Search engine marketers have always known that long-tail terms are both more specific to the searcher as well as generally more affordable to bid on in competitive categories than single terms. Now, there is evidence to show that consumers are starting to increase the number of words in their searches validating what Search marketers have been doing.
In fact, the number of words in the average US search query is on the rise, with longer search queries – averaging five or more words in length – increasing 10% overall in January 2009 vs. January 2008, according to data from Hitwise.
Thanks to Chris Brogan for the following list of 10 Things You Could Do Better Today:
Improve your response time to requests.
Improve the brevity and simplicity of your email correspondence.
Connect with five new people and seven existing colleagues or friends each day.
Inspect your business process cycle from start to finish for improvements.
Rethink your approach to helping others succeed.
The Interactive Advertising Bureau have changed their tune and are now predicting that the whole businesses dependent on online advertising could go belly up, and researcher IDC has completely reversed its growth estimates. No longer will online ads grow 10% in 2009, says the firm. IDC now predicts a 5% drop in revenues in the first quarter that could get worse in the second. I am not sure why anyone should be surprised at this, the recession was bound to impact on all aspects of marketing spend, not just traditional media.
I don’t normally repost an entire article from someone else’s blog, though I found the following article from David Berkowitz posted on Search Insider to be an enlightening look at the alternatives to Google. I have recently been engaged in some discussions over second tier search engines and to be honest, haven’t really been able to convince myself that they are rich enough with volume or context to put effort into them. That was a perspective from an SEM point of view. David however looks at alternate search engines from a user’s point of view, and that is where it is a completely different discussion.
Google has always fixed and limited the typefaces that advertisers and publishers could use for text ads. As of now, Google lets publishers and bloggers choose their own. Now, publishers and bloggers can choose from three different typefaces: Arial, Times and Verdana. To do so, log in to the AdSense account, select the My Account Tab, then Account Settings –> Ad Display Preference. A dropdown for selecting a preferred Google Adsense typeface will appear.
A friend told me about DevHub earlier today as they were about to launch to the public. They offer a solution that enables users to create and publish multiple websites and offers a way to monetize them in the same process. Think of it as a WYSIWYG website editor (much like Website Tonight) mixed with a series of widgets that ease the process of trying to monetize a website. My main concern with this model, regardless of how easily one can build a site, is that in order to monetize it needs traffic. This service, like all quick build solutions can’t help there.
There are many options in the game of monitoring your brand online in the social web. Radian6, SentimentMetrics, even Google Blog search. KillerStartups.com has enlightened me to another option in the market, Mighty Brand. Just as in the physical world, people talk about your brand on the web, and the things they say do make a true difference. They are sustaining you, after all, and if they are not satisfied with the services you render that might be the end of it for you – provided you don’t act in consequence. This new web service is there to let you do just so. It will let you collate the mentions concerning your brand on the WWW, monitor its reputation and even engage directly into conversation with your customers should explanations be forthcoming.
I read this week of the shutdown of Honeyshed, the Publicis Groupe’s much-watched online-shopping venture, just months after it finally got up and running. The ill-fated creative experiment was the brainchild of David Droga but was birthed through a partnership between Mr. Droga’s agency, Droga5, hotshot production house Smuggler and funding from Publicis, which published reports put at about $25 million. Its aim was to reinvent the online-shopping experience to make it more entertaining and engaging for the 18- to 35-year-old-set. Users could digitally “window shop” brands via vignettes in which attractive youngsters peddle products on channels dubbed “Fun Shit” and “Kicks to Lids” before making online purchases.
According to AdAge, the joke around Facebook is that it is run like a nonprofit. Indeed, for a site its size, it has remained remarkably free of overt commercial activity. Last fall, Facebook began trying to dial up the ads with a new generation of units it calls “engagement ads.” The irony is that marketers and individuals alike can leverage the platform without actually paying for it.
Take Burger King’s “Whopper Sacrifice” application, which allowed users to un-friend 10 friends for a free Whopper. The application resulted in plenty of press and more than 230,000 dumped friends, but Facebook earned no revenue from it. Ultimately, Facebook disabled the notification feature, which it deemed too intrusive, and the application was shut down.
According to Marketing Charts, more than two-thirds (70%) of global ad agency CEOs say that their clients are cutting back their 2009 budgets, and more than 83% of that group say those cuts are at least by 20%. This was according to the latest Agency CEO Survey by Worldwide Partners Inc (WPI).
The CEOs surveyed also continue to feel a universally glum and gloomy vibe from clients about the 2009 outlook, WPI found. When respondents were asked if their clients were more or less optimistic about 2009, 95% of agency CEOs report that their clients are less optimistic. There is little difference between North America and other regions:
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