Yahoo Search Mktg Articles by SEO Speedwagon
June 13, 2008
Yahoo to Become Adsense Clearinghouse? 
Sean saw it coming yesterday, and little more than a Month ago I thought it a Yang Threat to balance the Microsoft yin of bluster.
Yet here we have it, and have you ever read anything that made Yahoo suddenly seem more insignificant?:
If the Google partnership passes what's likely to be a rigorous review by U.S. antitrust regulators and lawmakers, Yahoo! intends to use its rival's superior search technology to display ads on its own Web site as well as those of its partners' in the United States and Canada.
Let us all give a collective search way of goodbye to the once great king.
Yahoo to Become Adsense Clearinghouse?
Posted by john at 09:47 AM
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December 19, 2005
Pay Per Click - Naughty or Nice? 
Return On Investment (ROI), three words that can strike fear into the heart of any Pay Per Click (PPC) campaign manager. Is my campaign producing enough ROI? How can I get more ROI? And, Is there ever enough ROI?
From the campaigns that I have been involved in both directly and indirectly, I've seen a few truisms that, when applied, can lead to better ROI. Interestingly enough skill and talent are last on list.
First, as location is to real estate, communication is to ROI. If goals, expectations, and measurements are not clearly communicated then the chances for successful ROI are greatly decreased.
Secondly, Pinocchio’s nose grew every time he told a lie, and every time you're not upfront with your client in communicating what is actually going on, their view of the ROI will go down. Let clients decide the level of detail that they want, and don't assume - we all know the acronym for that.....
Finally, in regards to the three questions mentioned in the opening here are the answers that get to the heart of the issue, regardless of technique.
- Is my campaign producing enough ROI? Ask your client, they'll tell you. Compare results against what the plan was. And only adjust with the client’s explicit approval.
- How can I get more ROI? Understand your client. Typically, the techniques to success are tried and true, but the better you understand your client, what their business is, who their customer is, and what they are expecting to receive, the better the ROI is going to be.
- Is there ever enough ROI? YES. You thought I was going to say no didn't you. I prefer to look at it in a logical equation. If there is never enough ROI, then the goal can never be met.....etc..... I believe in goals, they are good, healthy benchmarks that keep us focused and on task. To exceed the goal is a great thing, don't get me wrong, but to never set a bar for success is a sure way to create an environment for eventual disappointment and perceived failure.
Ultimately, IMHO I think that exceptional ROI is measured in good communication as much as it is in actual numbers. Try taking a few minutes and evaluating your current campaigns with the above criterion and see how you feel about your current ROI.
This humble blogger wants to say thank you to all of the readers out there and wish you all a wonderful Christmas!
Pay Per Click - Naughty or Nice?
Posted by brent at 11:08 AM
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December 12, 2005
A PPC Manager’s Christmas Wish List
Tis the season for Santa to deliver his gifts to kids young and old across the globe and I for one am willing to admit that I’m just a big kid at heart. So Search Engine Santa, here’s one humble PPC Manager’s Christmas wish list.
- A Google desktop API that will allow me to monitor my PPC campaigns in real time. {Hint: A lot like the one they’ve got for AdSense users}.
- For Yahoo to get rid of the archaic random image input at login.
- For Yahoo to allow us to combine all of our accounts into one central place instead of having to log in and out for each account.
- More computing platforms for Google so they can meet the demand for Analytics requests.
As you can see my list is short because I don’t want to be greedy and get any virtual coal in my inbox this Christmas. But these are a few of the things that I run across on a daily basis that would sure make great Christmas presents from Search Engine Santa.
I am collecting “wish lists� from others to give to Search Engine Santa and would be happy to deliver yours with mine. Feel free to contribute to the list by adding your comment to this post.
A PPC Manager’s Christmas Wish List
Posted by brent at 10:43 AM
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October 25, 2005
The Search for Lingua Franca: Engines, SEO, and Real People 
Imagine walking into your local car dealership and hearing a conversation similar to this one. The salesman approaches a couple and begins to extol the virtues of the gleaming, midnight-blue sedan in front of them.
He covers all bases, making sure that no feature is left unexplained, no spec left unquoted:
- Horsepower
- Mileage
- Turning radius
- Cargo volume
- Passenger count
- and on and on...
When he finally takes a breath, the couple look at each other, then at the salesman.
"But what can I do with it?" the woman asks.
"Yeah," her husband adds, "do we sit in it? What does a car do?"
In this context, such a conversation is silly and impossible to fathom. But in SEO/SEM, growing evidence shows it happens all the time. Some recent examples:
- A forum at DigitalPoint describes the fallout of the current Google update, nicknamed Jagger. One specific post gives curious insight into the surfing habits - and search understanding - of a certain type of user:
My customers are more elderly people and I found out they do not know how to bookmark a site for example so they are using Google like bookmarks in their browser. What is happening now is, these customers just keep browsing the search results until they find my site. I had 3 customers complaining as to why I have moved my site in Google, which they find very inconvenient.
No search marketer, whether on the agency side or client side, who has explained his or her job to a befuddled friend or relative, should be surprised by that consumer behavior, yet I still was. To suggest that the 80/20 rule applies to search engines (i.e., that 80% of search engine users focus on [or even know about] only 20% of the engine's feature set) is likely a large understatement. It's probably closer to 98/2.
- ClickZ reports that few publishers or online agencies know about Google's ability to serve AdSense ads on RSS feeds, which comes as no surprise, the article points out, when you combine a topic the public knows little about (contextual advertising) with a topic they know nothing about (RSS).
- Yahoo's Jeremy Zawodney recently attended the Direct Marketing Association Convention and found out that many DM experts know little about search:
In talking to some of the Search Engine Marketing folks that were in sessions on Saturday, I discovered that the vast majority of DMA folks are very, very, very new to Search Marketing. I'd go so far as to say many of them are incredibly clueless about the process, benefits, costs, etc.
So are engines getting ahead of themselves offering ads on RSS feeds when the vast majority of their users won't venture beyond the main search box?
Yes. Industry-wide, both engines and SEO companies need to engage in a massive program of search education. In our interaction with the public - whether we consider them potential searchers or potential clients - search engines and the tagalong search marketing agencies often commit the same big mistake: We're droning on about torque when we haven't adequately explained what a car is.
Once a critical mass of users understand and embrace the myriad ways that search results can appear, memories of a seven-fold increase in profits will seem like the "lean times."
add'l thanks to Threadwatch and SERoundtable
The Search for Lingua Franca: Engines, SEO, and Real People
Posted by erik at 11:30 PM
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