Performics Search Engine Marketing Blog

Finding and Removing Bad SEO, Part 1

performics — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 09:36:10 -0600

Posted by Sam Battin, Senior Search Strategist

Did you have someone do “SEO” on your site in the past couple of years? Did they clearly explain what they did, or did they just take your money and do “something” you didn’t understand?

If so, you might want to take another look at your site, if only to make sure the “SEO” people you hired haven’t actually made your site less visible to search engines. Legitimate search engine optimization is not an attempt to fool search engines; it’s making sure that the information on your site is fully exposed to search engines. There’s a big difference.

There have been several times when we’ve worked with clients who’d previously hired an SEO firm. They’d had minimal to negative results with the SEO that prior firms brought, and some folks on our clients’ management team were dubious (to say the least) about what Performics could bring to the table. We’re quite happy to do the extra work it takes for us to win clients like these over. We’re proud of the knowledge we’ve gained about search engine optimization, and we want to make certain our clients know exactly what we’re doing and why our methods work.

On some client sites, we’ve found “SEO” from previous companies that looked to be straight out of a playbook from 1995. Finding bad SEO is fun for us, and we wanted to share some stories about it. Consider this post a “Part 1” – in our next post, we’ll talk about how we solve these problems, and discuss how you can review your site for improper SEO.

During a review, we found that one client of ours had hyperlinks on their home page in white text on a white background. In 1995, a search engine crawling the page would have found and followed the links, but a human visitor with a working browser would not have been able to see the links. I’m not sure what that was supposed to have accomplished, but in 1995 that was a swell trick. In 2009, however, search engines are well aware of the old “hidden links” maneuver, and they will actively penalize your site if you try it.

The shock was that this was a site that should have known better – their brand was internationally recognized and we were quite surprised to have found this sort of thing going on. This is why we review our clients’ sites thoroughly for compliance, to make certain there isn’t any funny code added by an overly ambitious SEO consultant or employee who left the company years ago.

This was exactly the case for another client we had. As we reviewed their site for compliance, we noticed the following text on all of the pages:

Purple

We looked at the HTML code and found that each single letter of this six-letter word was an individual hyperlink. Each hyperlink went to a different page in the site, e.g.

Why did they do this? We had no idea. In our conference call with this client, we pointed out these weird links and I believe it was the marketing director who said, in an exasperated voice, “Another SEO firm told us to do that.” Naturally we asked “What are these links supposed to accomplish?”, but they could not provide us with an answer.

As SEO professionals, we weren’t fooled by these links; we knew immediately they were written solely for search engines. The strongest indicator that there’s an SEO trick being attempted is when a page element makes no logical sense. Put yourself in the shoes of your sites’ visitors and ask yourself: who’s going to see this link and decide to click on the “r” in purple instead of the “p”? Who’s going to spend 45 seconds properly positioning the mouse so that it clicks on the exact letter they want? We suggested that the client remove these links since they helped neither search engines nor human visitors.

There are plenty more stories we could tell you, but it’s time to get back to work. See you next week for part two of “Finding and Fixing Bad SEO”!

Search Happenings: Weekly Search Headlines

performics — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 11:01:31 -0600

Posted by Dan Malachowski, Product Marketing Manager

From the Engines:

Use new Google Ad Sitelinks to drive PPC traffic to different landing pages from the same ad.
Google introduces Commerce Search API.

Other Topics of Interest:

Forrester predicts 8% gain YOY in holiday sales.
47% of retailers will be increasing their use of social media this holiday to push offers.
Google Dashboard allows users to see the personal data Google stores.

Some Fun Stuff:

Alligator brought in for show-and-tell escapes in school.

Consumers Open to Marketing Messages on Social Media Sites

performics — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 10:19:53 -0600

Performics study examining 3,000 consumers’ use, response to social media being unveiled at ad:tech New York

The survey of more than 3,000 U.S. consumers comprised 100+ questions to determine how various segments of consumers use social networks in their daily lives, specifically in regard to finding out about different types of products and in relation to other media channels. The study found that marketers who embrace the medium and communicate relevant messages in consumers’ language and on their terms could gain customers and grow sales.

According to the study, consumers are willing to engage with – and buy from – brands on social networking sites. In fact:

Thirty-four percent of respondents have used a search engine to find information on a product/service/brand after seeing an advertisement on a social networking site
Thirty percent of respondents have learned about a new product, service or brand from a social networking site
Thirty-two percent or respondents said messages about printable coupons on social sites resonate with them
Twenty-eight percent of respondents said messages about sales or special deal notifications resonate with them

Many marketers have previously shied away from direct branding or selling on social media sites for fear of alienating consumers. However, marketers need to keep tabs on consumer behavior as social networks continue to gain steam.

“Social networks are creating a monumental shift in how people communicate with each other and with brands,” said Michael Kahn, SVP of Marketing at Performics. “The results of this study can help marketers better understand where and how consumers interact with social media sites and what types of offers and communications engage them and motivate them to act.”

The study also shows the immense opportunity for engaging with consumers on specific social networking sites:

Forty-six percent of respondents say they would talk about or recommend a product on Facebook
Forty-four percent of Twitter users have recommended a product
Thirty-six percent of YouTube users say that they have gone to an online retailer or ecommerce site after learning about a brand on a social network site

“The numbers are staggering. One in four respondents have four or more active social network accounts and more than one quarter access their Facebook or Twitter accounts at least once a day via their mobile phone,” notes Scott Haiges, President of ROI Research. “We knew that these sites are extremely popular for socializing, but the level of interest for branding and promotional marketing content is surprisingly large.”

What about those consumers who don’t partake in social networking? Performics and ROI also asked the 30 percent (about 1,000 respondents) that didn’t qualify to take the full survey why they choose not to use social networks. Seventy-seven percent cited a lack of interest, while 28 percent noted privacy concerns and 27 percent indicated they just didn’t have the time. Only 13 percent said they didn’t “want all the connections.”

Kahn will unveil new data from the study during the ad:tech session, “Feed Your Brain, Part II: Social Media and Youth Online,” on Friday, November 6, 2009 from 11:30 am -12:20 pm ET at the Jacob K. Javits Center in New York.

Search Happenings: Weekly Search Headlines

performics — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 14:41:47 -0500

Posted by Dan Malachowski, Product Marketing Manager

From the Engines:

Is Ask.com for sale?
Google launches comparison ads.

Other Topics of Interest:

Four reasons not to tweet.
Facebook continues massive growth, Twitter stands still.
Bing inks a deal with Twitter and Facebook to bring real-time status updates/tweets into the SERP. Google inks same deal with Twitter.
Facebook wins $711 million in lawsuit against The Spam King.

Some Fun Stuff:

Burglars wear permanent marker of their faces instead of masks. Good plan.

Tweets and Status Updates to be Integrated into the Bing, Google SERPs

performics — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 12:24:09 -0500

Posted by Megan Halscheid, Product Manager

Both Google and Bing have reached deals with Twitter to integrate tweets into the SERPs. Bing has rolled out a beta real-time Twitter search at bing.com/twitter. Google is set to roll out their product in the coming weeks. This deal allows Google and Bing direct access to Twitter’s real-time data stream to satisfy user queries on hot topics. Bing has also reached a separate deal with Facebook to integrate status updates into the SERP.

The fact that Google and Bing are both incorporating tweets into their search results shows the importance/value the search engines put on content generated through social sites. The goal of the search engines is to connect consumers with sites that satisfy their needs. Social and other emerging mediums satisfy user needs in unique new ways. Therefore, social sites need to be increasingly incorporated into the search results pages.

Twitter/Facebook integration allows the search engines to serve more real-time social content than they were previously able to serve. Often, a search topic will get hot and the major engines will not yet have indexed the latest information. Integrating user-generated content into the SERP solves this problem, thus improving the consumer experience on the engines.

Performics Ranked #20 as a Top Employer for Generation Y by Brill Street

performics — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 13:16:58 -0500

Brill Street, offering a scientifically-validated approach to hiring and managing talent more effectively, announced the winners of the “Top 50 Employers for Generation Y Chicago.” Performics ranks #20. Winners were chosen using a point-based model developed by GfK Custom Research North America. Watch the Performics video for a peak into our culture.

View the full list at Brill Street.

Webinar: Creating Relevant Paid Search Copy to Compete this Holiday Season

performics — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 16:25:43 -0500

Join us Thursday, October 29, 2009 1:00pm CST for our monthly retail series webinar: Creating Relevant Paid Search Copy to Compete this Holiday Season.

Matt Miller, Director, Vertical Solutions, and Todd Murray, Director, Shared Services will discuss how to monitor and quickly react to your competitors’ paid search holiday copy offers, as well as how to continually test and optimize your copy to pinpoint the most relevant messages that drive the most conversions. Matt and Todd will use pet supplies retailer Stanley’s Sweaters to show that optimizing your copy is key to holiday success.

In this webinar, you and Stanley will learn holiday best practices for:

Competitive copy analysis
Copy management
Copy testing

All attendees will be entered in a drawing to win a FREE Paid Search Audit

Performics’ Point of View (POV) on the Termination of Yahoo! Search Submit Pro

performics — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 12:20:35 -0500

Last week, Yahoo! officially released a statement that confirmed that they will no longer be offering Yahoo! Search Submit Pro (SSP), also known as paid inclusion, to advertisers in all markets, including the U.S. and Europe. The effective date for terminating this program is December 31, 2009.

What is Yahoo! Search Submit Pro?

Yahoo!’s Search Submit Pro enables advertisers to quickly submit Web pages into Yahoo!’s search index for SEO visibility and traffic, rather than relying on Yahoo!’s technology to crawl their pages. Search Submit Pro helps deliver rapid organic search results, which improves advertiser visibility and ranking. Additionally, because it is feed-based, advertisers are given more control over the content displayed in their listings. Yahoo!’s Search Submit Pro is based on a cost-per-click fee structure.

Why is Yahoo! terminating its Search Submit Pro product?

Yahoo! has decided to terminate Yahoo! Search Submit as stated in the official statement below:

“We are committing our resources and efforts to our core areas of focus, including improving the search experience and relevancy of our ads to increase user engagement and ROI for advertisers, and as a result, have decided to exit Search Submit. We have stepped up innovation in Search Marketing, recently rolling out search retargeting, Rich Ads in Search and improved matching technology, and in Consumer Search, with enhancements like the new search results page. These enhancements deliver value, control, innovation and relevance to our advertisers, leading to increased ROI.

Yahoo! will exit Search Submit at the end of 2009. Yahoo! is providing those advertisers affected by the decision a sufficient lead time to assist in the transition. In addition, Yahoo! has recently announced a series of important enhancements to its Search advertising business and will work closely with many Search Submit advertisers to provide them with search solutions that will benefit their businesses.”

How are advertisers who are currently running SSP programs impacted by this announcement and Yahoo!’s future partnership with Microsoft?

As of right now, the only change that is occurring this December is the elimination of Yahoo!’s Search Submit product. Once the Search Submit product is discontinued, listings and rankings will likely revert back to their original pre-SSP positions. Listings/rankings will be based on the content that Yahoo! crawls on your Web site as well as your page’s keyword relevancy to a searcher’s query.

Can we ask for a program extension past December 31, 2009?

According to Yahoo!, there will not be an extension of the termination date. However, advertisers will have access to past Search Submit performance reports and the Yahoo! interface until the end of January 2010.

What is the impact of Yahoo!’s future partnership with Microsoft?

Once the deal between Microsoft and Yahoo! is finalized (date still to be determined), Microsoft’s technology will run Yahoo!’s search results. There is no indication at this time that a similar Search Submit product will become available on Microsoft’s Bing engine. MSNbot will be the official crawler for both Bing and Yahoo!’s algorithmic search. Additionally, Microsoft adCenter will be used for the engines’ pay-per-click offerings.

This consolidation of technology along with the removal of Yahoo! SSP changes the future of the SEO landscape. Traditional free crawl SEO methods will once again rule the organic search engine results, while the two search engines, Yahoo! and Bing, join forces.

What are Performics’ recommendations in light of Yahoo!’s recent announcement?

In the short term, advertisers should continue to run their Yahoo! Search Submit Pro program as intended for the holiday season. Pulling the Yahoo! SSP program too early could come at a great cost, including lost traffic and sales during a key period of the year…the holiday season. Simultaneously, advertisers should take this time to begin developing alternative strategies so that they are fully prepared for the change in 2010.

In addition, advertisers can fill the void that the termination of Yahoo!’s SSP product will leave in terms of visibility, traffic and sales in 2010. This includes exploring viable SEO, PPC, social and display marketing options. Furthermore, advertisers should explore the new Yahoo! innovations, such as search re-targeting and Rich Ads in Search.

Facebook Ads Drive Incremental Sales at 3-to-1 ROI for Threadless

performics — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 10:27:49 -0500

Posted by Micheline Sabatte, Product Marketing Manager

Background

Chicago-based online apparel retailer, Threadless, teamed up with Performics to promote its “Summer Heatwave” sale. Threadless wanted to promote this special T-shirt sale with tees starting at $5 via Facebook ads.

Objectives

• Increase awareness of “Summer Heatwave” promotional event

• Drive sales at a reasonable ROI

Solutions

• Performics launched a Facebook CPC-bidded Social Ad campaign

• Created custom Facebook ads announcing “Summer Heatwave” sale

• Targeted all users 18 and older, and optimized ads over a 10-day period based on image performance

Results

• Campaign performed at a 3 to 1 return on ad spend and drove many new buyers to Threadless

Make Your Home Page URL Clear to Search Engines

performics — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 13:28:11 -0500

Posted by Sam Battin, Senior Search Strategist

The other day a big company came to Performics with a natural search problem; when they typed the company’s name into Google, the #1 result was an HTTPS version of their site. Clicking on that result caused browsers to stumble; the URL’s security certificate had expired. Internet Explorer wouldn’t display the company’s home page, and instead showed a warning that said “There is a problem with this website’s security certificate.”

Naturally, having visitors see a warning instead of their site was a less-than-optimal visitor experience, and the company wanted the problem solved as soon as possible. In addition, they wanted to know why Google had selected that URL to display as the #1 result. This brought up an important point every Web owner should know: you absolutely need to make your home page URL clear to search engines.

The value of inbound links is finite; search engines will attempt to distribute this value within your site as evenly possible. For this reason, a search engine needs each site to have a home page. There has to be a central point from which the total link value will be distributed.

For most sites, it’s easy to figure out where the home page is. The home page is the document that appears when the root domain is requested, such as

www.yoursite.com

Some sites, however, use a content management system that puts the home page contents on a different page than the root domain, like

www.yoursite.com/home_page.asp

It gets even more complicated. Some sites, like the client mentioned above, have an HTTPS site running in parallel with HTTP. This means that the following two home page URLs return valid results:

http://www.yoursite.com/home_page.asp

https://www.yoursite.com/home_page.asp

Most sites also have a logo in the top right that’s a navigational link to their site home page. In some cases, this goes to the root domain, but in other cases, the URL might be something different, e.g.

www.yoursite.com/index.asp

This can give the site two URLs with duplicate home page content. What’s a search engine to do when there are two (or more!) URLs in the site that all have the same content and really look like the home page?

In cases like this, Google will pick a URL and decide it’s the home page. Their decision isn’t arbitrary; it’s going to be the URL that makes the most sense to the crawler. When it has a choice, Google appears to prefer smaller URLs to display as the site home page. In the case of our client, the URL they picked as the home page was

https://clientsite.com

This URL, of course, was the one that had the problem with the security certificate. Our client’s site had multiple URLs that could have been the home page as well, and also had interior home page links to a different URL, as well as several 302 “temporary” redirects to still more URLs. Of these, Google picked the shortest URL to display as the home page on their search engine results. We can’t say why Google seems to like the smaller URLs, but it’s possible Google makes an aesthetic decision to present a short URL on the Google results page.

You can see from the above examples that it’s not always obvious which page of your site Google will think is the home page. You will achieve better visibility if you take the following steps and make it obvious:

Put your home page content on the root domain URL, e.g. www.yoursite.com
If you have duplicate URLs with home page content, you can either 301 redirect these URLs to the intended home page URL, or you can add a “link:canonical” tag to all duplicate pages that states the actual location of the home page.
Make sure all interior navigational links to the home page are written to go to the intended home page URL and nowhere else.
Keep your home page URL as short as possible.

One in Five Started 2009 Holiday Shopping in September; 60 Percent to Spend Less this Season

performics — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 10:06:20 -0500

Performics released its sixth month of consumer behavior findings from its “2009 Online Buyer Economic Trend Study.” With the holiday season approaching, Performics surveyed consumers about their holiday spending plans for 2009 in light of this year’s economic climate.

Of those who do the winter holiday shopping, 29 percent of respondents will start their winter shopping earlier this year than last year. In fact, as of mid-September, nearly one in five respondents already started their winter holiday shopping. The study uncovered that friends, co-workers and extended family are groups that may not make consumers’ gift lists this year, and also found significant gender-related differences in winter holiday shopping plans.

Read Performics’ Holiday Shopping Press Release.

Search Happenings: Weekly Search Headlines

performics — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 09:58:09 -0500

Posted by Dan Malachowski, Product Marketing Manager

From the Engines:

· Statcounter says Bing growth is slowing.

· Bing rolls out new mobile voice search.

· Google: Making AJAX crawlable.

Other Topics of Interest:

· Twitter strategies for retailers.

· Danny Sullivan talks about bad Google results with Sergey Brin.

· Case studies: Unique uses of social media.

· Twitter talking to Google and MSN about selling them tweet data.

· Google experiments with offering a flat fee search buy to local advertisers.

Some Fun Stuff:

· 81-year-old finishes marathon with catheter.

· Couple throws fit at McDonald’s after getting the wrong size fries.

NRF Predicts Holiday Sales Drop: What Can You Do to Boost Sales?

performics — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 12:12:36 -0500

Posted by Dan Malachowski, Product Marketing Manager

The National Retail Federation recently projected 2009 holiday sales to fall 1% this year to $437.6 billion. Average year over year holiday retail growth is 3.39%, although sales dropped 3.4% last year. A 1% drop may not come as a surprise to many online retailers, but it’s not too late to set your search program up to capture the most demand possible this holiday season. Here are a few things you should be focusing on through the holiday:

1. Understand Your Consumer: Knowing who your target consumer is, where they are shopping online, what messages appeal to them and when they shop puts you in the best position to create a search program around the keywords, copy and landing pages most likely to engage that customer. Build personas and consumer search journeys to discover the search terms your customers use at each phase of the purchase funnel, from awareness to consideration to intent to purchase. Maximize paid search efficiency by understanding your target market and creating relevant and compelling paid search experiences specifically for them.

2. Understand Your Company Goals: As a search marketer, it’s your goal to bridge the gap between your consumer and your company. Sit down with your finance, marketing and merchandising teams to understand what products have the highest margins and what products are likely to sell best, as well as inventory levels of key products.

3. Organize Your Paid Search Campaign: Build a campaign structure that allows you to be nimble and flexible to quickly execute during the holiday rush. You may need to quickly promote a product to clear out warehouse space or adjust bid strategies in light of high holiday CPC fluctuations. You also need to make speedy copy adjustments to respond to your competitors’ offers. The tighter your campaigns and ad groups, the easier it is for you to quickly make these adjustments. Segment mission critical holiday keywords into a separate campaign for optimal manageability.

4. Monitor Your Competitors’ Offers: Monitor your key competitors’ paid search copy offers by the minute. Then determine if you can do better than their offer, and quickly swap out your copy via your flexible campaign structure. Reaction time is key; you’ll have no chance to capture clicks if you’re running “10% off” copy while your competitor is running “50% off” for the same product.

5. Monitor Your Competitors’ Bids: Bids for mission critical keywords should be monitored by the minute during holiday, as a change in position can mean thousands of dollars in sales. Knowing exactly where you stand versus your competitors at all times helps you make quick decisions on whether to maintain/rise your position, or whether to ease back because the top positions are too expensive, thus preserving budget.

6. Optimize Your Landing Pages for Conversion: It’s not enough to simply drop a consumer on an existing landing page and hope for the best. Develop custom pages and paths specifically tailored to address a searcher’s query or point them down the most relevant conversion path. The keys to building successful landing pages are knowing your audience and continually testing multiple versions of the page to see which version drives the most conversions. Analyze test performance data to develop new hypothesis. Then refine your test plan.

First Look: Google’s New Beta Keyword Tool

performics — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 07:24:00 -0500

Posted by Bill Fergus, Account Manager

Last week Google announced they have a new beta version of their keyword tool available to current AdWords customers. Part of any SEO’s bag of tricks is sure to include the current Google Keyword Tool so this announcement certainly has drawn our attention – especially if the beta ultimately replaces the current tool.

As of today, it’s not very obvious how to find the beta version so let’s start with getting you there. To get there you first have to log into your AdWords account and click on the opportunities tab. From here, you can select a link to the Keyword Tool from the left nav where you will see a link to the beta version of the keyword tool (I’d encourage you to bookmark this page until the page becomes less buried). When the new interface pulls up, the first two things I noticed were more ways to slice and dice the data and the inclusion of keyword trends – it’s as if Google Insights married the current Keyword Tool.

More Ways to Slice and Dice the Data

One of my favorite holidays is Halloween so I thought it might be fun to give the new beta Keyword Tool a test drive as if I was retailer store getting ready for this year’s most popular costumes. By the way, an interesting, but useless tidbit is this is the first time Halloween has been on a Saturday since 1998. I start off with a search for “Halloween Costumes” and immediately a few things pop off the page at me:

1. I’ve got more filtering options at my disposal, including mobile search stats and the ability to filter out keywords

2. I can narrow the keyword list by Categories

3. I can customize what kinds of data I’d like to see in my results

4. I can quickly remove items from my results

5. I can jump between broad, phrase, exact, or any combination of these results

Seeing as I’m a retailer, I don’t need to look at all of these results. For example, dog costumes do have a lot of volume, but this is not relevant to my business. I can narrow the list by selecting Clothing -> Costumes from the Categories menu. The results that come back are much more attune to my business. Since I am also running a paid search campaign, let’s sort by Estimated Avg. CPC to see what terms might be the most expensive for me to buy. I don’t sell extreme Halloween costumes, but one of best sellers year after year is my Minnie Mouse costume. Look at that! It’s also one of the more expensive searches to buy – perhaps I should consider optimizing better for this term rather than spending $1.16 per click!

Identify Trends Early

In my retail store, I also sell a good deal of Harry Potter clothing around Halloween and I’d like to know what kind of opportunity might exist at other times in the year. Looking at the Local Search Trends, I can see that sure enough costume activity is highest in September and October. But look at this, there are a number of people searching for “harry potter scarf” and “harry potter dress” throughout the year. Perhaps I should pay a little more attention to these products on my site.

Perhaps even more impressive is that Google lets you download this data and actually gives you search volume month over month. This alone is worth the price of admission and really allows the search marketer to understand true trends going on in their competitive marketplace.

I encourage you to take the new beta Tool for a spin and see what new insights you might be able to find.

Search Happenings: Weekly Search Headlines

performics — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 10:35:31 -0500

Posted by Dan Malachowski, Product Marketing Manager

From the Engines:

· Google rolls out links in the search snippets. Webmaster Central explains how to get these links.

· Google also integrates hot trends into the SERP, Twitter Search style.

Other Topics of Interest:

· Google place pages powerful for local businesses.

· 10% of NYTimes.com’s traffic comes from Twitter.

· Bill Hunt: Search is all about relevance to the searcher’s intent.

· Potential rewards for early mobile adopters.

Some Fun Stuff:

· Group of gorillas tweet their daily lives. One becomes #bananas hashtag spammer.

· University of Florida has formal disaster plan for zombie attack, but lacks disaster plan for Tebow injury.

Yahoo! Says It's All About Y!ou

performics — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 07:36:00 -0500

Posted by Luis Nieves, Account Manager

On September 22, 2009, Yahoo! issued a press release that details a new global campaign that will refocus the marketing of the site around the very market it serves, you.

This is Yahoo!’s first global campaign, which officially launched in the US on September 28th at a press conference led by Yahoo!’s CEO, Carol Bartz. The next launch is expected to take place on October 5th in the United Kingdom and India. It is anticipated that this marketing campaign will run for about 15 months and extend into 2010. As it is a global campaign, it will reach major and emerging markets worldwide, including Brazil, Canada, France, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Korea, and Taiwan.

Yahoo! is hoping to introduce its current customer base to the improved Yahoo! site as well as attract a few new searchers in an effort to increase their share of the search pie. Currently, Google dominates the search pie (by approximately 65% according to comScore, August 2009), with Bing slowly eating more of the pie every month.

Some of the new enhancements made in the past few months include the following:

· Personalized homepage - allows users to access what they have designated as their favorite content and sites on any screen from a single Web location

· Enhanced Yahoo! Mail – provides simpler photo sharing and editing as well as easier accessibility to helpful and productive applications

· Improved search algorithm - delivers more relevant and meaningful search results

· New Yahoo! Messenger capabilities- creates instant connections with friends and family via high-quality video calling

· New Yahoo! mobile homepage - new mobile applications, including the recently launched Yahoo! for mobile, Yahoo! Finance, Yahoo! Fantasy Football, Yahoo! Messenger and Flickr

As an internet marketer, you may be asking yourself, “This is all very interesting and I like some of the new stuff, but how does this affect me as a marketer…what do I really need to know about this Y!ou campaign?” Simply put, Yahoo! is buying traffic for you. Your goal is to create a strategy that harnesses this new volume of potential users. With more users coming to Yahoo!, they will be consuming more media, and if you are not prepared, you could miss out on an opportunity to put yourself in front of these consumers. Even worse, you could lose to competitors who saw the wave of users coming and proactively re-evaluated their strategies to compensate.

Now is the time to evaluate your current SEM strategy and revisit your keyword list on Yahoo! (i.e. search terms used to trigger ads, negative keywords, alternative keywords, etc.) as well as your ad copy. This may also be an opportunity to bid higher on some of the higher performing keywords within your campaigns to help crowd out competitors. It will also help ensure your ad copy is placed toward the top of paid search listings should the competition start a bid war and artificially inflate the bids for terms specific to your industry. By making improvements or additions to this area, you will be in a better position to retain or even increase your current ad placement position.

As for your SEO strategy, this may be a good time to revisit some of your high traffic pages. Are the title, meta and H1 tags optimized? Does the page have one central theme and keyword mapped to the page? Does the page have a high number of quality links pointing in to it? Since the new Yahoo! campaign will last for approximately 15 months, there will most likely be high and low times in which users will flock to the site and use Yahoo!’s new search capabilities. By having your high volume pages well-optimized within your site, you will have a better chance of improving your position in the search results pages. It is important that you take initiative to ensure that your content is compelling or needed by users, so that they are either searching for you on Yahoo! or adding your site to their list of trusted sites to access quickly.

Additionally, this could present a time in which purchasing display advertising space on Yahoo! may prove useful as more users will come to the engine. By displaying current offers or sales in front of customers as they are exploring Yahoo!, you will have the opportunity to attract new users to your site, which could ultimately lead to more conversions.

Now all of these suggestions are based upon the assumption that Yahoo!’s new campaign will work and users will begin to use the site more often. We have seen the benefits for MSN and their promotion of Bing, so it is safe to assume that your site will most likely experience lifts in visits from Yahoo!, and your optimization efforts and hard work will pay off. Otherwise, your efforts helped you perform a little “clean-up” in preparation for the upcoming holiday season, which we know will be popular for all online users, regardless of the engine.

Flexible Paid Search Campaign Structure Key to Holiday Success

performics — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 07:21:00 -0500

Posted by Dan Malachowski, Product Marketing Manager

One of the most important things you can do in preparation for the holiday rush is to make sure your paid search campaign structure is set up to be nimble and flexible. During the holiday rush, you’re likely going to have to quickly push and pull to manage holiday inventory. For instance, you may run out of a particular product and have to quickly pause keywords around that product. On the other hand, you may have excess inventory that you need to rapidly promote to clear out warehouse space. You’ll also have to quickly adjust bid strategies during the holidays because of CPC fluctuations due to increased competition. In addition, you may have to swiftly execute copy adjustments to react to your competitors’ offers.

A flexible campaign structure allows you to be nimble to exploit conversion opportunities, preserve budget at the right times, increase relevancy to consumers and manage inventory. While a flexible campaign structure is important all year round, it’s especially important during the holidays because you have to act fast in regard to the critical terms that are going to make or break your season.

To create a nimble campaign structure, it’s important to organize keywords into tight campaigns and ad groups. Many search marketers will organize their campaigns by brand and generic terms, but you have to go much deeper than that. For instance, if you’re selling pet supplies, create a bunch of campaigns around your product themes, such as: Dog Food, Dog Supplements, Dog Clothing, and Dog Toys, etc. Then create various ad groups within each campaign. For instance, the Dog Clothing campaign may have the ad groups: Dog Clothing_Sweaters, Dog Clothing_T-Shirts, Dog Clothing_Shoes, etc. The tighter your campaigns and ad groups, the easier it is for you to quickly make bid, keyword or copy changes around a specific group of related keywords.

Another campaign structure holiday tip is to segment mission critical holiday terms from standard terms into a separate campaign to increase manageability. Perhaps you have 20 terms that are your bread and butter and will likely drive the large majority of your holiday sales. You need to manage those terms by the minute. Segmenting them allows you optimal manageability.

Campaign structure is the foundation to a successful search campaign. Focus on building your foundation now before the holiday rush.

Leveraging SEM Competitive Insights to Increase Conversions and Decrease Costs

performics — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 07:15:00 -0500

Posted by Kristen Walker, Account Manager

Continually monitoring the coverage, average position, search share of voice, ad copy and keywords of your competitors and affiliates is key to maximizing SEM efficiency. Monitoring your competitor set via automated monitoring tools allows for quick reaction to competitor bid strategies. It also keeps you aware of compelling competitive offers so that you can quickly make copy adjustments to compete. Here are a few ways to leverage competitive insights to drive results:

· Copy Monitoring: If your click-through rate (CTR) drops suddenly without a change in position, it’s helpful to be tracking your competitors’ copy as a point of reference to determine why the drop occurred. It’s likely that your competition is promoting an offer in their copy that’s more compelling than the offer you’re running (and thus stealing your clicks). Review the competitive copy and determine if you can match their offer or do better. If you can’t match their offer, make sure you’re pushing a different value proposition in your copy, such as free shipping. You don’t want to be running “10% off” copy while your competitor is running “50% off” copy for the same product. It’s also helpful to set up alerts so that you know the exact moment when your competitors use certain phrases in their copy, like “free” or “50%.” The faster you can react and ensure your message is the most unique and compelling, the better.

· Bid Monitoring: Your mission critical keywords should be monitored by the minute during crucial, high-volume times, like holiday. These are the times when a change in position can mean tens of thousands of dollars in revenue. Knowing exactly when you changed position with your competitor allows you to make better decisions on whether to play by maintaining/rising your position, or whether to ease back because the market is currently being irrational and the top positions are too expensive. Knowing exactly what your competitors are doing allows you to preserve budget when it makes sense.

· Affiliate Monitoring: In addition to monitoring your affiliates’ use of your trademarks, automated competitive monitoring tools are helpful in making sure your affiliates aren’t copying your ads. If your affiliates are poaching your traffic, your margins are likely to suffer. When watching your affiliates, it’s also important to monitor various geos. For instance, an affiliate may be geo-targeting their ads so they don’t run in an area where you’re likely to notice the ads (such as where your business is based). Use automated competitive monitoring tools to watch a variety of geos to make sure this is not happening.

· Measuring Search Share of Voice (SOV) Trends: Reviewing your competitors’ ad positioning and keyword coverage across engines for both natural and paid search allows you to identify specific trends over time. For instance, you may notice that a particular competitor pulls back its paid search position on certain days, or that a competitor has been pulling back over the last few weeks. When you can expect your competitor to ease back, you can ease back too in order to cut costs while, at the same time, not sacrificing a premium position.

Search Happenings: Weekly Search Headlines

performics — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 10:35:49 -0500

Posted by Dan Malachowski, Product Marketing Manager

From the Engines:

· Google Sidewiki allows you to comment on sites and read comments from others.

· Microsoft to test new paid search ads with logos and favicons.

· Connect with Google industry research on Twitter.

· Yahoo! rolls out new search format. Is there anything new that’s game-changing?

· Bing search share on the rise: 0.5% gain in August.

Other Topics of Interest:

· Users spending less time on email as social soars.

· Europe’s highest court: Google allowing advertisers to bid on competitors’ trademarks is ok.

· 24% of Twitter users have quit tweeting. 27% tweet every day.

· Twitter says no ads in 2009.

Some Fun Stuff:

· Boy pretends kidnapper stole his report card on his way home. Kidnapper needed stuff to hang on his fridge.

· Man eats 33 and ½ burritos in 10 minutes, explodes.

Is Your Paid Search Campaign Organized to Capture Demand this Holiday?

performics — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 10:35:50 -0500

Please join us for a Webinar on:

Organizing PPC Campaigns to Manage Holiday Promotions

Thursday, September 24, 2009

2:00PM Eastern/1:00PM Central

All attendees will be entered in a drawing to win a FREE Paid Search Audit. Matt Miller, Director, Vertical Solutions, and April Damen, Client Solutions Consultant, will discuss how to organize your paid search campaign to maximize your ability to capture holiday demand from key consumer segments. Matt and April will continue to help Stanley’s Sweaters, an online pet supply retailer, position itself to “crush it” this holiday.

In this webinar, you and Stanley will learn how to effectively and efficiently:

• Structure your paid search campaign to maximize exposure

• Research, develop and mine keywords

• Utilize the Content Network for distribution

Join us this month and through the end of 2009 for our monthly webinar series as we take Stanley’s Sweaters through the entire holiday sales process, including holiday planning, search engine optimization, landing page optimization, paid search optimization, competitive analyses, bid/budget management and paid inclusion.

Search Happenings

performics — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 14:36:27 -0500

Posted by Dan Malachowski, Product Marketing Manager

From the Engines:

· DOJ looking more closely at Microsoft-Yahoo! search deal. Does Yahoo! have a plan B?

· New Bing feature displays results as images instead of text.

· Google officially announces DoubleClick ad exchange.

Other Topics of Interest:

· Study: 1 in 5 tweets mentions a brand name.

· Case studies: new Facebook apps. 10 essential Twitter apps.

· Adobe to acquire Omniture.

Some Fun Stuff:

· Restaurant serves a 185 pound burger. Can I get a doggie-bag?

· Tortoise gets plastic wheels for legs; now loses race to hare.

Money-Saving Tactics Top of Mind as Consumers’ Anticipated 2009 Economic Improvement Dwindles

performics — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 13:25:30 -0500

Peformics today released its fifth month of consumer behavior findings from its "2009 Online Buyer Economic Trend Study."

As the year continues, there is a steady month on month decline of those who expect their household economic situation to improve this year – down to just 14 percent in August from 30 percent in April.

Consumers also continue to make cut-backs. Key money-saving tactics from the August study include:

64 percent of respondents say they stick to a budget to control impulse spending
50 percent of respondents use shopping comparison websites or search online for best prices
52 percent of respondents say they only purchase sale items as a means to save money

In regards to economic information and news items:

65 percent of respondents gather their economic news from online sources
1 in 5 respondents searched online for information about the recent "Cash for Clunkers" program
15 percent of respondents searched online for news on the rise of existing home sales in the U.S.

For the fifth consecutive month, 8 in 10 respondents somewhat/strongly agree that the recession will have a lasting impact on saving and spending habits.

Search Happenings

performics — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 13:55:28 -0500

Posted by Dan Malachowski, Product Marketing Manager

From the Engines:

· My Google search box grew! See other ways the Google homepage has changed over the years.

Other Topics of Interest:

· Facebook debuts direct response ad units. Chick-fil-A using the ads to give away free chicken biscuits. Tasty.

· Search optimization tips for Facebook and Twitter.

· Facebook introduces @ mentions. Works just like Twitter.

· Twitter introduces new terms of service.

Some Fun Stuff:

· Dog given parking ticket; plans to keep it in his glove compartment.

· Woman builds house out of human hair. House collapses after “bad hair day.”

HTML 5: A Dream Come True For Video SEM

performics — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 10:02:16 -0500

Posted by Eric Papczun, VP of Client Services

Imagine if you could click on a video and instantly watch it play without clicking through the annoying pop-ups that require you to download the latest plug-in, such as Adobe Flash. Even better, what if you could watch this instantaneous video in the palm of your hand without any unforeseen complications? This sounds like a dream come true not only for the user but also for savvy advertisers who are continually trying to entice their target audience.

Fortunately, it’s not a dream: it’s HTML 5. HTML 5 is the proposed next iteration of the prevailing language of web sites. Modern browsers such as Google Chrome and Apple’s Safari—as well as most mobile browsers using webKit—currently understand this language. One of the key purposes of HTML 5 is to promote universality across online web applications, rendering plug-ins like Adobe Flash irrelevant.

Read the full article at Search Engine Land.

Search Happenings

performics — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 09:55:33 -0500

Posted by Dan Malachowski, Product Marketing Manager

From the Engines:

· Yahoo! launches Meme in English, goes head-to-head with Twitter.

· Digg incorporates no-follow to reduce spam; no more Digg link equity.

Other Topics of Interest:

· Adweek complete search engine marketing report.

· What Google Caffeine could mean for your SEO rankings. Also, what real-time search could mean for your SEO rankings.

· Adweek: Women less optimistic than men about the economy.

Some Fun Stuff:

· Chupacabra finally captured in Texas. Now my pet goats can sleep in peace!

· Man finds frog in his Diet Pepsi. I find frog in my bowl of Smacks.