A year of unprecedented change in the search engine landscape and online business environment has forced many SEOs and SEMs to alter and, in some cases, drastically rethink the services they offer and the techniques they use. For some SEOs, the changes represent a world of opportunities to expand their services and experiment with emerging techniques. For others, the changes in the search world have hit with the repetition and intensity of a series of destructive environmental disasters. Before getting into the changes to services and techniques, a quick look at how the search marketing sector has changed is in order.
To begin with, I need to stress that a news time deadline and word limit of 2000 or less permits only a very general overview of this expansive industry. There are exceptional SEO and SEM practitioners working far beyond the fringes of the mainstream SEM world. The growing numbers of SEOs employed by global corporations are an example of an exceptional group outside the typical small or micro-business SEM shop model. Similarly, traditional advertising firms have started to understand the importance of search marketing and are hiring or sub-contracting their own in-house search marketing teams. Regardless of who works for or with whom, or who has what resources to work with, the same general factors affect the products of our toilsome tinkering.
As the search marketing industry matures the knowledge base that supports it grows rapidly. The numbers of practitioners grows every year as well with thousands of new SEMs annually entering the field. The field they enter is already well populated with established firms, some quite large and some much smaller. Fortunately, there is more than enough work for the sector to continue expanding. Very few SEM shops went out of business for lack of clients this year.
It is important to know how SEMs tend to make their money before considering how search industry changes affect the SEM sector. The two extremities of the professional SEO/SEM practitioner world are those who do it for their own online ventures and those who work for outside clients. The vast majority of SEM practitioners are found somewhere in between those two extremes with the bulk tending towards the latter. There is however, an apparent correlation between the choice of SEO tactics and the spot on the spectrum of a practitioner or specific project.
Those working on their own web properties exclusively tend to see revenues from participation in affiliate programs or paid-ad distribution programs offered by Yahoo and Google. SEMs who take outside clients tend to see revenues from service fees and commissions. Ultimately, for small business SEO and SEM shops, financial planning and scheduled money management are the essential skill sets that bridge the gap between success and failure.
SEOs and SEMs who achieved most of their revenues promoting their own website properties have been the most adversely affected by the changes at Google, Yahoo and other search giants. This side of the sector established itself in the early days of the late 90's finding ways to tempt web surfers into affiliate program sales, gambling industry sites and of course, adult entertainment sites. Until recently, the "anything-goes" attitude formed around those sectors, and the inability of the major search engines to keep up with them, allowed self-interest SEOs to use obvious and highly creative algorithm exploits to get their sites ranked higher.
During and just before the recent Jagger Update at Google, many of these sorts of sites found themselves virtually unfindable as Google delisted or degraded their placements. Google took action for a number of reasons, the greatest of which was the long-term incompatibility of Google's PageRank based algorithms and the various (and often amazingly intricate) link-based exploits used. To be honest, incompatibility might be exactly the wrong word. Many of these exploits were designed specifically to maximize the behaviour of Googlebot but often forgot about the content to keyword contextual relationships Googlebot is searching for. Eventually Googlebot started acting like a jilted suitor, especially after reading about such exploits (or people bragging about them) on various search related forums.
Frequently, SEOs and SEMs working solely for themselves stray towards what has been labeled the "black-hat" side of the search marketing sector. Basically, black-hat SEO is technique that does not follow the stated guidelines posted by the search engines. As the sites they promoted, for the most part, belonged to them, any sanctions faced stemming from a violation of search engine guidelines would ultimately be less severe for them then it would be for SEM practitioners working on someone else's sites. It is much easier to sluff off damage your actions caused to your own property than it is damage caused to the property of others.
SEOs and SEMs who work as agents for other businesses tend to be more like traditional advertising firms in their relationship with and reliance on their clients. Agency type SEO and SEM shops tend to adhere to a loose and unregulated code-of-conduct that includes a commitment to following search engine guidelines. For the most part, this group, and by extension their clients, tended to come out of the Jagger Updates in fair to fine condition. Those who view the search engine guidelines as a quasi legal-code are often labeled "white-hats".
Algorithm updates are more of an interesting inconvenience to this group, a thunder and lightning storm with obvious destructive potential that is compelling and wondrous to behold. In such storms, some stuff might be damaged by rain, hail or even lightning and it is not entirely safe to play in the water but at the end of the day, if you play it safe you'll probably be ok. Sudden and unexpected algorithm changes at Google might have minor effects on techniques used by "white-hat" SEO and SEM practitioners however algo-shifts don't keep them up at night.
The growing segmentation of the search world and the adoption of emerging technologies and trends is what keeps them awake into the wee-hours of the morning, trying to figure out exactly what is happening and how provide expert services in a rapidly changing environment. As most SEO and SEM shops are small to micro-businesses, daytime is for operating the business and nighttime is for reading and experimenting. Things were much simpler for three years ago.
The introduction of several new types of search engine makes the job of a search marketing practitioner more complicated. Where once we thought about Google, we now have shopping and comparison search tools, local search engines, RSS, music and video search, blog and podcast search appliances to think about. Not only does the SEM need to have a working knowledge of how each type of search engine works, they also need to know how to write and/or code for them. Over the coming year, expect to see the SEO and SEM sector start to segment to offer specialized service packages for specific types of search appliance.
Electronic commerce dominates our economy. From individual consumers and Christmas sales to the flow of global capital, the Internet has become the backbone of business everywhere. As more and more people become Internet savvy, the environment moves towards becoming more professional. Information begets information and the more of it we have, the better we can run our businesses. Site statistics and established industry metrics drive a lot more of the decision making than they used to. As search develops from the $12billion industry it is today to the $25 billion industry predicted in five years, the ability to offer analytical services to clients is going to be emphasized by expanding search marketing firms.
An assumption made about both Google and Yahoo is that each place increasing importance on the intent of a document in their indexes and the relationship it shares with other documents in their index. The relationship between document A and document B is further judged by the relationships both share with other documents found in Google or Yahoo's indexes. Expect the link-generation business to evolve and become far more professional. In order to seriously sell links, link brokers will increasingly need to be able to vouch for the contextual relevance of the links they establish between documents.
Furthermore, both Google and Yahoo take an interest in user behaviours. How a user acts when they visit a document found in search results has an impact on how important the search engines think the document might be. This leads us to conclude that usability, or the ease of use of a website or document, will play a greater role in rankings on both Google and Yahoo. We expect to offer a greater range of usability consulting options and urge current clients with questions about usability to contact us.
Lastly, the introduction of Google Base and Microsoft's very similar Fremont.Live will force SEOs and SEMs to add a number of hours to client accounts as product and service offerings should be inserted into both systems as quickly as possible. Base and Fremont are both sort of mysteries in development. They appear to be the equivalent of classified ads but given the intent of their owners and the feel of the systems, are obviously designed to be something greater. Whatever they become in the long-term, it only makes sense to put client information in them as soon as possible, a process that could unfortunately take hours per client.
The face of search marketing is changing and those changes pose a lot of challenges. New services, more analytics and a greater volume of work per client are expected in the coming year. Finding and training staff is going to be one difficulty faced by smaller firms. Retaining staff will continue to be a challenge for larger ones. Fortunately, given the array of tools at our disposal, attracting new clients, retaining old ones and achieving strong rankings for all should be the least of our challenges.
Lots of entrepreneurs have started businesses online but few have offered a day-by-day, play-by-play narrative outlining their experiences. For the past few weeks, Search Engine Guide editor Jennifer Laycock has treated her readers to an insiders view of her new social-business, the Lactivist.
The Lactivist is a blog offering information on breastfeeding along with clothing and product referrals. The blog is also designed to, "help spread awareness of the availability of human milk banks."Jennifer started the project about three weeks ago and has been posting daily updates on her progress, revenues and experience.
The series, entitled, "Zero Dollars, a Little Talent and 30 Days", stand as one of the most honest and comprehensive looks at the trials, tribulations and triumphs faced by people Jennifer calls "shoestring entrepreneurs", or people starting businesses with little or no money. Jennifer started the project in part because, as editor of Search Engine Guide, she wanted to get a sense of the experiences shared by many of her readers.
"One of the beautiful things about the Internet is that it is supposed to level the playing field between the major corporations and the little guy trying to eek out a living on his own from his basement. Many a netrepreneur has managed to go start a company on a shoe string and turn it into a business that generates a nice profit. The whole point of Search Engine Guide and our sister site, Small Business Brief, is to try and help people learn how to do just that.
So, I've decided to set up a little challenge for myself and to both blog and write articles on it over the next month. The idea is to try to setup some type of business in my free time and see if I can start to turn a profit in a 30 day period. That shouldn't be too hard, since I'm also going to limit myself to spending zero cash out of pocket. That means that any sales at all will be profit.
I plan to outline all of the steps that I take over this 30 day period so that readers can find out what worked, what didn't, and maybe get some ideas to try with their own sites. The point I need to make again is the lack of money involved here. There's a big difference between what someone can do with cash to pay for hosting, for marketing, for web analysis and so on. I'll be working without many of those advantages, using only what I can get for free."
Jennifer's posts are witty, highly informative and, topical. Today she writes about finally getting rankings at Google (after only three weeks!), some technical issues surrounding her Blog vendor, a few new products offered at the Lactivist, and the resolution of an annoying DNS issue that has plagued the project.
Anyone interested in establishing an instant online business should take the time to read Jennifer's experiences. They might make a major difference and save time, money and headaches.As for Jennifer's profits to date, after day 11 she is in the black (on the good side of the ledger) and has seen $75.57 in profit from $80.53 in revenues.
Usability is already a critical component of successful online ventures but with the advent of Google Analytics and the implementation of the Jagger algo update, user-activities and behaviours are going to play an influencing role in search engine rankings. How people act when they visit a website or document is being measured and accounted for, even for sites without Google Analytics tracking codes in the [head] section of the document source-code.
Google is concerned with how people find information and what they do when they access a document found in the Google index. Which document in a site they tend to land on, how long users spend on that document and how much, if any, time does a user spend exploring information in a domain, are all pertinent to how Google perceives the relevance of documents listed in the index. As long-term online marketers know, this is where usability comes into the picture.
Usability, as defined by Kim Kraus Berg is, "... the ability to successfully, comfortably and confidently learn or complete a task. For the web site designer or application developer, it's the mechanics of designing and building a web site or Internet-based application so that it can be understood and easy to accomplish any task."
According to local (Victoria-based) website marketing expert, Michael Linehan, a focus on site usability is simply common sense marketing. Leading visitors towards goal-orientated outcomes makes as much sense for a functioning website as it does for a functional building and, to follow through on the analogy, it all starts with a smart architect.
Michael knows his stuff, so much so StepForth considers him to be one of our marketing and site usability gurus. If our assumptions about user-behaviours and the post-Jagger Google SERPs are correct, Michael's talents will play an important role in our overall SEO techniques.
"It's all about marketing," Michael explains (exclaims is probably a better word, ML is pretty passionate about this stuff), "and marketing is all about envisioning an effective strategy." While most people involved in business understand the concept, surprisingly few actually take the time to implement and follow a marketing strategy in relation to their websites.
"Website owners have to prioritize their messages and make their websites easier to use. It's a matter of measuring the importance of different parts of their marketing strategy and their websites."
Michael suggests that over 95% of companies he has worked with use opportunistic marketing tactics with separate strategies being employed out of sync with each other. A simple example would be the Yellow Pages ad that does not mention the website URL or a printed brochure that does not include an email address in the contact information. A more complex example can be found by looking at most business websites.
"When a business owner gets a website for their business, they often expect the designer to know how to market their new website." said Michael. "That's just ludicrous. Website designers already have a difficult and mentally demanding job. Expecting them to be proficient marketers is like expecting your architect to act as your real estate agent."
Michael deconstructs websites, pulling them apart to find or add the little things specific to a business website designers often can't customize for. His work could be described as user-outcome optimization.
He has a good point. Search engine marketing is becoming much more complicated. The web is rapidly adopting a more professional attitude as it grows into the global mainstream marketplace. As this maturing takes place, two factors should drive website owners and webmasters towards a more professional view of their online marketing strategies.
The first factor is the increased analytic abilities of the major search engines. As previously mentioned, Google is taking stock of a number of user-sensitive factors surrounding documents in its index. In March 2005, Google filed a patent titled, "Information retrieval based on historical data". The patent application outlines the historic record Google keeps on every document and file in its index. One of the items mentioned covers user behaviours touching on the following points:
how much time an average user spends examining a document,
the entry and exit paths of users,
if users store reference to the document in bookmarks,
how users access the document (via search engine, typing URL, link from other document, or bookmarks),
an evaluation of search traffic driven by Google and related keywords the document was found under
Each of those points should lead webmasters to think about how visitors use their site. Website marketing is not necessarily about search engine placements. It is about using your website as a marketing tool. In the context of website marketing, usability is about moving visitors from the entry point to the goal line and off again to another compellingly relevant website experience.
The second factor is the evolving needs of website users and their increased analytic abilities. The Web is almost second nature to most of its users. People are experienced in the environment and, at least in the case of work-related web use, know what they want. As it stands today, there are a lot of websites that no longer live up to user expectations because those expectations have moved beyond the design of those websites.
Usability is a component in smart and informed website marketing simply because it implies making the website experience simpler and clearer for visitors. Strategically moving a site visitor from the entry point to the information or sales point (goal lines) is common sense. It is also providing the visitors exactly what they want.
Google placing more weight on user behaviours makes sense. User behaviour is a logical extension of the democratic concept of PageRank in that the users' collective judgment is incorporated into that of the webmasters who coded incoming links. Webmasters of sites supporting AdWords advertising are already super-charged, stoked about Google providing detailed data that can help drive traffic.
All good marketing strategies are goal orientated and center around a clear vision. As time goes on, it can get pretty complicated, especially when clarity and ease of use are the ultimate design goal. Objective planning might involve rethinking the design of your website but moving into the near future, rethinking the design of your website might just become essential.
Dirk Johnson from DomainDrivers.com provides link-building services. Over the past year, Dirk's firm has helped a number of our clients acquire the relevant incoming links necessary to achieve strong Google placements. These are not purchased links though clients do pay for the time it takes to find and get them.
Quite often the true price of a link is a link. If one website links to another and in return, the other links to the original, a reciprocal link has been established. Several articles about a perceived negative effect of the recent Google/Jagger update on reciprocal links caught Dirk's attention and raised his ire. The problem with the statements is, it doesn't prove true when examining Google's SERPS.
Dirk is concerned the writers of these articles have not researched the material sufficiently to make such sweeping statements. He emailed us the following article in the hopes it would either put an end to the erroneous claims that recip linking is a kin to spam, or make the claimants provide evidence to support their conclusions.
Here we go again, folks. The reciprocal link morticians are writing the obituaries again. Singing their dirges. Digging the graves. Holding funerals.
This has happened with every Google update over the last several years. The SEO world is once again filled with "reciprocal links are dead" babble. It's all very predictable, and it's an old, worn-out routine. In all of these pronouncements there is never any factual data to support them. Simply innuendo and some passing observations that this must be the "big one" for reciprocal links. Maybe what they are not telling their readers is that there were other factors at play with sites that got downgraded, so they simply chose reciprocal linking as the "cause".
We look at actual search results for hundreds of sites. Here's what we have seen. The vast majority of sites that continue to hold top place positions for their main keywords rely on reciprocal links for much of their link popularity. What's more, many of the sites that were displaced in Google were replaced by sites that use...reciprocal links!!! The reciprocal linkers are still right there, at the top.
Certainly, links seem to have played a role in this update. Raw linking games got hit pretty hard. But subject relevant, non-gamesmanship reciprocal linking is still a very valid method of promoting a website. There are several very good reasons why Google may not want to penalize legitimate reciprocal linking. But that's another article for another day.
The noise out there right now is massive. Everyone is an expert, regardless of his or her experience or perspective. Don't take my word for it, or theirs. Just look at real Google search results, lots of them, before jumping to conclusions and buying into these flimsy arguments.
An interesting phenomenon is coming to a monitor near you, perhaps the one you are looking at right now. The days of convergence are upon us. The trend towards the merging of media via the Internet is already causing significant cultural shifts as witnessed by the power bloggers have exercised in relation to TV and print journalism. What a difference an era makes. A decade ago, the traditional media set the pace by telling our stories and provided practical means of mass-communications. Today, the Internet provides a globally stable transmission line and the Web serves as both production studio and broadcast medium. The Internet's growth and more importantly, the ease of access for anyone with a computer, a connection and a bit of talent, has pushed the majority of traditional media outlets into a period of survival strategy and planning.
The Internet, as a means of content-distribution has been recognized as the emerging standard as opposed to the add-on it had previously been. Just as cable killed broadcast, IPTV and HDTV will replace the current cable TV distribution model. (Imagine the threat to satellite TV providers.) That doesn't mean the demise of your local cable company but it does mark a change in the way they will be doing business in the future. For most sectors of the entertainment, marketing, distribution and search industries, the only thing left to do is to actually figure out how to do it and how it will work.
The recent discussions between Google, Yahoo and CBS , along with the combined support of AOL and ASK for Internet TV start-up Brightcove show a definite shift in thinking among the US TV networks. Along with that shift, two unique experiments in business model development appear to be underway.
In an interview with Reuters, Les Moonves, CBS chairman said, "We're talking to them [Google] about a whole slew of things including video-on-demand, including video search."
The distribution power of four of the five largest search engines and the business model proposed by Brightcove can be seen as an experiment in marketing and content-distribution. The TV networks have recognized they need to work with the Internet and to do so they need to work with the Web's core information providers, the major search engines.
"They need our content, we need their technology," he said in the Reuters interview, referring to broader discussions with Internet companies. "We argue about which is more important. I think ultimately my content, no matter how you get it, content is still the most important thing."
Google, Yahoo, ASK, AOL, et al, view virtually all "open" information on the web as freely spiderable. They make lists that everyone else can check twice. Even without formal agreements signed, Google and Yahoo have both made video search of TV show snippets uploaded by fans available on demand. Quotes from the shows be found based on the transcripts of closed captioning broadcasts.
For producers of Web-ready television content, it's no use producing content for mass-distribution over the Internet if you aren't in the new-media version of the TV guide. The problem for both the search-information providers and the content creators is making a profit providing the service. While Google, Yahoo and the major TV networks will, for the most part, be able to rely on current advertisers for revenues, three important factors threaten to challenge the stability of that traditional marketing environment.
The first is the dramatic increase in ease of access to the industry. Making video has never been cheaper or easier and with the proliferation of broadband access (often via the traditional cable TV companies); delivery of product is virtually instant and universal. In other words, consumers no longer have to go to an expensive movie theatre to watch a production that cost a fortune to produce. Access to the market and means of production is literally open to anyone. In the near future, there could even be competition for click-through revenues between traditional commercial driven television production and the increasingly professional but independent amateur productions.
The second factor stems from the proliferation of video entertainment production. If there is a sudden increase in quality and availability of independent productions and those independent producers show credible commercial competition, what is to become of the massive media machines behind the scenes of most network shows? Someone has to pay the bills and the predominantly successful model, (pay per click or in this case, pay per view), might not provide sufficient revenues for the highly expensive network shows against popular independent productions.
The third is the portability of information. Handheld, pocket-sized devices such as Blackberrys and cell phones are increasingly web-capable and can handle video. Content produced for the web must also be available where portable media users are looking for it.
Brightcove thinks it has the answers to these issues. Founded in Cambridge Ma, in 2004 by Jeremy Allaire, Brightcove is "an open Internet TV service that empowers video producers and programmers to build broadband businesses while giving viewers more choices and control over their use of video and television." (source: brightcove.com)
Its preview page shows that Brightcove is working to tie advertisers to video produced by individual users and mainstream networks. It also looks to AOL, ASK and other search related businesses to send traffic in the form of branded user features and video-on-demand services. Distribution is the major factor that places the Web far above other forms of media. Taking a page from Google's early playbook, Brightcove is also working to harness the massive distributive power of the Internet by inviting website owners to inquire about syndicating video content.
The opportunities for small business advertisers and website marketers are enormous. The emergence of the Web as the primary means of delivering video information offers website marketers a new area to present client products and services.
The Internet and the Web, while already remarkably versatile, has become a vital link in distribution for the largest traditional media companies, including the major TV networks. The Web is also absorbing a great deal of the advertising money that was previously spent on print. It even threatens the mainstay revenue generator for most urban newspapers, the classified ads section.
Over the past few weeks, stories about Google Automat, a service procedure Google wrote a patent application for nearly two years ago have emerged. The patent application , which was published in early September of this year, is for "a system and method for providing online user-assisted Web-based advertising." The patent application goes on to describe a service that appears remarkably similar to Google Base.
"Preferably, such an approach would guide a user in the creation of advertisements describing offerings of goods or services, creatives associated with the advertisements, and advertising budgets. Such an approach would also help create and host a Web presence for individual and other advertisers. Such an approach would also facilitate driving Web traffic to hyperlinked advertisements through targeting." (source: Patent Abstract)
The patent shows Google is preparing to enter the collection and distribution of small, personal sized classified ads, like the ones printed in the back of your local newspaper. As Google collects them, many industry analysts expect them to begin distributing them through the online classified sections of those same major newspapers.
This presents another wide-open opportunity for search and website marketers to promote client messages and services. In order to take advantage the new landscape, search and website marketers should take time to learn as much as they can about a number of technologies, techniques and complimentary services.
For instance, a good To Do list would include,
Lean about FLASH and other video-editing software. Check out pre-established businesses such as SiSTeR.TV to see if their products or services can help.
Learn about the creation and optimization of files for podcasting. These files can be video based or simple audio streams but the trick is learning how to help search engines find them
Learn as much about the amorphous catch-phrase Web2.0. Social networking and information recommendation have become important facets in website marketing campaigns.
Find a way to gently break the news to long-term clients. We all have a lot of work ahead of us.
The holiday season is well underway with Lycos reporting significant spikes in search traffic for toy and gift related items over the past week. Traditionally merchants expect the shopping spree to begin the week after the US Thanksgiving holiday however electronic shoppers tend to start earlier.
Tomorrow, Lycos will be releasing its sixth annual list of the season's most popular toys and video games, culled from the weekly Lycos50. While there is often a lot of interesting information in the Lycos50, the annual Holiday shopping search lists are especially fun. This year's list is different from previous ones in that high-tech electronic toys make up half the list with more traditional types of toys pushed off. It also confirms the continued cultural reign of SpongeBob SquarePants.
Who'dathunkit? SpongeBob SquarePants is four times as popular as Thomas the Tank Engine, six times more popular than Elmo and twelve times as popular as Bob the Builder. As a matter of fact, SpongeBob is the only licensed cartoon character to make the Top10 this year.
Absent for the first time is Star Wars themed toys and Lego. Also missing are the Bratz line of dolls and Yu-Gi-Oh cards. They have been replaced by technology.
As for the video game crowd, 2005 marks the first year the Top10 list hasn't mentioned a sports related game. The number one video game related search might surprise readers as well, especially since searchers weren't looking for the game itself but for game-credits to give as gifts.
Over the past week, the biggest jumps in search activity across the board have been for online toy, specialty and department stores. Target has seen a 225% increase in searches, Dicks Sporting Goods is up 205%, Wal-Mart's search traffic has increased 192% and Toys R Us is up 165%. JCrew seems to be the most popular clothing line with coupon searches up 210%.
The annual list is going to be published tomorrow.
Business is funny sometimes. Massive amounts of capital, planning and commitment can be marshaled, administered and suddenly put to use backing a project or initiative that even surprises close contacts. A funny thing happened in London yesterday. John Battelle, author of "The Search", blogger extraordinaire, founder of Federated Media Publishing, and suspected confidant of Google founders Larry and Sergey, learned something about Google he didn't know before. Google has established its own venture capital investment fund.
At a conference titled "Web 2.0, disruption creates opportunity",Yahoo's Managing Director of Corporate Development, Simon Levene, revealed that, in reaction to moves made by Google, Yahoo is entering the venture capital market. The conference was organized by FirstCapital and was targeted to an audience of venture capitalists, strategic investors, business angels and entrepreneurs.
At one point, Levene told the audience, "Folks like Yahoo will be competing with you for deals." Truth be known, they already are.
As reported by Battelle, Yahoo and Google offer entrepreneurs an alternative source of funding to traditional venture capital financing. According to Levene, Google has established a fund to provide development monies to emerging companies before the VC crowd comes along with larger sums and results orientated directives.
"He (Levene) added that entrepreneurs are weighing the risks of having to execute against the exit requirements of a second or third round of financing, vs. the bird in the hand of a deal with a big player like Yahoo, and often, as with Flickr, they are going with the platform." Battelle wrote in VCS vs. the Platforms.
A few examples of Google's quiet fostering of grassroots endeavors might be the arms length relationship Google maintains with the Mozilla Foundation and the recent $350K grant Google wrote for a joint project between Oregon and Portland State Universities. Google openly supports other open-source initiatives, maintaining a "place for open source software" at Google Code.
Cyberspace is being redeveloped based on an ever-accelerating conflux of invention, innovation and commercial exploitation. Its evolution is similar to that of the most creative segments of the hip-hop scene in the advent of mashups, which are basically combinations of technologies merged to serve a specific purpose.
The entrance of the major search engines as credible sources of funding for garage-band level inventors could drive an enormous amount of talent to invent, innovate and create the tools that shape the social and business environment. That's a neat note to end the week.
For folks who've seen the term Web 2.0 but haven't yet found a simple and succinct explanation of what it all might mean, Search Engine Journal editor Loren Baker has composed the bestest 'lil paragraph I've seen on the subject.
"What is web 2.0? Web 2.0 is a work in progress which is a transtition of the architecture of the web and its applications. Such variables of the transition are blogs, wikis, AJAX, Google AdSense. 2.0 is taking search beyond the initial ten blue links such as more data, meta data and tagging, blogging is a revolution in micropublishing, advertising driven services, search verticals emerging and expanding quickly (local maps for example). Mashups are an important part of Web 2.0, expanding or improving upon existing products."
The line it is drawn the curse it is cast The slow one now will later be fast As the present now will later be past The order is rapidly fadin'. And the first one now will later be last For the times they are a-changin'.
(Bob Dylan, 1963)
A period of unprecedented change is upon us. From the micro-world of our personal finance and local economy to the macro-world of international development, the way things get done today is fundamentally different from the way things got accomplished even five years ago.
Online marketing and the methods used by marketers are changing. Search marketing has expanded from the humble but mysterious artful science days to be a more professional, precise and predictable service. With so much change on the horizon, it is often a good idea to scope the scenery to see how it is being affected. As we will all soon read about, the global economic shift is no longer eminent, it is in full swing and it is affecting the lives of everyone on Earth, even those not directly involved with the Internet.
Often faster than a phone call and far more practical than a fax machine, the Internet has provided anyone with a digital signal access to the global agora, no matter where they are in the world.
As the Internet has grown, it radically altered a Eurocentric world order that predated the twentieth century. It is wild and remains almost entirely unregulated. It has become the basis of a grassroots global economy and naturally there is international debate over who exactly should control the Internet.
Regardless of who controls the conventions that make it operate, its evolution is virtually dependent on what tools and processes users choose to adopt. Compared to previous eras, the introduction of new tools and processes is relatively easy. This is especially true when you happen to be the most dominant player in the game.
This has been a tremendous week for Google. Monday's introduction of Google Analytics will have a massive impact on its rivals at Yahoo and MSN and likely caused the scaling back of the paid-advertising unit Ask established in August. It will also impact established Analytics firms such as WebTrends and ClickTracks, (a package we continue to use and recommend to clients). To make a long and developing story short, Google Analytics is a website / business management tool that provides a wide variety of statistics and information about how visitors use a website. It also provides webmasters displaying AdWords advertising through AdSense extra support with the aim of making more money by helping advertisers and ad-distributors convert site visitors into billable click-throughs.
Today's beta release of Google Base is the next shoe to drop on a market reeling from recent changes. Google Base has been called the Index of all indices, a reference to the concept that Google is preparing to merge and present information from any variety of sources. According to Google, it is simply another way to get information into the Google search database, especially useful for submitters who don't maintain their own websites. In practical terms, Google Base appears to be a way to submit a list of virtually anything from free information to expensive items. In short, Google Base seems designed to cover all bases.
The introduction of Google Analytics and Google Base add a new dimension to Google as the leading global information provider. They also do one other, somewhat unexpected thing. Combined with other features and tools Google uses to narrow or funnel information searches such as Local search, geo-mapping, and comparison-shopping (Froogle), Google is decidedly staking its turf atop this next wave of search facilitated global-commerce.
Search Marketers, like the industry we work in need to evolve along the leading edge and as of this week, Google is it. The next few months should be very busy ones for search marketing firms as they rush to market services based on Google Analytics and Google Base. Current clients of search marketing firms should seriously consider contacting their SEM vendor to arrange time for inclusion of service or product offering at Google Base. They should also think about having their search marketing firm install the Google Analytics script and monitor information to fine-tune marketing campaigns.
Google's innovative good fortune doesn't put rivals Yahoo, MSN and ASK out of the picture as each remains an important component in search marketing and any one of them could introduce a superior product.
Yahoo itself has an amazing product in the Yahoo Publisher Network , which is said to be ready for general release early in 2006. YPN is made for content-publishers and is meant to be a vehicle for Yahoo Search Marketing ads, Yahoo's alternative to AdWords. Yahoo's strategy appears to be centered on the provision of top quality content for YPN members, along with a number of search / information retrieval features such as tagging and stored-search preferences.
What YPN is trying to do is allow its members to create their own content spaces, in short, giving them many of the components necessary to become credible new-media creators and distribution outlets. Yahoo is betting on the commercial side of entertainment and the grassroots nature of the Internet as a means of providing it.
Ultimately, what Google and Yahoo are both doing, is creating information spaces and making it easier for webmasters or search marketers to guide visitors through. That's where the global economy comes into play.
Yesterday I seriously considered the concept of rental property in Turkey . A reader sent in a question about a technique used on his CMS driven website. I answered his question as best I could but also told him I was stunned by the craft that went into the representations of the rental units. There were 3-d floor plans, excellent exterior images and a well-detailed outline of life in Turkey . It had some of the best but simple elements I've ever seen on a real estate related site.
The Internet has opened a vast world of commerce that was previously unavailable in remote regions of the world. Knowledge workers, website designers and search marketers can be located anywhere in the world, as long as they have a means of drawing a pay-cheque. Most of this new commerce happens at a grassroots level but in competition, the grassroots can be surprisingly professional. With the offerings Google made available this week, and the stuff we know to be coming down the pipe from Yahoo in the near future, it is hard to image how the search engine marketing sector will look this time next year.
The Internet has been the primary driver of both corporate and grassroots visions of the emerging global economic and social order. While it has not achieved a level playing field by any reasonable standard of measurement, the Internet, at least thus far, represents the greatest equalizer for growing economies, developing societies, underemployed individuals and small businesses everywhere.
The Internet has become the global networking tool its early proponents were hoping for, a flexible and expandable space where the users themselves actively promote its evolution. That evolution is accelerating.
Everything about the web is accelerating, leaving commentators and observers breathless as they (we) try to figure out exactly what streams, channels, ideas or emerging philosophies to focus on. The only constants seem to be our natural desire to improve our technologies and Moore 's Law basic concept that information processing can double in speed every two years. Brilliance begets brilliance and invention invites innovation. Hold on to your seats John and Jane Doe, the times they are a-changin'.
Ladies and gentlemen, children of all ages... We are proud to welcome you to the one, the only, the uniquely meglomartical Yahoo Shoposphere !
Yahoo has introduced an oddly named but equally compelling shopping suggestion site known as Yahoo Shoposphere. The shoposphere, is, on the surface, a wish-list you can share with eighty million of your closest friends.
The environment is organized around Pick Lists, virtual shopping lists made up by the registered users. One such list is, Gifts for a New Zealand Sports Fan . Another is the helpful Ultimate Travel Bag . Once made, lists can be shared with friends and family and displayed on the Shoposphere website.
The shoposphere also works around the Yahoo Shopping search engine with products listed in its database made available in the search results.
Naturally, it is also a space merchants can list items for sale. For instance, Jay presents his list of Nissan 350Z/300ZX Aftermarket Parts as a guide to finding such parts.
The shoposphere is a cool shopping application that really could make the Holiday season simpler for many people, especially for long-distance gift giving.
One important critique though. The name. It hurts the fingers to type it.
Google has scored a major coup with the release of Google Analytics. In the spirit of helping webmasters and search marketers move site visitors into converted site users, Google is offering its enormously useful site analytics tool, Urchin, free of charge under the re-branded name Google Analytics. The software is designed to help webmasters and marketers understand site visitors and their behaviours. Last year, it cost almost $500/mth to subscribe to.
For Google, search is about business and business is about results. Results are measured in many different ways, depending on the goals of those gauging the yardstick. For Google, the yardstick continues to appear infinite, defying common sense, which logically tells us otherwise. The introduction of Google Analytics solidifies Google's place as the pinnacle of search advertising providers and is likely to convert a lot of webmasters into Google account holders.
"Conversions" is a term used by marketers and webmasters as a way to measure results. The word itself is rather ambiguous and can have slightly different meanings for different people but ultimately means the same thing. Conversion means getting site visitors to do an intended task while visiting your site. For an ecommerce site, site-visits that lead to sales are considered conversions. Sites that primarily provide information might see an increase in repeat visitors as an indication of successful conversions. Similarly, sites running ads powered by Google AdWords might consider ad-clicks as successful conversions as Google certainly does.
According to the basic information provided on the features page, Google Analytics can help you, "Learn how visitors interact with your website and identify the navigational bottlenecks that keep them from completing your conversion goals. Find out how profitable your keywords are across search engines and campaigns. Pinpoint where your best customers come from and which markets are most profitable to you. Google Analytics gives you this and more through easy-to-understand visually enhanced reports."
Once a user gets into the system, they are rewarded with access to a remarkable tool. If they are an AdWords advertiser or AdSense partner, a wide array of tools and assistants are provided to help convert visitors into billable (or payable) clicks. Google obviously believes that it can make more money by helping AdWords advertisers and the owners of the website that display AdWords. For Google however, the rewards go deeper than a basic bottom line.
Yesterday, the system ground to a near halt as millions of webmasters rushed to sign up. Google will be receiving a wealth of consumer and marketing information from sites using the software, information that will be incorporated into Google's understanding of how users travel through sites found in its index. That kind of information is worth its weight in Google shares.
Google Analytics is a members-only service. Unless they already have one, webmasters and advertisers will need to establish an account through Gmail or AdWords before being granted free access. Once an account is established, the information provided is pretty intense.
Separated into three general user types, Executive, Webmaster, and Marketer, Google Analytics shows up to the minute information on over seventy essential elements, giving decision makers a lot of data to work with. The internal system is set up around a left-hand side dashboard of expanding drop-down menus for each of the general user overlays, each of which displays a series of reports. Users can also select a drop down display that expands to show the full range of elements to analyze.
Having said all that, it isn't really possible to give a full review of the data generated by Google Analytics as we have just inserted the tracking-script into documents on our site this morning. It will take about twelve hours for information to accumulate.
On the surface, it appears as if Google has taken some of the best elements of other analytic programs and integrated AdWords/AdSense conversion support features. The layout is easy to use and there is a good mix of information and supporting graphical elements to ease the headaches commonly associated with statistical analysis. The first overlay provides an at-a-glance dashboard with gauges indicating site visitors, unique visitors, top documents, top keywords, and other user-specific information sets.
Account access can be shared with other Google Account holders, a feature that will allow SEOs and SEMs to share information directly with their clients. While it is a violation of the Terms of Service agreement to charge clients for access to data generated by Google Analytics, a service helping them interpret and understand the stats and information seems a natural evolution for search marketing professionals.
As reported by David Utter in WebProNews, Google Analytics doesn't seem to worry newly minted rivals WebTrends and ClickTracks though its introduction did send shivers down the spines of shareholders in analytics firm Web Side Story.
Michael Stebbins, VP Marketing for analytics firm ClickTracks, said: "Google is the rising tide that raises all the web analytics ships. The announcement to offer free analytics is a great validation of our market. We're thrilled they are opening the market's eyes to what web analytics can do today. At the same time, we need to put it in perspective: when Google offered Blogger it did not put other blogger platforms out of business. When the tide levels out, the web analytics tools that provide the most value for marketers will be the ones that thrive." (Source, WebProNews)
Google has made a masterful move in the introduction of Google Analytics. They have produced a superior analytic package, branded it under their name, and tied it into the most popular paid-advertising program on the web. Under other circumstances it wouldn't take long for one of its competitors to catch up with their own analytics package however, Google's purchase of Urchin last year put them far ahead of any rivals.
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