Google’s phased launch of their Placement Platform may have all of us in the PPC world reevaluating our current stance on using Google’s content network. Personally, it’s always been something I’ve shied away from. I’ve heard and witnessed the PPC horror stories where an advertiser opts into the content network looking for some extra traffic, and wakes up with thousands of extra clicks, not to mention a spend that has flown through the roof (of course in some instances, this can be blamed on poor campaign management and all the blame cannot be placed on Adwords).

The content network allows sites to show ads on other sites that are not owned by Google, but using the Google platform. For instance Marthastewart.com, NewYorkTimes.com, CBSsportsline.com, etc. allow you to advertise on their sites to their audience by setting up ads in Google’s Content Network. The content network reaches users that by only advertising on the Google search network, you may otherwise not reach. Until now, advertisers were not able to obtain site specific data, including conversion information, leaving advertisers in the dark as to which sites are performing for them, and therefore being completely unable to make appropriate decisions to increase the ROI on the content network. Advertisers never could truly pinpoint what was or was not working for them; it was more or less a take all or leave all approach.

Why is this change important and a huge benefit for Adwords advertisers? Now, as Adwords rolls out the new Placement Platform, advertisers will be able to identify exactly which sites are under performing and exclude their ads from running on those sites, as well as be able to determine which sites are driving conversions for them, and allocate more money to those specific sites only. This will allow advertisers to have control of their ROI results on the content network. That is not to say that the Placement Platform has alleviated the hard work behind running a successful Adwords campaign. Similar to Google’s process of determining the minimum bid on the search network, taking into consideration keywords, landing pages, etc., the content network also evaluates the relevancy between your ad groups and the sites you are targeting to determine the minimum bids. And of course, without a tightly structured campaign, your CTR and conversions will ultimately suffer. Aaron at SEO book offers some great ideas on how to use Google’s Content network beyond just the traditional sense of simply driving traffic to your site. He suggests a few ways to maximize your profits and to use the content network and newly developed placement platform reports for competitive intelligence.

I don’t know an advertiser out there who isn’t willing to dump more money into campaigns that are driving sales. The new changes on gathering data from ads running on the content network may entice advertisers who generally avoid running their ads on the content network, for reason of fear due to lack of data, to give it another try. The platform is yet to be unveiled to its full extent, however once it is available to advertisers and the proof in the data starts to show, I will be more than willing to reevaluate using the content network across all campaigns. The new changes may make it worthwhile to give it another go, if it could increase my ROI, why not?

Any thoughts on this?

Hey Guys and Gals, all the rage yesterday was the launch of Google Universal – people are calling for the demise of SEO as we know it. Of course, this is the demise of traditional SEO — well, for a certain type of SEO. If you’re an SEO who is just looking at yourself as an SEO and not also a marketer, that is where the demise will definitely occur. SEO’s that also understand marketing will be fine. So what if Google shows videos, maps, local results, and books in the SERPS; as an SEO, you have to learn how to get your clients optimized in areas that are not just algorithmic. Optimizing a video with tags and metadata and creating a video worth actually looking at that will attract links and comments is just one way to tackle this issue. Being that it is Google though, I doubt we’re going to see many Revver videos; we will probably see more Youtube and Google Videos in the SERPS. I would also recommend making sure that you are optimized for Google product search (used to be Froogle) as when/if products or product links show up in SERPS, you’ll want to be there.

For example, if I worked with a business selling the iPhone on SEO, the old way to optimize for iPhone was pretty straightforward. Do a search now, and you’ll see not only is news being incorporated into the search, there are videos too. See samples below:

There are videos as well (courtesy of Youtube, a Google Property need I remind you)

And that is not all:

I would try to get my client in Google news (if they had something newsworthy). Can you say PR SEO?

I would admittedly have to start to understand the patent search and see if there are opportunities there, too.

If a real blog could be developed around the iPhone with real news and something of interest, I would try it… maybe a video blog (hosted on Youtube) showing people using the features? (I don’t know; This is an off-the-cuff blog post.) Getting a hybrid blog + video would allow us to tackle both of these.

Lastly, I would list their products in Google Product Search (assuming they had products related to the iPhone).

In summary, I guess you could say that Google is turning the SEO world on its head, and that is exactly what I LOVE about search; it constantly changes, keeping you on your toes. Throw in personalized search and wow, these next 12 months are going to be fun! (I hope.)

We’ll have more on this, but Microsoft just bought aQuantive (owner of Avenue A) for $6 Billion, with no plans to spin off the SEO company. MSN owning an SEO company… this could get fishy with DoubleClick being bought by Google (DC owns Performics who also does SEO).

A recent blog post LeeAnn Prescott - Research Director at Hitwise - brought some interesting demographic info on users of Gmail, Google’s e-mail service, that got me thinking.

I always felt in my gut that people using Gmail were “with the times” and early adopters, comfortable with adaptation and change. SEER is constantly hiring and looking for our next superstar and those who submit resumes from Gmail always get a slight “OK, they are in the know” from me.

Back to the story…LeeAnn’s blog post validated my gut feeling; here are some of her findings:
Gmail users are much more likely to:

• Be Young
• Have a high income
• Be in the early adopter segments

Here are some of their findings for the four weeks ending 4/28/07:

• 54% of visits to Gmail were from users between 18 and 34 compared to 42% for Yahoo! Mail and 44% for Hotmail.
• 18% of Gmail’s visits were from those with average annual household incomes between $100,000 and $149,999, compared to 15% from Hotmail and 13% for Yahoo! Mail.

I started thinking have I ever taken an assessment of our percentage of Gmail subscribers to our e-mail list? When you consider that Gmail only started allowing open subscriptions in February of 2007, it is pretty nutty to look at their market penetration, as of today here is our e-mail subscriber breakdown:

• Gmail: 4.5%
• Yahoo! Mail: 2.9%
• Hotmail 2.1%

If you are thinking, OK, So what…here’s what:

(more…)

As an SEO, I am constantly trying to dispel search myths and misconceptions to the best of my little ability. I also try to get people to evaluate SEO campaigns and companies in the right light. Like any other direct marketing channel, they should be evaluated on ROI. I have always thought that SEO should be evaluated not on rankings or traffic but on sales that result from the effort.
Google personalized search should change the way many companies evaluate SEO firms, which has often been by rankings. Many of us know that clients love to type in a few words and see rankings like they were the stock market. Now, can you imagine if the stock market gave different pricing based on who is asking for the price? Well, that just wouldn’t work. In search, it totally works, as a search engine attempts to give the searcher the most relevant result possible. Take this example:
Suppose you do a Google search on the term “seal.” How likely would you be to buy a CD from “Seal” if you were seeking:
• information on the mating patterns of seals
• a documentary on Navy seals
• the Easter Seals web site
• seals for a leaky roof.
Probably not very likely. Why? Because a CD from the artist “Seal” was not what you were looking for and these other results are not even closely related to music.

The odds of a sale/conversion are VERY slim.

If I am really into music, and I was to search for “seal” and then find results about the guy married to Heidi Klum (oh, and he’s an Grammy winning singer), I would have received relevant results for my search. On the other hand, if I am zoologist and find him, I may not have gotten a relevant result as I may have been looking for results about the animal.
Personalized search seeks to address this issue, and its impact has many SEO companies concerned, but they shouldn’t be.

They usually evaluate success on traffic / leads / sales / e-newsletter signups and other measures that show VALUE. Ranking well for a term that leads people to “seals” (the animal) or Navy seals who were really seeking “Seal” of Grammy fame is NOT going to lead to the desired result. Amazon’s CD store, the iTunes store, or a documentary on Navy seals should not show up in the results for someone looking for information on the animal. That is not going to be a very valuable click either.

Here’s why — good SEO firms know that a client who obsesses over rankings is not focusing on what matters most to a business. A good client obsesses over results and revenues. They don’t care as much if they search for a term and see it at 15, and I see it at 7.

We’ll never know where each term ranks for each person performing a search. So, what is the next best metric? At the least, it should traffic but ideally it should be leads / sales / revenues.
As a frequent searcher myself, anything Google does to make my search experience more relevant to me is a good thing for EVERYONE!

Yahoo is rolling out personalized search too, see info here or here. This is a coming trend, so SEO firms take notice. Your days of analyzing success based on where your client ranks as the MAIN form of analysis are limited. And thank GOD!!!!