PPC Clicks Pay in the Long Run

PPC doesn’t always result in instant success.  Companies using PPC services could find customers returning to their website a few times prior to buying products.

In a recent industry article, it suggested that PPC services are frequently the reason shoppers visit a site for the first time, which leads to purchases later on.

The article went on to say: “Many online marketers see significant latency between a paid click on an online ad and a purchase but that doesn’t mean the ad didn’t drive a sale.”

Valuable consumers are inclined to buy something and then keep returning to make more purchases meaning marketers see an increased value credited to the initial PPC click as time goes by.

Google Continue to Lead the comScore Rankings

The findings of the latest rankings report from comScore confirm that the most popular search engine in America is Google.  No shock there!

The report advises that Google had a staggering 65.6% share of searches carried out last month.

Yahoo! came in second with a 16.1% share.  Microsoft’s Bing followed Yahoo! with 13.1% which is a rise of 1.1%.

The January results saw a decline for Google.  In the December 2010 comScore results saw Google with a 66.6% share of searches.  However, not too much for Google to worry about yet as during December there were more than 16.4 billion core searches carried out on the web as a whole.

January saw almost 17 billion core searches carried out on the web with 11.1 billion of them belonging to Google.

Bing reply to Google’s ‘Cheating’ Accusations

Following Google’s claim that Bing has been cheating earlier in the week, Bing have fought back.  Not only has Bing denied copying Google, it has also accused Google of committing click fraud.

Microsoft’s Senior Vice President of Online Services, Yusuf Mehdi published his response on the Bing Search Blog.

His post was made in reply to the claim made by Google on 1st February that Bing had been copying their search results.  Google ran tests that manually promoted and ranked random web pages when a nonsense search term was entered into Google.com.  During testing, Google discovered that a small percentage of test queries later replicated the same ranking on Bing.com

Mehdi said:  “We do not copy results from any of our competitors. Period. Full stop. We have some of the best minds in the world at work on search quality and relevance, and for a competitor to accuse any one of these people of such activity is just insulting.”

The war of words between the two has seen Bing accuse Google trying to trick them on purpose and Google saying that Bing is just a cheap imitation of Google.

And it hasn’t stopped there; Mehdi has put another post on the Bing Blog suggesting that the Google test was a form a click fraud.

“Google engaged in a “honeypot” attack to trick Bing. In simple terms, Google’s “experiment” was rigged to manipulate Bing search results through a type of attack also known as “click fraud.” That’s right, the same type of attack employed by spammers on the web to trick consumers and produce bogus search results. What does all this cloak and dagger click fraud prove? Nothing anyone in the industry doesn’t already know. As we have said before and again in this post, we use click stream optionally provided by consumers in an anonymous fashion as one of 1,000 signals to try and determine whether a site might make sense to be in our index.”

With both sides seeming determined to have the last word, god only knows how long this debate could go on for.  As things stand, Bing are in front but watch this space!

Bing copy Google’s Search Results. Nothing less than cheating?

Google says that they have proof that Bing has been watching what their customers search for on Google.  Google mounted a sting exercise that gathered results showing that Bing has been watching users Google search results and the sites the customers choose from those results.  Bing has then replicated the information to populate the same results it their search listings.

This basically means that thanks to work done by Google, Bing has potentially improved their relevancy.  Google likens the behaviour of Bing to that of one student looking over another’s shoulder during an exam.

Amit Singhal, who manages the Google search engine ranking algorithm said: “I’ve spent my career in pursuit of a good search engine.  I’ve got no problem with a competitor developing an innovative algorithm. But copying is not innovation, in my book.”

The amazing thing is, Bing are not denying Google’s claim.  In fact, an email to Search Engine Land from the director of Microsoft’s Bing search engine, Stefan Weitz, appears to confirm the allegation:

As you might imagine, we use multiple signals and approaches when we think about ranking, but like the rest of the players in this industry, we’re not going to go deep and detailed in how we do it. Clearly, the overarching goal is to do a better job determining the intent of the search, so we can guess at the best and most relevant answer to a given query.

Opt-in programs like the [Bing] toolbar help us with clickstream data, one of many input signals we and other search engines use to help rank sites. This “Google experiment” seems like a hack to confuse and manipulate some of these signals

Watch this space as we don’t think we’ve heard the last about this!

SEO and Search Engine Friendly are NOT the Same

A search engine friendly website is different to a search engine optimised website.

This is the advice of Search Engine Watch.  In an article they advise that companies engaged in SEO campaigns need to understand that SEO is a different technique to designing an effective website.

Search Engine Watch advised: “Many times people will build what amounts to a search engine friendly website without truly understanding how to build a search engine optimised website.”

An example would be website URL structures.  What may get the best search engine results pages (SERPS) could differ significantly from the URL structure that a successful site has.

Another tactic to increase SEO efforts is to research your keywords to determine which keywords and phrases are more relevant to the products or services that you offer.

In a previous blog we outlined how people should try and use relevant content in their URLs where possible.

Google smash December 2010 Search Engine Rankings

Specialists in measuring digital world statistics, comScore, have released its latest search engine rankings for December 2010.  As you would expect, Google dominate the search engine market in the United States.

A staggering 66.6% of searches were carried out on the search engine giant’s pages.  If nothing else, this should convince companies using digital media to invest in using Google for their pay per click (PPC) campaigns.

Google have increased their market share by 0.4% during December compared to the 66.2% reported for November 2010.

In comparison, Yahoo snatched 16% of the market share, dipping by 0.4% and Microsoft saw an increase of 0.2% taking them to 12% of the distribution.

Of the 16.4 billion searches carried out during December, just short of 11 billion were carried out on Google.

The results of the search engine rankings were as follows:

Yahoo undertake online shoppers survey

With another festive shopping spree behind us, Yahoo! decided carry out research to find out how search played a role for shoppers.  The key question for Yahoo! was: How are people who use search as part of their shopping process different from other shoppers?

Yahoo got together with marketing consultancy agency, AddedValue to survey 2000 shoppers.  They were quizzed about their shopping habits and whether they used search before making a purchase.  Yahoo discovered that those who used search as part of the purchase process represent a group of hyper-engaged shoppers.

The survey revealed that the hyper-engaged shoppers had more knowledge of products and used more online resources than non-searching shoppers.

The survey revealed the following facts:

50% of searchers source customer reviews and ratings online
43% of searchers visit shopping comparison websites to make an informed decision
37% of searchers visit coupon websites to check daily deals
25% of searchers check out a brand’s social media channels like Twitter and Facebook
53% use their mobile devices to help them research a purchase

Following the survey, Yahoo! invited it’s hyper-engaged shoppers to provide them with feedback so they can try to improve the users experience where possible.

Search set to dominate online spend in 2011

The search market is ending the year as it started 2010 by controlling online spend.

According to a recent IPA Bellwether report, advertisers are increasing their search budgets by 9.9% for the next quarter.  Despite the touch economic climate marketers remain confident in performance based marketing.

 Search advertising has now grown out of its infancy so users are no longer scared of using it and are confident in its transparency.

We have seen performance marketing outgrow the conventional use of search and affiliate work and move towards the Twitter and Facebook ad models.  Earlier in the year we saw large brands moving direct response funds from Google to Facebook.  This came as a result of agency work that proved search campaigns can be successful on social media.

Google could be justified in being a little concerned in this trend as reports suggest the social media trend will continue to grow over the next 12 months.

Another aspect to keep an eye on is the fresh approach from Yahoo and Microsoft.  Their combined platforms are offering advertisers new opportunities but has yet to hit the dizzy heights of Google’s strength in brand.

Google publish the top UK search terms for 2010

Google has recently published its list of most searched for terms and phrases for 2010 in the UK.

Amongst the fastest-rising searches for 2010 was Justin Bieber, the iPad, the World Cup and Formspring, the conversational Q&A platform. 

In terms of volume, Facebook topped the most search term followed by the BBC, YouTube and Hotmail.

Argos, Tesco and Next topped the list of most searched High Street stores with bargain hunters searching for ‘cheap flights’, ‘cheap holidays’ and ‘cheap train tickets’.

Punters looking for tickets to live events and showings bombarded the search engine trying to get their hands on Take That tickets.  Surprisingly, searches for Lion King tickets came runner up behind Take That, followed by Wimbledon Tickets.

Other search categories published by Google included top news and current events, fastest rising people, top divorces, fastest rising lyrics, ‘I love’ searches, ‘I hate’ searches, ‘I want’ searches, ‘who is’ searches, ‘I feel’ searches, and top food and drink.

Head of media and campaigns at the British Retail Consortium, Richard Dodd, said earlier this month that shoppers are shunning the high street now in favour of shopping online.

What’s the importance of SEO and PPC to your business?

The SEO and PPC methods and techniques are a key ingredient in any business plan. Its purpose is to generate traffic to a website. The right search campaign will create a flow of traffic to the site that is generated by matching the visitors search requirements against your campaign.

Here is a list of reasons why a search campaign should be considered in your business plan:-

Control – you have the capacity to alter the search terms that you wish to match with the customers search at any time. You can amend the campaign to control expenditure and volume of customers’ being directed to your site immediately.

Managed – when the PPC campaign is monitored and managed well, the traffic that is directed to the website will be pre screened and of a high quality.

Natural – the site can also be showing on a search engine naturally, so there would be no cost for this type of directed traffic.

Specific – if the website that you want traffic to be directed to is as specific as the search campaign, then the conversion will be high as the product or service is exactly what the customer wanted.

Contact – a search engine is the first point of contact when looking for a product or service. With good SEO and PPC monitoring, these contacts will be directed to your website.

If your business is serious about growing and attracting more customers, these methods and techniques are critical.