Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) requires a different kind of expertise to Search Engine Marketing, and whilst we have a small army of Qualified AdWords Professionals who are experienced in creating and orchestrating successful AdWords campaigns, we don’t pretend to have the wherewithal to perform Search Engine Optimisation to the standards we hold ourselves to. If you’re unsure as to what Search Engine Marketing (also known as Pay-Per-Click advertising and Sponsored Search) entails, there are two excellent breakdowns in brief here, or in detail here. SEO is a blanket term that’s use…(more...)

Tags: Google, Online Advertising, Pay-Per-Click (PPC), Search Engine Marketing, Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), Yahoo!

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If you, like myself, are struggling to find a Christmas present for your friends and/or family, Google may have solved your problem! In their Christmas marketing promotion (known as Chrome For Christmas), Google are letting you give the gift of…Chrome! The web browser that is gradually picking up market share is now pushing for more with this new idea. Instead of giving the gift of new socks, Google have made it easy to give their browser as a gift for Christmas. It’s simple Go to the Give Chrome For Christmas website. Select some paper which is themed. Add the recipient’s name and email address!…(more...)

Tags: Christmas, Christmas Gifts, Chrome, Google, Internet, Marketing, social media, Web Browsers

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Hitwise have released some interesting statistics for search engine trends and usage in Australia (see the detailed facts and figures on Hitwise Research Director Alan Long’s blog) and for anyone who isn’t up to date with current trends, this post will shed some new light on how to gear your SEM for the new year. Social media sites are set to overtake traffic from search engines. Search Engines (such as Google and Yahoo) attributing 12.8% of all sites visited, social media sites (such as Facebook and MySpace) closely follow with 11.8%. It is estimated that social media will soon overtake search engines as the most popular websites to visit – especially so over the Christmas break. Facebook and MySpace must be licking their lips at the prospect of being the most visited sites in Australia and therefore an increased potential advertising revenue. Much like the television stations of traditional media, more people watching equals a larger audience for advertisers and therefore more advertising potential in terms of raw numbers and targeted demographic reach. Another interesting fact to note is that Australians uses search engines more (12.8%) than the Brits (UK-12.6%), the kiwis (New Zealand 12.2%) and the yanks (U.S.-10%). Google Dominates Search Engines-Bing the mover Google- 87.1% ( – ) Bing- 4.7% ( + 0.6%) Yahoo- 2.3% ( – ) The amount of advertising dollars spent on launching Bing and creating brand awareness has been apparently significant enough to warrant an increase in market share. However, it is not nearly as big as what the big coffers at Microsoft would have hoping for.  It is expected that Bing will increase their market share slightly over the Christmas period and into the new year. Users Love Brands One of the largest changes in users’ search behaviors is the rapid increase in brand name and brand related searches. In 2006, brand related searches accounted for 8.75% and in 2009 it accounts for 14.22% of all searches. This is an important development for search marketers as it shows the benefit of using brand related keywords more so now than ever before. Searchers More Refined Than Ever Before               Whether it has to do with demographics shifting, or users becoming better practiced in the art of searching, users are using more words to search than ever before. 1-2 word searches have decreased and 3-5 word searches have increased from their 2008 figures. When 3-5 Word Searches now account for 52.8% of all queries and it is becoming increasingly important that long tail keywords are a part of any AdWords campaign. 1 Word Searches- 18.6% (Decreased) 2 Word Searches- 28.6% (Decreased) 3 Word Searches- 24.2% (Increased) 4 Word Searches- 14.3 % (Increased) 5 Word Searches- 14.3% (Increased)…(more...)

Tags: Australia, Google, Internet, Online, Online Advertising, Search Marketing, SEM, Statistics

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It’s a business’s dream, being able to advertise their inventory (with pictures of each individual item) on Google. Google’s Product Listing Advertisements attempt to solve the biggest problem with regular text ads: How do you describe something well enough with just text for customers to get a reasonable idea of what you are selling? Well the answer need not be a tutorial on how to write effective ad copy; Google has a new “Product Listings” feature to display relevant products in line with the organic results. U.S. users on google.com have already begun seeing more and more product listing ads appear. As you can see in the picture below, the ability to compare between different companies, brands, products and prices on the one page makes shopping online so much simpler. As soon as a user enters a search query which is relevant to one of your items, Google will show the most relevant products (as well as the product name, price and of course its photo) which makes it easier for the consumer to find exactly what they want. Furthermore, in enhancing the user experience, the result for businesses is likely to be more profitable as well. These Product Listings are only charged on a Cost-Per-Action (CPA) basis; only when a user views the ad, clicks on link and eventually makes a purchase from that particular store is the advertiser charged. Advertisers on Google will be able to potentially save on their advertising expenditure and receive a greater ROI as a result. From an advertiser’s perspective this makes product listing ads perfect for reaching a more specific consumer as they are not paying per click, they are paying per sale. No matter how many people click on the listing – as long as they don’t purchase the item, the advertiser won’t be charged. This is different to when a visitor views your site through text ads, where you will be charged for a click – therefore providing a distinct advantage to businesses who want to advertise on Google. See Google’s explaination on the new technology at the AdWords blog: http://adwords.blogspot.com/2009/11/announcing-product-listing-ads.html…(more...)

Tags: AdWords, Google, Google Shopping, Innovations, Product Listing

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Rupert Murdoch, one of the world’s most iconic media tycoons, has fired off another salvo against online search engines that aggregate news stories. The main culprit drawing Murdoch’s ire is Google, which grabs the headlines and summaries from online news websites and blogs and ranks them on the Google News service. The print mogul’s complaint stems from the traffic Google generates on the back of content generated by media outlets. As part of his battle against the world’s largest search company, Murdoch is attempting to broker a deal with Microsoft that would see News Corp content suppli…(more...)

Tags: Bing, Google, Google News, Internet, News Corp., Online, Rupert Murdoch, web technology

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