SMX London is approaching … FAST. Despite the fact it only November since the last SMX London, one of the biggest conferences in the UK Search Marketing agenda is taking place between the 18th and 19th of May 2009.

Speakers include:
Jon Myers – Head of Search – MediaVest
Fellow SearchCowboy Bas Van Den Beld – Searchscape: Latest Stats About The Search Engines
Andrew Girdwood – BigMouthMedia – Understanding Searcher Needs & Intent (Suprised to see two Bigmouths on the panel – personally would have preferred to say a ‘difference’ in opinions)
Mel Carson – Microsoft – Brand & Reputation Management Strategies
Dixon Jones – Receptional – Paid Search & Tricky Issues
Ciaran Norris – Altogether Digital – What’s New With Social Media Marketing
Lisa Ditlefsen – Verve Digital – SEO Checkup
Dave Naylor – Bronco – Give it up!

One panel not to miss is certainly the ‘Blow your mind link building’ containing SEM twitterati such as Rand Fishkin, Patrick Altoft and Lyndon Antcliff early on day 2.

A full breakdown of the agenda can be found here.

As one of SMX London’s official blog partners, we are proud to announce that we are able to offer Holistic Search readers 15% off. To take advantage of the offer simply go to http://searchmarketingexpo.com/london/2009/register use the following code:

PEYOUK09

Yahoo’s market share has been somewhat volatile recently, andaccording to some experts a continuing decline is to be expected, particularly if some reports from the Dow Jones are to be believed. According to a report by the Web Street Journal Yahoo’s share may decline by around another 3% and lose around 12-18% of its current search volume. Much of this can be attributed to the loss of partnership deals with major computer hardware manufacturers such as HP and Acer.

A secondary impact of the loss of such deals is probably more notable, particularly when you consider the lack of ‘competition’ in the sector. Lose Yahoo and you only really have  a choice of three – in realistic terms two search engines to choose from namely MSN and Google. Given Google’s dominance in the market, I would suggest there is only one suitable competitor and that competitor happens to be your nearest rival in terms of market share.

It is indeed further noticeable that Microsoft have indeed been quick to exploit these opportunities. Partnerships with HP (replacing previous engine of choice Yahoo) and Dell will have given Microsoft some added impetus – and the potential to immediately target around 55% of PC shipments in the US. With Google continuing to dominate the search landscape it is increasingly becoming a race for second place, something neither engine has managed to make a clear move on.

Yahoo have been quick to suggest that the loss of such parternships shouldn’t affect market share as much as the above report would have us believe suggesting “consumers will continue to use Yahoo search even if they buy a new computer pre-loaded with a rival’s toolbar.”. I personally would suggest the only engine that could guarantee that level of loyalty would be Google, and that taking that for granted in the current climate is possibly a bit foolhardy – particularly given the apparant focus on search from Microsoft, and even the rise of channels such as Twitter as a search engine of sorts.

Whilst the US search engine market is very different to that of the UK, the share of Google being far higher in the UK, I would suggest this could still have some significant knock on effects. With Google still taking nothing for granted, in a continual drive towards further relevance (and lets face it increased revenues), the other two need to continue to be innovative in order to attract both advertisers and searchers alike to utilise them more. Lets be brutal both of them could do no worse by starting at:

• Looking further afield. The world doesn’t end at the US, new products are generally slow at moving to foreign markets (if at all).
• Giving users value add. I am always disappointed by the relevance of a number of searchers on both engines – and whilst I personally use them more than most – it comes through a requirement of considerable data mining more than anything
• Giving advertisers value add. In my opinion natural search battles is continually ongoing. Monetising and ‘Management’ or organic search and digital asset value adds would seem to be natural progression
• Hitting new channels hard. Google in particular seem to be pushing mobile hard. The other two need to be hitting this – harder!!

Search engines can’t take anything for granted. Lets just take a look at Altavista. They have to continue to evolve – otherwise things can change and change very quickly. I personally would expect a very different landscape in 5-10 years, but I guess only time will tell.

According to Advertising Age, Microsoft are looking at throwing between $80 and $100 Million to try and wrestle market search marketing share away from Yahoo and Google. The work is expected to be given to to WPP agency, JWT and Crispin Porter & Bogusk. The campaign is expected to see iterations on multiple channels including online, TV, print and radio executions.

According to the release on adAge

According to one person close the situation, the forthcoming campaign will be careful to not position “Kumo” as a competitor to Yahoo or Google and instead cast it as a reimagined search engine that ups the game by yielding fewer but more-focused results. The proposed strategy is probably a good — if not the only — way to go.

Many search-industry watchers say the only way to challenge Google, the current category leader, will be to present something markedly different. The thing is, at first glance, screenshots of “Kumo” don’t look too different from the current search format used by most major search engines: organic search results in the main part of the page, with sponsored links across the top and the right side. The new Microsoft interface does appear to have some interesting filtering features, both in the organic-results area and along the left side of the page, to help searchers drill down into more specific topics.

As previous experience will tell us, significant spending on advertising is not a guarantee of success. Ask.com have spent significant amounts on above the line advertising in the past, with limited (and varying degrees of success). It is therefore not a given that this shift in spend to focus on the search product will indeed bear any fruits, and given them any traction within the search marketplace.

Indeed, success in my opinion may lie elsewhere, and even closer to home. Microsoft themselves have launched a number of innovative new products and solutions in the last couple of months, something which may provide the key to greater market share. Products such as Cash Back and some of the other new products/features may help gartner greater usaage of the search engine, however greater uptake is going to rely heavily on the quality of the search product – particularly when compared to the Google product itself which has seen some significant enhancements over the last couple of weeks.

Commentators suggest a more successful approach may be to partner with Yahoo, however whether this is enough to compete against Google is a different question. In my personal opinion the biggest battleground is that for second and third place . Is the $100 million enough to compete against Google – no. Is it enough to help compete against Yahoo – possibly. Only time will tell.

Other articles on this subject:

Microsoft to throw $100 million at their search market share problem – Search Engine Land

[The views in this post are those of Peter Young, and not necessarily those of his employers]

As part of the ongoing Guest Bloggers series, Rishi Lakhani, a Search Marketing Strategist strategist in the UK tackles one of the hot topics of the moment – that of brands and search engines

Note: The post below is meant to push your buttons, make you think. There are more questions than answers. But there are times when we need to question, and I think this is one of them.

For time immemorial, there have been secret organisations. Some of these organisations are rumoured to have existed for centuries, descending into a mix between myth and urban legend. (Cue: Illuminati).

However, we least expected to find them in our midst. Meeting in secret with one of the world’s most powerful organisation. An organisation that could take down Economies of several countries at one blow. I am not paranoid – it’s true. These meetings most likely decide how you and I work. They probably influence our strategies for the future. We just didn’t know. These societies are by invite only, and no one except for the members and organisers really knows who attends them.

We don’t see any minutes, any updates, hell, not even the agenda. We don’t know how much of our life is being influenced by them.

No I am not going mad and waxing lyrical pointlessly. I am talking about the company that many of us battle daily. Google.

Yesterday Search Engine Land published Big Brand Media Wants A Google Bailout. One of the more interesting parts of the story is that Google has a Publishers Advisory Council. Did you know it existed? What goes on in these meetings? Why do only the big boys get to know? Is this unfair market advantage?

But the GPAC isn’t the ONLY secret council that google has. In 2007, Darren Rowse published Secret AdSense Online Advisory Council Revealed, which exposed the birth or emergence of the GAOAC. I can’t find a members list, an agenda, or any resolutions or learnings from this council.

In Feb 2009, George Michie from the Rimm Kaufman Group Revealed that he had been invited to join the Google SEM Advisory Panel. That makes GSAP, and number three secret society. I don’t know how many more there are.

My question to all of you out there is – Why not keep it all out in the open? After all, the proudly published the formation of the Google Health Advisory Council. Is this unfair advantage for the big guys? Are these the new Illuminati? Do they impact our work?

I reserve opinion, but I am sure my tone gives you an inkling as to what I think. This is food for though.

As a by note – Yahoo has also joined the ranks in forming secret councils

Rishi Lakhani is a Search Marketing Strategist. Feel free to follow him on twitter.

According to comScore Video Metrix, more than 124 million unique viewers in the U.S. – 78% of the country’s total online population – viewed 9.5 billion online videos during December 2007. This figure is expected to increase over the coming months as organisations continue to explore the channel as a medium of promotion – and certainly the Google deal to allow media firms to sell their own ads on Youtube can only spur video on to greater levels of success.

Blended search engine optimisation (and video search optimisation) has therefore become a fundamental part of many search marketing campaigns over the last couple of months. One of the more interesting results of this behaviour, particularly given the effect it has on search behaviour. In a study undertaken by Enquiro, digital assets such as PR, Video and Images had a startling effect on how people interacted with search engine results pages.

Source: Enquiro 2008.

Where these blended search results have been incorporated, they acted as a natural barrier, something which we can naturally use to segment the page, and as such density of eyefall tends to fall in areas above the blended result. This could be attributed to the variances in Googles display of such ads, which often appear either in the first results area, or just above/below the fold. Take for example the following results, you will notice many of these results vary between the top result (often in the case of products), to roughly position 3 or 4 (in the case of images, video and PR)

Google product results appearing prominently on relevant searches

PR results showing just above the fold

Video and Image results showing just above the fold

Such behaviour within the search results, often points to the increased importance and role of paid search advertising, and the increased importance of priority organic visibility, something which is obviously becoming more and more personalised as Google release new products such as SearchWiki and Preferred sites. These blended search results thus become more and more important factors in terms of influencing search behaviour in a manner in which we can control.

At this point I should point to some research done by iProspect last year, in collaboration with Jupiter Research. A number of interesting results came out from the study including:

• 36 percent of search engine users click “news” results within blended search results, while only 17 percent click a “news” result after conducting a news-specific search
• 31 percent of search engine users click “image” results within blended search results, while 26 percent click an “image” result after conducting an image-specific search
• 17 percent of search engine users click “video” results within blended search results, while only 10 percent click a “video” result after conducting a video-specific search While images are the most clicked type of result after a vertical-specific search, news items are the most clicked type of result within blended search results

This not only shows how these blended search results impact in terms of behaviour on the search engine results pages, but also highlight how they themselves alter how people naturally would search for these assets in their normal environment.

Given many organisations have existing assets in place, and often incumbent agencies which can provide the offline strategy – it often suprises me as to the amount of organisations that utilise these assets digitally. If you aren’t fully optimising your digital assets – maybe you should ask yourself…

Why not?

Just in case you couldn’t get enough of me on the Holistic Blog (or on Marketing Pilgrim), have no fear. I will be doing regular posts over at the Search Cowboys site, with the likes of Joost De Vaalk, Heini van Bergen, Martin Beijk, lovely Lisa Ditlefsen and Bas van den Beld.

Despite only recently starting up, the Search Cowboys have already built up a heck of a following, and I can only see them going from strength to strength. After all, isn’t it time us Europeans (UK included) had our own equivalent to the Search Engine Ninjas .

The first post ‘A bloggers view on Search in Europe: Peter Young‘ is now live on the site, and introduces a number of the reasons why I personally find the challenge presented by European search campaigns so fascinating.

As the second part of the Twitter series here on Holistic, I thought I would suggest some of the people I am, and would recommend following on Twitter, and being a SEO in the UK, obviously all these are UK based.

Dave Naylor (DaveN)

Company: Bronco

WHO?: One of the ‘big dogs’ of UK search marketing, Dave started working in the SEO industry over 10 years ago.

WHY: Hugely popular, highly respected and well worth following

WHERE: http://twitter.com/DaveNaylor

Company: MediaVest/MVi

WHO?: Head of Search at MediaVest. Industry veteran (sorry Jon)

WHY: Widely respected and a regular speaker on both the SMX and SES speaking circuits. Amongst other things – he’s my boss.

WHERE: http://twitter.com/JonDMyers

Company: BigmouthMedia

WHO?: Head of Search at Bigmouthmedia.

WHY: Hardcore Search Marketeer – and ‘face’ of Bigmouthmedia (erm ). Passionate about all things search, and if that bores you, theres always his gaming.

WHERE: http://twitter.com/AndrewGirdwood

Company: Blogstorm/Branded3

WHO?: Director of Search at Branded3.

WHY: Been a magic year for Patrick and the Blogstorm blog.

WHERE: http://twitter.com/patrickaltoft

Company:

WHO?: Marketing Expert @ jimsmarketingblog.com

WHY: Hugely experienced marketeer and VERY well connected (Over 16000 followers on Twitter)

WHERE: http://twitter.com/Jimconnolly

Company: Altogether Digital

WHO?: SEO and Social Media Director at Altogether Digital

WHY: Entertaining blogger, and if that fails theres always the music commentary.

WHERE: http://twitter.com/ciaranj

Company: SEOptimise

WHO?: Director of Search at SEOptimise

WHY: Some great posts coming out of SEOptimise at the moment. Worth following for that alone.

WHERE: http://twitter.com/kevgibbo

Company: Microsoft/MSN

WHO?: Microsoft Adcentre’s Community Manager

WHY: Works for Microsoft apart from anything else (Who would turn down the chance of winning an ‘I’m a PC tshirt). Apart from that his regular commentary is hugely entertaining

WHERE: http://twitter.com/MelCarson

Company: Distilled

WHO?: Founder of Distilled with Duncan Morris

WHY: His involvement with SEOMoz is well known, however the site itself is a wealth of information.

WHERE: http://twitter.com/willcritchlow

Company: Ayima Search Marketing

WHO?: One of the Ayima Gang

WHY: Entertaining Blogger, and hugely entertaining twitter read not just in terms of latest on hangovers….

WHERE: http://twitter.com/evilgreenmonkey

Matt Sawyer – DataDial -Online Marketeer, SEO and Social Media Junkie – http://twitter.com/mattuk

Rob Watts – Latitude – SEO – Stephen Pavlovich – Bonytoad – http://twitter.com/bonytoad

Jane Copland – SEOMoz/Ayima – Only here as she isn’t 100% in the UK yet- http://twitter.com/coplandmj

Judith Lewis – I-Level – Search Director at I-Level – http://twitter.com/JudithLewis

Lisa Ditlefsen – Base One – Head of Search at BaseOne – http://twitter.com/LisaDitlefsen

George Hopkin – Johnston Press – SEO Evangelist – http://twitter.com/GeorgeHopkin

Paul Walsh – Various – http://twitter.com/PaulWalsh

Nikki Pilkington – http://twitter.com/nikkipilkington

Dave Davis – RedFly Marketing – http://twitter.com/daveredfly

Dan Alderson – Amaze PLC – http://twitter.com/pinje

and the final one

Peter Young

Company: MediaVest / Holistic Search

WHO?: SEO Manager at MediaVest.

WHY: Why not?

WHERE: http://twitter.com/peteyoung

Thats just some of my recommendations, Please feel free to add yours…

71% of people are unaware of how Internet search engine results are compiled – thats the figure that has come from a study from Fasthosts called “Online Search Matters.”. Interesting for many search marketeers particularly those actively employing SEO or PPC campaigns.

Search Page Overview

The study went on to say that the majority of UK browsers either have no idea or an inaccurate view of how online search results are generated perhaps indicative of the level of understanding regarding SEO within the general public. Of the 97 percent of respondants who said that they frequently use search engines, only 29 percent are aware that search results are generated based on the search terms and optimisation techniques used by the individual website owners.

Further to this 24 percent of respondents believe that the search results cannot be affected, while 22 percent suspect that results are ordered entirely according to how much has been paid by the websites listed. The report also stated that:

• 19% say they have no idea at all how results are compiled
• 5% believe that search listings are arranged completely at random.

Staggering…..

Further to this, browsers continued to favour organic search rankings over that of its sponsored partners – with 38% of respondants saying they typically ignore sponsored listings. I personally would caveat such a statement by suggesting this figure is likely to change significantly the more brand or product focussed the search term is – and you would typically see clickthroughs on PPC increase significantly in these circumstances.

However the survery highlighted that 33% of respondents believe the sponsored listings to be ‘less worthy’ and ‘less useful’ than main search results, whilst to other 66% report that they always pay attention first to main results. In terms of demographic breakdown, there was also a significant slant with:

• 40% of women vs 34 % of men will ignore sponsored links whenever they appear as standard
• East England seemed to be the most sceptical towards sponsored listings with 45% of Norwich residents and 43% of Nottingham residents not clicking on them – compared against just 12% from Northern Ireland.

Whilst it should be highlighted this was quite  a small study, with only 1636 people surveyed – it does give us an indication as to the level of awareness out there in relation to search – and in particular the importance of an integrated search marketing approach comprising both SEO and Paid Search.

According to a recent Specific Media study using Comscore data, Display Advertising and Search Marketing are directly correlated. In particular brand and segment related searches jumped by over 100% in a number of areas where consumers were exposed to both display ads and search ads.

The impact of display ads on search – emarketer.com

The report went on to say that search clickers exposed to brand advertising were 22% more likely to produce a sale than those that did not view a display ad. It should be noted that such increases in performance are not merely limited to areas where just display and search are used. The recent Enquiro/Google study suggested that where priority visibility on both paid and organic search were occupied – brand association and purchase intent increased by circa 16%.

Further to this Microsoft’s Young-Bean Song said in a recent article on Clickz that the study results highlighted that search alone was not a standalone solution to customer acquisition

“The issue we have with navigational search is that it completely obliterates the value we’re creating from other digital marketing we’re doing,” Mr. Song told ClickZ. “The idea that search is this magical fountain of customer acquisition—in many cases it’s not.”

There is no doubting that search is reliant on other forms of advertising, one only has to look at other bits of research published over the last couple of years, such as the iProspect Search influencers study, which highlighted that two-thirds (67%) of search engine users are driven to search by an offline channel (37% of them because of TV advertising), and 39% of those offline-influenced search users ultimately make a purchase from the company that prompted their initial search – to see how much more effective search is as part of a multichannel marketing mix.

As budgets become tighter, marketing spends will have to work far harder – however online does have a significant advantage in terms of accountability, key in an environment where ever bit counts. That doesn’t mean however that other channels should be ignored…

Brand Reputation is becoming a big word in marketing circles. Warfare is taken place on the search engine results pages for many brands, and is becoming an important part of the Search Marketing professionals armoury. However what should you have in your brand reputation toolkit.

1) Know where you stand

It is very difficult to understand how and where to react to an issue if you do not know what is being said about you, and there is really no reason why you shouldn’t be able to setup even the simplest of monitoring tools without spending hundreds or thousands of pounds on brand reputation software.

Simply implementing a Google Alert on your brand will give you some sort of idea of who, what and where your brand is being talked about. I would add however there are some fantastic brand reputation monitoring tools out there that do pick up a wide variety of content, across a range of different channels, and if you are considering some of these tools some of the better ones are:

• Magpie Brandwatch
• Radian 6
• Market Sentinel
• Sentiment Metrics
• Asomo
• and even Trackur from Andy Beal.

2) Dominate your brand search.

Thomas Cook - Dominating brand

There are various ways of doing this, however it is imperative you make it as difficult for a potential brand detractor to influence any searcher, by reducing visibility below the fold. The example above shows an organisation that does this very well by utilising a mixture of subdomains and domains to dominate the top 10 of searches for ‘Thomas Cook’.

3) Use your paid search tactically

Often a lot of brand reputation issues will arise in public forums such as blogs and forums. A large proportion of these sites will carry various forms of online advertising such as Google Adsense advertising, or other forms of online advertising as a way of monetising their sites.

Use of sponsored search for brand reputation

Where particular issues may arise on a suitable site, it is possible to tailor adverts to particular sites – such as Google Adwords – site placement. These ads may carry creative developed particularly for a particular issue advising browsers of where they may be able to find more applicable factual data.

4) Use your offline channels online

Modern day search pages allow search marketeers to influence a far greater proportion of the search engine results page than ever before including

• Video
• PR
• Product Feeds
• Local Listings
• and Images

Blended search allows greater brand infiltration than ever before

Using the example above, for the iPhone, advertisers are able to use a variety of channels to attract potential custom, including

• the traditional organic listings – where Apple (as you would expect dominate)
• the Paid Listings – allowing advertisers such as Carphone Warehouse and Vodaphone to advertise on these terms

but also

• PR – Taken from Google trusted news sources
• Products – taken from advertisers who have submitted Google Base Feeds.

All these channels allow a far wider variety of usage outside of pure search results, for example the video used above is obviously pulled from Youtube – and has already received nearly 6 million views since it went live.

They also tend to dominate key areas of the page, for example

• Google Products – often visible between positions 1-4 (above the fold of the screen)
• Local – Generally the first result – and highly prominent in terms of eye catchment
• PR – Often within positions 1-5
• Video – Depends but normally anywhere between 1-10

They are in many cases ‘eyeline breakers’, often breaking the natural browse of a results page, and meaning users spend more time on search pages – something Enquiro looked into recently.

5) Use Your affiliates

This is obviously going to be more pertinant to some advertisers more than others, however it is worth noting how much real estate can be taken up by affiliates. Whilst this may be a more expensive way of taking up search page real estate, it can result in some significant coverage, all of which is likely (as long as you treat them right) to result in good brand (and sales focussed) coverage.

The role of affiliates on brand searches

And more:

• Use social media (Will cover this in a later post)
• Is Wikipedia relevant – WHilst you aren’t likely to get any link juice – this does take up valuable real estate
• Create a Squidoo lens

One thing is for sure – don’t just ignore the problem. There are a number of high profile examples out there in, that highlight what happens if things are simply left to fester. Certainly people like Dell have developed a brand reputation response learned from the ‘Dell Hell’ days.