Search Marketing Re-visited

I've had comments that people would like to see tips on search engine marketing, online marketing and conversion. Well, ask and ye shall receive.

Today's tip is on ad and landing page quality for pay-per-click.

Most people think setting up a campaign is picking keywords, and setting a maximum cost per click. And that after 'buying these keywords', their ads will show and traffic will come. Nothing could be farther from the truth today. With the large number of ads competing for the same keywords, the search engines have engineered some very clever algorithms (and even human involvement) to show only the most relevant ads, and ones that have the most relevant landing pages.

This is done to promote click thru and a better user experience for the searcher. Remember, it's called pay-per-click, so they don't get paid if people don't click on your ad because it doesn't seem relevant. With that said, choosing hundreds of keywords, including the names of your competitors isn't going to work very well. You will find the bids for keywords that they don't deem relevant, will start at $6.00 per click on Google. So unless you have set your bid at $6.00, you (and others) won't even see your ad. On the other hand, you have to be a masochist to want to pay $6.00 a click for an keyword that is only mildly relevant. It is a very good deterrent to blindly buying keywords.

The quick answer to this, is to try to match your keyword to your ad, and your ad to the landing page. So if you're selling Whistler condos, your best bet would be matching keywords like 'whistler real estate' to an ad that says 'Whistler Condos For Sale', and then matched with a non-flash landing page, offering condos that are in Whistler, and mention the town site etc. If you're using Google, this will increase your Google Adwords Quality Score, and lower your cost per click, show the ad more often and increase your click thru.

Yahoo has a similar algorithm, but that use different criteria to determine quality. Be warned that they are different from Google, and what works on Yahoo (eg dynamic keyword insertion) doesn't work well on Google for quality scores, which will affect impressions.

Microsoft Buying Yahoo

Well, it's finally happened. After a big dip in the markets, and Yahoo ready to layoff 1,000 employees, Microsoft made its move and offered $44.6 billion for Yahoo. That's Microsoft biggest bet yet, that the Internet advertising business is a large part of their future. Remember they spent $6 billion not long ago to buy Aquantive. So just those two now represent a $50 billion investment in online ads, search engine marketing and online marketing by MS.

You're probably thinking that this is a bid, not a done deal, which it is. I'm talking like it's a done deal because it will be - there is no way that the shareholders will turn this premium done, and there is no one else out there (save Google), who can beat this bid. And the anti-trust hurdles aren't there, because it's Google that needs to worry about that nowadays, rather than MS.

So what does this mean? Well for one, MS has finally admitted that they can't build a significant enough search and online ad business, because they are a band of techies who build software. And Yahoo, who is floundering because they depended more on display ads and portal content (like a media company), needs more Goog-like technical savvy. Does this mean it will work to catch Google? Only time will tell for sure, but I for one don't think so. The culture and mentality is too different. Googles need to be built by tech guys who ALL know they are in the advertising and media business.

Certainly Microsoft and Yahoo will both continue to do reasonably well, given the growth in online ads, search engine marketing and online media. But as for knocking down the big dog in this space - no.

I am hopeful that the combination will make the industry more competitive. Online ad pricing is starting to get expensive, and less effective. More competition will keep innovation up and costs down.