Buyers & Information Seekers Search Differently

A study released by De Vos & Jansen Market Research and Checkit reveals that buyers and information seekers search differently. Here are some key findings, however, you can download the full report as a PDF document
Buyers view more search results (10) and take more time to view the results (11,4 seconds).
Information searchers view less search results (8) and spend less time on a result (9,4 seconds).
Buyers pay more attention to brand names relative to information seekers.
Only 50 searchers were tested and they were between the age of 17 and 24.

Posted by Barry Schwartz
source taken from: http://searchengineland.com/070222-092607.php

Yahoo Launching Separate Content Advertising Platform

Yahoo is launching a separate content platform, according to the email I received earlier today.
The email states:
In the next coming months, Yahoo! Search Marketing will introduce a new serving platform for Content Match. This new platform is designed to improve listing relevance, power the Yahoo! Search Marketing Distribution Network, and improve the end-user experience.
The new Content Match platform includes an improved matching algorithm and real-time optimization that, in addition to bid, will consider additional relevancy factors like keywords, title and description to determine your listing position.

Source taken from: http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/070222-131733

Google AdWords Quality Score Algorithm Update Now Live

The AdWords blog post says that the algorithm is now live and it will take about three to four days to fully propagate throughout the network.
If you have not enabled the quality score column, you probably should. To do that, just go down to your ad group level, click on the keywords tab on the top right, then select from the pull down menu the option to show the quality score. Here is a screen capture with arrows pointing to the relevant places but more on that at AdWords help.

Source taken from: http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/012481.html

What Quality Score does?
Your Quality Score reflects your keyword's CTR and the relevance of your ad text and landing page. Keywords with high Quality Scores are more relevant for users, more effective for your ad campaigns, and have lower minimum CPC bids.

Keywords can have one of three Quality Score states:
• Great: Your keyword is very relevant and your Quality Score needs no improvement.
• OK: Your keyword is relevant, but you can still benefit from a higher Quality Score.
• Poor: This keyword isn't very relevant to users and we suggest you replace it with a more specific keyword. If you would like to keep advertising with this keyword, we recommend optimizing by using more targeted ad text and improving your landing page content.

Advantages of PPC Over Other Web Marketing Strategies

The internet business is highly competitive. Getting to the top of search engine results is always a challenge. One way of ensuring good position in search results is Pay Per Click Advertising. Today, PPC is a well utilized advertising option online. Its advantages are evident and it provides advertisers with high hopes of making it to the top.

Definition of PPC

PPC stands for Pay Per Click. It is an advertising option that involves a cost per click directed to a particular website from a PPC search engine or its affiliates. In PPC, advertisers pay for visitors on a cost per click basis. Search engines can also show PPC ads. E.g. Google lists its PPC ads on Sponsored Listing. However, PPC ads differ from sponsored listings in such a way that the first is practically cost per click while the latter may or may not be on a cost per click payment arrangement.

Special Features of PPC

Unlike other advertising options, PPC can help your site’s visibility on an instant. It gives your website a better position on SERPs using the keywords of your choice. In PPC, you can take control of your advertisement, from the cost to the keywords. Basically, PPC is definite and flexible.

Website advertisers employing the PPC strategy can decide on what keywords or keyword phrases they want they site to be listed. After the selection, they bid for these keywords and keyword phrases. This gives them full control of their advertisement. Aside from the keywords, PPC advertisers can also take control of the language in which they want their ads to appear. Furthermore, they can also choose the exact location where they want their ads to appear.

These features attract advertisers to use PPC instead of other forms of online advertising. Because of this, PPC has earned its own set of advantages.

Advantages of PPC

A high percentage of websites today rely on PPC advertising for their visibility needs. This can be reasonably justified given the following advantages:

PPC is cost per click.

One advantage that PPC has over other online advertising options is that advertisers have to pay for every click only. There is no need to worry about a high fixed cost that you ought to pay every month or on whatever payment terms. The cost per click also allows the advertisers to gauge how a particular site is doing in the internet market – judging on the number of visitors the site has attracted.

PPC is easy to implement.

Website owners or administrators don’t need certain modifications on the website if they choose PPC as their advertising option. This will be useful to sites which may be hard to modify. E.g. sites with frames.

PPC offers immediate results.

Once you choose PPC, you will get immediate results. The ads you placed on PPC search engines appear instantly. There is also an option to either modify or delete the ad.

PPC lets you in control.

PPC gives the advertisers a complete control on their ads. The advertisers decide on the ads’ location, keywords and language specification.

Pay Per Click Advertising is an indispensable way to generate traffic to your website. If done accordingly, PPC will be of great help to your site’s visibility and profitability.

source taken from:http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,2097216,00.asp

Giant step to discovering alien life

Astronomers have captured enough light from two planets far beyond our own solar system to reveal details of their chemical make-up, marking a new phase in the search for extraterrestrial life.

Scientists have analysed the glow from a planet, nicknamed Osiris, in the constellation Pegasus

By analysing the faint glow of one of these alien worlds they have found tentative evidence that suggests the presence of chemicals which play a role in one theory of how life began on Earth.

The chemicals, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, may have helped the formation of RNA, the ancestral genetic material of DNA, the building-blocks of life on our own planet.

Although this planet seems to lack water and is at a searing 800 C - which is thought to be much too hot for life - three teams announce today they have successfully carried out the feat on this and one other alien world, marking a breakthrough in the development of techniques capable of scouring the cosmos for signs of life.

More Of this from:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/02/22/nalien22.xml

7 Rules for Landing Page Optimization

This is by no means a definitive look at what matters on landing pages. There are more than seven rules. For additional insight I would direct you to this three-part series on Landing Page Optimization. However, these seven basic elements are ones I’ve used consistently for many years now with great results.

1. Have a Clear and Direct Headline
Your landing pages should designed so the headline is first thing a user sees upon landing. First impressions on landing pages are as important as the offline world. Make sure the headline is a direct and simple statement of what the user is trying to accomplish. The goal of the headline is to bridge the moment of recognition so the user knows they rest of the page is aligned with completing their goal.

2. Place High Value on Whitespace
Users do not read all the text on a web page. Users scan the text and take away only certain elements that they use to make a decision if the page is relevant to their goal or not. Clean use of space allows users to scan and absorb key messages.

3. Deliver Your Value Proposition with Short Direct Messaging
Your value props should all be the answers to “why?” Keep them limited to three or four bullet points and don’t mince words. This is no time to get cute either. If users can’t quickly and easily understand the benefits of you product or service they will not hesitate to click the back button.

4. Have a Persuasive Message Directly Above the Call to Action
Every great salesman has a message they use to persuade prospects on the fence. Think of your landing page as your online salesman. Make sure you have one final strong persuasive message above the call to action. I find that bandwagon messages can increase user confidence and usually perform very well. An example: “Join the thousands of people that use…”

5. Large Red Buttons Rule
Tell your brand team to go to hell and throw your styleguide out the window. Red buttons can by themselves raise your conversion rate. Green can be good as well but most times in our testing if color matters it is red that wins. Also, don’t skimp on button size. Make users notice where the button is upon landing. Location matters as well but that’s something that needs to be tested on each page.

6. Call to Action Copy Matters
While direct messages can be very effective in the body of the copy direct messages in the call to action can be a turnoff. Words like “Buy,” “Add to Cart” or “Subscribe” that message commitment and a process can lower conversion rates. Softer calls to action like "Try it Now" that message immediacy (Now), but in a risk free way (Try it) can end up improving conversion by getting more users into the funnel.

7. Trust and Security is Still Incredibly Persuasive
Brand, trust and security icons as well as testimonials deliver confidence messages that can have a tremendous impact on conversion. Despite the fact that we are about 10 years into the commercial web, users on even the largest sites and brands in the world are influenced by these messages and images. You can see in this case study the impact that the Verisign and eTrust logo had on revenue per visitor for Audible.com.

Source taken from: http://www.optimizeandprophesize.com/jonathan_mendezs_blog/2007/02/7_rules_for_lan.html

SEO 2007: The Know-How you Need to Succeed

One of the biggest challenges that all webmasters face is of course the ever daunting task of SEO . If you are unsure what it is, SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, meaning how you as a webmaster can get Google, Yahoo, and MSN among others to rank your website in the top search results for the keywords you are targeting. When I personally approach SEO, I do not look at it as just a single task at hand. Instead, I break it down, most notably into 2 main categories that I can focus on.

In its simplest form, I like to divide SEO down into 2 more manageable areas. The first area that I break it into is On-site Optimization, and the second area, predictably is Off-site Optimization. Both are important, many webmasters do not grasp or utilize this. Some of them preach that on-site optimization is truly the only important form of SEO, while others will tell you that off-site optimization is what will get you top rankings in the search engines. But the real deal is that they are both important, and you should not ignore either of them. So what is the difference between the two.

In a nutshell, On-site optimization is the editing and coding of your actual website to increase optimization. Off-site optimization is the Link Popularity, Link Relevance, and anything else that is not a direct change to your own webpage. For a good example of just how powerful Off-site optimization is, Google the word “failure“. I am sure that George Bush is not optimizing for that term anywhere on the Whitehouse webpage. In my opinion, the key factors of SEO, in no particular order are:

1) Link Popularity and Link Relevance (Off-site) 2) Internal Linking Structure (On-site) 3) Content Relevance (On-site) 4) Crawl-ability / Code Optimization (On-site)

This may seem like I a dumbing down of the art of SEO, which in some regards it is. However, the key factors that I just mentioned above are the basis and are easily broken down into much finer detail, such as the kind that you may find in an in-depth book or report. An important thing to keep in mind in 2007 is that getting high rankings on the Search Engines is not going to happen overnight, sometimes not even for months, just because you have optimized your webpage. If this were 7 or 8 years ago, then keyword stuffing and meta-tags would work just fine. But that tactic will just not cut it in todays competitive search engine market. Do not let this dissuade you though. Just make sure that you utilize a balanced attack of on-site and off-site optimization, through utilization of social-networking sites, link partnering, quality content, text link campaigns and more.

source taken from: http://www.majormarketingtools.com/reports/seo_2007.html