Natural Search Engine Marketing and You

Latest research by Jupiter Research and sponsored by iProspect found that 62 percent of search engine users click a search result on the first page of results and 90 percent click a search result within the first three pages of results.

The research found that 88 percent of users will change engines or their search term if they do not find what they seek on the first three pages of search results.

When unsuccessful in their search, 82 percent of search engine users conduct another search using the same search engine, refining their search with more specific keywords and key phrases. If they do not find the answer on the first page of the refined search results, 41 percent of these users change search engines or search terms.

Not surprising is the finding that 36 percent of search engine users believe that top brands and companies are listed at the top of the search results. In a previous study (2005), Jupiter Research found that 87 percent of commercial clicks take place on the natural (obtained through website optimization) search results, not sponsored (bid for placement) search results.

As searchers develop preferences for a particular search engine and begin to use keywords and key phrases that are more specific, marketers will need to target these more specific key words and key phrases.

This research tends to confirm that marketers need to spend more time on natural search engine optimization and spend less money on pay per click campaigns like Google AdWords.

Wondering where to start with key words, key phrases and natural search engine optimization? With Wordtracker you'll know which are the best keywords to drive more traffic to your sites.

Tags: natural search engine marketing, Jupiter Research, iProspect, key words, key phrases, WordTracker

Podcasting by the Experts : Virtual Expo

Join Us At the 3-D Virtual Podcasting Expo
April 21st-23rd

The fastest growing trend in Internet marketing is Podcasting

• Learn from the Experts at the Live Seminars


• Boost your online success at the Networking Events


• Voice and Text Chat with Exhibitors in the 3-D Expo Booths
  
  
• Choose from over 40 Seminars and Live Podcasts
  
  
• Receive welcome pack with free gifts.
  
  
• Incredible deal is the cost: $11 USD
  

Click here to visit the International Podcasting Expo

Internet marketing, Internet advertising, Podcasting expo, virtual seminar, international podcasts, expo, learn from experts, virtual international podcasting expo

Cool Tool: Automatic Blog Feed Submission

Back in November of 2005, CoolAdzine featured Advertising With RSS Delivers, a blog post about marketing with RSS feeds. Research had proven that feed marketing could increase your rankings and drive fresh traffic to your website.

Six months ago, the only way to submit your blog feed was manually, one blog directory or blog search engine at a time. Then, once you had submitted your feed, you could ping multiple blog directories and blog search engines using services like Ping-o-Matic. You also had to register at each and every blog directory or blog search engine.

Now, there is a cool tool to use that will automatically submit your blog feed! RSS Feeds Submit is the quickest way to submit your blog feed to the most popular blog directories and blog search engines. With RSS Feeds Submit, you control the entire submission process--which only takes minutes!

• Automatically submit your blog feed to 58+ top blog directories and blog search engines.
• Add, update or automatically update your blog feed submissions.
  
• Customize and manually submit your feed to selected sites.
• Receive free software updates, including new submission sites, for one year.

Tags: RSS Delivers, RSS Feeds Submit, blog submit, automatically submit blog, Top Blog Directories, Top Blog Search Engines

Cool Blog of the Week: Winsome Gunning Art

The Cool Blog of the Week is a blog from downunder. Winsome Gunning Art is a blog about the self-discovery process and the artisitic journey.

Winsome paints special moments: walks on a beach, planting flowers, a frangipani night, moon over the sea, birds flying in the sky, an orange tree, a moment of solitude and peace.

Please visit Winsome Gunning Art blog to share her experiences as an artist and view her paintings.

Tell her that CyberCelt sent you.

Behavioral Targeted Ads Found More Engaging than Contextual Ads

Tacoda, leading provider of behaviorally-targeted online advertising and Next Century Media, a media effectiveness firm, conducted research comparing behaviorally targeted ads to contextually-based ads.

Using eye tracking technology, the study showed that on first exposures to advertisements, behaviorally targeted advertisements generated an average of 17 percent more looks than contextual advertising. After the first exposure, this advantage increased to 54 percent more views.

What could this mean? Behavioral targeting may help advertisers engage consumers more often and for longer periods of time the more often the consumers are exposed to the advertisements!

This is the opposite of conventional marketing wisdom. How could behavioral targeting generate more looks than contextual targeting? According to Bill Harvey, Next Century Media:

It could be that there are just too many ads for the same product category attacking the user's eye in contextual targeting... On the other hand, when in the market for a product, and finding an ad for that product in a completely unrelated site, the user might react to the surprise of that unexpected event by looking at the ad.

Tacoda and Next Century Media are already planning their next research study. In the meantime, Tacoda's behavioral audience network currently delivers more than 128 million unique users monthly.

View complete report here.

Tags: internet, advertising, internet advertising, behaviorially targeted advertising, engage, behavorial targeting, Tacoma, eye tracking

One Answer to Problem of Behavioral Targeting

There are many kinds of Internet advertising. The latest contender for the new online advertising paradigm is behavioral targeting (BT), which displays a particular creative or rich content based on the sites the viewer has visited and what actions the viewer has performed on those websites.

BT results in increased access to users who are in the market for (ready to buy) a particular product, perhaps because of the affects of online advertising or a branding campaign. However, to use Internet advertising and BT, you must be able to change your advertising on the fly based on the behavioral segments identified.

Behavioral targeting helps identify behavorial segments that are then labeled, for example:

• visited but did not buy,


• searched for discounted appliances,


• looked at brand name, or


• saved a shopping basket on site.

BT may be the latest harbringer of advertising successs for online stores.

Primary Types of Behavioral Segments

Firstly, there are behavioral segments developed by aggregating users who have gone to targeted advertising on a web site.

Secondly, there are behavioral segments formed by users who have searched for specific keywords or have read content containing a specific keywords on a website. These users are looking to purchase a specific item or group of items.

Lastly, there are behavioral segments of users who visited your web site and performed specific actions, such as put items in a shopping cart, watching a video or subscribing to a mailing list. Any member of any behavioral segment may be retargeted when they are found on other more general-content-type websites.

Problem of Behavioral Targeting

The biggest drawback of behavioral targeting for advertisers is that it is hard to change their media mix once BT segments have been identified, even though changing the media (content and interactive elements) to make use of behavioral targeting would result in significant saving of marketing dollars by Internet advertising.

One Solution to Problem of Behavorial Targeting

Some advertisers use an Internet advertising traffic source such as ad networks, to deliver their message to the online community, versus the site-by-site implementation of content targeting specific behavioral segments.

For more information, visit Ad Week

Tags: Behavorial Targeting, Internet Advertising, Ad Networks, shop but do not buy, behavioral segments

Search Engine Optimizing for Dummies

In 2000, I attended a web developer’s conference in Austin and learned search engine optimization (SEO) from a Yahoo! guru. This knowledge held me in good stead for years.

Now, I must admit that I have almost given up on search engine optimization (SEO). I read the SEO newsletters, peruse and post to SEO forums, and periodically scrape the blogosphere for the latest on search engine algorithm changes.

SEO has become a game with its own language, arcane symbols and ever-changing gods of rank and position. Dependant upon which god is in ascendancy at the moment, there are different answers to important questions:

• Which metatags do we use?
• May we use landing pages now?
• What words do we use in anchor text on hyperlinks?
• Are links within a website useful?
• What are the Dublin metatags?
• Should we use hyphens (-) or underscores (_) in our titles?

Rather than giving up, I decided to take action. I purchased Internet Business Promoter (IBP) software, which I will use to optimize both my websites (CoolAdz.com and USAer.com).

The software and the process appears simple: optimize your web pages, promote your web sites and track the results. They offer a 30-day money-back guarantee and free updates for a year.

Wish me luck in my quest for page ranking of the past.

Tags: Search Engine Optimization, SEO, Internet Business Promoter

Merging Behavioral Targeting and Contextual Advertising

Finally, someone has discovered a way to use behavioral targeting and contextual advertising together. By keeping anonymous profiles, advertising networks are able to match stored anonymous profiles, including clickthrough and ad preferences, with current visitors.

If the behavior of a visitor is very similar to an anonymous profile in the system, the ad network can serve advertisements similar to the ones the in which the anonymous user showed the most interest (using click-through rates or top impressions).

For unique visitors, the ad network adjusts advertising based on the preferences of the visitor. If the visitor displays a preference for content-based advertisements, the next site the user visits within the ad network will serve similar advertisements.

Tags: behavioral targeting, contextual advertising, anonymous profiles, advertising, ad network

Quick Reference for Search Engine Marketers

Search Engine Watch provides links to What People Search For - Most Popular Keywords. If you are wanting to add content that is timely and being actively searched, pop over the Search Engine Watch and check out any of the hot searches.

• AOL Hot Searches: Top current queries, or see those in the last hour, last day and within particular categories.
• Ask Jeeves / Jeeves IQ: See top searches at Ask Jeeves.
• Dogpile SearchSpy: Choose to see either a filtered or non-filtered sample of top, real-time search terms from this popular meta search service.
• Google Zeitgeist: What people are searching for at Google and its associated specialty services in a variety of categories. There are versions for various countries, as well.
• Lycos 50: Long-standing service showing top searches at Lycos each week.
• MSN Search Insider: Top 200 queries on MSN Search (annoyingly in random order), top "movers" in TV, sports and music, and a "duels" feature pitting top queries in a race against each other.
• Yahoo Buzz Index: Shows you what's hot and what's not in terms of search topics at Yahoo.

Bloggers take note. Search engines index blog posts faster than website content. You may want to blog about a topic (using keyword), tag the keyword on your blog, and direct readers to your website content with a hyperlink anchored by the same keyword(s).

For more information on anchor text, please see posting on CoolAdzine: A HREF = Opportunity for Advertising.

Search Engine Marketing, keyword, what people search for, blog search engine marketing (SEM)

Blog of the Week: Deep Fried Fish Blog

This week, CoolAdzine Blog of the week is the Deep Fried Fish Blog. Despite the name, the blog is about baseball, specifically the Florida Marlins. The blog owner, Bobby Yacuzzo, is a chef and a baseball fan, so somehow it is all connected. I know nothing about baseball, but I do like Bobby's way of looking at life:

Life is not meant to be journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadsliding, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming-- WOW What a ride.

Stop by the Deep Fried Fish Blog and talk baseball with Mr. Yacuzzo. Tell him CyberCelt sent you.

Baby Boomers Turn 50

The Media Audit reported there are 51.1 million men and women age 50+ in 2005, up from 44.6 million in 2000.

Demographics:

• 23.4 million are retired
• average annual household income is $42K
• almost 50 percent claim liquid assets of $250,000+
• 82.3 percent own their home in contrast to 69.2 percent of the general population
• 4.3 percent plan to buy a home within two years versus 7 percent of all adults

Changes from 2000 to 2005, those reporting:

• at least one college degree increased from 14.6 million to 19.3 million
• earning $50K+ increased from 32.7 to 37.7 percent
• annual income of $75K+ increased from 17.8 to 22.1 percent
• household income of $100K+ increased from 9.5 to 12.8 percent

What does this mean to you? The next few years will see a huge increase in advertising and sales of health products (so we feel better), fitness products (so we look better), RVs (so we may travel in comfort), gadgets (GPS, cell phones, digital cameras, PDAs, whole house security and electrical systems). Market online because ease and convenience are important to us as we age. Provide services that make life easier.

eMarketer Daily Available by Podcast

eMarketer, described as The First Place to Look for market research information related to the Internet, e-business, online marketing and emerging technologies, has taken their own advice and added a podcast to their offerings.

Now, you may listen to eMarketer Daily on your iPod or PC using iTunes or another podcatcher program. Simply add the XML feed to your program.

Keep an eye on the eMarketer Daily podcast for the advertising that is sure to come. For more information on podcasting, advertising and you, view CoolAdzine blog post: Podcasting: Who's Tuning In.

Well, it's a small world, after all ...

Eileen