and content of a website may be enough to subject a company with no other connections to jurisdiction in a lawsuit. Companies and individuals must be cognizant of the risk that a court may find that the business is subject to jurisdiction in a place it intended to avoid. Be sure to consider and evaluate all of the potential factors for determining whether personal jurisdiction may exist including: the physical location of the servers; the reach of the site; links on the company’s site to other sites and links from other sites to the company’s site; whether the company is receiving any revenue from click-through advertisements on its site; whether consumers are invited to make the company’s website their home page or to make the website a favorite; whether consumers can interact with the company over the website, either via instant messaging or e-mail; the amount of sales, both over the site and from other channels; and whether any contracts relating to the site have been entered into and the locations of the counterparty. Increasing business through SEOs is good; being aware of the implications is vital. § Robert Friedman is a partner in the New York office of Kelley Drye & Warren LLP. He has extensive experience in securities, real estate, and bankruptcy litigation. He has published several articles on jurisdiction issues involving the Internet and e-commerce. Mark McGrath is a senior associate in the New York office of Kelley Drye & Warren LLP. He represents clients in commercial litigation, including false advertising, patent, trademark, and copyright infringement claims.

Toronto 2009

London 2010

San Jose 2009

New York 2010

June 8-10 Sheraton Centre Toronto

Aug. 10-14 San Jose Convention Center

Chicago 2009 Dec. 7-10 Chicago Hilton

February 16-18 Business Design Centre

March 22-26 Hilton New York

2009 Training Workshops Denver, April 27 Atlanta, May 5 New York, June 16 London, Aug. 10 New York, Sept. 9 Dallas, Oct. 12

Already sending dollars and traffic our way? Become an SES affiliate today! Learn more: www.SearchEngineStrategies.com/affiliate-program.html

Programmed by

SearchEngineStrategies.com ยง SES

glossary advertising network: A service where ads are bought centrally through one company, and displayed on multiple websites that contract with that company for a share of revenue generated by ads served on their site. algorithm: The technology that a search engine uses to deliver results to a query. Search engines utilize several algorithms in tandem to deliver a page of search results or keyword-targeted search ads. anchor text: The clickable text part of a hyperlink. The text usually gives visitors or search engines important information on what the page being linked to is about. click through rate (CTR): The rate (expressed in a percentage) at which users click on an ad. This is calculated by dividing the total number of clicks by the total number of ad impressions. CTR is an important metric for Internet marketers to measure the performance of an ad campaign. content network: A group of websites that agree to show ads on their site, served by an ad network, in exchange for a share of the revenue generated by those ads. Examples include Google AdSense or the Yahoo Publisher Network. contextual advertising: Advertising that is targeted to a web page based on the page’s content, keywords, or category. Ads in most content networks are targeted contextually. cost per action (CPA): A form of advertising where payment is dependent upon an action that a user performs as a result of the ad. The action could be making a purchase, signing up for a newsletter, or asking for a follow-up call. An advertiser pays a set fee to the publisher based on the number of visitors who take action. Many affiliate programs use the CPA model. cost per click (CPC): Also called pay-per-click (PPC). A performance-based advertising model where the advertiser pays a set fee for every click on an ad. The majority of text ads sold by search engines are billed under the CPC model. cost per thousand (CPM): An ad model that charges advertisers every time an ad is displayed to a user, whether the user clicks on the ad or not. The fee is based on every 1,000 ad impressions (M is the Roman numeral for 1,000). Most display ads, such as banner ads, are sold by CPM. geo-targeting: Delivery of ads specific to the geographic location of the searcher. Geo-targeting allows the advertiser to specify where ads will or won’t be shown based on the searcher’s location, enabling more localized and personalized results. Googlebot: Google uses several user-agents to crawl and index content in the Google.com search engine. Googlebot describes all Google spiders. All Google bots begin with “Googlebot”; for

SES § May 2009 {Toronto Preview}

Below you will find commonly-used terms that every search engine marketer should know. Keep this list handy! A

example, Googlebot-Mobile: crawls pages for Google’s mobile index; Googlebot-Image: crawls pages for Google’s image index. inbound link: An inbound link is a hyperlink to a particular web page from an outside site, bringing traffic to that web page. Inbound links are an important element that most search engine algorithms use to measure the popularity of a web page. invisible web: A term that refers to the vast amount of information on the web that isn’t indexed by search engines. Coined in 1994 by Dr. Jill Ellsworth. keyword: A word or phrase entered into a search engine in an effort to get the search engine to return matching and relevant results. Many websites offer advertising targeted by keywords, so an ad will only show when a specific keyword is entered. link bait: Editorial content, often sensational in nature, posted on a web page and submitted to social media sites in hopes of building inbound links from other sites. Or, as Matt Cutts of Google says, “something interesting enough to catch people’s attention.” link building: The process of getting quality websites to link to your websites, in order to improve search engine rankings. Link building techniques can include buying links, reciprocal linking, or entering barter arrangements. meta tags: Information placed in the HTML header of a web page, providing information that is not visible to browsers, but can be used in varying degrees by search engines to index a page. Common meta tags used in search engine marketing are title, description, and keyword tags. pay per click (PPC): See cost per click (CPC). quality score: A score assigned by search engines that is calculated by measuring an ad’s clickthrough rate, analyzing the relevance of the landing page, and considering other factors used to determine the quality of a site and reward those of higher quality with top placement and lower bid requirements. Some factors that make up a quality score are historical keyword performance, the quality of an ad’s landing page, and other undisclosed attributes. All of the major search engines now use some form of quality score in their search ad algorithm. return on investment (ROI): The amount of money an advertiser earns from their ads compared to the amount of money the advertiser spends on their ads. search advertising: Also called paid search. An advertiser bids for the chance to have their ad display when a user searches for a given keyword. These are usually text ads, which are displayed

above or to the right of the algorithmic (organic) search results. Most search ads are sold by the PPC model, where the advertiser pays only when the user clicks on the ad or text link. search engine marketing (SEM): The process of building and marketing a site with the goal of improving its position in search engine results. SEM includes both search engine optimization (SEO) and search advertising, or paid search. search engine optimization (SEO): The process of making a site and its content highly relevant for both search engines and searchers. SEO includes technical tasks to make it easier for search engines to find and index a site for the appropriate keywords, as well as marketing-focused tasks to make a site more appealing to users. Successful search marketing helps a site gain top positioning for relevant words and phrases. search engine results pages (SERPs): The page searchers see after they’ve entered their query into the search box. This page lists several web pages related to the searcher’s query, sorted by relevance. Increasingly, search engines are returning blended search results, which include images, videos, and results from specialty databases on their SERPs. social media: A category of sites based on user participation and user-generated content. They include social networking sites like LinkedIn or Facebook, social bookmarking sites like Del. icio.us, social news sites like Digg or Reddit, and other sites that are centered on user interaction. spider: A search engine spider is a program that crawls the web, visiting web pages to collect information to add to or update a search engine’s index. The major search engines on the web all have such a program, which is also known as a “crawler” or a “bot.” title tag: An HTML meta tag with text describing a specific web page. The title tag should contain strategic keywords for the page, since many search engines pay special attention to the title text when indexing pages. The title tag should also make sense to humans, since it is usually the text link to the page displayed in search engine results. universal search: Also known as blended, or federated search results, universal search pulls data from multiple databases to display on the same page. Results can include images, videos, and results from specialty databases like maps and local information, product information, or news stories. web 2.0: A term that refers to a supposed second generation of Internet-based services. These usually include tools that let people collaborate and share information online, such as social networking sites, wikis, communication tools, and folksonomies.

PAY-PER-CLICK MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE DESIGNED FOR AGENCIES

Why do so many agencies choose Acquisio SEARCH? Acquisio SEARCH is the premier tool for interactive advertising agencies to help you launch, manage, optimize and report on every Pay-Per-Click campaign you manage, for every one of your clients, across all of the major paid search providers.

Acquisio SEARCH Features • Launch, manage and optimize campaigns across Google, MSN and Yahoo from one web-based interface with a tool just like Adwords Editor. • Create unique data views which encompass your client’s real marketing campaigns • Produce client-ready fully designed white-label PDF reports with ease • Automate your repetitive reporting tasks - no more month-end headaches. •

New Advanced Rule-Based Bid Management

 CALL US TODAY TO START YOUR TRIAL +1.866.493.9070