June 25th, 2008 at 04:01pm Under Uncategorized
Hello, My website is having very good SERP And its in top 10 for many keywords. I have done on page and off page optimization for that and then als
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[Source: Search Engine Watch Discussion Forums]
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June 25th, 2008 at 04:01pm Under Uncategorized
If a potential client asks for an estimated lift in traffic and conversions (in this case, email forms), what can I say? I think it’s impossible to g
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[Source: Search Engine Watch Discussion Forums]
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June 25th, 2008 at 04:01pm Under Uncategorized
It’s no secret that Twitter has been struggling lately. At any given moment, the social chat platform can go down, preventing a plethora of Tweets from being broadcast to the socially adept.
But that hasn’t kept the company from getting another round of funding, and help from friends in high places. Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos is investing in the social network using his personal venture investment company, Bezos Expeditions.
Meanwhile, Rudy Winnacker is leaving his Google position of 5 years to tackle the operations going (or not going) on at Twitter.
Hopefully, these new additions can help the birds finally lift that whale once and for all. (If you don’t know what that means, you’re not Twittering enough!)
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[Source: Search Engine Watch Blog]
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June 25th, 2008 at 04:01pm Under Uncategorized
Is anyone else experiencing problems with sending marketing emails to Yahoo? Our marketing emails are getting bounced and we’ve confirmed we are not b
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[Source: Search Engine Watch Discussion Forums]
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June 25th, 2008 at 04:01pm Under Uncategorized
Today, Publicis announced the launch of their new digital advertising initiative, VivaKi. And Yahoo wasted no time sending out a press release regarding the new partnership with Publicis, perhaps in an attempt to compete with the news of Google’s Ad Planner. But with Google already having its own agreement with Publicis, Yahoo is really just playing catch-up.
Yahoo’s partnership is a dizzying array of product integrations between the two. Let’s dive in:
First up, mobile marketing. Publicis’ mobile marketing agency, PhoneValley, will be the first global agency to integrate Yahoo’s Blueprint, a mobile developer platform language. The integration aism to aid brands in scaling their messages to a global level. Publicis will also be creating “microsites” to leverage Yahoo’s Smart Ads, a mobile advertising tech solution.
Another part of the agreement is Publicis’ integration of Yahoo’s Right Media Exchange with their current media buying systems. Yahoo touts Right Media Exchange as “the largest open community of buyers and sellers including advertisers, agencies, publishers and networks.” Yahoo hopes the integration will help clients of Publicis be able to target demographics with a single campaign buy.
“Our goal in working together with advertisers and agencies is to help them build brands, reach consumers and increase sales in new ways,” said Yahoo President Sue Decker, who recently spoke about the online advertising transformation and is believed to be behind Yahoo’s latest reorganization. “Through this relationship, Yahoo! and Publicis will empower the next generation of innovative advertising solutions.”
“This partnership with Yahoo! takes the biggest challenge facing marketers today-the need for hyper-personalization on a massive scale-and turns it into a scalable, direct opportunity for Publicis Groupe clients,” said David Kenny, Managing Partner of Publicis Groupe VivaKi. “By creating an evolved business structure built specifically to capitalize on this medium, we’ll advance the larger industry and in the process set new standards for online advertising innovation.”
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[Source: Search Engine Watch Blog]
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June 25th, 2008 at 04:01pm Under Uncategorized
After the great crash of the dot coms, people have learned that it takes more than just a website to make money on the internet. They learned that a website standing alone would be very risky. People determine the profitability of a website. Because
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[Source: Blog Catalog Blog Directory]
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June 25th, 2008 at 04:01pm Under Uncategorized
Search engine marketers in the US tend to look West when trying to spot new SEM trends. As Frederick Jackson Turner first observed back in 1893, the frontier has always had a significant influence on American perceptions.
But, if you stare into the sunset too long, you might not see the other new frontier North of the Canada-United States border thats also shaping search engine marketing trends. While Search Engine Strategies Toronto ended last week, Im still sorting through some of the new SEM trends that I spotted by looking in a different direction.
One of the more intriguing trends that I noticed was this one: More than 80 employees of the Yellow Pages Group (YPG), Canadas largest directory publisher, attended SES Toronto. YPG also owns and manages Canadas most visited online directories, YellowPages.ca and Canada411.ca, so the company is no stranger to local search or Search Engine Strategies Toronto.
Now, Ive often encouraged SES alumni as well as first time attendees of Search Engine Strategies to bring a couple of colleagues along with you to an upcoming SEM conference. And Ive seen companies send teams of more than a dozen people to other SES conferences. But, Ive never seen a group quite as large as the one I saw at SES Toronto last week.
So, I tracked down one of the key players behind this new trend. His name is Darby Sieben and hes the Director of Online Services at the Yellow Pages Group. You can watch my interview with Darby on the SES Conference Expo channel on YouTube.
Yellow Pages’ Darby Sieben at SES Toronto 2008
Or you can read my interview with Darby Sieben of the Yellow Pages Group below. He has some very interesting insights into small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
Q: The Yellow Pages directory story started 100 years ago by connecting Canadian buyers with sellers. YellowPages.ca went online in 1995. Has the Internet dramatically changed the way people approach the shopping experience?
A: Yes and No. By this I mean, the need of connecting buyers and sellers has not changed and never will. The way in which they go about doing it has changed and will continue to evolve and the Internet is only one way. Consumers are more complex today and depending on the need and particular circumstances will connect using a combination of ways including print, internet, voice, mobile, etc. The key piece of advice to a SME in this evolving world is to understand that this is about syndication of their information across multiple media platforms.
Q: According to comScore Media Metrix, the Yellow Pages Group reaches 41% of all online Canadians — and ranks #8 out of the top properties in Canada. In the United States, the SuperPages.com Network reaches about 16% of all online Americans and ranks about #21 out of the top properties in the United States. What’s going on in the Great White North?
A: The main difference between Canada and the US is the fact that the Yellow Pages brand in Canada is trademarked; we are the sole owners and users of the brand. In the US, the value and strength of the brand has been diluted as there is confusion. Second, I believe we are a very progressive directory player. We were the first to sign a deal to license data to Google, we work with all the major search players and we continue to push the envelope on technologies such as our 411 voice services, SMS, IM and our mobile platforms. Syndication of our advertisers information is very important. We believe in the anywhere, anytime and on any platform to get information.
Q: The content and keywords found in a print advertisement in the Yellow Pages Group and contained in a business profile on YellowPages.ca are fully searchable on the web and made available to your online partner network including Google, MSN and Yahoo! Isn’t that that a strange brew?
A: We dont think so. If we examine a key barrier to search, that would be content. YP.ca and the search players are only as good as content that is digitized. The issue is that half of Canadian SMEs dont have a website. We view print as the start of a very incredible journey for a SME because it contains very important pieces of content that consumers look for in the buying process. Those ads get digitized; keywords extracted, bucketized and distributed on YP.ca for our users as well as being pushed to search engines who index. It creates some incredible synergies and creates an ROI for our advertisers. To add one point here a few years back we launched an initiative called the WebNumber. This is where we have mapped every phone number in our directory to a URL. For example http://7804517857.yp.ca (this is the phone number for a Harley Davidson Dealership in Edmonton, Alberta). If you type that URL in you land on their merchant page and can see their video and a host of rich content about that business. Many of our clients will register a domain name and simply point it to their page instead of investing in expensive design services.
Q: More than 80 people from the Yellow Pages Group attended Search Engine Strategies Toronto last week. Why did you bring everyone except the McKenzie brothers to the conference?
A: Well Bob and Doug are launching a cartoon version of their hit from SCTV to be aired this fall, so they were unavailable. On a serious note it is all about further learnings and understanding. In 2007 we signed Canadas first reseller agreement with Google and have bundled AdWords with our print and YellowPages.ca advertising. We also launched last year full customized search marketing solutions based on a budget spend and have been testing and continue to sell a guaranteed clicks product. To really become the CMO for small businesses you need to understand all sources of generating results for your customer.
Q: You mentioned that you are bundling Google with your print and YellowPages.ca advertising isnt Google considered a competitor?
A: We are definitely in a world of cooperative competition. You referenced ComScore earlier; here is a key fact that best explains the strategy. If we examine the unduplicated audience between Google Maps and our properties what you realize is that there is a significant boost in audience reach. Both of us have around 31-32% reach and combined we reach over 50% - that is incredible for any SME who is looking to be placed in the path of consumers when they are making buying decisions. One thing I would like to add is that in terms of the purchase funnel YellowPages.ca generates a very high ROI because by the time users come to us they tend to already know what they want to buy or are very close to a buying decision and need to do some comparisons. We tend to be further down the purchase funnel than search engines and the measurement for SMEs has to go beyond clicks to include phone calls and store visits. As we often say, nobody comes to YellowPages.ca to surf they come to buy and this remains a key focus for us.
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[Source: Search Engine Watch Blog]
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June 25th, 2008 at 04:01pm Under Uncategorized
I just read an article in the WSJ about a new media planning tool that Google is launching as early as today. I usually stay pretty active in Google L
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[Source: Search Engine Watch Discussion Forums]
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June 25th, 2008 at 04:01pm Under Uncategorized
Yahoo! has licensed Urban Mapping’s Urbanware: Neighborhoods, which contains data for 40,000 neighborhood boundaries covering more than 2,000 U.S. cities and towns. The agreement will help Yahoo provide geographically-targeted results based on actual search behavior.
“Urban Mapping’s neighborhood boundary information helps us offer our users access to more complete and relevant content,” said Bob Upham, Director of Business Development for Yahoo! Geo Technologies. “Allowing users to search by neighborhood yields more appropriate results, adding value and relevancy to the overall experience.”
Ian White, Urban Mapping CEO. “Yahoo! clearly sees the value and benefits of delivering neighborhood-based information to their community of users, advertisers, publishers and developers.”
The license is expected to help Yahoo provide improved results in local search, mobile search, yellow pages, maps, and real estate among other applications.
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[Source: Search Engine Watch Blog]
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June 25th, 2008 at 04:01pm Under Uncategorized
Yesterday, TechCrunch reported that Microsoft and Yahoo were talking again. I was immediately skeptical. Recently, All Things Digital had called out TechCrunch as conducting piggyback reporting instead of doing their own heavy-lifting. While I thought that was a bit harsh (All Things Digital is a project of the Wall Street Journal, and quite frankly - who has their connections?), it came as no surprise that TechCrunch would attempt to break a big story.
Still, the mainstream press ran with the story. Surely, they had done their homework.
Maybe not.
This morning, Kara Swisher of All Things D explained why she didn’t run with the story: she couldn’t corroborate it. I read her story with a firm sense of “I thought so” until she said that her Yahoo and Microsoft sources “emphatically went out of their way yesterdaywhich is not so typicalto deny any talks were going on…”
Sounds like Ms. Swisher’s sources are protesting a little too much.
If talks have resumed, it sounds like they might be doing it the right way this time - keeping the conversation behind closed doors instead of blasting rhetoric through the press. But that might be a big IF.
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[Source: Search Engine Watch Blog]
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