Finally…Real Proof That Brands Affect Search Choice…Ginger and Mary Ann

Yahoo Buzz had this interesting tidbit…

What was Mary Ann thinking?
Though Spitzer rode roughshod over most of the week’s news, a few other stories still managed to slip to the top of Buzz. One of them was a Yahoo! News article on Dawn Wells, the actress best known for her portrayal of Mary Ann on “Gilligan’s Island.” The aging star was caught in a pot bust, fined several hundred dollars, and slapped with six months of “unsupervised probation.” But the indignity didn’t stop there.

The story stirred a tremendous amount of interest in Search—but not about Dawn Wells. Instead, lookups skyrocketed for Tina Louise, the va-va-voom redhead who played Ginger on the show. We registered an astonishing 13,076% rise in demand for her name (compare that to Wells’ 5,860%). Just the thought of Mary Ann triggered all these luscious old memories of Ginger, Ginger’s photos, and Ginger’s legs. Searchers also boosted “tina louise news” and “tina louise now.” What would the Professor say?

So TV character Mary Ann(Dawn Wells) gets into some legal trouble and Ginger’s (Tina Louise) traffic more than doubles the increase of Mary Ann’s. WOW! That is the first time I can recall a vivid example of a news story about one topic creating a massive increase in search volume for another topic that was not mentioned. In other words, it clearly shows the power of brands.

For those of you who say it’s due to another word starting with the letter B, I’d offer this picture of a young Dawn Wells to show in conjunction with the picture above that the scripts and wardrobe selection shaped Ginger’s superior brand recall when it came to their search of choice this week.

Bryan Eisenberg Seminar: Website Optimizer: What Should I Test?

Check it out! There is a Google Website Optimizer seminar with Bryan Eisenberg on Tuesday, March 11, 2008 at 9:00AM Pacific Time is a great opportunity to try it out and learn about the Google Website Optimizer!

It’s also useful in Wordpress, if you haven’t downloaded the Google Website Optimizer for WordPress, now might be a good time to experiment with it before this valuable free seminar. It should be a treat as anyone who can analyze Amazon’s calls to action in the shopping cart and has literally written the book on call to action can surely teach you how to get more action from your website through testing!

See you on the call!

Lee Odden’s Top Ten Online Marketing Tactics for 2008 Survey

Lee Odden has posted the results of his online marketing survey. The blog result is likely directionally correct, but is likely skewed on the high side a bit due to the survey being on a blog. Go figure. :)

Some Outstanding Blog Posts…

Andrew Shotland has a nice post on Google Trends Works for SEO…I think hot trends might even be better in certain cases :) , it’s certainly a thought provoking post that caught my attention and worth some experimentation - it might even prove successful at your next tea party!

Rich Skrenta is doing some interesting blogging lately. Be sure to check out his post Pagerank Wrecked the Web.

Bill Slawski, published an extensive Google patent from 2003, entitled Google Patent on Anchor Text and Different Crawling Rates.

Michael Gray wants Matt Cutts to talk.

And finally Shoemoney wants to know why Yahoo! is asking him to check credit card numbers for validity…

SES Chicago 2007 : Troubleshooting Dynamic Website

Moderator:
Anne Kennedy, Manager, Managing Partner, Beyond Ink
Speakers:
Laura Thieme, President and Founder, Bizresearch
Matt Bailey, President, SiteLogic

Begin Your Research Project:

URL Structure
Search Engine Indices
Current Rankings
Spider Activity (Net tracker gives great spider research…)
Determine Target Terms
Overcome technology, resource and/or political challenges
Index, Optimize
Monitor improvements

Your Page Titles: Are they Really Optimized?

Example: Wine racks (Pier 1)

Page title - is it right?

Dynamic versus static – do they need to be static? No.

Basic Optimization Tactics – keyword embedding

Home page title matters – a lot!!!

Relevant Page Title page, Footer – best first quick steps

Are pages titles enough? H1, H2, Intro optimized, URL optimized, page rank updated.

Hierarchy of a website – URL, how deep and often is the crawl?

What We Found

- We found minimum of 3 issues

- Additional reports and trending are important

When that isn’t enough?

Universal Search?

Update the robots.txt file to remove things.

Canonical issues, soft 404’s get it right!

301 redirects – are they still in place?

Matt Bailey, Sitelogic

IT for marketers

IT and marketing need to work together.

Robot.txt is the welcome mat to your house…

Redirects.

Use Webbug

Architecture – if you using JavaScript, it will not work properly

Duplicate content – avoid it!

Cannibalization problems

Legacy spam – invisible text links…

When Google finds pages though natural crawling, its’ better – Using Webmaster Central helps…

SES Chicago 2007 - Digital Shelf - The Search Marketing Opportunity for Packaged Goods (CPG)

Moderator:
Kevin Ryan, Vice President, Global Content Director, Search Engine Strategies and Search Engine Watch
Speakers:
Matt Wilburn, Senior Category Director, CPG, Yahoo!
James Lamberti, Senior Vice President, Search and Media, comScore, Inc
Dana Todd, Board of Directors, SEMPO
Randy Peterson, Search Marketing Innovation Manager, Procter and Gamble

****************************************************************************

Everyone on this panel clearly put a lot of long, hard work into the concepts, thought and research into this panel and this blog post won’t do the great conversation the justice it deserves. It’s bleeding edge, this is fun and interesting stuff that will eventually transform the way consumers chose products and discover need brands that specifically meet their needs.

****************************************************************************

Does search help CPG? Comscore and Yahoo! provided the data for the SEMPO study.

James Lamberti, Comscore

The search marketing opportunity…100 million unique visitors in food alone, and babies

Who are these searchers? Average income, dramatically higher, 80% female

They enjoy cooking and entertaining.

Allergy sufferers are a prime underserved demographic. The opportunity to build brands via presences made through educational experiences.

Matt Wilburn, Yahoo!

Order of importance to searchers

- Information & Help

- Purchase Decision

- Promotion

- Company Website

Content matters more than a direct navigation. (I see a pattern developing here)

Consumers expect a digital shelf to be similar to a store shelf.

Out of stock, hard to find are issues.

Are you visible in paid and organic? Are you creating a nice impression?

Dana Todd, Sitelab

This is a compelling proposition. We believe in the promise of search for branding issues.

We need to think outside ROI. Back away from the spreadsheet. You need to get people thinking outside direct acquisition.

The first brand for cheese is on page three of the Google organic listings. Why?

Chinese toothpaste issue was a counter reaction to the ingredients article in Wired.

Develop problem and solution content.

If searchers are special, treat them as such!!!

End of session comments…

67% of searchers found a brand they weren’t aware of… (Kevin Ryan)

The term PPC is useless outdated and should be changed – Digital Point of Purchase? (Dana Todd).

Question by me in Chicago: Dana brought up the cheese in PPC and no brand organic terms, to use the Liz Strauss conversational blogging element, there are actually 10 posts on toilet paper on Technorati today, shouldn’t brand managers be engaging this, not only for the SEO benefits, but the innovation road map as well?

(all panel heads nod in agreement) Using the data during the planning process is the next frontier after this issue (which is still in the early days)…

This is certainly an area where the conversation will continue and evolve, it’s a challenging area due to the issues of massive change.

SES Chicago 2007 Day 2 - The Daily Search Socks

Danny Sullivan was sporting these ultra spiffy striped socks yesterday at Search Engine Strategies Chicago broadcasting the Daily Search Cast from the Webmaster Radio expo booth prior to his departure for Pubcon.

This raises so many questions, are these socks typical of the Daily Search Cast? What kind of socks will he be wearing today?

SES Chicago 2007 - Driving Local Sales with Internet Yellow Pages and Search

Moderator:
Charles Laughlin, SVP & Program Director, The Kelsey Group
Speakers:
Bruce Crair, President and Chief Operating Officer, Local.com
Scott Finholm, VP of Local Advertising Services, Marchex
Justin Sanger, Founder & President, LocalLaunch!
Tobias Dengel, Senior Vice President, Business Development, Website Pros, Inc.

Charles Knight from Alternative Search Engines also blogged this session

Websitepros, Tobias Dendel

255,000 customers/providers, 700 employees

It’s a mess to figure out how to position a small business online.

Do I spend money on radio, newspaper, whatever?

Even for a small business a web site is a critical factor in creating trust.

We don’t believe per action will be effective as it’s too complex.

Example, roofer in Indianapolis 15 unique calls and 15 qualified emails.

Local.com, Bruce Crair

1 million people advertising online, 18 million listings which shows the great opportunities still ahead.

Too many choices, the small business owner is confused. Even if they do understand the choices, the cost is hard. Then how do they create an ROI?

Most businesses don’t have websites, they need them to do the job. They need to figure out how to make the data accurate. All too often, it’s not.

Any business can do it. Just doing paid without organic is a waste of time.

Pay for placement, click bundles, pay per click, make sure you start witht eh simple stuff first.

Locallaunch, Justin Sanger

150 people, thousands of orders per week.

We intended to create the SME (Small Medium Enterprises).

Innovation outpaces adoption.

The innovation is amazing and significant. The SMEs don’t feel this. These enterprises are not yet able to take advantages.

Destinations and inventory abound.

Yahoo! local and Google local  provide new experiences all the time. Vertical search plays nice together with geos. This is pretty complex.

Who is winning?

Yellowpages are winning due to directional relationships

Pure Plays

RH Donnelly is a sales company. Google and Yahoo! realize this and are partners.

Margin pressure is intense and unsustainable.

Marketplace trends

Sales Organizations are driving the experience for SMEs

Content aggregation is a strategically vital business strategy

SME aggregators strive to collect and store richer, vertical-specific local business content

IYP is an old heading. It is now simply local search

Pure sales organizations are selling at non-sustainable margin – this is a critical driver of consolidation or service pressure

PPC pricing pressure will further compound an already fragmented marketplace

Marchex, Scott Finholm

We are a local online advertising company and leading publisher of local content.

Advertisers of all sides, we work with sales forces to teach them how to sell search.

Sites:

SEM and SEO aren’t the same thing

A great site isn’t necessary..but a “good” site is…

Services:

Can’t automate creativity

All businesses are not created equal

Clicks and calls both matter

Sales:

Small businesses look to trusted, proven providers

Simple product = more sales

SES Chicago 2007 - Bryan Eisenberg - Redefining the Customer Conversation

Bryan Eisenberg gave a great talk on the multitude of issues surrounding the challenges of successful customer conversions and conversation.

Marketing (r)Evolutions

Mass advertising on passive customers was what used to work.

People sleep while watching TV, hard to pay attention to advertising when sleeping.

Sleeping while surfing the Internet is not something that happens.

Godaddy.com Super Bowl XL TV commercials didn’t use the same model on the web site. Did Godaddy leave money on the table.

Money is better than traffic.

Apple had to give rebates due to word of mouth on iphone pricing.

Marketers still think customers are dogs.

But search puts the power of when and how in their hands (the sonsumer).

Overcoming sales friction – 85% of car purchases start online – you arrive knowing more than the salesman in many cases. Attack of the blogs – Consumers trust other consumers more than marketers. 54% resist, 56% avoid, 69% block ads – yet we still want to buy.

Customers will control the conversation. People have forgotten how to have relationships.

The web is a major influencer, a mere 26% of consumers were SATISFIED with the experience. They are missing the BASICS. Conversation rates are continuing to fall.

All new brands are based on the experience model. Invest in the customer experience.

We are obsessed with the how many, not the who. This needs to change.

Customers desire great and meaningful experiences.

SCENT, ads must think it has scent to be useful.

80% of traffic dies off within three clicks.

GEICO – connects the story…

Zafu – bras in launch video didn’t match website.

Usability – Frederick Winslow Taylor is the father.

We are all connected and customers will control the conversation. It involves persuasion architecture!!!

Traffic generation is about money. Don’t imitate your competitors. It’s the tiny pieces that matter. Focus on making your service better.

SES Chicago 2007: Asia, Japan, China, Australia and Eastern acific

Moderator:
Kevin Ryan, Vice President, Global Content Director, Search Engine Strategies and Search Engine Watch
Speakers:
Motoko Hunt, Founder, Japanese Search Marketing Strategist, AJPR LLC
T.R. Harrington, Director of Strategic Direction & Product Development, Darwin Marketing
Erica Schmidt, Global Director of Search, iProspect (slides where unreadable)

Motoko Hunt, Founder, Japanese Search Marketing Strategist, AJPR LLC

87.5 Million on the Internet
68% penetration
Mobile taking off in Japan, SNS, Blog, Video

Yahoo! allows keyword assist in Japanese.

Searchbox is telling you the words to search online offline.

Challenges of language includes spelling variations, no spaces segmenting word.

Translators don’t know SEO. Keyword research must be redone as the usage rates can be highly variable. Japanese keyword Research is critical.

Shopping, payment options, “Osaifu-keitai”, Points (not coupons) are prevalent.

T.R. Harrington, Director of Strategic Direction & Product Development, Darwin Marketing

Baidu - 68% search traffic in China

The way Baidu displays ads first – you might not see a natural listing on page 1 at all!!!

Ad platform differences – CPC, Budget, # of clicks, content network, campaign report, geo-target, keyword insertion

Paid Search – higher click through rate, faster CPC price increases, relatively few optimization variables

Natural Search – keyword selection methodology, traffic estimation tools in China unreliable (Google says not to use Google analytics there).

China still has low penetration of credit cards and most transactions happen offline and therefore aren’t trackable.

Seth Godin Keynoting Search Engine Strategies Chicago and His New Book Meatball Sundae

In advance his upcoming speech at Search Engine Strategies Chicago, Seth Godin held a intimate conference call in regards to the conference and his upcoming book Meatball Sundae.

At first I was thinking this would be a long speech, it was in actuality a short, crisp presentation followed by a spirited, fun and playful question an answer session. It far exceeded my expectations and Kevin Ryan should be commended for having this type of community event.

Now onto a discussion of his new book, Meatball Sundae. The foundation for a new economy is being built. The past several years have laid the foundation for a new industrial revolution.

Told the detailed story of Josiah Wedgewood and his high standards for pottery.

There are 14 main themes occurring right now in the world - though there are many smaller and industry specific trends playing out. These 14 trends are (I typed them fast in a live blog situation so I might not have them exactly right):

- Direct communication with customers is creating massive change

- Individuals can amplifying their voice and become a critic - these are not hassles to be dealt with. The answer is building an organization that thrives and survives on this…

- Having an authentic story is vital

- We don’t have attention spans anymore (why are you still reading this post? ;) )

- The new marketplace long tail – very few organizations are embracing it

- Create innovation - If you can describe a job it can get done by somebody cheaper

- Google and the shredding of information and bundling

- Noise and infinite channels of communication

- Consumers can talk directly to consumers without the middleman or company

- The changing balance of scarcity and abundance – it’s hard to imagine people being bored

- Big ideas can reach many people quickly

- The shift from how many to who – the idea of being on the today show instead of a blog is higher value is over

- Democratization of the wealthy - the gap between the rich and poor is getting wider but the rich is going up

- Gatekeepers are more important as they distribute information yet less important as you can go around them easier than ever

After the short speech on the trends there was a free for question and answer session…

Is your marketing out of sync?

SG: They should say how change your marketing (what you do) so that it’s in sync with what the market demands.

Why don’t most companies get it yet?

SG: I spent many years selling advertising. People buy TV advertising, it’s fun and it’s not measurable. When the Internet came along and they went running to Yahoo! to buy ads that aren’t measuring. Google and Overture were used by small business people in the ad. The choice is Superbowl ads that don’t work and measurable ads that are harder to make work. It’s naïve to hope that they will shift in a month or a year. They will eventually have to shift. The prices will continue to go up. People still applaud the commercial not the SEM.

(At this point the Gmail javascript froze all of my browsers. I had to reboot and relaunch. OF COURSE THIS WAS THE MOMENT KEVIN RYAN CHOSE TO ASK THE QUESTION I SENT IN – SO I’LL HAVE TO WAIT FOR THE AUDIO THERE.)

Where do you find thoughtleaders to lead organizations and instead of hiring people with “experience”?

SG: I wrote a post on a similar topic about the loss of relevancy of credentials today. Basically, there are two types of leaders qualified to do this:
- People who have managed change before
- Idea people who don’t necessarily know better

How do make a corporate blog work?

SG: Blogs don’t reach people, people reach blogs… You need to be quick and candid. It’s all about change and being iterative in nature.

Everyone attending SES Chicago will receive a copy of Seth’s book. I look forward to continuing our conversation and maybe even hearing his answers because Gmail’s javascritpt won’t be interfering with his in person appearance!

eComXpo is October 9,10,11, 2007

Chicagoland’s very own eComXpo is October 9,10,11, 2007. You can join the fun and learning from anywhere in the world though!

eComXpo is the premier virtual Internet Marketing conference that is FREE to attend. I’ve also had the honor of speaking there previously. It’s a great resource for learning Internet marketing concepts and networking. Register now.

SMXLOMO Denver - Day 2 - Show Me the Money!!!

Moderator:
Greg Sterling, Founding Principal, Sterling Market Intelligence

Speakers:
Ian White, CEO, Urban Mapping
Shawn Riegsecker, Chairman & CEO, Centro
Justin Sanger, CEO, LocalLaunch
Alfred Chow, Head, Yellowbook

Justin Sanger, Local Launch

I can’t help but get caught up in some of the hype. “Context galactic scale” – thanks Google. He then said, “Talking about local search in 10 minutes is like spitting into the grand canyon.” Then said a few words to get Greg Sterling to actually blush! Really funny stuff.

Tremendous opportunities in the IYPs. Local and vertical are merging. Social networking is also converging with local. What is the differentiation of these local search sites? Even within Yahoo! you have a multitude of options. SMEs are overwhelmed and confused. The mission of marketplace consolidations – our goal is to remove the complexity not only for our small businesses but for our sales forces as well. The traditional relationships

$                                             Cost of Traffic                     $$$
Content>>Proprietary>>Organic/SEO>>Paid Placement>>Paid Search / SEM

Silos and advertisers don/t mix in local search!!!

You need to be inventory agnostic…

Shawn Riegsecker, CEO, Centro

Brand marketing increases future clicks. Newspaper growth is slowing in terms of rates of growth, national advertisers are exploding this year. Next will be the regional advertisers, which now comprise less than 3% of advertising.

Ian White, CEO, Urbanmapping

? Where the hell is the money?

7FTE, San Francisco based, geo-spacial data to enable advertisers

Why and what?

Technical limitations

User behavior

Search Engine “Keyword Lockdown”

GEO IP lookup “geotargeting” SUCKS

99% accuracy country level

95% accuracy state level

Arrived in Denver at SMX Local and Mobile!!!

I’m here in the lobby of the hotel in Denver where the first ever Search Marketing Expo Local and Mobile show is being held. I’m thrilled to be here to see the creation of Chris Sherman and Greg Sterling! Karen Deweese was here to greet me with a great big hug and is hard at work making last minute preparations. It’s so great to see Karen, I had not seen her since last December! The SMX complimentary Internet is already up and running to. This rocks! I’m looking forward to this cozy and focused show, it’s going to be awesome.

I haven’t been to Denver in a long time, it’s such a wonderful city. It’s a gorgeous day without a cloud in the sky. So much clean, wide open space with those mountains teasing you to want to drive your rental car westward and forget why you are here! It’s a city I certainly wouldn’t mind living in someday if I was asked to.

It should be a fun evening of getting to know some great search engine and marketing pioneers before the show starts Monday!

SMXLOMO 2007

So Who is Going to SES Chicago?

I’m curious to know who is going where…

SES San 2007 Jose Day 1 - Universal & Blended Vertical Search

Moderator:

Speakers:

Q&A Speakers:

Quite likely the busiest session of the day to the fullest house. One can’t help but notice that if Greg Jarboe had gone to Google and designed Universal Search himself he likely couldn’t have designed it to play into his strength areas in news and pr related issues. The implications and transformation for universal search are still evolving, but they are clearly changing the landscape. One other thing that became clear from this event was that Ask is becoming a serious contender in this marketplace.

 

Greg Jarboe –

Universal search is the biggest event since “Florida” update. 70% of what I used to know is now obsolete. The patterns are not yet clear in personalization.

News results ranked #4 if you searched for the term iPhone on June 29

In the #8 position, was a Youtube video. We don’t know if it was done on purpose.

July 17, Rupert Murdoch – news with image – brings up a whole new reputation management – be prepared to optimize images.

Early chapters of Henry Potter were leaked, the blog results are on page one of results

Investor relations now is moving to the front page of Countrywide. Few companies have complete control of their brands now on Google.

Unflattering images of Hillary Clinton and that vast right wing conspiracy is building links to unflattering results.

Blogs on Hurricane Dean already on front page. Images will likely come next.

All of the rules have been rewritten – how do I research this? Focus on the upper left links. News seems to be on the top left all the time. Search remains #1 way journalist find information about a company.

Newsknife and Google News Report – be checking this. Your PR people aren’t ready for that yet. If you are not giving a jpg file in a release, start now.

Google News right now doesn’t do video news. Likely to create that.

Social mapping tools can help identify most influential bloggers. In certain categories they show up.

A couple of years ago there was vertical creep session here at SES – I now rank for that term. Not a good thing.

You can’t afford to ignore Universal Search Today

Google is making specialized or vertical content more visible through Universal Search

Sherwwod Stranieri, Catalyst Online

This throws a lot of  curves into the theme. Ask 3D and Google cut new paths.

Conventional web pages that once rank well are going to move around maybe down. Other things will move updates.

Number of videos is significant in the Youtube world. Are the search engines using comments as an indicator?

We are looking at it as search marketers. Showed client example.

How to look at it: Google PR, Y! Page links, keyword phrases in tags.

Videos ranking correspond well with views, comments, etc.

Bill Slawski

Why does news, images and video show up there.

I’m not sure I see this all as a revolutionary concept. How do we get out content into our results.

Showed examples of screen prints from each engine for the word spider.

Showed the Google patent, oddly looks quite different than Google’s universal search does now.

Google acquired several Infoseek patents.

Discussed Onebox and log file data.

Ranking in Vertical databases – how do you rank for that vertical?

User behavior – key value pairs, be certain definition and being defined. Questions and Answers work the same way. Html formatting may play a role.

Enhancing the user experiences.

David Bailey – Google
Technical lead for the vertical search.

What are our goals?

Make google.com the search box of first resort.

Display special features for special results

Keep it fast. Keep it simple. Above all, keep it relevant.

Showed example: origami crane

This will continually improve and extend to more result types.

It’s still about the web.

But: think about creating quality content in other forms. Expect similar SEO guidelines to apply.

Create quality content, describe it well and we’ll see what happens.

Tim Mayer, VP Product Management

We are transitioning to a better optimized user experience

Freshness and user intent became relevancy issues.

News, local and other verticals – the possibilities are infinite. Federation plays a role.

Some implantation examples:

Music Artist Shortcut

Movie Shortcut

Hotel Shortcut Inline

Consumer Electronics Shortcut

As we go forward, it’s going t be more about the intent of the searchers.

Eric Collier, Director of Product Management

“We are the scrappy innovator of search.”

Ask.com 3D: SERP Design

We moved the content up top and removed the top links.

Large jumps in user satisfaction seen in both the site analytics and surveys

Increase in vertical channel usage

Starting to see a reduction of multiple query sessions around the same keyword term.

Expect to see a larger percentage of SERPs with blended results

User location will play a larger roles in SERPs

Expect to see fewer web results in SERPs

Blogs, Images and Video results will take online reputation into account when ranking

Pay attention to other search drivers

 

Other coverage of this important session:

RB Digital Boots

Rustybrick

AIM Clear Blog

Lee Odden’s Toprankblog

 

Bonus coverage:

Lee Odden interviews Tim Mayer

 

 

Search Engine Strategies San Jose - Silicon Valley August 19-23

I look forward to seeing all of my wonderful search engine, mobile search and mobile advertising friends next week at Search Engine Strategies (SES) San Jose!  While I’ll definitely be in Mountain View for the Google Dance (hopefully they won’t run out of XL t-shirts in 2 minutes like last year), I’m unsure whether I’ll make it to Palo Alto, San Francisco, Sunnyvale, Oakland, Monterey or Santa Cruz to visit and see some other awesome things. I do hope to make it to Barcamp Block.

Who else will be there and what spontaneous events, product launches and parties are you looking most forward to? I’m getting very close to some of my goals! I look forward to seeing you.

adtech Chicago: Redefining Search to Realize Its Full Potential

August 1, 2007

MODERATOR:
Jeffrey Pruitt, President, SEMPO, and Executive VP, Search, iCrossing

PANELISTS:
Kelly Graziadei, Senior Director, Agency Development, Yahoo! Search Marketing

James Colborn, Group Marketing Manager, adCenter Communications Group, Microsoft

Kevin Willer, Central Region Development Manager, Google

James Colbourn, Microsoft

Kelly Graziadei, Yahoo!

Think about the many different faces of search.

- The Researcher – look at Yahoo! Buzz to create an audience pyramid. Look at other content. Miller Beer Run. Showed a campaign with getting the beer – Yahoo! created the game and got excellent results

- The Reputation Manager – geo-targeting, ad testing, etc. Jet Blue built a campaign to respond to negative news.

- The Brand Manager – 79% introduced to new brands in search and 61% expect brand leaders to be consistently in the top of search results.

- The Great Integrator – TV, web, games, mobile all at the same time.

- The Advocate – Searchers are advocates that build brands through social media - significant in the pre and post purchase mode.

Kevin Willer, Google
- Information silos in the past. You almost needed a search engine for the search engines. Now all the silos are in one universal search.

Google Promotion – search for Bourne – showed how the site with Youtube

Search for PR. – You need to be ready to answer those searches

Search the New Performance Link – showed Motorola example and Presidential campaign data for Hilary Clinton, Barack Obama, Giuliani, John McCain, Mitt Romney (He said the

We want to start thinking about search in different ways.

James Colbourn, Microsoft
Search Today: A Performance Tool
- To increase brand awareness
- To Sell Products
- To Generate Leads
- To Drive Traffic To Company Website

How do advertisers measure success?
- Traffic
- Conversions
- Impressions
- ROI

Brand, Awareness, Acquisition Tool and Lead Generator

Search as a research tool is a leading indicator for:
- A Business
- An Industry

Beyond Search
- Media Buying
- Budget Allocation
- PR Activity

The potential for search is higher than current usage…

Hitwise Election 2008 Presidential Data Center Launched

What can I say? This site filled with data is great linkbait!

Did Google Update Backlinks Everywhere?

My backlinks increased substancially in the past day or so.

Anybody else see the same changes and are we in the middle of a pagerank update?

keep looking »