SEM | The Kmiec Ramblings

Tag Archive: SEM

I Want To Find – Not Search

Written on June 1, 2009 by Adam in Marketing & Advertising, Misc.

Does anyone really want to search for something? Does anyone really want to sift through reams of files, sort through a massive list, or go drawer by drawer looking for that missing sock?

Of course not. There is no joy in searching. There is, however, joy in finding. My apologies for those of you who think it’s about the journey and the destination. In the case of search vs. find, it’s the destination not the journey. As technology evolves, companies get smarter, and expectations increase people become less patient or forgiving. People want it now. They want it quickly. Oh, and they don’t want to pay for it.

The search engine of the future, won’t be a search engine. It won’t be a tool that requires you to visit link after link in hopes of stumbling upon the desired result. Though search engines have gotten smarter, they are not perfect by any stretch of the imagination. No, the search engine of the future will be a engine that focused on findability. It will be a tool that helps you FIND what you were looking for instead of browsing results in hopes of finding what you were looking for.

But, here’s the thing. In my humble opinion, the only way that’s going to happen is if people realize, understand, and accept the concept of mutual exchange. They are going to have to give something to get something. If people want a better individualized search engine, they’re going to need to provide information to help make the engine better. They will need to part with personal information. They will need to provide ongoing feedback.

People, not servers and mathematical algorithms are going make the difference. It’s the people that will cause a shift from search to find. We’re seeing this happen already with “human powered” search engines like Mahalo and Wikipedia. Last year when Google allowed people to customize and change search results with a new feature called Search Wiki we saw a glimpse of the future. Unfortunately, it was just a glimpse and nothing more. The next step for Google will be to aggregate all of those human powered changes and allow them to impact the overall search results. While, that’s the right next step, I don’t think we’ll see it happening anytime soon.

They aren’t adding more time in the day. Speed and accuracy are becoming more important. We all want answers to our questions and queries. I just don’t think we ever realized how big of a role we’d be playing in generating those quick, accurate, answers.

Tags: Google, Search, Search Engines, SEM, SEO

Ahh Spam

Written on April 30, 2009 by Adam in Funny

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This just really made me laugh. I hope it does the same for you.

I am Dr. Marc Schneider and I work for Global Vibration Inc. in Washington DC ( Tel: 1 202-250-3645 ) – I would like to speak with the person in charge of your international clientele. Who is my contact? Who should I speak to??

In fact, after visiting http://www.thekmiecs.com , I have noticed that your website cannot be found on foreign search engines (I tested it on Hispanic search engines, German search engines, Asian search engines, etc.) Our company is specialized in multilingual search engine promotions in 28 languages . From the Japanese Google to the German Yahoo, from the AOL in Spanish to the MSN in Chinese, we can show you how to develop a true international online presence by promoting your website on foreign search engines.

Let us show you how to develop a presence on the multilingual web without having to translate your website: It is not necessary to translate your website in order to submit to foreign search engines, however, you need to have at least 1 page in Japanese optimized with Japanese keywords and meta tags in order to submit to Japanese search engines, at least 1 page in Spanish optimized with Spanish keywords in order to submit to Hispanic search engines and so on…

I strongly suggest that you watch our online presentation which will explains clearly how to get top rankings on foreign search engines with only 1 entry page per language (click on the following link or copy-paste it into your web browser): http://www.mplw.net/demo

From the Japanese Google to the German Yahoo, from the AOL in Spanish to the MSN in Chinese, get users to find your website when searching with YOUR KEYWORDS in their Native language.

Please call me at +1 (202) 250-3645 or email me and let’s work on giving your website the true international exposure which it deserves to have with foreign native online users!!

Regards,

Marc Schneider, Ph.D.
Marcs@mplw.net

GLOBAL VIBRATION INC.
1250 Connecticut Ave N.W. Suite 200
Washington, DC 20036 USA
TEL: +1 (202) 250-3645 – FAX: 1 (202)-318-2453

http://www.mplw.net

Multilingual Search Engine Promotion Services since 1999.

You just have to love how savvy these spammers are getting. I mean WOW, bummer, German search engines are finding me.

Tags: SEM, SEO, Spam

We Operate In The World Of Now – How US Airways Missed The Boat

Written on January 15, 2009 by Adam in Marketing & Advertising

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At approximately 3:03 PM today, US Airways flight 1549, an Airbus A320, made an unexpected and certainly unplanned landing into New York City’s Hudson River. The plane was carrying 155 passengers and crew from LaGuardia Airport in New York to Charlotte, N.C. The plane literally ran into a flock of Canadian geese. The collision was enough to cause the plane to suffer engine failure. The pilot did an amazing job of landing the plane into the river. Amazingly, there were no fatalities and only a few minor injuries. Keep this fact in mind, it’s really important. Think about this, NO deaths. That’s good news.

I first learned of the accident via Twitter, not the news. I like many people decided to search for more information on the situation. I was apparently not alone. As Google Trends shows us, everyone seemed to be interested in the story.

As you can see it occupies the top 9 positions. This screen grab was taken at roughly 8:45 EST.

With all this attention and interest, you’d think US Airways would want to make sure:

The right information was being delivered
The positive information was being emphasized
They were influencing the conversation

US Airways released an official press release at 5:12 PM EST. Three other releases were issued after the first one. I applaud their efforts in using offline/traditional channels to communicate with people. However, I have to take them to task for the horrendous use of the most important channel: online search. As noted above in the Google Trends graphic, there was an enormous about of interest in the situation. To support the press release US Airways should have done 2 things:

Setup a landing page/mini site for all information regarding the situation. The site should have contained their message, their releases, and allowed people to opt-in or subscribe to a RSS feed for future updates. The mini site would allow for a central location for all things related to the accident. It would give US Airways a way to manage the conversation and ensure the information doesn’t pollute USAirways.com, where people would be booking flights. See, you kinda don’t want to mix booking a flight with information about near crashes.
Given all the chatter online and the number of searches they needed to get a paid search campaign up quickly. I first made mention of this on Twitter around 5:00 PM EST. Why I first tweeted about the need for paid search, no one had bought any terms. When I checked again at 8:00 PM EST, US Airways hadn’t purchased any terms, but the lawyers and law firms had. That’s a big problem.

There’s two things to take away from this image. One, notice that Google has already started trending and recommending searches affiliated with the accident when you search for “US Airways.” Specifically, “US Airways Crash” and “US Airways Plane Crash” are being recommended. We can split hairs on this, but this wasn’t a crash. The term crash is usually associated with death and destruction. Remember, there were NO deaths. The second thing to notice is the first paid search term is for a law firm that’s looking to make some serious money.

Had US Airways moved as quickly online as they had offline, this wouldn’t have been a problem. But, now when people search for US Airways they’re going to be presented with language, information, and ads that are counter to the story that US Airways wants to communicate. Simply put, they missed the boat, because they forgot that online we operate in the world of NOW.

Tags: Bad, Best Of, SEM, SEO, US Airways

The Devil Is In The Details – How Whopper Virgins Missed

Written on December 16, 2008 by Adam in Marketing & Advertising

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Many of you, no doubt, are familiar with the Whopper Virgins work by CP+B for Burger King. Even I openly admit to liking the concept, the ads, and the site. The campaign relies on TV awareness to drive people to a web site. Simple enough. But, there are two giant flaws in the campaign and AdAge covers it really well here.

Flaw #1: The didn’t invest in any paid search engine marketing.
Flaw #2: They didn’t optimize the site to index against Whopper Virgins AND Whopper Virgin (sans S)

So why are these flaws?

Answer
Because nearly 50% of the searches are for Whopper Virigin (no S). And when you type that into Google (because no one really types in the URL) you don’t see any paid search ads driving you to the right site nor do you see Whoppervirgins.com appear on the first page.

Paid search should be part of EVERY TV driven campaign. It has to be. People may not remember the URL, the brand, or the product, but they generally remember the story. My favorite example of this was how GM outsmarted Ford during the 2006 Super Bowl. You can read the full story here. The short version is the following:

Ford paid a boat load of money to run a Super Bowl spot touting their Ford Escape hybrid
In the spot they had Kermit The Frog sing, “It’s Not Easy Being Green”
GM didn’t run an ad, but they did buy a lot of paid search around the concept of the Ford ads; keep in mind they can’t legally buy “Ford” or any other branded/trademarked name
Ford didn’t buy any paid search
So when people were looking for that ad that featured Kermit, guess who came up in the results? GM, not Ford.

Again, purchasing is such a basic and simple part of a campaign. Next time we think about vanity URLs, like WhopperVirgins.com we should always try to get the misspelled versions, invest in some paid search, and optimize the site to cover a wide range of terms.

Tags: Burger King, CP+B, Crispin, Ford, GM, SEM

You Need To Look Beyond Click Thru Rates When Evaluating Banners

Written on December 15, 2008 by Adam in Marketing & Advertising

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Search Engine Marketing gets a lot of the focus these days, and rightly so. When you consider that the industry average click thru rate for display banners is around 0.05 %, it’s easy to see why so many people dismiss banners as a viable marketing tactic. However, we need to keep in mind that the CTR is only one metric.

Recently ComScore published a great white paper that you can get right here, that details how we need to look at the effectiveness of online display advertising.

A few of the key nuggets in the report are:

It’s clear that display advertising, despite a lack of clicks, can have a significant positive impact on:

Visitation to the advertiser’s Web site (lift of at least 46% over a four week period)
The likelihood of consumers conducting a search query using the advertiser’s branded terms (a lift of at least 38% over a four week period) – Consumers’ likelihood of buying the advertised brand online (an average 27% lift in online sales)
Consumers’ likelihood of buying at the advertiser’s retail store (an average lift of 17%)

This chart from the study shows that site traffic does increase when running banners, but not necessarily immediately.

And this chart shows that a greater interest in the brand, as represented through search, takes place after running the ads.

The long story short is you can’t just look at the CTR. That’s only one piece of data. You also need to take into account several other measures and really focus on the main objective for the campaign. Once you do that, it becomes easy to determine if banners are a viable tactic.

Tags: Banners, Click Thru Rate, ComScore, CTR, Online Advertising, SEM

SEO vs. SEM

Written on September 3, 2008 by Adam in Marketing & Advertising

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SEO (aka Search Engine Optimization)

Vs.

SEM (aka Search Engine Marketing)

At the heart of the issue is the following question: “Do you need to promote yourself to get a job, or are you so good, you’re at the top of everyone’s list?

Seriously, that’s what it boils down to. SEO is all about having a great resume. The resume is cleanly laid out, simple to scan, contains a wealth of information, has your lengthy list of references that can vouch for your awesomeness, and of course has several years of experience listed. The reason the resume looks so damn impressive and you are at the top of people’s list is because you’ve been around long enough to garner a solid reputation. But, that reputation didn’t come cheap and it didn’t come fast.

SEM is about paying for that reputation and awareness. It’s kinda like going to a recruiter, presenting your case, and having him/her talk you up and try to get you at the top of everyone’s list. You can work with several recruiters (aka search engines) and work out different fee structures. For example pay per conversion. In this model the recruiter/search engine gets paid only when you get a job.

Ideally, brands/companies would invest in SEO and SEM. However, budgets and timing don’t always allow for it. SEO and SEM can work really well together and are definitely complimentary strategies. It’s not a case of choosing one over the other, but rather figuring out the right investment ratio for them.

Tags: Best Of, SEM, SEO

Search Volume Does Not Equal Sales

Written on August 7, 2008 by Adam in Marketing & Advertising, News

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Thank you Google for launching Google Insights. To me insights is a more enhanced version of Google Trends. Google describes Insights as, “With Google Insights for Search, you can compare search volume patterns across specific regions, categories, and time frames.”

Here is what I love about this. Everyone wants to put money into search engine marketing. I’ve been in meetings where Sr. marketers have said, let’s move all of our money from X to SEM. I think it’s great that people are jumping into search, but I’ve continued to caution anyone who will listen, that they need to look before they jump. In my opinion, search volume is not an indicator, nor is it a predictor of sales.

Here is a great example of what I’m talking about. The following chart shows the change in total car sales of luxury car brands from March 2007 to March 2008.

Change in Sales Volume for Cars 2007 to 2008

Change in Sales Volume from 2007 to 2008

If we buy into the concept that search volume indicates interest, which indicates awareness, which of course drives the top of the so-called marketing funnel. Well, if we fill the top of the funnel, then we’ll have more potential conversions. So, even if our conversion rate stays flat, we’ll drive more sales because our opportunity pool is larger. Make sense?

Ok, well here is a report from Google Insights that looks at the following:

Lexus, BMW, Mercedes, Cadillac, Infiniti, and Acura search volume
Period of Time: January 2007 – July 2008
United States only
Date segmented by “Automotive” category

Google Insights Search Volume for Luxury Cars

I chose January 2007 because many classical marketers believe you need a period of time to be exposed, made aware, and re-exposed before you convert. Do you notice anything strange? BMW, Mercedes, and Lexus, have the highest search volume; or what Google calls “interest,” but some of the worst sales. How can this be? Isn’t search the end all be all solution?

It kinda makes you rethink things a little bit, huh? Well here is my take:

Search is only part of the pie; you still need TV, print, display online advertising, etc. to drive overall site traffic
The site needs to be optimized to keep the interest level high and send you to a dealer
The dealer needs to close the deal

It’s literally that simple. If 1, 2, or 3 are broken it won’t matter how high the search volume is. Would love your thoughts!

Tags: Audi, Best Of, BMW, Conversion, Path to Purchase, Search, SEM