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Welcome to the ineedhits Search Engine Marketing blog, where we share the latest search engine and online marketing news, releases, industry trends and great DIY tips and advice.

We encourage you to get involved in our blog community - so share your opinions and experiences by leaving comments on our posts.

If you're looking for help with promoting your website - check out our range of affordable search engine marketing services.

Tuesday, September 25

5 Reasons Why Paid Search Advertising Makes Sense

It's a well known fact amongst marketing experts that paid search advertising makes sense for online business. Whether it's generating leads or closing sales, search advertising gives your business a chance to interact with customers right where they search for information: Google and Yahoo!

Despite this, one of the common barriers to starting a search advertising campaign is the cost. Business owners often have the mentality "why should I pay for a visitor if I can get them for free?" While it's true that paid search advertising means you pay for each click to your website; in many cases these campaigns generate positive ROI (return on investment). It gives your website greater exposure for keywords you choose, resulting in an overall increase of visitors (and hence sales) to your site.

Paid Search Advertising offers some great benefits over traditional search engine listings such as:

1. No pressure from algorithm shifts
If your website relies solely on traffic from organic search engine listings, Google or Yahoo! algorithm updates could cause your site to lose its listing and traffic. With a paid search advertising campaign, your site would be unaffected and still appear next to relevant searches.

2. Guaranteed monthly visitors
Most paid advertising campaigns guarantee your business a steady flow of monthly visitors. You don't need to rely on the fluctuating traffic generated from organic listings.

3. Ability to target your message
Unlike regular search listings which feature a fixed title and description, paid search advertising allows you to target your title, description and even URL. You can create a targeted, eye-catching listing to improve exposure and click-through to your site.

4. Ability to generate positive ROI
Many of our clients are generating positive ROI (return on investment) from their campaigns. A recent example can be seen with our case study on A-List Limousines (pdf)

5. Target specific regions
Paid search advertising also allows local businesses to target specific geographical areas. Whether it's a certain city or whole state you wish to target, you can create a personalized message and only have your Ads shown for users in the locations you choose.

If you're keen to start an online advertising campaign, check our Easy Search Advertising service from only $99 /mo. We provide full campaign set-up and management for a low monthly service fee to ensure your business success.

No Google Click Fees Until December 18

Google has been busy pushing into the mobile market with three big releases this month. First up, Google will begin selling advertisements on web pages viewed on mobile phones. This follows the announcement that the AdSense program will become available on mobile phones. The move is aimed at increasing Google advertising penetration further into the mobile internet. Like the desktop version, it will be targeted at publishers and site owners. The third mobile offering from Google is a click fee, free period for Google AdWords users, who run advertisements on mobile phones.

"We are happy to announce a new feature that will allow you to easily reach additional qualified customers who are searching Google from their mobile phones. In the next few days, your search ads will be eligible to run on Google Mobile Search pages (like they currently do on Google.com).
We are offering this feature - and any resulting clicks â€“ for free through November 18, so you can experiment with the rapidly growing mobile platform while still reaching qualified customers.

Each ad's eligibility will be determined by its landing page and only ads with landing pages that can be adapted for viewing on mobile browsers will be shown. You can monitor each adâ€™s performance via a special performance tracking page within your
account called "Performance Data: Search Ads on Google Mobile
Search."

After November 18, those who have qualified for the free clicks will be charged, unless they opt out of the mobile advertising service. As the market is small and generally intolerant of advertising on their personal devices, not too much the limitations of current WAP technology, advertising on mobile phones is often overlooked.

Google is now providing a variety of cost effective tools to reach mobile phone users. User backlash should not affect providers and suppliers as users control their content. However, with more offline content now available online, the number of those who use both desktop and mobile communication devices will increase.

Early adopters of the relatively new mobile advertising services from Google stand to benefit the most - before it becomes over crowded and ultra competitive.

Yahoo! Enhances Search Suggestions with New Search Assist

Yahoo! is testing a new feature on their search engine called 'Search Assist' which aims to help users find the most relevant information on each search. The Search Assist technology detects when users are having trouble finding the right search term and offers suggestions to improve their results.

The new Search Assist feature is smarter than Yahoo!'s existing search suggestion tool and brings some interesting new features. Firstly, it only offers help when it thinks the user is having trouble (like when you pause entering a search query). Danny Sullivan from Search Engine Land shows an example below:

"I decide to search for [lego organizer], but I second-guess myself before completing the second word. As I'm pondering, Search Assist decides I need some encouragement. I get further suggestions that suddenly appear"

As you can see from the screenshot above, Search Assist offers two lots of suggestions. In the first column it shows suggestions and extensions relating to the current search term. In the other two columns under "lego +" it shows keywords and searches related to the primary search term entered on the left.

Search Assist uses some intuitive technology to generate these extra search suggestions by scanning the top 20 search results for any given term. By analyzing these pages one by one, it comes up with a list of other terms you might want to try.

Currently Yahoo! Search Assist is only available to selected users as a trial. If your one of the lucky ones, let us know what you think!

Labels: Yahoo

Google Goes Under The Sea

Google is rumored to be planning a move from search into the broadband infrastructure business. The unconfirmed reports have Google entering into a partnership to build a multi-terabit undersea communications cable across the Pacific ocean for launch in 2009.

Google has neither denied nor confirmed the project with spoke person Barry Schnitt commenting, "additional infrastructure for the Internet is good for users, and there are a number of proposals to add a Pacific submarine cable. We're not commenting on any of these plans."

Developing the under sea cable in a partnership will significantly lower the price of the project and on completion will give Google access to "a fibre pair at build cost, handing it a tremendous cost advantage over rivals such as MSN and Yahoo, and considerably improving the affordability of Internet services across Asia-Pacific"

Adding weight to the rumor The Australian Communications and Media Authority recently granted a permit for a new submarine cable in the northern zone, which will come into effect on October 1. This will prohibit or restrict activities in the area like dredging, trawling, and anchoring.

Google recently "emphatically" denied that it intends to bid on 3G spectrum in Britain, so as Google has not yet said anything to dispel the submarine cable rumor, the future of the project looks positive. If the project does go ahead, it will be interesting to see what Google does next. Owning communications infrastructure provides a solid platform to launch a serious challenge to the telecommunication giants, which would be in line with Google expanding its business interests outside of search.

Monday, September 24

Google Launches Google Gadget Ads - Limited Release

After four months of beta testing (see our initial Google Gadget Ad post), Google have started a limited launch of their new Gadget Ads. Google Gadget Ads are widget style HTML based ads that facilitate flash, video, data feeds and transaction functionality.

Google sells the virtues of the new gadget ads on the product page:

Beyond Rich Media Advertising with "Websites within Websites"
Think of gadget ads as mini versions of your website in any AdSense ad size.

Dynamic and Creative Advertising
Truly useful applications incorporating data feeds, maps, images, audio, video, Flash, HTML or JavaScript in a single creative.

Largest Global Advertising Network
Reach over 75% of unique Internet users in more than 20 languages and over 100 countries with no serving or hosting costs.

Community of Engaged Users Around Your Brand
Users can post and share your gadget ads anywhere.

Full Interaction Reporting
Receive site-by-site interaction reports tracking dozens of actions.

While it sounds like the sort of advertising format no business can do without, they've only launched the service to advertisers that have used content rich ads in the past(apparently due to the complexity of creating media for the new format). This will have ad agencies seeing $$$$'s.

Google Gadget Ads offer both CPC (cost per click) and CPM (cost per impression) advertising options across the Google content network. They offer the full range of targeting options including location, demographics and content.

While advertising using Google Gadget Ads is limited to experienced content rich ad users, the new gadget ads are available to all AdSense publishers, assuming your site is supporting image ads and is using one of the image ad formats.

To see a range of creative samples and functionality available from the new Google Gadget Ads, visit the Gadget Ad gallery at the AdWords page.

Friday, September 21

Google Gets More Social - New Google "Shared Stuff"

Google have just released another tool to make it easier for users to collaborate and share online. In a quiet (by their standards) launch, they've added Google Share Stuff to their social arsenal.

Google Share Stuff (not the most exciting of names) allows users to easily share content they uncover online via a simple bookmarklet that can be stored in a browsers' links toolbar.

By clicking on the bookmarklet, users have the choice of sharing the content by:

email
listing on their "shared stuff" Google page
posting it to various social networks (facebook, digg, del.icio.us et al.)

The bookmarklet concept is nothing new, as social bookmarking has been prevalent for years and there are many "more comprehensive" multi-bookmark tools available. The "shared stuff" page is where it gets a little more interesting.

Google users now have a page where they can store all the websites, articles and other content (similar to Google Notepad), with the aim focused on sharing. The items shared on these pages can then be added to iGoogle (Google's homepage service) and subscribed to via RSS.

It'll be interesting to see how Google leverages the content saved in Google Shared Stuff, as it's yet another way for them to let users help classify and place relevance on net content. Will it have an impact on the rankings in their SERPs? time will tell - seems like some R&D is in order...stay tuned.

Labels: Google

Tuesday, September 18

Yahoo! Mash to Challenge Facebook

Yahoo! is set to enter the social networking arena with Yahoo! Mash. The new service will be in direct competition with the social networking heavy weights of Facebook and Myspace.

Yahoo! is not new to social networking having previously released Yahoo! 360, which according to Jeff Weiner, executive vice president of Yahoo's network division did not "attain the position the company expected." Yahoo! also unsuccessfully attempted to buy Facebook for 1 billion dollars.

Yahoo! looks to have learnt from its 360 experience with Mash providing greater control to users in managing their online persona. Being able to differentiate the service from the very popular social networking sites' is the key to the success of Yahoo! First impressions of the (currently) invite only service looks to have done this.

Users are encouraged to edit each other's pages. Each time we visit our profile page, we are seeing new modules that others have loaded for us. This capability certainly adds to the "mashing" aspect of the social network. It also appears as though Yahoo intends for users to mash their information together from across the company's various properties, perhaps making Mash the main hub for Yahoo users

Usability and user control is the difference between failure and success in social networking, Mash has a tick for both. On this basis, Facebook in record time wrestled the top position from Myspace. While still in development, no Facebook crushing result has been touted from Yahoo!.

With the speed at which multiple users can switch services the result of Yahoo! entering the market again, will be known shortly.

Global Online Spend to Reach $14.5 Billion

Advertising spend is the US has fallen for the second quarter in a row, something that has not happened since 2001. A report from TNS Media Intelligence says "total ad spend for the first half of this year was $72.59 billion, a 0.3% slide compared with the first six months of 2006."

The decrease in advertising spend is not exclusive to the US, with the European and Asia markets both reporting a downward trend.

Advertising spend on the traditional areas of Print, Radio and Television has decreased, while "online" reported the largest gain in spending with an increase of 17.7 %. As a percentage, online spend is a lot smaller than traditional media but lately has experienced gains, while other mediums decline. Globally Merrill Lynch had predicted that

"In 2007, online ad spend growth worldwide is projected to reach $14.5 billion, an increase of 24 percent"

With there being no indication that the unprecedented growth in online spending will stop any time soon, the future looks bright for website owners. The Internet can reach a huge audience at a fraction of the cost of traditional media.

With the number of online businesses and users only going to increase, there are 14.5 billion reasons why website owners should apply some online advertising to their site today.

Pay-Per-Click Mistakes: Bidding on 'Keyword'

Running your own pay-per-click campaign is hard enough, especially if there is a lot of competition in your industry. With all the stress of setting up and managing your own campaign, there are some basic errors that many website owners make.

One of the most common (and funniest), mistakes a search marketer can make is bidding on the term 'Keyword'. This is all too common across both Google and Yahoo! advertising platforms, so let's look at an example of what I mean:

Google Sponsored Links for the term 'Keyword (click on image to expand):

As you can see, 3 out of the 8 sponsored links on the right hand side of the page have absolutely nothing to do with the term 'Keyword'. Granted there are many legitimate Ads from keyword research companies etc, but what do hotels and alarm clocks have to do with the term 'Keyword'?

Let me explain how this mistake occurs. When setting up their campaigns, many companies use a spreadsheet program to draft a list of keywords they would like to bid on. The spreadsheet has a heading for each column and the heading for the column of keywords is... you guessed it: 'Keyword'. When uploading these keyword lists into Google, it's easy to just copy the whole column, forgetting to remove the 'Keyword' heading from the list.

This simple mistake could end up costing you hundreds of dollars every month, so make sure to check your keyword lists thoroughly before uploading!

Monday, September 17

Google Adwords for Niche Industries

I was reviewing the performance of some of our Google Advertising clients recently and noticed some extraordinary results. One of our clients had achieved an ROI of over 500% on their advertising within their first month.

Looking at these web sites closer, I noticed that the thing they had in common was that they served niche markets. Advertising using Google AdWords, allows you to create your own category, without having to compete with the general industry that you're business may sit under.

Furthermore, being in a niche market; you also have less competition, which means cheaper prices on relevant keywords. This makes it much easier to get affordable, targeted traffic to your web site and drives better ROI on your advertising.

Take for example the business of a high rise window cleaner. In the yellow pages they would be stuck amongst hundreds of other window cleaners in that general category. Bid on words such as "high rise window cleaner" on Adwords and presto they are now sitting in their own type of category, without much competition at all!

Do you run a business servicing a niche industry? Sponsored Listing Advertising may also help connect you with potential customers for less than you think.

Sunday, September 16

Google Reports on Subscriber Stats - Do They Impact Rankings

Google unveiled a new Subscriber Stats section in their Google Webmaster tools last week. The new statistics provide site owners with figures on how many people are subscribed to their content feeds using Google tools.

Feeds have become an important way for website owners to push updates to internet users about new content and site changes. Feed subscribers are automatically notified of new content via their feedreader, which makes keeping track of your favorite sites much easier.

As outlined in the new Subscriber Stats section:

If your site publishes feeds of its content, this page will display the number of users who have subscribed to these feeds using Google products such as iGoogle, Google Reader, or Orkut. Because readers can use other sites and aggregators to subscribe to your content, your total number of subscribers from all sources may be higher.

Therein lies one of the issues with the new Subscriber Stats. The numbers provided might be only a subset of the total feed subscribers, which significantly hinders the value of the service. For people using feed services such as FeedBurner, you're likely to get a more accurate idea of your total subscribers via their stats service.

So why is Google showing these stats when they're not a true reflection of a feed's subscribers? I think it's a simple case of trying to increase the number of users for their feed aggregating services. Website owners are more likely to provide quick subscribe functionality for Google tools, when they can quickly see how many subscribers they have.

Since the launch, speculation has started that Google will use subscriber numbers to help determine its rankings. Should this speculation prove accurate, then the Subscriber Stats section will take on a far more serious role for site owners.

Subscriber numbers could prove to be a reasonable indicator of content relevance and importance, but until Google can expand the Subscriber Stats to include aggregators other than their own, I don't think it will play a role in their ranking algorithm just yet.

Thursday, September 13

Google Secrets Leaked - Social & Activity Feed Vision

This week, an internal Google video labeled "Nooglers And The PDB: Reactor" was made public temporarily via the Google Video service. The video higlighted Google's plans to create a standard for feed aggregation and greater social integration within Google Apps.

While the video has since been removed, Phillip Lenssen at Google Blogoscoped got the inside word on the video from a reader and provides a good debrief on the footage contents. Google is yet to confirm the contents of the video, however Ben Darnell (featured in the video) works for Google and the projects labelled "Maka-Maka", "Mocha" and "Mustang" are confirmed Google projects.

The core project discussed was:

Google Feed Standard
The video higlights plans to create feeds based on various Google Apps - "Activity Streams" (using Google Reader) so that subscribers can see what "friends" are working on. The plans are apparently inspired by the feed tracking provided within Facebook, where members can see what their friends have been upto within the network - be that new friendships, groups joined, images uploaded and so on...

The Google Apps involved include Google Docs, Google Calendar, Gmail and Orkut to name a few. Orkut has already introduced new feed tracking similar to its Facebook counterpart.

Many are suggesting the plans to socialize the Google Apps is "too little too late" considering Facebook and alike have already established a strong user base and created a legion of loyal fans. Depending on the effectiveness, usefulness and privacy of the feeds - it could help Google Apps get a long overdue push - as more online app competitors continue to emerge.

For many of us, apps like Google Docs, Gmail and Calendar have already proven to be useful tools, so the enhanced socialization of the services will enhance their collaborative functionality - using a "push update" approach.Increased adoption of the apps will be the litmus test...if it fails - Google will still be floating in "social neverland".

Tuesday, September 11

FBI Stopped From Secretly Taking Your Information

In a major set back for the US Government's surveillance laws, a federal judge has ruled that a key portion of the Patriot act is unconstitutional and violates the right to free speech. A part of the Patriot act was to allow the FBI to request information like e-mail correspondence, a list of web sites visited and queries submitted to search engines. The information was to be obtained via national security letters, which do not require a court order.

On receiving such a letter, the Internet service provider had to provide the requested information and could have a gag order imposed on them from disclosing that such a request was received. Having such an order makes it difficult to seek legal advice without the fear of punishment. The action was brought by the American Civil Liberties Union, whose National Security Project director Jameel Jaffer commented,

"Courts have a constitutionally mandated role to play when national security policies infringe on First Amendment rights, a statute that allows the FBI to silence people without meaningful judicial oversight is unconstitutional."

Internet privacy is a contentious topic. A user has the expectation that any legal online activities that they participate in will not be monitored. They do not want their personal details misused, and want to have the option of choosing who can watch and interact with them. The right to privacy is something that will always be challenged while the Government maintains its right to know what its citizens are doing.

Fortunately, there are still options available to those who wish to maintain their privacy while participating in legal activities on the Internet. By using services like proxify and limiting the amount of personal information they provide to sites, internet users will limit how much information can be collected. Those who misuse the Internet and its application for illegal gain should expect such activities to be monitored.

Internet users are able to monitor to a certain extent their own and other peoples Internet usage with traffic monitoring services and by joining social networking sites. The difference is that they have a choice, checking to see what a friend is doing via a social networking site is different to having someone else look at your online banking details.

Both sides of the privacy debate will have mixed views on the ruling, with some thinking it is too much, and others not enough. While the US Government could secretly monitor an individualâ€™s online activities, for the time being they will need a court order to do so. This will help protect the right to privacy while not inhibiting Government actions to stop misuse of the Internet.

Facebook to Release User's Private Information to The Search Engines

Social networking site Facebook has risked provoking anger and user backlash by enabling search engines to access the details of its members. Currently only those who have a Facebook account are able to view other users' information.

A picture and the name of the user will soon be available on search engines. The move looks to have been initiated to increase revenue raised through advertising, by increasing the number of Facebook users.

Facebook is a goldmine for advertisers and so far, the revenue potential of the network has not been met. The service contains a wealth of invaluable information for advertisers, such as user demographics, personal interests, associations and connections between members.

This is not the first time Facebook has come under scrutiny for privacy reasons. There were numerous complaints made when the news feed feature was released. This allowed friends to view what interaction was made with their profile. Like a friend being added or removed and the messages left on the profiles wall. The news feed service was kept and the number of Facebook users exponentially increased.

If a user does not want their profile listed in the search engines there is a privacy option available in their account. Granted some may not want such basic information to be available but that information is already accessible to those who have a Facebook account. What will change is the number of people who can potentially view a user profile.

The reality of social networking sites is that, most will try to generate revenue from advertising. Being able to access, a limited profile of Facebook users will, amongst other things, allow old school friends to connect and open up networking opportunities that are not available off line. For the majority of users that is the sole reason for using Facebook - to connect and communicate. A minority will try and exploit user information, however that same group will take advantage of those who simply install windows, get a high speed internet connection and do not sign up to any social networking sites.

Facebook is a business whose revenue is generated by its users. Keeping them happy and active is their primary concern. Privacy is a contentious issue, but there are features available that will still allow users to communicate simply with friends privately. It is a valid privacy issue, but not one that will result in a mass defection of users. The benefits of the service far out weigh the potential negative side. Where else can you find a long lost friend who has since moved overseas, join a group solely dedicated to discussing 1930's horror movies and support a man who claims he will call his son batman if 150 000 join his group.

How Social Media Marketing Can Boost Your Ranking

Social media marketing is the process whereby a website owner promotes their website across the huge list of social websites on the web. The more popular examples include Digg, Del.icio.us, StumbleUpon and MySpace, but they are not the only ones to be considered.

Social media marketing has a direct effect on search engine rankings and engines are using social voting systems and bookmarking trends to determine quality sites. Let's look at some examples of how social media is influencing the ranking of search results.

Local Search Results
We've previously blogged about the benefits and opportunities Google universal search has opened for small business, but let's look at a concrete example of how it's influencing search ranking for small businesses.

Say I was searching for an Italian restaurant in New York. I enter the search "Italian new york" and am presented with the Google OneBox displaying top restaurants in the New York area.

If you look at these results you will notice that businesses with the most user reviews and ratings are ranking above those who do not have as many social media votes. It's a similar story when searching on Yahoo!:

As you can see, restaurants with top user ratings and the most reviews are ranking above those who don't have as many votes.