Archive for November, 2007

Search engine optimisation (SEO) can provide excellent returns on investment, but only if the campaign is allowed to mature, it has been suggested.

While marketers may want to see instant results from their decision to make use of SEO, this is unlikely to be the case, said Steve Haar, senior director of media at Leapfrog Online.

However, writing for Search Engine Watch, he urged that website owners remain patient and invest both time and money to see good results.

"SEO can take time to generate results depending on your starting point," he said.

"You may not see your sales (or other target metric) increase right away."

A minimum six months to a year should be spent establishing the viability of the campaign for the longer term, Mr Haar added.

"Nothing is free, especially clicks. Enter into SEO knowing that there is a cost," he explained.

"Like everything else, tie the increases in target metrics to the cost of the SEO activity. This gives you a view into SEO ROI."

Web marketers looking to improve customer enjoyment when interacting with their site have been advised to make use of web analytics services.

A report from E-Consultancy found that the vast majority of marketers share the opinion that gauging customer happiness with a website is much harder without using web analytics, with 91 per cent of respondents saying it is either "essential" or "important".

In an interview with the e-marketing website, web analytics expert Eric Peterson said that using web analytics measurements should be merged with surveys to get a rounded view of how customers interact with a website.

"When you put this measurement stack together, site operators are suddenly able to answer complex ‘how?’ and ‘why?’ questions. It leads you inevitably to action," he said.

Further E-Consultancy research found that web analytics is already seeing major growth to its popularity, with UK spending increasing by a quarter over this year.

The opportunities for advertisers to reach their target audience through online search marketing are increasing as surfers spend longer on the web.

According to internet analysis firm Compete, the total time spent on the web by the average net user has grown by nearly a quarter (24.3 per cent) over the past year.

"We are spending more and more time consuming information online," said Compete spokesperson Jay Meattle.

"Logically online advertising spend should follow a similar trajectory with marketers allocating their ad budgets in proportion to where people are spending their time.

"Needless to say, this is a time of considerable opportunity for online media properties and online marketers."

Marketing on the web can take many forms, such as banner adverts or interacting with the internet community through blogging.

But with search engines being the first port of call for many surfers, making sure that a website performs well in the Google and Yahoo! rankings could potentially prove lucrative for marketers.

Dell announced this week that it plans to sell Google search devices to help businesses find data on their networks.

The Google Search Appliance is being billed as the most effective way of finding information on corporate networks and will be marketed primarily to large US firms.

It employs machines which scour corporate intranets, databases and websites for documents and thanks to an affiliate marketing scheme will be compatible with a host of Dell-produced computer systems.

Mindful of the hefty $30,000 (£14,500) price tag attached to the product, the company has also released the $1,995 Google Mini - which fulfils the same function on a more modest scale and is targeted primarily at small to medium-sized businesses.

Dell is the world’s second-largest personal computer maker. In recent times it has expressed a desire to focus increasingly on the business-side of the market, which currently accounts for 85 per cent of its revenue.

New research has revealed that video-sharing website YouTube and free online information resource Wikipedia are among the web’s top ten brands.

The duo - often cited as prime examples of the Web 2.0 media and community-oriented revolution - entered Nielsen Online’s top ten list at the expense of video streaming company Real and the internet service provider AOL.

YouTube came in eighth place after its audience numbers skyrocketed 84 per cent in a single year to reach 9.9 million, while Wikipedia landed the number ten spot having enjoyed a 50 per cent spike in users, bringing it up to 9.5 million.

Among the current top ten, the only brands to experience a drop in audience were Apple and Microsoft, who lost six per cent and three per cent respectively.

Commenting on the shifting focus, Alex Burmaster, internet analyst at Nielsen Online, said: "The story of the last year has, undoubtedly, been the phenomenal growth in user-generated content, so it’s not surprising to see this reflected in the leading brands - gone are traditional powerhouses like Real and AOL."

The six most popular brands for 2007 remained static, with Google retaining its throne as the industry leader, followed by MSN/Windows Live, Microsoft, Yahoo!, BBC and eBay.

MySpace is launching a new charity platform which enables users of the social networking site to interact more directly with a raft of good causes and campaigns.

The move is the latest in a long line of features, tools and partnerships pursued by the web’s three top social media sites - MySpace, Facebook and Bebo - all of which are constantly vying for the attention of Web 2.0’s ever growing cadres of community-minded surfers.

Figures for over-15 users of the three sites peg MySpace as the market leader with 109 million people, compared to Facebook’s 86 million-strong community and Bebo’s 21 million users.

But the predominantly music-orientated MySpace continues to see its growth slow as Facebook’s slicker design and more customisable applications woo ever-increasing numbers of users.

Commenting on the newly formalised charity section of the site, senior vice president for MySpace Europe, Jamie Kantrowitz, said: "Young people are at the core of next generation social interaction and feel it is part of their identity to support these things."

He rejected accusations that the new charity channel is a revenue-generating ploy, noting that some £2 million of prime advertising space has been set aside for the platform.

Web retailers have been advised that buying decision are often influenced by the opinions of other customers through reviews, forums and blogs.

Research by More Computers found that two thirds of UK online shoppers rely most heavily on the opinions of their peers when pondering whether to buy a product or service over the web.

This suggests that online marketers could use user-generated content such as blogs or forums to increase their appeal to customers searching for their products.

Brian Trevaskiss, operations manager at More Computers, suggested that the next big thing in online shopping will be video reviews.

"Customer reviews are very powerful, and video reviews will soon catch up in popularity," he said.

"Video sites like YouTube are full of product reviews and, when you’ve seen a good one you’re converted. Nothing beats getting your hands on a new gadget, but it’s not possible when you’re shopping online."

While social websites can provide some traffic to websites, visitors are far more often arriving from search engines.

Using search engine optimisation to highlight the reviews on the company’s website could be one technique to both boost the ranking of the site on search engines like Google and increase the popularity of the brand.

Targeted online advertisements are to be investigated by European Union regulators due to recent concerns over privacy invasion.

Search engines have toyed in the past with using previous queries to help guide search results and improving ad targeting.

But recently, social media websites such as Facebook and MySpace have stepped up attempts to tap the profile information of their users and let marketers more accurately target their products to that audience.

Gabriele Loewnau, a legal adviser to the German Federal Commissioner for Data Protection, told Reuters: "This is a very hot topic that can be expected to be part of our work programme next year."

The EU has taken a tough stance on online privacy issues in recent months, with one notable success being its campaign to get Google to cut the time it stores search data to 18 months.

So with companies now using social network data to target their advertising, it comes as no surprise that the issue has been picked up by the EU’s data protection working group.

Building up the reputation and brand impact of a new website can be rewarding but time and money must be invested to get it right, a web analyst has suggested.

Mark Jackson, the chief executive of online marketing firm Vizion Interactive, offered some tips for making those first few steps in search engine optimisation (SEO).

Writing for Search Engine Watch, he said: "First, develop a list of keywords that are important to your business.

"If you want to be found for certain keywords, make sure you actually have a page of your website with content. Search engines want to rank websites that offer the searcher a quality result."

Mr Jackson added that running a blog can be a good way to attract the attention of search engines as there will be a regular update of new content for the spiders to trawl through.

In addition, tagging the content using keywords can help push a website higher up search engine rankings, he suggested.

"SEO is not voodoo," Mr Jackson said, but he warned that it could take months or even years to see the top results.

"Obviously, budget permitting, hiring an expert can save you a lot of time – and perhaps even money, so be sure to consider all of your options," he advised.

A web analyst has suggested that firms should be cautious of search engine optimisation (SEO) deals that seem too good to be true.

Despite the potential for good returns by boosting the performance of a website on search engines, the chief executive of domain name host Dotster, Clint Page, advised that caveat emptor – meaning ‘buyers beware’ – still remains relevant even in the dot-com age.

"All the buzz about SEO can seem like smoke and mirrors," he said.

The best advice for firms is to follow the principle of "you get what you pay for", he added.

According to Mr Page, some web marketing firms "simply offer search engine submission and camouflage it as SEO" and urged website owners to not be blinded by the cheapest deals as they may not produce worthwhile results.

Among the things that Mr Page believes a professional SEO firms should offer is contact with a "real human" rather than simply dealing with an automated tool which reports on the progress of an SEO campaigns only through visitor figures.