At the International Search Summit on 13th May, Bas will be speaking on mobile in Europe - a topic which is becoming much more relevant as mobile usage grows across the world. Here, Bas answers a few questions about mobile - and international search in general.

Bas, if you could give just one tip to search marketers working on global campaigns, what would it be?

Do not assume - it will make an “ass” out of “u” and “me” so to speak! If you think you know how different countries and different cultures work and that you don’t need help from within the targeted countries, you are wrong!

You’re speaking about mobile search in Europe - how ‘mobile minded’ is Europe?

Europe is very mobile minded, even more that the US. Long before the US, we were ‘texting’ already and now you can see that many developments come from Europe. In this case, the US can learn from Europe.

Are there big differences in the use of mobile between Europe, the US and Asia? And what about within Europe itself - does mobile usage differ much between countries?

There are differences, although things are moving so fast the differences will become smaller very quickly. But we should all look at Asia as an example of how fast things can go. Asia is the most advanced, followed by Europe and the US.  Within Europe there are also differences of course. Some countries, like the Netherlands, are very well developed when it comes to mobile.

Is mobile here to stay, or is it just a fad?

Mobile will never go away

How easy is it to optimise a website for mobile search -  and should marketers be doing it? 

It’s not just about optimising your website, it’s about doing multiple mobile efforts to bring ‘the mix’ together. Optimise but also do applications and work with others to enhance the user experience. Besides that there is a new challenge: getting found in the app stores.

This will be your second time speaking at the International Search Summit - what value do you think the event offers delegates?

The International Search Summit is a very special event which immediately got into my heart the first time I spoke there. The intimate nature of the event means that delegates can learn very much in one day.

The International Search Summit in May is focused on innovations - recent developments in search and social media which are changing online marketing. In your opinion, what is the most significant innovation in recent years?

Mobile

The International Search Summit will be held at The Barbican in London on 13th May. Other topics on the agenda include global social media advertising, international Twitter strategies, video optimisation and global SEM.

Tickets are now available at an early bird rate.

Bryan is certainly a data-lover. Unlike those who in a recent survey said that they would rather manage without their partner for a week than their laptop – Bryan would certainly sacrifice his Mac but don’t ever try and take the data away. Not only is data the basis of conversion optimisation it is also the key to getting senior management support – always a challenge for those working in the online marketing space. He revels in being provocative with his audiences at conferences with statements like “You don’t have a traffic problem” at an SEO gig where the principal focus is around traffic – with yes a casual nod towards conversion.

Get aligning those objectives

Bryan points to the relatively low conversion rates on most sites which typically run at 3% or less and yet marketing teams focus on expanding traffic rather than digging into site performance so as to convert more visitors into customers. To justify an investment in starting to test, he suggests calculating the returns that would be made in the bottom line by making a small improvement in conversion rate and to sing Bryan’s own mantra – and the title of one his books - “Always be testing!”

But becoming data driven is not just about dashboards but more along the lines of Demming’s ‘total quality management’ as improving quality will actually reduce expenses. Says Bryan, “All the big brands you can name from Google and Dell to Xerox and IBM have always focused on total quality management – that’s why they’re as big and successful as they are.” Amazon, for instance, didn’t get to become a global brand by selling books, they did it by aligning customers and business objectives for years and by paying attention to detail and trimming the fat. Amazon not only tests things that work, but things they’ve tested many times before just to see if there or further improvements to gain or if their customers behaviour has changed. Dell tested the words ‘learn more’ against ‘help me choose’ with the result that ‘help me choose’ drove more conversions through the site. They’re all doing it because it makes a difference.


Getting a champion is a good idea!

But where do you start especially if you’re not a global player and have more limited resources. With passion, Bryan stresses, “Just test what you can test – start somewhere, anywhere. If you can only test headlines then test headlines.” It’s easier to double your conversion rate than to generate more traffic. The first step is to check how much of your budget is actually invested in testing and whether that really makes sense. It used to be expensive to undertake effective testing on a site but that’s no longer the case. With product’s such as the Google Website Optimiser coming on to the market and offering facilities absolutely for free – there are no longer any good excuses not to get on with it.

Key is not thinking that you have to make a list of all the tests and then run them thinking that you’ve tackled the issue. The secret is not the first or the second test, but building testing into the company processes and making it a way of life. But you do need a champion who is going to live, breathe and own the process or it will be difficult to get things off the ground. Look for the right creative resources, which might possibly be those you have internally, but it’s more probably wise to go and get external designers to work on your testing to get some degree of objectivity.

Who are you trying to persuade?

Perfection is sometimes a barrier to getting people into testing. (Perfection is sometimes also a barrier to SEO or indeed anything!) People often start by trying to make their planned test absolutely perfect rather than just getting out and getting a test in place. Equally “Don’t do slice and dice optimisation,” says Bryan. What he means by this is that you shouldn’t look at all of the individual components of a page taking each element and testing it. You need to look at the whole page and test its components within the context and role they play within the page and ultimately the page design needs to ‘hang together’ dude as a consistent whole. If getting testing started on the main site is really tough, then you can begin by picking some pay per click terms to get things going. But don’t pick the biggest and most important or you might be taking too big a risk with your first experiment.

The secret sauce of the Eisenbergs - Bryan works with his brother Jeffrey - is called ‘Persuasion Architecture’ which Bryan and Jeffrey launched, developed and trademarked some time ago. Put in the simplest of terms, the persuasion architecture approach consists of answering three key questions:

1. Who are we trying to persuade?
2. What action do we want them to take?
3. What action do they want to take?

What type are you?

Notice anything? There is a noticeable conflict set up in the questions themselves which if you’re sharp you’ve already spotted? Does the customer actually want to carry out the same action you want them to! Now I’ve not seen the detail behind the persuasion architecture idea – but I’m guessing that this conflict between what the customer wants – and the marketer – is the basis for the Eisenberg solution. Part of the solution is also that people are different. No they really are - I’ve noticed that.

Bryan refers to personality typing systems – such as Myers-Briggs – to come up with four core personality types which it is wise to accommodate in your marketing planning. (I have to say, as a user of the Myers-Briggs approach for some years, it’s a relief that there are only four types – rather than the 16 in the MB system and for those who’re interested I’m an ENTP). These four personality types are also connected to Bryan’s answer to my questions relating to how the conversion optimisation approach can be applied internationally which I’ll go into in moment.

Working with segments or personnae

The four basic personality types which Bryan describes as having a significant meaning for web marketers are:-

1. Competitive
2. Spontaneous
3. Methodical
4. Humanistic

The names of the different types are pretty much self-explanatory – but in his presentation Bryan proves, with the use of eye-tracking studies from the famous usability guru – Jakob Nielsen – that these different personality types do actually demonstrate distinct behaviours provoding proof of concept. Methodical types needs to become experts themselves, the spontaneous love pretty pictures, humanistics adore ‘about us’ pages and reviews whereas competitives make quick decisions and jump to conclusions.

Knowing these different types and behaviours is significant for people working in online marketing because knowing how people gather information informs how they should be addressed by websites. Typically online these groups are known as personae – though marketers for years have been calling them segments. (Same thing – different name. We can’t have web activities sounding like they were invented before the web can we?)

Thinking about conversion internationally

These personae are manna from heaven for multivariate testers – that’s the people who make many many changes to test a site very quickly - sometimes testing millions of elements at once. Knowing the types means they can see who they match up with different elements of a page – and no, the fact that there are four key types does not mean that you have to re-launch four different versions of your site – thankfully. What it does mean is looking at the site four times to see what messages and impacts will be delivered to the different types of visitor.

As we are just in the midst of making some changes to the WebCertain.com navigation system, I threw this idea at our marketing team and, interestingly, it did make a difference to what content we showed at the top and how we described things. Thanks Bryan. (These changes launch in a couple of weeks).

Offline, I asked Bryan how he saw these personnae relating to conversion optimisation à l’internationale. Bryan’s view is that the same personnae apply worldwide but they may well differ between markets and industries so you have to do your research. In fact, he points out that the Myers-Briggs types already accommodate these differences in that it is already known that the types vary by nationality and culture. What this means is that a water pump manufacturer may actually find that the personnae are pretty similar worldwide (more typical of business-to-business than business-to-consumer). They are less likely to have ’spontaneous’ web visitors than ‘methodicals’. A fashion retailer targeting consumers will likely spot many more differences.

Persuasion is not an event

Bryan’s presentations are full of great examples. In one stunning case, he shows a graphic which was tested resulting in a very small change which – he says – generated over $25 million of extra business for client. (I couldn’t help wondering at this point how and how much Bryan had actually charged his client but didn’t dare ask. Percentage share?) Both macro and mico actions are important. You not only need to understand the micro actions – such as why aren’t they clicking my jolly button – but also to look at the macro elements which is more to do with connecting the marketing messages with site journeys and processes. So, for instance, if insurance company Geico, runs a compaign targeted at ‘competitives’ where they are able to fill in the minimum of details quickly, don’t follow that up with a contact form with lots of additional mandatory fields.

Above all persuasion is a process not an event. Always ask yourself on every page why your customers should want to buy from you. One of Bryan’s books is called “Waiting For Your Cat to Bark” - so I was not particularly surprised to hear web-user-customers described as bloodhounds. There are two reasons why Bryan uses this analogy. One is that web users are exceptionally goal oriented – this is something which has been shown by study after study which I’ve personally consumed. But on top of that, usability folks like to talk about ‘information scent’ a lot – which fits the bloodhound well. Information scent was first understood by the Xerox team at the PARC or the Palo Alto Research Center.

“Watch out” page load speed is coming

55% of all people leave by the second click and 17% by the third click. With conversion rates typically running at no more than two to three per cent it stands to reason that action is needed. Says Bryan pointing at the audience in a rather ‘The Apprentice you’re fired’ manner, “If a keyword is relevant, the keyword doesn’t fail to convert you do.” So now you know.

Usability testing doesn’t necessarily mean long set-up cycles and expense either. By getting five testers from an organisation such as www.usertesting.com to run through your site trying to meet certain set – you can gain more information than you can from all of your web analytics data for a month. Now that’s some claim! These tools are also very powerful and easy to use.

As we all know, Google has laid out its stall for 2010 with very clear messages that page load times will be more important for both SEO and pay per click. They are not saying exactly what this will mean in practice but the “watch out” message is coming across loud and clear. Naturally Bryan is all in favour of this approach and users really DO NOT like slow loading pages wherever they are. He recommends looking at images on your site as this is a relatively easy fix and yet can consume lots of download time.

Landing pages have an anatomy?

You can do a speed test on your site at www.websiteoptimization.com - the speed tool is here. You need to bear in mind that interaction, a desirable for web marketers, means that users need to see responses in under one second.

Bryan recommends using smush.it - which is now a tool within the Yahoo developer network - to reduce the images. It quickly provides a reduced size image with a link to the file already appropriately ’smushed’ ie reduced to an acceptable web size.

Go figure - landing pages have their own anatomy. Is it serious doctor? Bryan explains that you can pretty much predict the common elements of pages and identify the main sections. There’s usually a logo, a headline, an offer, some copy and calls to action. (Actually the calls to action are usually missing or below the fold in my experience).

Page components and their features

But once you know the anatomy you can start to structure the way you’re going to test including looking at whether the page components play their role well - or are they just freeloaders? Ask yourself these questions:

• Is it relevant?
• Is the quality good?
• Where is it on the page?
• What’s it next to?
• What stands out?

The features of the page components you are testing should look at:

• Buttons
• Wording
• Shape
• Size
• Style
• Icon
• Color
• Legibility
• Location

Think about building confidence

Buttons are the easiest to test - and can make significant differences. And as for forms - just keep on testing them - that’s what all the big boys do and with good reason. Customer needs change, the competition such as forms and other competing websites improve and we should never forget that users have a choice. One of the things that influences their choice is the website’s functionality and it’s ease of use.

When testing forms the things to consider are the size’s of parts of the form including buttons and fields, the field’s and what they do, the field labels, benefits shown on the form page (yes there should be some) and confidence building materials on the page such as testimonials or client comments!

Every detail in a page matters and it is particularly important to ‘build confidence’ in the page using third party contributions, user-generated content, testimonials and resources to answer specific questions. Oh and don’t forget to look professional! It’s best if every page wears a suit and tie! Most especially give assurances directly at the point of action.

Looking at things from different angles

When Bryan says ’speak the right language’ he really means use the language with which your customer has empathy in terms of tone, formality, technical level and so on. But he wouldn’t disagree with me at all when I say that when working internationally it’s really not a good idea to skimp on the content quality or expect the user to put up with reading only partial content in their own language and then having to go to a English language form. Whoops.

Pictures of the product matter. Wow does Bryan really have to say that surely that’s obvious - er no it isn’t in fact. The quality of that picture counts but does it answer the potential buyer’s questions and anyway what are those questions is the general picture pitfall. it might be, for instance, different angles of the product if, say, it was a boot. Or you might get better sales if you have pictures of all the different colours you sell that attractive polo shirt in.

“Test, test, test”

Sorry Flash fans, Bryan isn’t a member of your club. He reckons that changing that animated flash banner to a static one with bullets can actually reduce the abandonment rate. You should also avoid using we-we too much in the content of your website - the Eisenbergs have once built a tool which pulses electricity through your chair if you’ve overdone it. (Sorry Bryan - I have a problem with this one because I use ‘we’ all the time in my copywriting but as the voice of the client as in “We need to get our act together on international SEO. That’s a challenge for many but now you’re in the right place.” Never forget to show off the character of your brand - though you might find it easier to work with third parties to give you clear objectivity on this one.

The key point of everything Bryan says is “test, test, test” - it’s the only way to get close to your customers’ needs - and that includes those in other countries. You have to adopt the testing mentality if you’re ambitious and want to be the next Amazon. I’d accept the next Amazonette - but still.

The top languages are in a way surprising. The top five languages are English, Japanese, Portuguese, Malay and Spanish. This shows that Twitter is very popular in the far east. Japan accounts for 14% of the messages while Malay languages (Indonesia) reaches until 6%. The high number of Spanish and Portuguese tweets are less surprising with many countries in South America also using these languages.

The research was performed within 48 hours. For two days all the tweets were counted. In that time the researchers found that major European languages like German, Italian and even Dutch are used for about 1% to 2% of all messages. The French seem the least active on Twitter with less than a percent of the messages.

With half of the tweets in another language than English and Tweets now being indexed by search engines it is becoming more and more interesting to ad specific languages to your twitter-efforts if you are targeting any of the languages named above.

Oscar Carreras, SEO Manager at Hotels.com, will be speaking about how they devised and implemented an international Twitter strategy to target markets such as Japan and Brazil at the International Search Summit in May.

source: http://semiocast.com/static/downloads/Semiocast_Half_of_messages_on_Twitter_are_not_in_English_20100224.pdf

Google has labeled this a serious threat to the web in Italy.

Google posts:

” … But we are deeply troubled by this conviction for another equally important reason. It attacks the very principles of freedom on which the Internet is built. Common sense dictates that only the person who films and uploads a video to a hosting platform could take the steps necessary to protect the privacy and obtain the consent of the people they are filming …”

What is common sense ? According to wikipedia it’s “what people in common would agree on” or their “common natural understanding”.

The common sense of many is the result of our every day teaching and educating our children, how we influence them based on our behaviour, reputation, and authority.

Google are right, it is the responsibility of those who film and upload - in other words:

• Why should Google do the patrolling?
• Where are the parents?
• What is common sense today ?

As so called common sense becomes scarce in households, opportunity arises for legislators to step in and fill the gap families and parents leave behind.

My freedom ends where your freedom begins

or does it ? Probably not …

So in Italy it’s videos on YouTube, in Germany it’s Google Analytics … that’s United Europe for you …

The scent of information exists on a website to guide the user and help them easily navigate their way through the site, understanding where on the site they are and the value each link or call to action offers them. Understanding what your users want and giving it to them will improve conversion rates and user satisfaction.

Shari will talk about how information scents vary from country to country and the impact this has on marketers managing global seo campaigns.

Shari is a regular speaker at search marketing conferences around the world and has written several books on SEO and Usability. She is the Founder and SEO Director of Omni Marketing Interactive.

Tickets for the International Search Summit are available now at the early bird rate. Other speakers include Bas van den Beld from State of Search, Steve Capone of Nokia and Bruce Daisley of YouTube.

The question about domains also crops up in other sessions and yesterday’s first day at SES London was no exception. The debate spilled over into the Industry Specific panel which I moderated immediately after presenting on the Global SEO panel. The whole point of this debate is related to ‘Geo-targeting’

What Is Geo-targeting?

What we mean by geo-targeting is making sure that, for example, MyFrenchSite appears:

• 1. In the ‘Web’ results even if a French searcher goes to Google.com but after Google has filtered the results for the French market to present more relevant local results
• 2. In the ‘Pages francophones’ radio button which means that Google has detected that the pages are published in the French language - regardless of which country they might be targeted at
• 3. In the ‘Pages : France’ radio button which means that Google believes that those pages are dedicated to the French geography - whether or not they are actually physically present there

Why Does Geo-Targeting Matter?

There are three main reasons why we worry about Geo-targeting:

• 1. To target the right pages at the right audience.
• 2. To give the French pages the best chance of ranking in the country to which they relate and in the various radio buttons
• 3. To reduce the likelihood of duplication causing a problem for my site.

Making sure the right audience sees the right pages could be significant for a marketer if, for instance, they sell different products or products at different prices to the Austrians and the Germans. A duplication problem - potentially caused by not taking care over the geo-targeting issue - would likely mean that the Austrians would see only German pages.

As far as the radio buttons is concerned, most people should now be able to examine in their analytics how much traffic they get from the different Google radio buttons. We’ve certainly been seeing this data for at least two years and the conclusion that there can be significant volumes of traffic going through searches with the radio buttons set. In the Global SEO panel, I showed a slide with 15% going into the language button and 10% the country. These figures are purely typical figures as it varies significantly from sector to sector and - even - from keyword to keyword.

So What Are Our Options?

1. Use a dot com or other top level domain and set the geographic location in Webmaster Central
2. Use a dot com or other top level domain and host locally
3. Use a local country domain

In the Industry Specific session both Dave Naylor and Rob Kerry put an additional spanner in the works by saying that Google no longer takes account of the IP address and therefore local hosting non longer has any value. I think that Dave and Rob are thinking about this thread on the use of IP addresses on the Google support forums which was also referred to by SEOMOZ recently.

All Google are saying here is that if there is a Webmaster Central setting or a local domain, then they will ignore the location of the IP address. If these signals are not present, then they will indeed still use the IP address location to help them decide where to ‘bucket’ the site.

Basically, this is a decision-making tree in which Google takes a hierarchical look at different signals:

1. Is Webmaster Central geo set?> Yes>> Look no further - ignore IP addresses - ignore geographic location of links.
2. Is Webmaster Central geo set?> No>> - Is this a dot com? >> Yes >> Check IP address for location - Check geographic indicator of links
3. This is a local domain>> Look no further - ignore IP addresses - Ignore location of links

The above is intended as a guide to make this confusing area a little clearer as this area is still more complex than shown above. For one thing when working with a dot com you then need to decide between sub-domains or folders upon which you plan to set Webmaster Centrals geo-targeting option.

My advice is quite clearly this; If you can use local domains - do. Only sectors which find it difficult to obtain local links at all (the adult zones) should opt from choice for a dot com. You cannot set a Webmaster Central geo for a local domain - but then you don’t need to because it is a very strong signal on its own. And just to throw a further spanner into the works, I happen to believe that local hosting even for local domains also helps.

Why Choose Local Domains?

1. Clear Geo-targeted Signal

You actually need to go and buy a country code domain or ccTLD and register with a local authority. As such, the local domain has always represented the best controlled and strictest identifier of a specific geography. There are some exceptions of course, but these are mostly to do with certain domains, such as .tv (the tiny island state of Tuvalu) having found that their particular geography had a gold mine domain name it could use to generate revenue.

2. Cost of Maintaining Content v Cost of SEO

When corporations calculate the cost of making the change, they tend to give less financial value to the ongoing cost of SEO and of compensating for not having the relevant local domain. This could mean additional local hosting costs or even substantial link building to overcome the inherent disadvantages of the dot com.

3. Better Conversions Rates -People Buy Locally

Some SEOs may not see conversion factors as the most important in recommending which steps a client should take. However, I firmly believe users read URLs in the search engine results and that it has a direct impact on how many of them click on links.

4. Easier To Obtain Local Links

Having a local domain also helps in your link building programs. Other sites in the same country are much more likely to link to you if you have a local domain. But it’s especially true that they’ll be more interested in receiving links from you if you’re local—after all, they need local links too. Many local directories will only accept local domain names in any case.

5. Power-Up Internal Link Structures

Links between sites of the same dot com are less valuable, in my view, than links between truly international versions using local domains. So a site which splits its dot com into many countries has an opportunity to reap some benefits from the many different domains it now controls—subject to the normal caveats such as having quality content and offering a good experience to the user.

6. More Stability in Rankings

I can’t prove this one to you, but after more than a decade of experience I’m convinced that local domain sites tend to be more stable in results than dot coms which move up and down when search engine algorithms change.

Set Up An Effective Geo-Selector

The geo-selector—the method by which countries and languages are chosen—plays a key role in sharing link values around the site. Dot coms have an advantage here,but only because using local domains shows up the poor structure of the geo-selector. This is one of the reasons why many jump to the conclusion that dot coms are better even for international sites.

In my long experience, I can confidently say local domains are winners every time.

By my reckoning, that roughly means that only 8% of people who translate their website bother at any point to either consider SEO or to buy a service for it. Is that possible? Although it’s a pretty crude calculation, I’d say that figure is no exaggeration. Far more people translate than employ any kind of SEO - which is much more the cream on the cake.

Oh No It Isn’t…

Translation and the localisation industry is a much older industry than SEO with professional standards, university courses and strict regulation. Personally, I’ve lost more sleepless night over language exams than I’ve ever done over SEO or search marketing tests. The Google Adwords Professional scheme being the only thing that has really tested (more frustrating than testing actually…).

But that doesn’t mean that localisation professionals shouldn’t start to get more interested in SEO. In the case of large corporations, they are often spending the bulk of the company’s investment in content and international SEO processes should be thought about as part of the whole localisation project. Going further, decision making surrounding which content to localise in the first place - assuming that it is not ALL web-based content - should be conditioned by keyword research to determine which content it is in the company’s interests to translate.

There are two key steps to consider even before putting out an RFP:

Step One: Where to start? Research!

The place to start is at the very beginning - to quote a famous musical film. That’s the research element. If it’s the beginning of a roll-out of a new project this might be investigating the best markets to enter. More likely, there’s already some knowledge and some experience and its more important to consider which products to focus on and how. In either of these situations keyword research plays a signficant role.

Step Two: Process Planning

Unfortunately, this step is often skipped or not recognised. Most assume that SEO is a separate process to be tagged on the end - but in reality it is most important to plan for the search engine promotion of the content of a site right at the outset and to integrate the steps into the project itself by planning the necessary changes to processes.

Well it’s not really quite like that. Note that in the introduction above I’m talking about ‘compare’ as opposed to measure. What the Hitwise move will do is to give us a different basis for comparing activity in France. It does not mean that we have either not been able to measure things before OR that there is no data available on French websites as the Xiti tool from AT Internet has been around for a long time. Whilst AT Internet does have operations outside France - France is its home base.

There is also the famous Baromètre which measures the shares of French, German, Spanish and UK search engines. Currently, this is showing Google advancing against all-comers - though when you are Google and you have 94.2% in Germany, 92.8% in Spain, 89.2% in France and 90.8% in the UK - are you really worried about Bing which performs best in France with 3.6%. Time will only tell.

Experian launches Hitwise Internet measurement services for France

Almost 25% of the global internet population visit the site each month, a testament to the international appeal of the site, and the extensive range of content that attracts a wide demographic of users.

At the International Search Summit in May, Bruce Daisley, the UK Head of YouTube, will speak on how organisations can harness the international power of YouTube to increase global brand awareness and engage with audiences around the world.

Any organisation serious about international video marketing needs to have a YouTube presence as it really is a global tool.

The International Search Summit will cover a range of search and online marketing topics including mobile search, international domain names, global Twitter campaigns and social network advertising.

Register for the Summit – February Early Bird tickets are just £140.

Sources:
www.alexa.com
www.comscore.com

ComScore’s US January data was released on Tuesday with the following results:

• Google - dropped from 65.7% in December to 65.4% in January
• Yahoo - dropped from 17.3% in December to 17% in January
• Bing - increased from 10.7% in December to 11.3% in January
• Ask - increased from 3.7% in December to 3.8% in January
• AOL - dropped from 2.6% in December to 2.5% in January
• BingHoo (Combined Bing/Yahoo figures) increased from 28% in December to 28.3% in January

Hitwise’s Data was released on Wednesday with the following results:

• Google - dropped from 72.2% in December to 71.5% in January
• Yahoo - dropped from 14.8% in December to 14.6% in January
• Bing - increased from 8.9% in December to 9.4% in January
• Ask - increased from 2.5% in December to 2.6% in January
• BingHoo (Combined Bing/Yahoo figures) - increased from 23.7% in December to 24% in January

Whilst it is odd that two such august bodies as Hitwise and ComScore can come with figures that are so different - with Hitwise giving Google by far the biggest lead - what is reassuring is that both sets of statistics position the engines in roughly the same positions thereby validating each other. Both confirm a .3% advance for the Microsoft/Yahoo partnership.

Meanwhile, Google launched it’s Google Buzz product just as the Hitwise Experian and ComScore figures for January were permeating the press and blogosphere showing an increase for Bing - and also for Bing-Yahoo combined. Coincidence? Actually, it probably was a coincidence - but the Google Buzz product nonetheless seems to have been a little rushed to market with many features and facilities just not quite complete. Seems a shame that the name ‘Buzz’ was chosen as that wasn’t really how to launch a product which needs -ahem- buzz.

Meanwhile, whilst the figures are not that different to the run rate last year, with the exception of the Yahoo decline, they do demonstrate that Bing has not reached a plateau and has not been knocked out of the contest. Many commentators point out that Microsoft is spending large advertising budgets to promote Bing. But then others say advertising can’t shift search share and - anyway - Google just advertised in the middle of the Superbowl. (That’s an American sporting event, by the way - nothing to do with cooking).

Sun Tzu also said, “I have heard of military operations that were clumsy but swift, but I have never seen one that was skillful and lasted a long time!” In other words, sometimes it’s better to be a little clumsy and get their first which is perhaps what Google is trying to do. But wait, almost all of the features of Google Buzz already exist in either Yahoo or Bing products? And Facebook and Twitter are doing very nicely thank you.

Maybe Google has a strategy of launching as many things as possible as quickly as possible even at the risk of being a little unprepared on the basis that eventually the enemy will be worn down. Meanwhile, Bing’s strategy seems much more enigmatic, not saying a lot but quietly making a few improvements, straightening out a few alliances and generally preparing for battle and playing the long game.

You have the feeling that it is actually Bing at the moment who is following Sun Tsu’s other advice, “He will win who knows when to fight and when not to fight.” Bing it seems is choosing not to fight - yet.

Key Sources of Further Information

Google’s Buzz Fails to Unite Opinions

Bing Increased Share of U.S. Search Market in January

Yahoo talks tough about its search business

Bing Gains in January - WSJ

Google Buzz: The Good, Bad, & Ugly Reactions

Google Buzz: Google Takes On Twitter, Facebook & Even Foursquare

January Search Results In! Bing Keeps Gaining Share, Everyone Else Loses

They have been running “Good Coffee Smile Campaign” since 1999 using mas-media. This year, they decided to use Twitter in addition to ads on TV, newspaper and magazines. On Feb 5, they set up 11 bot accounts to push tweets to people, who used words such as “coffee” “ucc” and “campaign”. Immediately, this “campaign” back-fired, and on Feb 7, they suspended Twitter campaigns and posted an apology on one of the accounts.

This shows how different social media is from the traditional advertising and the marketing. You should never use social media to “push” something. If you are not willing to communicate - socialize with the people, you should stick to banner ads.

Attending conferences is something of an acquired art. You can tell those who’ve had plenty of practice because they remain most relaxed, avoid the ever imminent threat of hangover and don’t try to do too much. My very first SEO conference, I ducked and dived between sessions to gain as much as I could from the event, networked as hard as I could and spent the next few weeks recuperating.

How many times have I been asked “Which sessions would you recommend I go to?” Today I believe the best response is to point people at speakers. There are three reasons why you should choose to go and watch a particular speaker:

• Outstanding, talented or very informative speakers
• Speaker noone’s ever heard of - including me - to find out if they’re worth seeing
• Speaker you’ve never heard of but you’re recommended to go and see

And by the way, don’t go because of what the bio says - often the worst bios disguise some great speakers!

So what this all really means is that speaker recommendations are truly key to having a successful conference. As someone fortunate enough to count many of the speakers amongst my friends and associates - and who has attended at least one such conference every month for the last few years - it seemed appropriate for me to share with you my recommendations and comments. So here are my personal thoughts in random order - this list is NOT all the speakers worth seeing as that would be just too tough to do (If I’ve missed you out guys - I guess the best recourse is to grab me in the bar!):

Bryan Eisenberg: Bryan is not only one of the nicest guys on the circuit, boy is his preparation for conferences impressive. I was lucky to choose to go and see the presentation he will be keynoting in London when it was run-through at SES Chicago. His presentation on “21 Secrets of Top Converting Websites” - is so slick and englightening not only did I stop taking notes in Chicago so I could listen to every word, I might just go and watch this again! Only weakness - Bryan uses Macs… www.bryaneisenberg.com

Jim Sterne: Mr eMetrics par excellence, just like Bryan, Jim is a consumate speaker, preparer and very nice guy. Not only has he written six books, but he’s also the founding president and current chairman of the Web Analytics Association. He once tried to explain to me why Americans didn’t get international search marketing - fortunately things have changed dramatically on that score in the last few years. www.targeting.com

Dave Naylor: Funny this but Dave - also known as DaveN - lives just a few miles away from me and yet I first met Dave in Stockholm and see him more often in the US than I do in the UK. Whatever Dave says is worth listening to - even though he might throw you a few curve balls - or challenging comments that you really have to follow up on later, but his knowledge of SEO is without question. And his humerous presentation of it all,
is worth watching even if you’re already an expert! www.bronco.co.uk

Rand Fishkin: The SEO industry’s true celebrity - my first meeting with Rand was at SES New York when the yellow sneakers - Rand’s trademark - were still at the peak of their pulling power. Rand is just a great communicator who would be dangerous if he went into politics. Oh and he knows a thing or two about search marketing - and white boards. www.seomoz.org

Matt Bailey: Matt’s been around the circuit quite a number of years and is latterly best known - by me anyway - for the excellence of his training presentations. Clear, concise, interesting and yet dealing with complex subjects in a digestible way. www.sitelogicmarketing.com

Brian Clifton: Ex-head of Google Analytics Europe, Brian could be said to know how to measure web things. For those of us who were there, it will be difficult to erase the mental image of Brian being crowned ‘Head of the Vikings’ at an SEO conference evening when he beat representatives from Ask, Yahoo and Microsoft to the title (representing Google of course). Now he returned to a more search engine independent position. www.advanced-web-metrics.com

Bill and Motoko Hunt: Since Bill and I both generally specalise in a similar field (international search marketing), I have lost count of the number of panels I have jointly done with Bill - or for that matter with Motoko his Japanese-search-marketing-specialist wife. Bill has in-dept technical knowledge on international search and SEO - so if international is important to you make sure you catch Bill or Motoko’s panels. back-azimuth.com AJPR.com

Dixon Jones: Dixon has spoken at many of our International Search Summit events and we’ve shared a platform many times. Sadly, Dixon’s ‘white hat’ seems to have disappeared from his conference kit right now. I wonder if that’s because he’s now gone ‘grey’ since his work with MajesticSEO began? Seriously, Dixon has a lot to say on the subject of links. www.receptional.com www.majesticseo.com

John Marshall: Remember ClickTracks? John was behind that and although he was already then based in California - where he now still lives - he’s a Brit who has’nt lost any of his Britishness and sense of humour - even though he’s recently officially become an American citizen. Nowadays, training and certification is John’s bag through his current business MarketMotive. www.marketmotive.com

Shari Thurow: Shari leads the field in search usability - and she’s highly recognised as a speaker in the usability field. But there are many other facets to Shari which not everyone spots. Listen to her very sharp comedic timing when she’s speaking because if you’re not keeping up, by the time the penny drops it could be too late. Shari is also a regular speaker at the International Search Summit. www.search-usability.com

Greg Jarboe: I can only be rude about Greg. I have to find some way to wreak revenge for him dressing me (and many others) in a blue Santa Clause hat whilst seated next to the fireplace in the Chicago Hilton bar during December’s SES Chicago. But he’s forgiven because Greg has a unique speaking ability to make sometimes tough subjects - like your online reputation - remain interesting whilst delivering meaningful thought-provoking content. www.seo-pr.com

Sante Achille: Thankfully having recently survived the Acquila Italian earthquake, Sante is an SEO who’s really grasped the nettle with blogs to promote a business - and multilingually too. He is, of course, a trusted contributor to Multilingual-Search.com and the International Search Summits. blog.achille.name

Mikkel deMib Svendsen: Danish-guru Mikkel - still remembered for wearing red suits to speak - has been around the industry longer than the industry has been around. What he knows, he can’t deliver in a panel or site clinic because there isn’t time - but grab it anyway. I once moderated a panel with Mikkel and Shari - and became the jam in the sandwich. www.demib.com

Peter Maxmin: Peter presented at our last International Search Summit - and his presentation gives some very useful insights from a search engine’s perspective particularly looking at what users want to get out of search. Very useful stuff for search marketers. Bing.co.uk

Mike Grehan: The first thing that ever struck me about Mike was the voice - I thought he should be on radio - then I discovered he had been. Something of an Icon - and now appropriately heading the team at Search Engine Strategies/ Clickz - Mike has extremely valuable insights relating to the search industry. In particular, Mike is very good at understanding and presenting ‘information retrieval’ which is how search engines see things and relating it to ’search marketing’ which of course is what the SEO-world tends to call it. He almost certainly has the best personal network of people there is in the industry. www.searchenginestrategies.com

Kristjan Mar Hauksson: Kristjan hails from Iceland where his school had special barriers to keep the polar bears out. And if you can run a business in Iceland with no banks - you can run one anywhere. These days speaking more on reputation management - Kristjan’s personality is such that he could speak on anything - you’d still want to listen. www.nordicemarketing.com

Anne Kennedy: Anne Kennedy should really be living at Portland on the south coast of England - but someone made a mistake and so now she’s hopping from Portland east coast US to Portland west coast. Or rather it would be better for us Brits is she lived in the UK - Anne is a great speaker and regularly attends the International Search Summits - but she’s also a fantastic moderator. Presently her focus is on optimising ‘digital assets’ and I’m sure we’d all like to be confident that our digital assets are properly optimised - right? Very useful tips - joking aside… Joblr.com

Mel Carson: Mel is the glue of the UK’s search marketing industry who makes sure we’re all connected and doing the right things. Who knows, one day he might be running conferences. Right now, he’s doing an excellent job of ensuring good relations between Microsoft’s Bing and the search marketing industry and they, and we, are richer for having him. bing.co.uk

Matt McGowan: Matt is the chief at Search Engine Strategies from a business point of view. Both a listener and a thinker - he’s keeps closely in touch with the industry even despite his apparently relaxed exterior. www.searchenginestrategies.com

Mr and Mrs Myers: Bill and Motoko Hunt aren’t the only search couple - but Jon and Lisa Myers are the only ones, that I know, who met through search. Both are great presenters and personalities. On one occasion by sheer chance, I ended up sat next to Lisa and Rob Kerry on an 11-hour flight to a conference in Vegas. My luck - their misfortune! www.jonmyers.co.uk www.vervesearch.com

Others I would have liked to have had space to mention include Bas van den Beld, Ralph Tegtmeier, Rob Walk, Richard Zwicky, Jamie Smith, Marcelo Sant’Iago, Kevin Ryan, Ciaran Norris - I’ll try and cover these and other speakers in blogging from the event. If you think I’ve missed someone or want to add more detail - please feel free to comment!

Looking to expand its user base and searching for brand awareness opportunities, Facebook is hiring a Growth Manager.

The opening is posted on FB´s website and it is a 6-12 months engagement, so we cannot say if they will have a full staff soon. But it is a start.

They are also hiring in Russia and India, thus BRIC is a priority now.

Early Bird Tickets for the Summit are now on sale. Other sessions include Mobile Search in Europe, Non-Latin IDNs and International Twitter Strategies.

Of course, governmental organisations both sides of the Atlantic are working hard to promote exports – I’ve personally spoken to and advised many of them. However, some support – and promotion of – international SEO is required with some urgency. I, therefore, felt a letter to Gordon Brown and Barack Obama would be just the ticket to highlight the need. Here’s my letter:

Dear Barack and Gordon,

The global economic crisis – the worst since the second world war – places us all in exceptional times calling for exceptional steps. Both of you have said so in recent days. Clearly, growth in the US and UK economies is now, more than ever, linked to success in export markets. Both nations are great exporters – but sometimes the way that we, the British and the Americans, communicate with our potential customers in other markets can be rather ‘clumsy’. Let’s be honest, both nations are not particularly gifted at working in languages other than English.

Both of you are also well aware of the impact of digital marketing on present day business life – Barack you have used this tool very effectively to promote yourself during the presidential election. You are also aware of the growth of the use of the internet in corners of the world in the so-called BRIC economies of Brazil, Russia, India and China – all of them economies which are performing relatively well despite the global economy.

Global Internet Economy Grows

The success of search engines such as Google, Yahoo, Bing, Yandex and Baidu is enabling internet-connected people to look well beyond the borders of their own nations to buy products and services or to compare other nations products and services and then to develop their own and compete. This easy access to the global village means there is an imperative to move forwards quickly with the development of the British and American approach to globalisation because the competition is actually growing every day.

Given that this threat is also an opportunity – there is no real option. British and American goods and services have to be marketed online and we have to act now to deliver the necessary economic growth. It is not acceptable for Governments to say, “If you’re having a hard time at home, you’d better export.” Although both governments do have very professional export support organisations, they cannot be expected to change the way they do things without either neglecting a service they already deliver today or falling behind the pace of other nations.

It Is ‘English’ That Puts Us At Risk

The English language is the US and UK’s big advantage in that everyone translates their website into English so if you’re English-speaking you can navigate around much of the internet-world and source products and services all over. In other words, English-speakers make good BUYERS. But that’s the rub! “If you want me to buy, speak my language!”. The big benefit of the English-language puts the UK and US at risk when it comes to export and to reaching the wider global market.

SEO or search engine optimisation – is a very effective and relatively low cost way for businesses to reach out to customers and, by localising and adapting websites effectively, this can enable businesses of every size from the smallest to the very largest to expand their export markets. Both the American and UK Governments should invest some of their export and trade subsidies specifically into ‘international seo’ or website localisation. This action would inevitably promote products and services very quickly.

Avoid The Risk-Averse Reaction

Promoting international SEO and website localisation would also help to counteract the risk averse reaction which potential new exporters have towards looking for new markets. Businesses in difficult tend to revert to their comfort zone and take fewer risks. This can be commercial suicide if your ‘comfort zone’ happens to be a part of the economy which is not doing well. It would also be relatively simple for government bodies to monitor the outcomes potentially even looking at international traffic generated to the websites.

I do need to declare a personal interest: my company delivers international SEO services and I would stand to gain from this. Nonetheless, my view that adopting a more aggressive national stance to use web site marketing and international SEO still stands. Britain and America need to expand their markets overseas in the most dynamic way possible. This is it.

regards, Andy

The session will look at the current trends in mobile search marketing across Europe and offer tips and suggestions on how marketers should react to them and exploit the opportunities available through mobile.

The International Search Summit will take place on 13th May at the Barbican in London. Tickets are now on sale at the Early Bird Price. The Summit focuses on international and multilingual search marketing.

There is a great synergy between the two events, as they both focus on the challenges and solutions to globalization and localization. The International Search Summit agenda is yet to be announced however it will cover the key topics of international search, offering advice and insight into how to successfully run a multilingual search marketing campaign.

More details will be released in the coming weeks, when tickets go on sale.

The SEO category is featuring an international SEO post for the first time - The Top 10 Pitfalls of International SEO by Andy Atkins-Krüger has made the final.

Voting is open until 29th January - visit www.semmys.org to choose your favourites.

The United States had the largest search market globally with 22.7 billion searches or about 17% of the total number of searches. China was second on the list with 13.3 billion searches and Japan with 9.2 billion, was third. Search in Russia grew dramatically by 92 percent to increase to 3.3 billion searches.

“The global search market continues to grow at an extraordinary rate, with both highly developed and emerging markets contributing to the strong growth worldwide,” said Jack Flanagan, comScore executive vice president. “Search is clearly becoming a more ubiquitous behavior among Internet users that drives navigation not only directly from search engines but also within sites and across networks. If you equate the advancement of search with the ability of humans to cultivate information, then the world is rapidly becoming a more knowledgeable ecosystem.”

They also cited attempts by the Chinese government to tighten censorship. Google said it was prepared to pull out if it was not permitted to run its local service without further censoring. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called on China “for an explanation” of Google’s allegations. “The ability to operate with confidence in cyberspace is critical in a modern society and economy,” Mrs. Clinton said.

In June 2004 Google bought a 2.4% stake in Baidu, China’s biggest search engine, Baidu. Then, in April 2005, it paid a cyber-squatter for the google.cn domain name. Google entered the China market in 2005 and set up a China research and development center in July 2005. They launched google.com.cn in January of 2006. On their blog they state ‘At the time we made clear that “we will carefully monitor conditions in China, including new laws and other restrictions on our services. If we determine that we are unable to achieve the objectives outlined we will not hesitate to reconsider our approach to China.”

Google appointed Kai-Fu Lee, a Microsoft corporate vice-president, as Google China president and head of the new center which led to a lawsuit. Microsoft settled out of court with Google in December 2005. Terms of the agreement were not released. Dr Lee left Google in September of last year.