Jeff Woelker : Chicago SEO, SEM, and Online Marketing Consultant

Last week, I was priveleged enough to be able to attend Google’s Reaction B2B Summit. Overall, it was an amazing experience. Google’s campus is something to behold, if you’ve never been. A full service dining hall, cafe’s in each building, outdoor work areas, lecture halls, exercise equipment, a volleyball court, bike’s you can ride wherever you’d like, haircuts on site, dry cleaning on site, wireless everywhere - pretty much everything a geek could desire and that’s only the handful of buildings I was able to see.

Unfortunately, upon arriving, we were asked to sign a non-disclosure agreement, which is completely understandable. I’ll just say that the speakers were fantastic, I was able to meet several really smart, interesting people who I’d to meet up with again very soon if they are in Chicago (@socialjulio and @ryandeshazer, amongst others) and that I’ll definitely be going back next year, if my gracious hosts once again extend the invitation. I’m definitely disappointed that I missed day two, but I had my own fun with rescheduling flights and hanging out in airports all day.

Check out some of the pics I was able to snap during my visit below.
Did you attend? How did you think it went?

Created with flickrSLiDR.

In case you are looking for me over the next couple of days, I’ll be attending the Google Reaction B2B Executive Summit with our CEO, the director of our department, and our VP of west coast operations. If you’d like to digitally stalk me over that period, I’ll be making regular updates to multiple platforms as often as possible, without upsetting my gracious hosts of course. Just because you aren’t attending, doesn’t mean you can’t participate. Feel free to shoot me a message at any of these sites below and I’ll try and slip them in if possible:

• Twitter
• Brightkite
• Friendfeed

You can also see feedback/reactions after the event here and here.

The story was floating around for the last month or so that this might happen, but many have wondered if it would. Well, the wait is over, it appears that Google and Yahoo are indeed partnering to offer Google ads within the Yahoo search platform. According to the conference call transcripts, Yahoo will still be running Panama and Google ads will appear beside their results.

Overall, part of me is excited in that I may only have to do two media placements in the future, Google and MSN, as Yahoo’s search advertising will essentially be defunct, although they act like it won’t be. Then there is the other part of me, which is somewhat disheartened. With Google now serving their ads on Google and Yahoo, it seems that CPC’s (costs-per-click’s) are going to increase as advertisers move from solely Yahoo based solutions to Google-centric solutions in addition to competition increasing for the top keywords as more advertisers move over.

The one nice thing about this is that it essentially changes nothing for end users. So search behavior should, technically, remain the same with Google, Yahoo and MSN continuing to stay the course with their market shares. Although, I have to think that some consumers will hear this news and think that Google and Yahoo are merging, and as a result, move over to Google, I think the majority will stay where they are.

Really, I see this as the first step to a Google acquisition of the entire search arm of Yahoo. Other than the seemingly corporate minded Justice department, what’s stopping them from purchasing the Panama platform and perhaps other assets?

Although I’m normally all for Google and the great products they create, this whole deal with Yahoo makes me cringe just a bit. What do you think? Am I overreacting or is this a sign of things to come?

You may have noticed lately that more ads are mentioning “Go to Yahoo and search for…”. It’s an interesting tactic to say the least. Let’s examine it quickly. In the past, marketers have told users “Call 1-800…” or “Visit www.mywebsite.com to learn more”. Instead of directing them to a channel they fully control, they are instead handing the users over to search engines to handle the marketing message. A bit risky if you ask me. There are so many variables you don’t have control over, but the one benefit is that it plugs itself into users “normal” behavior. “Normal” in the fact that if someone already uses Yahoo for their day-to-day searches, it’s an easy way to cognitively piggy back on their behavior and remind them “Hey, I’m already at Yahoo, why not search for XYZ“. Clever indeed. However, what if I don’t already use Yahoo? Research has shown that searchers are loyal. If I’m a “Googler” and never use Yahoo, there is a direct disconnect and I never fulfill the desired action. Or, as has been the case in the past, a competitor jumps on a competing search engine (i.e. Google) and purchases the same keywords to catch anyone who assumes you are running the same campaign on multiple engines.

So how did this come about?

Well, Yahoo recently launched a new ad unit entitled Partner Results. Partner Results allows an advertiser to lock in specific ad space above Yahoo search results, usually for branded keywords, with additional links, video, and/or images.
Here are a few examples (these worked as of 06/03/08):

• Kellogg’s Special K
• Honda (this page only has an image of that campaign)
• Butterfinger

Yahoo has created a niche ad unit, which Google and MSN cannot match at this time, due to their open market platforms whereby anyone can bid on anything, with some exceptions. It’s a particularly interesting offering, however, with Google dominating the search markets, I hope that marketers aren’t putting all their eggs in Yahoo’s limited market share basket.

Anyone out there tried this ad unit yet? Have any reliable performance metrics? Let me know if the comments.

There must have been something in the water the last few days because it’s been stats, stats, stats lately.

AdGooroo SEM and SEO Tracking
At work recently, we’ve started using AdGooroo, which is a fantastic SEO & SEM monitoring application. It can keep track of your paid and natural campaigns, as well as your competitors. The great thing is that you don’t even have to define your competitors. It will simply aggregate everything it finds, and those logically become your competitors.

Facebook Application Tracking
I was reading today on TechCrunch that a new startup called Sometrics (Some Metrics?) is shooting to start tracking applications in Facebook. From their site:

We’re a developer-founded, developer-friendly company that gives you the analytic tools you need to understand your audience.

All of your demographics are compiled every single day. You can even see statistics for specific hours of a specific day. Who was using your app or social network at 3 AM last Tuesday? We’ll tell you.

We track:

• Page views and unique visits
• Installs and uninstalls
• Age
• Gender
• Number of friends
• Locations (down to the specific state if in US)

Features:

• Pie chart for age breakdown
• Maps show saturation of different locations
• Calendar tool that allows you to see statistics from a single day as well as aggregate statistics from multiple days
• Export data to Excel (.csv)

Sounds pretty interesting and, depending on the cost, worthwhile, but what do you do then with those numbers? 13,000 page views - is that good? 200,000 downloads? Ok, so what? It’ll be up to the interpretation of that data that will ultimately lend value and prove ROI. Regardless, it’s exciting to see these kinds of metrics being available for marketers.

YouTube Video Statistics with YouTube Insight
I can’t believe I didn’t see this earlier, but YouTube has released YouTube Insight, which provides demographic data to marketers, users, or anyone interested as to who’s watching your videos. It provides insight into views, demographics, and popularity. Again, it’s great to know these numbers, but unless you know your competitor, can show some actionable result (users bought something, traffic increased, etc.) it’s not going to do marketers a lot of good to know that 20,000 from Turkey watched this video.

What other online metrics or statistical platforms are out there? I’m always looking for “the next best thing”.

Recently, Google announced that they were incorporating search within a site into their search results. At first glance, this may sound like a beneficial tool, but let’s examine it a bit more closely.

Bad for Users: Search Aesthetic
Most often, people search for two to three keywords in a search query. The results they are presented are then reviewed and if results are not found, the user will either abandon their search or try a new set of keywords, sometimes more in depth or different terminology all together using the berry picking method. In this new situation, a user may try two or more keywords, and then they are presented with an additional search box. Now immediately, the usability guy in me is questioning, “Doesn’t this add clutter to an increasingly busy interface?” The beauty of Google is the one box search method. Don’t like what you get, try searching again.

Bad for On-Site Marketers: Stealing Traffic
The search within a site feature also causes the user to spend more time with Google. Normally, I would be more than happy to spend more time with Google, but from an on-site marketers perspective, this is not always a good thing. For one, Google is displaying Adwords advertising the entire time. So the user gets one round of advertising based on their initial search and then another round, which is even more specific, on the second, third, and so on results. Again, for PPC marketers, this is fantastic. However, if you are buying or selling on-site advertising (text links ads, banner advertising, video placements, etc.) this is not good news. Impressions drop, clicks drop, revenue drops, and as a result, these methods become less “effective” in driving previously available results.

If I were selling this type of advertising, not that PPC hasn’t already cut into your profit margins, I’d keep an eye on this latest development. Anything i missed? Disagree? Let me know in the comments.

Seriously, I thought the same thing, but this is awesome. Although, I don’t agree with the statement about SEM improving SEO, but that’s for another day - enjoy gangstaz.

So I’ve been asked recently, “Hey Jeff, when I search for something chicago, it comes up with a map of Chicago with local businesses pinpointed on there. How do I get on there?”

Well, if you have a business, you can easily add yourself to Google’s local business center. It only takes a few minutes and they will mail you a postcard to verify your address or give you a call. I’ve set up a number of business in Google local, and never had the opportunity for verification via a phone call. This is the legitimate way of setting yourself up.

The “other” version of setting this up is via a PO box. So say, you have “Tony’s IT Consulting” and the nature of your business is distributed. You probably only have one office in one city, but technically you can work in any city since you either do everything over the web or you will fly to that location if business requires. For example: Tony has an office in Cleveland, but the clients he wants to obtain are in El Paso. Just follow these easy steps to show up in Google local results, sans local office:

1. Decide what markets you want to be in. (i.e. El Paso)
2. Search Google maps for the city center of El Paso.
3. Then search for the closest UPS, FedEx, or other business which offers PO Box service.
4. This is the hard part: Fly, drive, or train to that city, since the only way to set up a PO box at these offices is to get one in person, usually with two forms of ID.
5. Have your mail forwarded to your Cleveland office.
6. Set up a Google local business in El Paso, the mail is forwarded to your Cleveland office, and Voila!
7. You now have a Google local business listing in El Paso, when your office is in Cleveland.

This is right on the razor’s edge of Google’s terms of service, so proceed at your own discretion.

During several recent SEO and SEM campaigns, I’ve seen a few clients trying to bid or pursue organically their own brand or company names. This is a good strategy if you have obscure brand names or company names: Cleaning Product 5, Chicago Consulting, or Joe’s Diner. But if you are a major brand and your customers are smart enough to go after that specific brand name, product name, or company name which you have trademarked and patented then let them. Don’t spend your ad dollars going after something like that. It would be better served putting it to use in other more competitive segments where you cannot make headway either organically or with PPC.

Also, I’ve noticed a practice recently by some unsavory marketing firms, who shall rename nameless, who bid against other marketing firms’ names to compete against them. Seriously? Do you think it’s worth your ad dollars to bid for a user who was obviously looking for “Company X” and instead saw your ad for “Company Y”? Do you think that is an effective strategy beyond making yourself look unprofessional in the ad landscape or that the person will have a last minute change of heart and instead say “Well, I was going to spend several hundreds of thousands of dollars with Company X, but I saw your ad and I guess I’ll flop over to you instead.” Somehow I don’t think that is the case.

Bottom line: I think bidding against your competitors is only an effective strategy very early in the buy cycle of a purchase where the user is still defining their search criteria and trying to put competing companies next to each other. If I am searching for “cherry cola” and I see an ad for Cherry Pepsi and Cherry Coke, I may go either way, but if I search for Cherry Coke, I’m not likely to be dissuaded by an ad for Cherry Pepsi.

Well the search landscape is getting awfully hot these days my friends. Apparently, Microsoft has been getting back some of their lost market share with the advent of Vista and mandatory installs of IE7. Not content with that though, they have spun off their own A-Team of search developers in Silicon Valley to compete with the “Big G“.

Yahoo has also been busy bees with Panama and their new API functionality to let people tap into their search data. My biggest hope, from an SEO standpoint, is that they allow people to start accessing and writing more robust queries of Overture keyword data.

Ask.com just released a newly designed site. I like the theme stuff, but am I really going to spend that much time on the homepage to enjoy a “theme”? I guess it’s a fun little feature of differentiation. They have a new 3 column layout called Ask 3D, which I kind of like as opposed to Google’s universal search in which everything is tossed in together.

And finally, we have Mahalo, which bills itself as the human powered search engine. Isn’t that technically every search engine though, as somebody has to build the infrastructure? I like this website, mostly for the nostalgic value of working at BeautifulIsland.com back in the day. Very islandy and tropical color scheme and layout. We’ll see how this goes. We’ve seen other examples of what human powered can do: Jyve and ChaCha.com, which are not that impressive. I just don’t think the “human powered search” platform is robust enough to keep up with the ever changing internet data landscape, except for the rare niche of “I’m too damn lazy to search for myself”, which I don’t think is that substantial.

What do you think is going to be the next hot thing in search?