2007

Second annual report on ad spending from Outsell, Inc., U.S. advertising is expected to grow 5.8 percent in 2007. The national study of advertisers, controlling about $6.5 billion of spending, shows that companies plan to increase their online spending by 18 percent this year, faster than for any other major media type. Advertisers also plan to raise their spending for advertising on search engines by 39 percent, the fastest of any online media method.

The survey of advertisers and media types findings includes:

While the largest recipient of ad dollars (40 percent), Print Advertising will continue to lose share as Online Advertising’s share grows to 20 percent .

Online advertising spending for pay-per-click (PPC) ads will fall one percent in 2007, while Cost-Per-Action ads’ share will grow eight percent and online sponsorships’ share will rise 12 percent .

Advertisers rate online advertising very effective for branding, contrary to common wisdom that online is effective at generating leads, but is weak for branding.

The share of TV/radio/movie ad spending will decline about 3.5 percent this year. Advertisers are redirecting more trade magazine ad dollars to events than they are moving to paid search.

Google AdWords >>> Has the most complicated and interesting system . To make it simple the ads are ranked on two factors – Quality score and maximum bid. And on what factors does the Quality score depends on? Most importantly what is Quality score?

To keep things simple let’s not divulge in much details. Quality Score is a qualitity which is determined by factors like

1) Keyword click thorugh rate (Keyword CTR)
2) Ad Copy click through rate (Ad Copy CTR)
3) Account history
4) Most Recent history
5) Other Relevancy factors

(there can be many other relevancy factors but advertiser can focus on the above mentioned 4 factors)

In essence what Google tells you is that if you excel and perform better in all the above mentioned factors then your overall performance would be considered better and that would work in advantage for you. This could mean that with good performance in Quality score you can gain higher position with less bid with respect to your competitor.

Yahoo! Search Marketing. >>> Google uses the term “Quality score” then Yahoo uses the term “Quality Index”. Yahoo ranks it’s ad based on two factors – Quality Index and Bid. So what is this Quality Index?

It sounds similar to what Google AdWords has been using. Is it same and complicated? No! It’s not same, but complicated? – well that depends on how we interpret it :)Let’s take a look at Quality Index. Quality index is determined by two factors:

1) Ad’s CTR (click through rate) historical performance relative to it’s competitors.
2) Ad’s expected performance which is determined by Yahoo’s ranking algorithm compared to the existing competitors displayed at same time.

To make it simple, it is the CTR and bid which determines the ad ranking in Yahoo’s Panama system.

Total advertising spend in the U.S. declined 0.3% in the first six months of the year. But online display advertising was up 17.7%, says TNS Media Intelligence. That helps explain why major Internet players are rushing to acquire online advertising companies and introducing new technologies to help advertisers deliver more compelling ads to the most appropriate online consumers.

Among the recent developments:

— AOL launched a new advertising service called Platform A that incorporates several acquisitions.

— Yahoo Inc. acquired BlueLithium, a company that targets ads based on consumer behavior.

— Google Inc. introduced ads that incorporate rich media and is pursuing its acquisition announced earlier this year of ad network DoubleClick Inc

— Amazon.com Inc. plans to expand use of its Clickriver system for delivering pay-per-click ads on Amazon.com based on web page content.

All these big players—along with Microsoft, which acquired online ad agency aQuantive earlier this year—want to offer a full menu of online advertising options.

internet retailer oct 2007

Online retailers are ready for something new, according to Part 2 of the State of Retailing Online report released last month by Shop.org and Forrester Research. 88% of the 150 retailers responding to the survey have prioritized improving product detail pages, with 80% adding online images and 76% conducting A/B tests of offers and promotions.

The report focused on marketing, web site features and multi-channel strategies. Other findings include:

l E-mailing to a retailer’s own list was the top marketing tactic, used by 91% of retailers. Pay-per-click advertising was next most common at 88%, followed by affiliate marketing at 67%, comparison shopping engines at 56% and search engine optimization at 51%.

l Search engines remained the top source of online customers, producing 30% of new customers. Affiliate programs, comparison shopping engines, e-mail campaigns and portals all showed small gains.

l The average retailer in the survey purchases 32,970 search terms for advertising purposes and pays 92 cents per click on those ads.

internet retailer oct 2007

All Phases of the Buying Cycle (Not including Past Purchase)

One of the significant findings of this study was the overwhelming preference of people to start their online research with a search. While approximately one in three participants indicated they would go directly to a non-search site (either a vendor or industry information site), two thirds would go directly to a search engine (either general or a B2B vertical) to start their research activities. It should be noted that even when users wanted to go to a non-search site, about 25% of them used a search to navigate to it. This gives us well over 70% of B2B prospects starting out from a search engine.

Where did you start online?

51% >> Search Engine
12% >> B2B Search Engine
26% >> Vendor Web Site
10% >> Industry Information Site
1% >> Other*

*B2B search survey 2007 . Enquiro research

The B-to-B Buyer in the Internet Era

The business audience is moving rapidly to the Web. A survey byWashingtonPost.com found that 77% of business decision-makers use the Webto find out about companies and new products.4

A study by Outsell Inc discovered that business end-users – buyers, decision-makers and specifiers – spend anywhere from 5 to 20+ hours a week searching for information; 79% of them rely on the Internet to fulfill their information needs.5

And according to an ISM/Forrester survey,6 86% of respondents use the Internet to “shop around” for suppliers. (That term – “shop around” – illustrates what little control suppliers / service provider have in the buying cycle.)

Even more disconcerting is the fact that the Web lets users remain completely anonymous. When asked “Why do you go to a supplier’s Website?” the most common response among industrial B2B professionals was “To obtain information without talking to a sales rep.”

90% of buyers today visit the Web and eliminate potential suppliers before they even think about dialing the phone.7

In other words, you’re quite possibly being considered and rejected without any idea it’s happening.

The up shot here is obvious: the Web is the preferred destination for PROSPECTS seeking information about a supplier’s products. And the Web is where you, as as upplier / service provider, need to focus your marketing.

4 2002, WashingtonPost.com Reader Survey
5 Outsell, Inc.
6 April 2002, Report on e-Business, ISM/Forrester Research
7 June 2002, B2B Magazine

Google, for example, indexes millions more web pages than it once did and as a result delivers more natural search results per keyword, making it more competitive than ever to gain that critical page-one listing. And more online marketers are attempting to optimize for natural search.

With the cost savings of advertising via natural search and the potential instant lift of paid search each having its appeal, smart marketers are actively integrating them and leveraging each for what it can uniquely bring to the table.

Businesses also are adjusting their strategies to enhance their natural rankings on Google, Yahoo and other engines………………..

For instance, 80.9% are rewriting keyword descriptions on the home and product pages to achieve better rankings, followed by 67.9% including the actual phrases commonly used by searchers on product pages, 58.1% including common product keywords in the image file names and in image display captions and 61.8% improving overall site navigation. “70% of all traffic is generated by natural search and 30% by pay-per-click so businesses should be doing multiple things to get better natural results, “They can’t just throw a couple of header tags around certain keywords any more and expect to get significant traffic.”

Enhancing natural search is becoming a higher priority for some business web sites.. Businesses also are adjusting their strategies to enhance their natural rankings on Google, Yahoo and other engines………………..march survey …subscribers of IRNewsLink ………………

The study also revealed some things that B2B searchers are looking for in a Web site once they’ve found it. In all cases, B2B purchasers preferred to access information in a text format that was downloadable and portable.

“For B2B buyers, simpler is better,” Hotchkiss said. “They want vendors to provide clear information, that’s easy to get to and can be easily transferred within the buying organization.”

The reason for that is simple, Hotchkiss said: The person doing the searching is not usually the only person involved in making the final decision, and in fact may not be involved in the decision at all. The researcher may be tasked with finding the relevant pricing information, technical specs, customer service and support data, which they in turn will need to present to the decision makers. Buyers found rich media, video and podcasts less important.

It’s also important for vendors to consider that fact when building landing pages, Hotchkiss said. If most of the B2B visitors from a general search engine are coming to a site to do research, they are not going to respond to a call to action that urges them to “buy now,” he said.

Instead, a vendor should use that knowledge to provide researchers with the opportunity to dig down into the details of their products, and make it easy for them to find what they need to move on to the next phase of the buying cycle, with the vendor still in their consideration set, he said. ……….” Gord Hotchkiss, Enquiro’s CEO and president.

The two factors that remain the most influential to buyers are a vendor’s Web site and a word-of-mouth recommendation by a colleague. Right behind those two factors come search engines and distributors’ Web sites. When you consider that another 27 percent of buyers will find a vendor’s site via a search engine, and that a recommendation from a colleague or other offline influence will generally lead a buyer to a search engine, the importance of cultivating a strong presence in relevant search results becomes even more clear to B2B vendors.

And when buyers in the study were talking about using a general search engine, they usually meant Google. A whopping 77 percent of respondents prefer Google, compared to 14 percent who chose Yahoo, 7 percent who chose Microsoft, and 2 percent who chose another engine.

“This reinforces for B2B marketers the importance of having a presence on general search engines, especially a presence on Google,” said Gord Hotchkiss, Enquiro’s CEO and president.

Why try to reword what already is eloquently written? Here is the definition for BLOG from Columbia Encyclopedia: “blog, short for web log, an online, regularly updated journal or newsletter that is readily accessible to the general public by virtue of being posted on a website.

Blogs typically report and comment on topics of interest to the author, and are usually written and posted using software specifically designed to facilitate blogging; they include hyperlinks to other website and, often, photos, video clips, and the like. The most recent entry by the blogger is posted at the beginning of the blog, with earlier entries following in reverse chronological order; comments and other responses to the blog by readers are often posted after each entry.”

Large advertisers cite “brand awareness” as the most important objective of their search marketing programs, according to results of a survey just published by Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization.

Seventy-seven percent of advertisers with 500 or more employees said their primary purposed in using pay-per-click ads was to increase or enhance brand awareness.

The survey also revealed that 70% of advertisers at larger companies said lead generation was also an objective, citing it as their secondary goal.

Selling online was tops with 65% of advertisers with less than 500 employees.

The online survey was conducted by Radar Research.

What is a search engine search keyword?

A keyword is a word that describes the contents of your web page.

What is a search engine search key phrase?

A key phrase is a phrase of keywords that describes the contents of your web page.

What is a search engine search phrase?

A search phrase is a phrase that someone types in a search engine to find a web page.

What is the relation between these three search engine search terms?

If many people look for a certain key phrase on search engines, you want to describe your services in such a way that your web page is listed high in the search engine listings. You do this by targeting this search phrase on your page. You make it your key phrase since it is your key to this good listing, as well as the key that describes your page in just 3 to 5 words.

Search Engine Optimization or SEO is the term used to describe the process of having a web site to increase the likelihood it will be seen in the top results of a search engine whenever a relevant keyword search is performed.

Why is Search Engine Optimisation important?

Websites that rank on the first one or two pages for a search term receive a lot of traffic – which in turn, can be successfully monetized / converted in a number of ways. A web site that can get and maintain a top page one position for a very popular search term is in a powerful position because of the audience they command.

There are a number of factors involved in optimizing a website:

Web site Content needs to be good quality and regularly updated . The site needs to focus on the search Phrases that the target audience employs to search for related information. Site needs to be structured well and have a site map. Each page needs to have a good hierarchy and layout. The HTML meta-tags (such as H1 and H2 tags, image tags etc) need to include your most important keywords and have good descriptions of the page content. The site needs to indicate its importance by linking to other relevant sites.

Effective Web Site Visitor Conversion Tactics

SUPER BOWL AD’s >> King Pharmaceuticals, which as you may recall, ran an unusual tie-in with the American Heart Association, and directed viewers to a Risk Of Getting A Heart Attack QUIZ at their web site.

During the hour after the commercial ran they saw a 320% increase in website visits compared to the hour before.

This reinforced the effectiveness of a tactic that many or our clients have used successfully…incorporate a quiz or questionnaire into your free offer.

Having a section in your free report (or even the entire thing) focus on a quiz, and then an interpretation of the results, can be a very effective method for both attracting interest and building credibility.

SUPER BOWL AD’s from Salesgenie.com proved to be equally effective by offering visitors a certain number of free leads for signing up. By late Monday the company had reported that they had generated more than 10,000 new customers subscriptions, far more than the 700 it said it needed to break even.

The lesson here…offering something free (initial consultation, diagnosis, other tool…) dramatically drives response and a prospect’s willingness to at least take the first step in the relationship building process.

Two good web site visitor conversion lessons to keep in mind.

SEMPO: Search Marketing Spending Nears $10 Billion
NORTH AMERICAN COMPANIES LAST YEAR spent $9.45 billion on search engine marketing, according to a new report by the trade group Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization.

The vast majority of last year’s spending–$8 billion or 86%–went to paid search ads, mainly pay-per-click ads, SEMPO reported in its “The State of Search Engine Marketing 2006.” That figure appears slightly optimistic compared to the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s estimate. The IAB recently reported that search accounted for 40% of online ad revenue (around $3.2 billion) for the first six months of last year.

Spending on organic search engine optimization–or configuring Web sites to make it more likely that they appear high in the results pages for certain terms–accounted for just $1.1 billion, or 12% of search marketing spending, according to SEMPO. Despite the lower spending levels on search engine optimization, 76% of advertisers said they used such techniques, compared to 71% who purchased search ads.

Where do marketers buy search ads? Virtually all (96%) use Google AdWords, while 86% have purchased pay-per-click ads on Yahoo and 68% bought search ads on MSN last year.

SEMPO also found that marketers who migrate budgets to search are shifting spending from traditional media. When SEMPO asked respondents who said they had shifted budget to search where that money came from, the top answers included print magazine ads (cited by 20%), direct mail (16%), TV ads (13%) and print newspaper ads (13%).

The Internet has made this world an open enterprise. It has become important for companies to further expand their market and their consumer targets.

Ensure that most of your target consumers will surely acquire your product. Consider the best products which will definitely capture their interests and needs. This means that you need to identify specifically who these people are, their location . Have a marketing knowledge and skill to achieve your goal in the field of Internet marketing.

At the present, you can use varied Internet Marketing Solutions that are available . This solutions are a mix of these options : step 1 creating web pages or sites , search engine optimization , pay per click advertising like google ads ,email marketing to your prospects . Since you need to maximize your return profit, you need to choose Internet Marketing Solutions that will help you achieve this.

Your Corporate website is a good promotion strategy to employ since you can display all the necessary information for your target consumers. The website should capture their interest and be complete since every transaction, from inquiry to payments may take place. All correspondence that will be done online must be well-facilitated by the features of your website.

Another Proven Internet marketing solution is search engine optimization. This is a type of service for your website that you can make use of in order to raise the number of visitors to your site. Once a consumer uses a search engine, your website will rank high in the list of searches which in return will increase your site’s traffic.

These marketing techniques will not cost much but , you need to partner with proven experienced web marketing firm.

Andy Alagappan COO & VP marketing & business development USA , The Graphics Co (Epromotionz LLC) Off : 281-556-8319 , 281-570-5804 – cell

www.SEOhoustonweb.com >Top Rated SEO Services 875+ projects done globally !
we also manage over $3.5 million of our clients PPC campaign monthly budgets !
It’s not about JUST BEING online, it’s about being FOUND online…
www.eSMBwebdemo.com >1-STOP > Hundreds of custom web projects done !

E-commerce is a cut throat business. You have to arm yourself with the proper know-how and the tools to make your site a cut above the rest. Each day, more and more sites are clambering to optimize their rankings in websites and if you lose your guard, you may just get trampled on and be left in the abyss filled with so many failed e-commerce sites.

Most people that use search engines use only the ten top search results in the first page. Making it to the first page, more so to the top three is a barometer of a sites success in search engine optimization. You will get a higher ratio of probability in being clicked on when you rank high. The more traffic for your site, the more business you rake in.

With search engine optimization you can get the benefit of generating a high traffic volume. Let’s just say you get only a turn out of successful sales with 10 to 20 percent of your traffic. If you get a hundred hits or more a day, you get a good turn out of sales already. If you get only twenty to ten hits a day, you only get one or two if not any at all.

So once again, what is search engine optimization? Search engine optimization is utilizing tools and methods in making your site top ranking in the results of search engines. Getting yourself in the first page and better yet in the top half of the page will ensure that your site will generate public awareness of your site’s existence and subsequently generate more traffic, traffic that could lead to potential income and business.

Search engine optimization requires a lot of work to be fully realized. There are many aspects you have to change in your site or add as well to get search engine optimization. These will include getting lots of information about the keyword phrases that are popular in regards to your sites niche or theme.

Act now and see the benefits garner with search engine optimization. All of these will result to better traffic and more business for your site and company.

Andy Alagappan
COO & VP marketing & business development USA
The Graphics Co ( Epromotionz LLc )

www.SEOhoustonweb.com < SEO Services < OVER 875 ++ PROJECTS AND GROWING !!!!! ( VISIT –CASE STUDIES Section )

we also manage over $3.5 million of our clients PPC campaign monthly budgets !

It’s not about JUST BEING online, it’s about being FOUND online…

There’s no business I’ve ever come across that can afford to run any ads WITHOUT including a clear and direct call to action.

By that I mean giving web site an actionable, benefit-oriented reason to respond.

For example, you run an consulting business that specializes in network security and disaster recovery and your call to action is a white paper, 10 Key to Enterprise Cyber Security.

If You’re a Accountant, a Attorney , a financial advisor , a Salon etc and your call to action is a FREE one-hour, no-obligation consultation.

You’re a real estate broker and your call to action is your free booklet, 7 Tips For Maximizing The Selling Price of Your Home.

Always give your customers and prospects a worthwhile reason to respond. Unique visitors a day to your website may seem like an achievement, but you can’t pay your Bills with it. You must learn to convert those visitors into buyers.

Search Engine Marketing (SEM), has the goal of increasing a web site’s visibility across the major search properties > GOOGLE , YAHOO & MSN the top 3 SEARCH ENGINES through a combination of paid search advertising and organic search engine optimization methodologies on a targeted list of keywords and phrases your target audience USE TO find you when searching on the Web for YOUR SERVICES

Basically, there are two major categories in SEM : paid search ( PPC : pay per click ) & and organic search ..(SEO: search engine optimisation )
Paid search is the act of paying to be listed in the results of specific search phrases (or keywords).Several search engines and directories offer this service as paid advertising or sponsorship options. Examples of paid search include Google Ad Words . Organic search, also known as natural search, is the act of being listed in the results ofspecific search phrases based on the search engine’s algorithmic indexing . These listings are the result of having your site optimized for specific keywords based on the criteria of the search engine and having a certain amount of link popularity to your web site.

MarketingSherpa (2005) reports that “SEO is a huge driver of ‘latent’ conversions.” Looking at conversions by campaign goal for paid search and SEO, the study found the following:

Average of all campaigns: SEO had higher conversion rates (4.2%) than paid search (3.6%)
Delayed ecommerce/service purchase campaigns: SEO had higher conversion rates (6.3%) than paid search (4.2%)
Ecommerce product/service purchase campaigns, SEO had higher conversion rates (4.1%) than paid search(3.8%)
However, paid search is getting better at conversions. The latest research from WebSideStory looking at traffic and conversion data from 20 B2C ecommerce sites for the period January through August 2006 found conversions fairly equal but slightly favoring paid search.

You need just the right mix of SEO and paid search advertising in your search marketing plan. Evidence shows that sites using both strategies increase conversion rates because traffic goes up dramatically with links in multiple positions.

Converting website visitors into paying customers is the ultimate definition of conversion . Conversion OF WEB SITE VISITORS = sales
Start with the basics. MarketingSherpa also underscores the importance of being at the top of the search results. …being found on google , yahoo , MSN in the 1st two Pages !!

FOCUS your WEB site a lead generation site PACKED with useful & Relavant FRESH Content !!

To grasp the potential of MONTHLY ON-GOING SEO, it’s important to view SEO projects in terms of a Before and After scenario. MarketingSherpa, in its survey of 545 marketers and SEO agencies, found that unique traffic increased 73% + when comparing visits before and after SEO was implemented (six months later).

Measuring Conversions Trends is key !!
New account sign-ups
Contact Us form completions
Number of PDF or brochure downloads
Article views
Press Release Views
Case Study downloads
Online Sales
News Letter Sign ups
Page Views & time spent on your site & # of paged viewed
Returning Visitors
Sales volume trends
The desired conversion action may be > clicking through to another page, filling out information, downloading content, or purchasing a product orservice. To be successful as B2B & B2C marketers in today’s competitive market environment, establishing an online competitive advantage over your competition is not something you should do, it is something that you must do.

Andy Alagappan COO & VP marketing & business development USA , The Graphics Co (Epromotionz LLC) : 281-556-8319 , 281-570-5804 – www.SEOhoustonweb.com <> 875+ PROJECTS done !! we also manage over $3.5 million of our clients PPC campaign monthlybudgets ! It’s not about JUST BEING online, it’s about being FOUND online…

Most retail ecommerce sites are still not well optimized for organic rankings. Industry research confirms this two years running (2004 and 2005). OneupWeb’s 2005 study reported that 83% of Internet Retailer Magazine’s top 100 Websites are not using basic search engine optimization principles to gain high rankings.
Because of the strong correlation between search engine optimized sites and high rankings, traffic, and sales conversions, it is important for retailers to avail themselves of this marketing strategy. If not, the risk is lost opportunity costs and a loss in market share.
The study reported that 89% of the well-optimized sites were indexed on pages 1, 2 and 3 in the SERPs for their respective keyword queries, and 52% appeared on page 1.
We’ve been talking about SEO for organic listings as a first step, but retailers can improve conversions even more by including paid search in the marketing mix. The advantage of sponsored listings is that they go live almost immediately and you can optimize the campaign with testing and control costs with bid management.

The Role of Search in Business to Business Buying Decisions,” Enquiro and MarketingSherpa found that:
Search engines play a dominant role in B2B purchases
Search engines are used in early or mid research phases of the buying cycle
Google is favored over other search engines
Search engine research takes place at least one to two months before a buying decision
Good balance between organic and paid search is necessary
Organic SEO gets over 70% of the clicks
Position is a factor, with over 60% clicking on the top three listings
Most users decide which listing to click on within seconds of scanning the page
A 2004 com Score study reported that latent purchase conversions account for the majority of online buying activity. This study caused quite a stir last year by revealing that search marketing is more than a direct response vehicle; it provides branding as well.