WebShare Search & Conversion Marketing Blog

Search & Conversion Marketing Blog

Welcome to our blog! Here you'll find posts on the topics of web design & traffic acquisition, paid and organic search strategies, analytics & business intelligence, conversion testing, interviews, videos and more. We hope you find it useful, and invite you to read, share, subscribe, leave a comment, or just have a look at what's here.

Archive for the ‘Search Marketing’ Category

Microsoft’s Web Analytics (Project Gatineau) in Beta

Monday, November 19th, 2007 by David Booth

Microsoft’s Project Gatineau is now in beta and being tested by the public. On October 29th they began inviting certain users to sign up for the beta, although you do need to be an adCenter user to be granted an invitation. At this time it is not known when Microsoft will release it for all customers to use.

Gatineau is Microsoft’s “answer” to Google’s Analytics, and they state that it won’t be exactly the same as Analytics (and of course they say it will be better). Ian Thomas of Microsoft’s Digital Advertising Solutions group has a blog specifically discussing Gatineau, and in it he states, “We think there’s room in the market for another service of this nature; plus, we have some stuff up our sleeves that we hope you’ll like and which will differentiate us from Google’s and others’ offerings.” He went on to note that “we have more resources than DeepMetrix did (development team has more than quadrupled since the acquisition, for example), so hopefully we won’t disappoint you.” Microsoft’s attainment of DeepMetrix tipped off the internet community that the software giant was looking to get into web analytics. Gatineau is the name of the Canadian city where DeepMetrix was based for a number of years.

Ian goes on in his more recent blogs to give us just a taste of something we may see from Gatineau, and I’ve tried to capture some differences between this and Google Analytics. Perhaps the most exciting aspect of Gatineau is that it has the ability to track some demographic data (such as usage statistics between men and women) for users that have a Microsoft Live ID and are logged in as they browse the web. Another feature is the ability to map the document hierarchy from your content management system into the tool and see this in Gatineau’s reports. The tool also includes similar things that Google Analytics already does but in a different way, including funnel reports, outbound link tracking, inbound referrals, ROI reports, goal analysis, and client system reports.

At this time, Gatineau is not getting much attention, but we’ll be watching to see how Microsoft’s entry into the Analytics game unfolds. It is also likely that the features introduced with Gatineau could be incorporated into the market’s current offering of web analytics tools, but we’ll let time tell. We at WebShare are evaluating Gatineau and its capabilities to understand where it shines and where it lacks, and will continue to communicate on this new service from Microsoft and let you know how it might (or might not) benefit you.

WebShare, LLC is a full service Internet Marketing firm specializing in Search and Conversion Marketing. We offer a variety of services to help you make the most of your search marketing efforts, and get an edge on your competitors.

David Booth
David is a co-founder and principal consultant at WebShare. You can find out more about David here.

See more posts by David Booth

Posted in Google Analytics, Search Marketing, Webshare Videos, Website Design | 1 Comment »

Search Activity Posts Big Numbers

Thursday, November 15th, 2007 by David Booth

It appears that the search market is alive and well. ComScore released the findings from their report showing the worldwide search activity in August of 2007. Google is still the worldwide leader with over 60% of the market share. It is interesting to note that Youtube searches (5 billion) account for a little over 13% of all Google searches. Yahoo comes in at a distant second while Chinese search engine, Baidu comes in third place. Microsoft continues to hold a minor presence in the search market in fourth place.

We should note that this data does not include searches conducted on public computers or mobile devices. This would indicate that there are actually even more people performing searches on the internet. As mobile device and wireless technologies continue to become more prevalent, the number of searches performed will continue to grow. A couple of interesting notes include the fact that the Asia-Pacific market has the highest search volume of all regions, while the Latin America region having the smallest internet population has the most searches per searcher. If these markets continue to grow at their current rates, they could open some great international search marketing opportunities.

To put this all in perspective, let’s take a look at the average number of searches in a little shorter time period. Breaking down the number of worldwide searches conducted in August of 2007, you can see that the average number of searches performed worldwide on a daily basis is nearly 2 billion! That’s over 22,000 searches conducted per second, which presents a whole lot of marketing opportunity!

With an audience that size the question isn’t, “Why would I start a search marketing campaign?” It’s “Why wouldn’t I start a search marketing campaign?” WebShare is a Google Website Optimizer and Analytics Authorized Consultancy as well as a Google Adwords Qualified Company. We offer a variety of services including search engine optimization and search and conversion marketing to help you make the most of your search marketing efforts, and get an edge on your competitors.

David Booth
David is a co-founder and principal consultant at WebShare. You can find out more about David here.

See more posts by David Booth

Posted in Search Marketing, Website Design, Website Promotion & LinkBuilding | No Comments »

Using Google Adwords Site Targeting? Two New Changes you Need to Know About

Friday, November 9th, 2007 by Dave Reichenbacher

If you’re using Site Targeting in your Google Adwords advertising strategy, then you’ll want to know about the two changes that Google announced to this feature this yesterday.

Google Adwords Site Targeting has been around for a couple of years now and has allowed advertisers to broaden the scope of where their advertisements might appear by leveraging a large and established network of websites that have the ability to display Google Ads. An advertiser had the ability to browse through the myriad websites within Google’s Content Network and choose those that it would like to display text, image, and even video ads on.

Yesterday Google took this two steps further, and here’s the highlights:

1) Advertisers may now select not only the site they wish their ads to appear on, but also the specific section and location of the website. Why is this important? Well, let’s say you’re using Google ads to generate business selling all inclusive cruise packages. Wouldn’t it be nice to tell Google to show your ads in the travel section of your chosen news site? Or the cruises section of the travel magazine website you’ve selected?

Absolutely, and now you can.As a side note, this change prompted Google to change the name of this feature from “Site Targeting” to “Placement Targeting.”

2) Advertisers now have the ability to choose a Cost Per Click (CPC) bidding option. Until now, Site Targeting (oops, “Placement Targeting”) has relied on Cost Per Impression (CPM), or a price per 1,000 impressions of your ad. If you’ve been at Adwords long enough, you know that one of the most important features of paid search is the ability to turn many dials to zero in on the optimal financial well being of your campaigns, ad groups, ads, and keywords. A CPC model gives you a little more control over what you’re willing to spend for each visitor that your ad brings to your website.

Keep in mind that CPM models still do have a purpose – if you’re interested in maximum exposure and branding type activities, you’ll still be able to choose this option.

If you’d like to give Placement Targeting a try, you can get started for as little as a $0.01 bid in the CPC model or $0.25 for your first 1,000 impressions. Just log into your account, navigate to your main “Online Campaigns” table on the Campaign Summary page, and click on “Placement-targeted” in the Create New Campaign option on the top right.

Google Adwords Qualified Company can help you

WebShare is a Google AdWords Qualified Company, and if you need consulting or training on your Google AdWords account, we can help. From in depth training modules on pay per click marketing to daily active management, WebShare has the Adwords Consulting solution to fit your needs.

Dave Reichenbacher
DR directs program management and operations at WebShare. He also is one of our Seminars for Success instructors and has an affinity toward local search marketing. You can find out more about Dave here.

See more posts by Dave Reichenbacher

Posted in OnTheSpot, Pay Per Click Marketing, Search Marketing, Webshare Videos | No Comments »

Don’t Forget to Manage Your PPC Billboard!

Monday, October 29th, 2007 by Dave Reichenbacher

This past week Google held its annual analyst day and they also recently reported their Q3 2007 earnings. Nick Fox, director of product management in the advertising division made the statement during Analyst day, “the quality of ads is still quite low”. He was referring to the sponsored ads displayed on Google’s search and content networks, and Nick was clearly telling analysts that Google Adwords can still bring in a whole lot of money for the search engine gorilla.

Now just as a majority of us tend to get sick of hearing about the “big dog” winning all the time, at first I cringed with jealousy at the thought of Google making even more money than they do today. But the reality is…he’s right. The quality of the majority of ads displayed is poor.

Why is this? Have people lost creativity in their ad writing? Maybe, but I don’t think so for the greater part. I think it is because people misunderstand the power of continually improving their pay per click campaigns. Most people seem to have a “put up a billboard and field the calls it generates” mentality when it comes to pay per click. That strategy only works for a lucky few, and even for those lucky few it can always be done better. The key to a good pay per click campaign is the pay per click management of that campaign.

WebShare can help with your Microsoft adCenter campaigns

WebShare can help with your Ask.com paid search strategy

It is how someone effectively oversees the ads and distribution of the bids continually. Managing a pay per click campaign requires attention at the keyword, adgroup, and ad level, and one of the most important aspects of the management is constantly improving the quality of the ads themselves with testing. Constant testing will improve your ad campaigns in their ability to (a) attract clicks and (b) attract clicks that are likely to convert. You need to be testing unless you are converting at 100%, which is highly unlikely. It makes simple business sense.

So if pay per click management is one of the most important things to do for your advertising budget, then why are people simply neglecting it? We believe it comes down to time and resources. Companies need to put in the resources to manage their pay per click campaigns to get effective results. Some campaigns need to be managed on a daily basis, and this can significantly draw time from a smaller business’s pool of people. If your business is having trouble finding the time and people to manage campaigns, then there are options that can give you an alternative to neglecting your pay per click advertising. WebShare offers different levels of pay per click management that can meet your needs, from training to active day to day management. We can provide your business the resources and consulting to effectively manage your accounts with Google Adwords, Yahoo! Marketing Solutions, or Microsoft Digital Advertising Solutions.

WebShare is a Yahoo! Search Marketing Ambassador and Google AdWords Qualified Company, and can help you with your Google AdWords Management as well as your Yahoo! Search Marketing, Microsoft adCenter, and Ask.com paid search accounts. We help clients maximize their advertising budgets with solutions that range from training to active daily management. We look forward to helping bring you to the next level.

Posted in OnTheSpot, Pay Per Click Marketing, Search Marketing, Webshare Videos | No Comments »

Three Search and Conversion Marketing Tools You Can’t Live Without

Wednesday, October 24th, 2007 by David Booth

Are you using the best tools for your search marketing and conversion marketing programs, and are you using them to the best of your advantage? There are a variety of applications offered by various vendors, however Google leads the pack with three applications in particular: Analytics, Adwords and Website Optimizer. It may not be perfectly clear as to how the Google applications work together and what the function of each one is. So let’s demystify the situation. Below we highlight a few Google applications, and each one can be used to help you create, manage and implement your search and conversion marketing program. Best of all, these applications are free or are available at very reasonable costs. As an added bonus, these applications are web-based, which means you don’t have to host them on your server.

Information is power, and from that perspective Google Analytics, Google Adwords and Google Website Optimizer together are a nuclear power plant! Together, these three applications can help you answer more than just how many visitors were on you site yesterday. They can help you answer as specific of a question as, “How many visitors from Chicago who speak Spanish clicked on my pay-per-click advertisement and actually converted?” And “Which version of the specific advertisement I showed them was more effective?” Furthermore, the tools can help you use the information from those questions to identify and create tests with your site to further improve your conversion rates. Now, that’s powerful stuff!

Google Analytics houses all of the information collected about your site’s visitors, and allows you to view it in hundreds of different reports. It costs nothing (other than your time) to open a Google Analytics account for your website. Think of Google Analytics as a giant database that allows you to collect loads of data about your site’s visitors, and perform highly specific queries to slice and dice visitor data in just about any way you desire. Google Analytics can be even more powerful when used in conjunction with another Google application (Adwords or Website Optimizer) to help you manage your search and conversion marketing programs. If you’re serious about increasing your site’s traffic and conversion rate, you should be incorporating Google Analytics into just about everything you do.

Google Adwords is Google’s Pay-Per-Click (PPC) program, and its interface allows users to manage the campaigns that drive traffic to Web sites on a cost per click basis. Opening an Adwords account is easy, and only requires $5 and a few minutes. In Adwords, users can implement new PPC campaigns, edit keyword lists, change ads, and manage their PPC budget. Additionally, Adwords gives you access to a number of tools than can give you insights into everything from seasonal trends across industries to keyword research. Adwords also provides a number of reports to view your PPC campaign statistics and progress, and your Adwords account can be linked to Google Analytics to give you even more data about your ads and paid traffic. The data available in Adwords are certainly extremely useful, but any organization serious about improving their search and conversion marketing program should be exploiting the wealth of information that a solid analytics package (like Google Analytics) provides in addition to the Adwords reports.

Google Website Optimizer allows users to conduct statistical tests on their site’s pages to determine which variables will improve the probability that a visitor will convert on the website’s goals. Website Optimizer is free, but as it is accessed through the Adwords interface, it is only available to users who have an Adwords account. So technically Website Optimizer costs you the $5 you need to open an Adwords account. The variables you can test are virtually unlimited – they can range from changing the page background color, testing different ad copy, different images, different headlines, different positioning, and different layouts and designs to the combination of size and location buttons, trust logos, affiliation links, and anything in between. Website Optimizer offers two statistical analysis methods (A/B split testing and full factorial multivariate testing) to help you design and implement tests that will determine what changes on your site affect the probability of visitors converting on your site’s goals. Website Optimizer uses Analytics-like tracking code to run the tests, and you can use Google Analytics to see the long term trends that result from your Website Optimizer testing. If you’re not converting 100% of your visitors, then you should be testing your website right now.

Still not sure where to begin? WebShare offers consulting and training services to help you make the most of your search and conversion marketing programs. Webshare is one of a handful of companies in the world that is an authorized consultant for Google Analytics, Adwords and Website Optimizer as well as a certified consultant for a number of other tools including Yahoo! Search Marketing. Without a doubt, Google Analytics, Adwords and Website Optimizer can be intimidating, and they do take time to master. However, if used to their fullest potential these three applications can help you improve your search and conversion marketing programs by leaps and bounds.

David Booth
David is a co-founder and principal consultant at WebShare. You can find out more about David here.

See more posts by David Booth

Posted in Conversion Marketing, Google Analytics, Google Website Optimizer, Search Marketing | No Comments »

Google Analytics Gets Site Search and Event Tracking

Tuesday, October 16th, 2007 by Dave Reichenbacher

We often find ourselves wondering if among the things going on at Google is the ability to read our minds. We started looking for cost-effective, in depth, usable website analytics, and bang! Google buys Urchin and makes Google Analytics free to the world. As our multivariate testing algorithms became more time intensive and complex, Google rolls out the Website Optimizer, a tool that can help us automate much of the testing process. So I felt a sense of déjà vu when I was at Google last week and watched Avinash and the GA team show off the new Google Analytics Internal Site Search tool, since we have been recently writing metrics-laden site search tools for customers.

As with Analytics and Optimizer, this set of reports promises to be extremely enlightening, to the point where you will ask “How did I get by without this before?”

When advising consulting clients, we have long professed that motivation & intent are the most important factors—but how do you measure it? Clickstream data only tells half the story—just because they ended up on a page doesn’t mean it was what they were looking for.

Internal Site Search will certainly show you what keywords are being searched for on your site, but there are three other reports that I’m particularly excited about.

Search Exits is essentially the bounce rate of a search. This means a visitor searched on a keyword and was dissatisfied with the results and decided to leave. After all the money you spent optimizing your pay-per-click campaigns, it’s a shame to lose them here. Find the keywords that are underperforming and fix it!

Segmented Search allows you to segment your results by any of the standard segmentation options. This is incredibly useful for seeing what a particular segment of your visitors came looking for.

Finally, you now have ability to see how well your search tool is converting. The report will show results of searchers vs non-searchers on a collection of metrics, such as conversion rate, time on site, revenue, per visit value, and even average order size. I have yet to see a case where those who did not use the site search tool convert better than those who do, so if you don’t have an internal site search tool get over and snag one now!

For those that truly want to understand their customer, there are a couple reports that allow you to dig even deeper. Search Term Refinement allows you to drill down and see what were the next terms the person searched for after a particular keyword. For example, you may see that visitors that searched on “TrippLite UPS”, went on to search for “TrippLite UPS 1300W sale” and so on.

Another report for the analytics junkie is the Results Pageviews/Search. The idea here is to show you how far down the list a visitor had to go before finding the item that matched their search and tuning your internal search engine to deliver more relevant results near the top.

Event Tracking

One of the most common questions we get during an analytics consulting engagement is “How can I track AJAX & ‘web 2.0′ elements with Google Analytics?”

While there have been hacks and workarounds before, the announcement of an extensible event tracking model built into GA is a welcome addition. While I haven’t personally used it yet, we were given a demo last week by Phil Mui, who is a product manager for Google Analytics, and it was fairly impressive.

Look for a more in-depth post to come soon on this topic as well as the launch of the long-awaited Urchin 6.

Webshare is proud to be a Google Partner and Google Analytics Authorized consultancy. If you are looking to get the most out of your analytics, we offer customized analytics training as well as analytics consulting for projects of any size.

Posted in Google Analytics, Search Marketing | 2 Comments »

On the Spot: HackerSafe’s Cresta Pillsbury

Tuesday, October 16th, 2007 by David Booth

by David Booth
Founding Partner at WebShare, LLC

If you’re doing conversion marketing and statistical testing on your website and you haven’t explored trust logos yet, then you’re missing out. It’s no accident that you see the same logos appearing on more sites day after day – it’s because they’re working.

These little trustmarks have the ability to get more people to push the button, sign up for the newsletter, enter their credit card information, or even pick up the phone and call the number. We do quite a bit of testing with trust logos, and one of the most successful ones we’ve come across is the HACKERSAFE logo, an image that by now you surely recognize:

Want to try Hackersafe for yourself?
Get started now at a discount!

We asked HackerSafe Senior Director of Business Development Cresta Pillsbury to talk about what’s new at HackerSafe and why this logo and program have been so successful in increasing website conversion rates:

WebShare:

What has ScanAlert been up to lately? Can you tell us about the headway that’s been made in comparison shopping?

CP:

PriceGrabber.com, Pronto.com and Yahoo! Shopping have each integrated HACKER SAFE into their comparison shopping listings. It is the first time since the invention of comparison shopping that consumers can evaluate merchants on more than just pricing and merchant ratings. We’re the only trustmark company doing this, and market this syndication opportunity as the HACKER SAFE Feed.ScanAlert customers can subscribe to the FEED for an additional charge above their regular HACKER SAFE subscription cost. The FEED is sold as an annual, unlimited clicks package, with rates varying according to the retailer’s site traffic and the engines they want the seal to show up in. Enrollment, which takes about five minutes, is an easy, self-directed process via our portal. We provide a pricing matrix that looks just like an advertising rate card. Every day, we send a whitelist to our shopping partners so the product searcher sees real-time security information. This is how the HACKER SAFE seal integrates with PriceGrabber.com’s listings, for example.So far, the results have been great and the FEED is making retailers lots of money.

For example, PlumberSurplus.com saw the number of orders from PriceGrabber.com rise 35%, and sales in dollars more than double (112% to be exact). PlumberSurplus.com’s Online Marketing Team Leader Ryan Douglas is not surprisingly very happy. He told us this week that while he had been getting steady sales growth in 2007 using other search tactics, he hadn’t seen anything like the results he got when he added HACKER SAFE to his PriceGrabber.com listings. (Readers will be able to read more about this in the November issue of Internet Retailer magazine).

Our comparison shopping program is very exciting. We’re continuing to add new shopping partners, the holiday retailing season is picking up speed, and retailers have a great way to stand out and close even more business.

WebShare:

How can a website owner go about getting the HACKER SAFE trustmark on their sites, and what kind of testing can they do to see if it’s really helping?

CP:

It’s easy. They can go through a HACKERSAFE partner such as WebShare, visit HACKERSAFE.com or call us toll-free at 866-872-3011. As far as determining an ROI, there are several testing options. While some of our customers use testing and optimization services like Offermatica or Verster, the vast majority work directly with us to implement a very simple A/B split test. More than 800 retailers have run these highly transparent, statistically valid tests with us. During the test period, visitors either see (research group) or don’t see (control group) the HACKER SAFE image. Conversion rates between the two groups are then compared.On average, the number of orders from the research group has been 14% higher than the control. The difference between one site and another usually tracks to issues like brand equity; large chain stores typically see a 4.0-9.5% difference, while smaller, less well-known sites can see up to 30% higher conversion. In other words, if you’re a smaller retailer with a 2% conversion rate, you’ll likely see a 2.3-2.5% rate by having the site HACKER SAFE certified. Multiply this against weekly, monthly and annual sales figures and you can see that the ROI is considerable.

WebShare:

Of all the trust logos out there, why do you believe the HACKER SAFE logo in particular has had such a profound positive impact on website visitors?

CP:

The impact really is profound; almost every media outlet covering the online marketing world has published something in which our customers rave about the experience and ROI. Some of the media coverage (and the profiled customers) include:BtoB Magazine (Stuller), DM News (Stacks and Stacks), DIRECT, Ecommerce Times (JL Hufford Coffee), InformationWeek (CDConnection.com), Internet.com, Internet Marketing Report (4WD Hardware), Internet Retailer (American Musical Supply), Internet Retailer (Yankee Candle Co.), Internet Retailer (Shari’s Berries), Marketing Sherpa (PETCO), Multichannel Merchant (Stylin’ Concepts), SearchEngineWatch, SmallBusinessComputing.com , and STORES (Frederick’s of Hollywood).

There are several reasons why HACKER SAFE works best. Thanks to a decade of unceasing media coverage about hackers, consumers are extremely conscious about security and hackers so the words “HACKER SAFE” really resonate with shoppers. The HACKER SAFE standard has been adopted by so many name brand companies (from AIG, Ace Hardware, and Cabela’s, to FootLocker, GNC, and Prudential) that consumers are much more aware than ever about what companies need to do to meet the standard. HACKER SAFE builds the trust that builds online businesses.

One way to test out if the HACKERSAFE logo works for you is to get it at a discount through WebShare, and then use Google’s new Website Optimizer tool to set up and run a conversion marketing test. Whether you’re looking to increase leads, sales, downloads, signups, or clicks, it’s very likely that this little logo can help you make better use of the visitors you have on your site.Statistical experimentation can tell you if you gain anything (and how much) by making small changes to your website, and can be the most powerful tool in your search marketing arsenal.

David Booth
David is a co-founder and principal consultant at WebShare. You can find out more about David here.

See more posts by David Booth

Posted in Conversion Marketing, Search Marketing | No Comments »

Why You Should be Blogging!

Monday, October 15th, 2007 by Dave Reichenbacher

For a business to get a search and conversion marketing strategy on the right track, a wonderful and essential step is to include a blog on the site. Whether you’re selling products, disseminating information, attracting email addresses for your mailing lists, getting leads, or anything else, blogs are a great way to get attention from the search engines and attract links to the site. Besides the website optimization benefits, blogs also provide a forum to communicate the company’s products and services. A blog provides a place for clients and/or people with similar interests of the company to dialog, and this dialog helps you grow and maintain a reputable site. Essentially, a blog can be an excellent tool to provide value to your visitors, show valuable content to the search engines, and promote your site for the keywords that are important to you.

To get started, there are really only two things you need to do. First, you’ll need to set up the blog, and set it up correctly. Second, you’ll need to start blogging!

Step 1: Set up Your Blog

Many organizations can get intimidated about setting up a blog on their site, and with good reason. Although getting a blog up and running on your site is fairly straightforward, you must spend some time choosing the right solution and installing and configuring the blog in a way that makes it most attractive to search engine spiders. Once the technical parts of the install are complete, you’ll need to develop a list of topics to cover in the blog. The topics can simply come from the company’s key products and services. Brainstorm within the company about what topics clients will be interested in. What are the common questions being asked about the company’s products and services? Why is the business better than other businesses in the same industry?

And always be thinking of how you can relate these topics to your core keyword target list. As the blog matures, topics will manifest themselves based on the feedback received. That feedback may even dictate new products or services. Logistically, you should make sure to link to your blog from your homepage, and you should make sure it’s set up on the same domain. A good tip is to use an RSS feed from your blog to show content from your blog on other parts of your site. Although there are a number of options out there for your blog solution, we like WordPress for its search friendly configuration and add-on options.

Step 2: Start Blogging

Typically the hardest part about a blog is doing the writing itself and continuing it in a consistent manner. In order to have a successful blog, you absolutely need to be blogging! A company needs to recognize that the blog is important not only for the value it provides to its visitors, but also for providing search engines with keyword rich content that further describes your site. As your audience is two-fold, keep in mind that blog writing needs to be done in a way that supports both of these objectives. There are a number of ways to make sure that your blog gets written to consistently.

It’s good to spread the responsibility of throughout the company. Have everyone in the company write a blog post once a day, once a week, or with whatever frequency they can support.
Look to your local educational institutions for interns. Internships in technical writing can be an excellent way to ensure that your blog is kept up to date with fresh content.
Have it done professionally. Outsourcing to companies that specialize in content generation can keep you on track with precisely calculated, keyword rich, search engine friendly blog posts, and you can have loads of content posted for you without taking a single minute out of your day.

Blogging is an absolutely essential part of your search marketing strategy, and the best time to get started was yesterday!

Find out how WebShare can help you set up, configure, and start populating your blog with valuable content. Contact us when you’re ready to take your search marketing strategy to the next level.

Posted in Search Marketing | No Comments »

Mobile Search Continues to Gain Momentum

Friday, October 12th, 2007 by Dave Reichenbacher

The mobile search market continues to attract more users. A recent study by Google researchers was featured in IEEE Computer Society’s Computer Magazine, and revealed some of the latest user trends in mobile search. Here are a few of the key findings from the study:

From 2005 to 2007 the number of mobile search queries resulting in users clicking at least one search result increased from 10 percent to over 50 percent. Furthermore, the percentage of mobile search queries resulting in users requesting “more search results” rose from 8.5 percent to 10.5 percent.
Since 2005, the number of queries per session has increased by more than 25 percent.
The average mobile query was 2.56 words and 16.8 characters, while smartphone queries were slightly longer at 2.64 words. In comparison, PC search queries are about 2.5 words.

The study also looked at what mobile users are searching. The table below is taken from the study which shows the top categories in mobile search. The results are based on actual query data from Google. The categories in the table are undefined, so it is difficult to determine exactly how the web pages were classified, but it offers an interesting look at what users are searching for on their mobile devices.

Whether your search marketing strategy targets natural (organic) searches or paid advertising, the addition of mobile-friendly web pages to your site is important. Note that mobile-friendly landing pages are required for pay-per-click advertising on Google’s mobile search engine. WebShare offers a variety of search and conversion marketing services that can help you improve your site’s presence in the mobile search market. You can expect to see more users searching the Mobile Web as wireless service providers continue to improve the speed of their wireless internet connections, making it increasingly more important to expand your search marketing strategy into the mobile arena.

Posted in Search Marketing | No Comments »

Displaying Google Searches & Ads from a Different Geography or Region

Friday, October 5th, 2007 by Corey Koberg

Now that Google is moving away from a “monolithic” index, it’s common for people in different geographies to get completely different results from a Google search. So when discussing search results with a client or testing geo-targeted adwords, it’s often useful to have Google show me the results as if I were in a different area.

To accomplish this only requires a little manipulation of the query string parameters.

For example, a normal query for mangos might look like this:
http://www.google.com/search?q=mangos

Note that the “q=” query string parameter tells us what the search term is. With the region parameters for San Diego, California added on the end, it looks like this:
http://www.google.com/search?q=mangos&gl=US&gm=825&gr=US-CA&gcs=San%20Diego

The parameters are:

gl = Country code (full list here)
gll = Lat & Long
gr = Worldwide region code (full list here)
gcs = City (but gr must be set to the same value. Full list here)
gpc = Zip code (only works if country code is “US”)
gm = Metropolitan areas of US (full list here)

A handy trick is to let Google set them for you via their Adwords preview wizard . Simply go to:
www.google.com/adpreview

Specify the region and hit search. Then click on the frame properties on the bottom frame and copy the GL,GM,GR, & GCS params out of the URL and paste onto the end of your search.

If you’re interested in manipulating the other query string parameters Google uses, check out this handy cheatsheet.