SEM: Keyword Generation
Paid Search: CARS Lifts Boats, but Not the Ones with Holes
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Written By Sean McDonald | August 13, 2009 | Share This
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I have always been fond of truisms - particularly the one that goes “a rising tide lifts all boats.” According to the elves at Wikipedia, this concept “is associated with the idea that improvements in the general economy will benefit all participants in that economy.” Search marketing is affected by macro-economic shifts just like most other sectors of the economy, and sometimes we are foresighted enough to anticipate the tide coming in.
Search News: Yahoo Shopping Flops with King of Pop
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Written By James Song | July 2, 2009 | Share This
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Unless you were living in an undersea cave, you know that “King of Pop” Michael Jackson passed away last week. As has been reported, websites around the world were affected when the story broke around 4:30pm EST. Visitors per minute to new websites worldwide increased 30% and social networking sites such as Twitter experienced network lag and outages due to the thousands of users simultaneously trying to update their status. The phrase “Michael Jackson died” became the highest search query on Google that day, which was so overwhelmed by the query volume that they initially thought they were experiencing a network attack.
This made me wonder about the impact of current events search queries on search marketing campaigns. On Thursday evening I searched ‘Michael Jackson died” on Google and saw a paid search ad in 1st position for Yahoo Shopping:
Search News: Google Behavioral Targeting, but Not For Search
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Written By Noah Mallin | March 11, 2009 | Share This
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True Story: I’m at a party a few months ago – not the usual raucous affair that us search and social media types get into but a full on wine and cheese extravaganza. The kind of shindig Republicans go to and then accuse Democrats of loving when they get up in front of a “Joe the Plumber” type crowd. But I digress…
After far too much wine the discussion turned to crazy work environments and I naturally brought up the Fortress of Googletude and it’s predilection for hallway scooter parking and riding. A fellow party-go-er who I’ll call “Natasha” to protect her identity, nodded and said, ‘Yes it’s true, I’ve been there too!”
This led to a long, room-clearing talk about search and social media, the kind of talk that true geeks engage in while their spouses go off to chat about politics and religion. Somewhere between bottles Natasha said to me “Have you seen Google People Search?” “Google what now?” I replied.
Social Media: Search it, Say it, Sell it
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Written By Noah Mallin | January 27, 2009 | Share This
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When many people think about social media marketing, they often think of ads or fan pages on sites like Facebook or YouTube rather than the actual content and ways people use the platform. Let’s say you’ve been diligently updating your company’s Wikipedia page from home and you are running a paid search campaign to make sure that potential customers who are searching for your product will see your site. You’ve even got SEO down so you can own the real estate on relevant search reply pages. Could it be that you are still missing an opportunity to connect with interested customers?
There are more and more people who are finding out about products online by asking about them. Only they are asking their peers first and then going to a search engine (if at all).
Obligatory Twitter reference in 3, 2, 1…
Search News: Recession Means Research, Research Means Repetition
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Written By Noah Mallin | December 15, 2008 | Share This
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So we are in a recession right? Belt tightening is rampant, we all know someone who has been laid off, and New York’s governor is proposing a special tax on soft drinks. Soft drinks, people! But I digress.
The recession should have an interesting impact on the Search Engine marketing world as people’s behaviors start to change. Initial fears that people would sacrifice their online connectivity to save money have been proven to be unfounded as a recent survey suggests that there are a whole host of things, including sex and television, that people would rather go without. Of course the Internet can deliver both of those stimuli to your hard drive so I can see the sad logic.
Search News: Using Search Engines to Mine for Information – The HoHeGriS Principle
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Written By Noah Mallin | November 11, 2008 | Share This
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The Internet is a giant treasure trove of information – some of it erroneous and some of it valuable. Search engines are the card catalog (ask your parents) and the librarians wrapped into one – sifting and categorizing this information to allow users to find the most relevant and valuable responses nearly instantaneously (longer if you’re still on dial-up).
However, like David Bowie in his Ziggy Stardust phase, this goes both ways. Knowing what people search for, how they search for it, where they search from and when they search can yield up insights and data that can be of tremendous use to marketers. The best example of this is what I call the HoHeGriS Principle.
Paid Search: Using Bankruptcy to Gain Customers with Search Marketing
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Written By Noah Mallin | November 10, 2008 | Share This
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There is an old adage that says that “all news is good news.” This was never truer than in search engine marketing and yet, companies like Circuit City persist in wallowing in the bad without reaping the good. Circuit City announced this morning that they are filing for bankruptcy. This is becoming more common in our post-economic boom landscape with many retailers feeling the pinch of reduced consumer spending. However going bankrupt is no excuse for missing out on an opportunity to gain customers.
Consider this:
The search term “circuit city bankruptcy” ranked in the top 10 on Google tends all day. What did those searchers see? A lot of news stories on the bankruptcy filing. Now I’ll grant that a good chunk of that traffic were shareholders looking to see just how much of a hole was just blown into their portfolio. Another group of searchers are undoubtedly concerned about their jobs either at Circuit City or at another company that relies on them. Still, It’s a good bet that another chunk of searchers were folks like me who thought “Sounds like an ideal time to pick up that Sony flatscreen I’ve been dreaming about.” Especially in this environment there are a lot of bargain hunters looking for a great price on almost everything imaginable.
Weekly Search Roundup: Scraping the Newsworthy Scum Off The Surface of the Cesspool That We Call The Internet
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Written By Noah Mallin | October 10, 2008 | Share This
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The negative campaigning continues. John McCain this week suggested that Obama was some kind of crypto-socialist terrorist Muslim while Obama pointed out that McCain is, well, John McCain. Surprisingly though the harshest attack came from atop the mighty Googleplex as CEO Eric Shmidt called the Internet a “cesspool.” At press time the Internet had responded with the charge that Schmidt was once seen in an elevator with Bill Ayers. In all fairness Schmidt made his observation to a group of publishers to whom he also explained,”We don’t actually want you to be successful…” at getting good search engine rankings. Okkkaaaay then. This of course was followed by an obtuse non-explanation of Google’s quality score rankings.
Search News: Election ‘08 - Obama Uses Search Engine Marketing to Manage His Reputation Like a Pro
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Written By Andaiye Taylor | October 7, 2008 | Share This
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On the heels of a New York Times article on the subject, the McCain campaign over the weekend, primarily in the person of Governor Sarah Palin, eschewed talk about the ailing economy and instead talked up Senator Obama’s purported “palling around” with former Weather Underground member and Chicago area civic fixture William Ayers.
To their great credit, the Obama campaign launched a gold-star search engine marketing response to the attack, one that hit all of the best practices outlined in my previous post – and then some. In the evolution from a campaign that was phenomenal on social media but behind his opponent on search marketing to a campaign that is nimble and proactive we can see the basis for a first-class search reputation management campaign.
Search News: SMX East – Search Marketing Happiness is a Warm Churro
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Written By Noah Mallin | October 6, 2008 | Share This
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The Javits Center is a cruel place at 8:30 AM – especially when Search Marketing Expo East is sharing the cavernous steel and glass girdered barn on the far, far west side of Manhattan with a few other shows. I’m not sure that I had enough coffee in me yet to properly express my horror at being asked “Are you here for the kid expo?” “Christ, no!” is apparently not the standard response.
Happily I did find my way into the SMX side of the hall after picking up the requisite backpack full of swag to slip into a comfy chair for the opening panel: “Search Integration: Are We There Yet?” James Lamberti of ComScore quipped that he wanted to prep a powerpoint slide with a giant “No” on it.