In Search of Traffic

Today's Wall Street Journal has an article on why website owners need to harness the power of Search Engines and deploy SEM and SEO strategies to find customers.

Search engines like Google, Yahoo and Microsoft are often shoppers' first stops when they're looking for a product on the Web and thus it is crucial for websites to show up prominently in search-engine results.

The is the focus of the upcoming Searchnomics 2007 Conference aimed at web and internet marketing professionals. Search has become the enabler for business. It is the most efficient medium connecting business and customers. Searchnomics is where the leaders of the search industry meet to share cutting-edge knowledge, best practices, and trends in:

• Search Engine Marketing
• Search Engine Optimization
• Design and Development
• Branding and Promotion
• Web Analytics
• New Innovations and Opportunites

The article is only available via paid subscription. Here is the link http://online.wsj.com/article/SB117769688676085058.html?mod=wsj_right_click

Ask.com to launch contextual ad platform

Ask.com is getting ready to launch a new advertising platform for contextual ads some time next month. The offering will debut with other IAC (Ask.com's parent company) properties such as TicketMaster.com, Match.com and Evite before rolling out to non-IAC-owned sites.

The contextual ad product will be a feature of the current sponsored listings service offered by Ask.com. The service will provide marketers a customized ad display with placement options for ad display, relevancy and pricing. Advertisers will also have reporting tools and referrer blocking.

Contextually relevant ads have a better chance of appealing to users than random ads that simply pop up on a webpage. This is another way Ask.com to monetize the traffic on IAC properties.

Local Search Marketplace

Local.com has launched "Local Promote" a service for small businesses.

The service allows small businesses to establish a Web presence with a landing page on Local.com, in addition to various distribution, pay-per-click and featured placement options.

The free basic version includes the ability for businesses to post and update business name, description and contact info. This will make it easier for lots of small business to form a Web presence.

Local.com is one of several companies along with Google Maps, Krillion, Gruuve and others that are enabling the "Webification" of the the local search marketplace. These services enable local business to establish a web presence easily and essentially expand the addressable market of online advertisers.

Once there, they are hoped to evolve into paid marketers, whether that be a subscription service like Local Promote, featured placement or paid search on Google.

Search Engine Awards Launched to Recognize Industry Leadership

There is now an award for the best search engine web site. This is the very first award of its kind to recognize leadership, outstanding achievement, and innovation in the search engine industry.

Entry is open to all search engine websites and there is no cost for participation. The winners will be decided by a panel of judges comprised of industry professionals and nominations received for each search website. Search engines websites are encouraged to have their users vote for their favorite search engine website.

To submit your entry please visit http://www.webguild.org/meetings/2007/searchnomics/search_awards.php.

For more information vist http://www.sys-con.com/read/367042.htm.

Google's New Search Page on IE

I rarely use Microsoft IE, so today when I searched using IE the Google search results page on IE was different to the search results page on Firefox. I guess Google is doing a browser detect and displaying different looks on the different browsers. I would like to hear everyone comments on this.

Google search results on IE



Google search results on Firefox

Loading up on the Google SERP Features

Google and others are offering more search for your click. Note the recommendations module at the bottom of the Google search results page for similar searches related to your search. I particularly like that it continues through to all search results pages, not just the first page.

There is also an expansion widget for stock information and directions for certain companies that show up in your search results. This information is contextually relevant and available in-page versus navigating to another page and away from the search results page. This is the kind of stuff that is possible courtesy of AJAX technology.

Yahoo has an "Also try" feature akin to the Google "Searches related to" one that appears at the top and bottom of all SERP pages. I don't see any expandable information options. Nothing similar to either feature sets on MSN. Ask has a "Narrow Your Search" option but they also provide a "Latest News" feature on your search, which in my case was 'flowers', and I just don't get why I would want the latest news on flowers.

Web Design Boom

"Web design is becoming a larger priority for corporations, and that trend is driving a business boom for interactive design shops, according to Forrester Research.

Forrester said the Internet's central role as an information resource has made Web projects key strategic priorities at many companies, leading to a revenue growth rate of at least 20 percent at most shops working in that space. The largest Web agencies, Forrester reports, have seen 40 percent top-line growth."

Read the full article.

Google DoubleClick

Google has announced its intention to acquire DoubleClick for $3.1 billion. On March 29, 2007, I wrote that DoubleClick and Performics were being shopped and that Microsoft was one of the suitors. I also said that Microsoft would not end up buying DoubleClick and that it would be a better fit for Google.

Google's is the leader in search advertising. DoubleClick the leader in display ads. Display advertising accounts for almost half of the online ad market. Via a DoubleClick acquisition Google would become a dominant player in display ads and extend its reach with advertisers, ad networks, agencies and publishers.

Also, Google would gain key capabilities in the production, brokering and distribution of online ads. DoubleClick brings a network that runs ads across multiple advertising venues, such as AOL and Yahoo, providing Google with deep penetration into the overall online advertising market.

Google reported "Our goal is to make advertising on the internet work better: better for users with less intrusive ads and better privacy protection, better for advertisers with greater accountability and effectiveness, and better for publishers with improved monetization and cleaner site integration."

Google Voice Search

Voice will be a key piece of mobile search and thus Google has launched an initiative to enable users them to find information about local businesses, driving directions, sports scores, stock quotes, weather, news, movie show times, and more via their phone.

Google Voice Search currently in beta allows users to call a number and specify a search query and get the results on a web page read back to them (that match the specified query). To try the service dial 650.623.6706.

Voice will play an important roll in the rapidly growing local search market. I believe Google will integrate Voice and Maps into its Local Search offering. Thus it will be another way for user for search and locate information.

Voice has been used extensively as an automated directory assistance feature by companies such as Fedex, Cingular/AT&T, American Airlines, American Express and other large companies to handle customer requests. The difference here being, voice is used as a way for users/searchers to get actionable information at their finger tips.

Recently, Microsoft bought TellMe for the very same reason. Microsoft believes that the battle to win the hearts and minds of searchers is going to be mobile and local search, and that Tellme has what it needs to win. However, Tellme's service is call center automation solution. It simply uses voice to as the executable to handle customer traffic in a call center. This is different from utiliting voice as the executable to search web pages. Sure, TellMe can be retooled to read web pages but that is not worth paying $800M plus. So in fact Microsoft is in the call center automation business and not mobile search. I know because I had a start up in the internet voice search way back when it was not sexy.

Google coming to a TV near you!

Google is entering the $65 billion U.S. TV-as-sales market. Google has announced the creation of an automated platform for ads running on EchoStar DISH Network's 125 networks. Google will gain access to DISH ad inventory from across all channels and dayparts; Google's platform will then allow it to sell that inventory and provide measurement on those buys.

The buying of DISH Network ads will work much like AdWords and use a web-based auction system. The real-time reporting allows advertisers to see how their ads performed on a second-by-second basis and adjust creative or daypart scheduling accordingly. Data will be pulled anonymously from the four million DISH boxes currently in use.

According to Google's CEO Eric Schmidt, this will allow for the ads delivered to be more relevant and therefore more valuable to the viewer and advertisers. Google will start by selling 30-second spots for broadcast networks, cable programmers and operators.

As part of the effort, Google is also launching a SpotRunner-esque program allowing advertisers to create TV ads on the fly. That toolset could attract some smaller companies that haven't tried TV advertising because of the high cost of creating those ads.

Advertisers can upload their TV commercials, bid on desired time and channel, and choose national area coverage. They can also choose to target by age demographic. The ads will be attached at the satellite operator level, not on the subscriber's set-top box.

The system is scheduled to start in May, and will sell ad space only on cable networks, including ESPN, CNN, Discovery, Lifetime, Nickelodeon and the Disney Channel. There are no national broadcast channels or local affiliates involved in the deal yet.

Television experts say the deal is a stepping stone to greater advertising control, but that Google really needs to sign an ad deal with one of the major cable networks, which are known for their ability to target ads sometimes as narrowly as neighborhood level.

Google is also reportedly planning to launch a marketplace that matches up marketers who don’t have experience creating ads with agencies that do.

Google to offer Search via Toilets

Google today announced the launch of Google TiSP (BETA)™, a free in-home wireless broadband service that delivers online connectivity via users' plumbing systems. The Toilet Internet Service Provider (TiSP) project is a self-installed, ad-supported online service that will be offered entirely free to any consumer with a WiFi-capable PC and a toilet connected to a local municipal sewage system.

"We've got that whole organizing-the-world's-information thing more or less under control," said Google Co-founder and President Larry Page, a longtime supporter of so-called "dark porcelain" research and development. "What's interesting, though, is how many different modalities there are for actually getting that information to you - not to mention from you."

For years, data carriers have confronted the "last hundred yards" problem for delivering data from local networks into individual homes. Now Google has successfully devised a "last hundred smelly yards" solution that takes advantage of preexisting plumbing and sewage systems and their related hydraulic data-transmission capabilities. "There's actually a thriving little underground community that's been studying this exact solution for a long time," says Page. "And today our Toilet ISP team is pleased to be leading the way through the sewers, up out of your toilet and - splat - right onto your PC."

Users who sign up online for the TiSP system will receive a full home self-installation kit, which includes a spindle of fiber-optic cable, a TiSP wireless router, installation CD and setup guide. Home installation is a simple matter of GFlushing™ the fiber-optic cable down to the nearest TiSP Access Node, then plugging the other end into the network port of your Google-provided TiSP wireless router. Within sixty minutes, the Access Node's crack team of Plumbing Hardware Dispatchers (PHDs) should have your internet connection up and running.

"I couldn't be more excited about, and am only slightly grossed out by, this remarkable new product," said Marissa Mayer, Google's Vice President of Search Products and User Experience. "I firmly believe TiSP will be a breakthrough product, particularly for those users who, like Larry himself, do much of their best thinking in the bathroom."

For more information please visit http://www.google.com/tisp/install.html.