Wednesday, February 28, 2007

The Perfect Online Ad, How They Figure It Out

The things online ad companies are able to track is somewhat creepy. Lately online search has taken on a whole new realm of stalker behavior to track our every move and know what we are going to do before we even know. But no matter how scary this may be it is necessary in the online advertising world....and it works.
There was a recent study that proved that "Internet users spend a mere 5 percent of their time actually searching. The rest of the time, they're trolling the vast expanse of Internet space"
What you do when you aren't searching - the other 95 percent of the time you spend online - is gold to advertisers. Yahoo often sells ad space based not on a site's content but on a consumer's online behavior, a growing practice known as behavioral targeting. They know what we are going to do, before we do and they bombard us with tempting ads.
The new age of banner ads is super smart. "Marketers now all have to understand the power of algorithms," she says. Today everything about a fully realized Web campaign - how the creative messages look, what color the ads are, what sites they're placed on and where on each site, what time of day they run and how frequently - is determined at least in part by software applications known as "creative optimizers." (try determining all of this without the software)
There is now instantaneous feedback on display ads and certain programs can change the ad instantly if it proving to be ineffective. One man, Fayyad, leads the pack when it comes to predicting Internet users behavior. Fayyad can probably predict your next move. In fact, he says he can tell with 75 percent certainty which of the 300,000 monthly visitors to Yahoo Autos will actually purchase a car within the next three months. Read more about this guy..

...Is this unreal to anyone else?

Monday, February 26, 2007

Local Social Search Explosion


Sites like Yelp.com believe they have the answer or, rather, that their users have the answer. Not only are the businesses local, so too is the content. With a passionate community of reviewers, local businesses can leverage the power of true advocates in the community. Local searchers can find not just reviews with which they can identify, but also reviewers with similar tastes they can trust.

Sites like Yelp can fulfill several useful roles for small businesses. They're a great way to promote a business before it launches. One San Francisco restaurant had a house full of Yelpers on opening day. Yelp also provides a good CRM (define) feedback loop for businesses to address areas that may not work well for customers.Yelp is also highly selective about the advertisements it will accept -- only businesses with a minimum of a 3-star user review rating are allowed. Though the privately held company has yet to turn a profit, 60 percent of yelpers are between the ages of 26-35, a highly desired demographic for advertisers. This site gives tremendous opportunity to business owners to not just advertise, but get to know their customers and have a truly insider perspective of what they are doing right or wrong.

Another social site Sproose references itself as an interactive search engine, providing peer-moderated, ranking, prioritizing and community networking for consumer use. Search and Vote, basically. Read more on Sproose..


These websites are on the rise and the more sophisticated internet users become the more they will be using these social sites over simple map and listing sites.

Monday, February 19, 2007

The Future of Social Search

Search has officially gone social. It has been known for months that the growing trend in organic search is the social element. From customer reviews to joining mailing lists, organic search has been moving in a direction of growing social networks and better communications with potential customers. Now you can even have your own live personal serach assistant with the introduction of ChaCha.
Here's how it works: Each searcher is assigned a guide to communicate with through an online chat program. The guide asks questions about the query's nature, searches numerous engines at record speed, and returns results as she finds them. Sometimes, she'll request more information to further customize her search. When the user is satisfied with the results, ChaCha encourages him to rate the guide so it can gauge its staff's quality and the user's experience.
ChaCha has taken the social element of search to the extreme and even made it completely personal. Other search engines are sure to follow suit.

What are your thoughts on the future of social search?

Monday, February 12, 2007

What is linkbaiting? And How Gain Relevance on Google.

Google revolutionized the search engine industry by counting links to web sites as “votes” for that site. The more backlinks a website can generate from other websites with relevant content, the better their ranking on Google for relevant keywords. Google and the other search engines want to see natural links to sites to show them (and those who use them) content that is truly relevant to the searched-for keywords. The simple way to do this is by having relevant content – more specifically, you should have content on your site to which people WANT to link. This kind of relevant, interesting, useful, and noteworthy content even has a name: “linkbait.”

Top 3 Helpful Hints to Create Linkbait

  • Create Lists- Whether they be introductory lists, top 10 lists or interesting fact lists, people love to read lists and learn something others might not know. (I took this advice)
  • Notify Others- Submit your article to a syndication site such as EzineArticles or GoArticles. Also notify industry news sites and journalists that write about similar topics.
  • Network, Network, Network!- Trade content and link to peers sites in your industry. Contact people with similar interests and ask them for their feedback and to write a few words about your post.

Wednesday, February 7, 2007

New Search Marketing Ad Software

Fast Search & Transfer unveiled on Monday a platform that will allow media companies, online classifieds and others to serve private-label, contextually relevant ads on their Web sites without having to turn to Google. The product, named AdMomentum, is sold as a software license and allows online advertisers to be able to build search-driven monetization solutions themselves. Local.com is one of the first customers to purchase the software and will be working to gain as much traffic as possible to pay off the licensing fees, instead of using a revenue sharing strategy. We will see in the future if this product is able to keep speed with the updates that Google and Yahoo continue to release.

Read more...

Friday, February 2, 2007

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