Search Engine Strategies, San Jose 2004
Day 3 at San Jose
Search Engine Strategies, San Jose 2004
Following an evening of revelry provided to conference-goers at the Google headquarters, day 3 of the SES conference in San Jose provided another opportunity to gain knowledge about trends in the Search Engine Marketers' (SEM) industry. Dave continued to impress visitors at the exposition with the many features of the new SEODoc and other Instant Position tools. Chris attended more panels and discussions related to various topics in the industry, from creating effective ad copy and landing pages to balancing organic and paid listings and measuring success. The day ended with an evening forum hosted by Danny Sullivan that allowed attendees to speak their minds on a variety of subjects.
The Ad Copy Clinic was a continuation of the clinic from day 2, and provided those present with more ideas about effectively converting site visits into sales or subscriptions. Representatives from websites in a variety of industries were allowed to submit a business card to the panel that detailed the website information and a particular keyword that they were targeting. The panel then took turns analyzing the effectiveness of the ad titles, descriptions, and landing pages to which the links were directed. Some common problems included ad titles and descriptions that did not include a price, in the case of a competitive term for products. For example, one website provided digital cameras but was the only one of over eight paid listings that did not list a price. In the case of an expensive product, placing the price within the ad helps to "pre-qualify" clicks, avoiding "wasted" pay-per-click (PPC) costs. Another problem that was found within a few websites was a "cluttered" look to the landing page. This could possibly confuse visitors and make it difficult for them to find the product that they clicked-through for. As always, it is highly suggested to allow a SEM professional to analyze any web pages that are designed to sell or attract subscriptions.
Balancing organic and paid listings is a problem that many website owners would love to have. Obviously, all websites would love to be represented in search results multiple times on the first page. Using Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and SEM methods such as PPC allows this wish to become a reality. The more links to a site for a particular keyword, the higher the statistical probability of someone clicking on you. Many websites use PPC as a method to be included within the top listings, but without SEO, this will be the only place that they appear. According to a variety of sources, as many as 95% of searchers will look initially look to the organic (non-sponsored) listings when viewing search results. Apparently, many people trust these results more, feeling that they are in some way more objective. Of course, this is a fallacy. The only way that a result can appear in PPC is if human or robot editors have screened it for relevancy. However, since this is currently a trend in the market, it only underscores the importance of appearing within organic listings, even if the PPC efforts are well structured.
Greg Jarboe, President of SEO-PR, is an expert in the use of public relations to increase the effectiveness of a website's marketing and branding efforts. According to Nielsen/NetRatings, in June of 2004, more unique visitors used the Yahoo News site than AOL Search. The way to be represented within the news sites such as Yahoo and Google is through the use of effectively optimized press releases. Much like how SEO works, a properly worded news release will be indexed for content relevant to searchers. This will allow websites to have increased back-links as well as results that remain relevant for months to come. Any expert in SEO and SEM should be able to provide help with increasing brand awareness through the use of press releases.
Measuring success is a very important factor when monitoring PPC and organic efforts. In the past, it was very difficult to measure return on investment (ROI) without spending long hours to conduct the research. The panel in the measuring success seminar was composed of leaders from four of the top companies that provide web analytics- a key tool used to monitor and adjust web advertising. Brett Crosby, the VP of Marketing for the Urchin Software Corporation, described the importance of web analytics tools for larger corporations that may have over a million pages within various websites. Without being able to track such statistics as how long visitors stay on certain pages of a website or which page helps visitors decide to purchase, measuring success becomes a guessing game. One SEM even mentioned that if a site is not willing to purchase tracking software, they would not even do business with them. Any analyst or marketer will agree: without solid data, all-important research is rendered useless.
The exposition ended at four in the afternoon and Dave was able to pack-up after a solid two days of demonstrations for potential clients. Many people that visited the booth were very impressed with the new version of the SEODoc, and this conference will certainly prove to increase Instant Positions' standing within the SEM community. The conference, however, had one more important session for the day: Danny Sullivan's evening forum. This open forum allowed SEM's to discuss whatever was on their mind. Chris' question regarding the importance of monitoring deceptive tactics used by some marketers, including Spamming and scams such as "phishing" (the process of sending an e-mail disguised as being from a bank or online merchant and soliciting the personal information of the receiver) prompted an interesting debate.
Many attendees felt the need for a sort of "online Better Business Bureau" to be created to monitor deceptive marketers and to help protect unaware business owners. Instant Position is a member of SEMPO, the Search Engine Marketers Professional Organization. It is possible that we will work in conjunction with SEMPO to help heighten awareness of such deceptive practices. It is certainly the responsibility of SEM's to ensure that all clients are aware that scams exist on the Internet, and that they should contact their SEM if they have ANY questions regarding an e-mail or other form of communication regarding their website. Instant Position will also soon introduce a monthly newsletter dedicated to the subject of recent deceptions occurring on the Internet, and what to do to avoid or report them.
