So far, we’ve shared some New Years resolutions, and predictions from several search marketers and social media marketers. I asked many of those same marketers what they would most like to see from search engines in 2008. Yesterday, we ran part one, and today we share even more wish lists from search marketers in “Search Marketers’ Wish Lists, Part 2.”
Local search guru Andrew Shotland of Local Onliner fame reported Pat Marshall’s move from Superpages to archrival Yellowbook back in July 2007. As the CNMO (Chief New Media Officer) Marshall assumed operating responsibility for Yellow Book’s new media products, including yellowbook.com and search engine advertising. Shotland noted that YellowBook’s website wasn’t really a priority at the company, and one line of business where Idearc had a strong lead.
So how’s he doing? The chart on the left shows traffic through Oct, 2007. Here are the comScore numbers for December:
Yellow Book Network jumped 137 percent to 10.4 million visitors. Visits to Yellowbook.com network sites tripled (up 207 percent to 4.6 million visitors) with the acquisition of a new property.
Yellowbook can’t rest on its laurels. AT&T’s Yellowpages.com has replaced Yahoo Local Search for AT&T’s broadband and Internet customers. (Shotland also reported YellowPages.com recently told analysts it expects to attract two billion searches in 2008, and three billion by 2010.)
Yellowpages.com Network grew by 51 percent to more than 24 million visitors in December, 2007.
Mike Boland of The Kelsey Group explained in SEW Experts why Google, Yahoo, and MSN need to take the IYP threat seriously. Verizon’s also reportedly competing with Google for the $4.7 billion C-block for 700 mhz wireless spectrum, according to Saul Hansell of The New York Times.
For search marketers, their clients, and small and medium sized enterprises, that means online-offline integrated search advertising.
I’m constantly on the lookout for software tools and services that help us serve our clients better. Since I’ve been a closet geek and software junkie my entire life, I get a mild kick when I come across software that’s well-designed and provides value and features that really stand out. Yesterday I was tipped off to one that almost literally knocked me out of my chair.
It’s called CrazyEgg, and it analyzes site visitor behavior in ways I didn’t think possible — and presents the results in a strikingly powerful, engaging manner.
The thing is so chock full of features that time and blog space don’t allow me to go into too much depth. In a nutshell it lets you see exactly what elements a site page visitor clicks on - in various graphically-rich ways - like a scatter-map (they call it “confetti”), or a “heat map,” or a variety of other views.
It also allows you to test page variations against each other in novel ways - absolute gold for conversion optimizing.
Best of all, it delivers tremendous value, available elsewhere at a much higher cost. But they’re giving away most of the valuable functions for free.
Run, don’t walk.
P.S. Rumor has it a search industry luminary is behind the service.
Can you feel the nervousness in the business community? Even search — the golden child of marketing — has been getting pushed around by the market. In today’s Link Love column, “Recession-Proof Your Business by Building Links,” Sage Lewis warns that search marketers need to wake up and stare reality in the face.
Educating employees in SEO and PPC marketing can seem impossible when they have no search background. In today’s SEM.EDU column, “How To Educate Search Staff from Scratch,” Ron Jones offers advice for those struggling to organize a program to teach employees the fundamentals of search.
Seems the European Union is becoming more sensitive to the workings of the internet. Recent rulings have changed their once strong position about its impact on Europe and its people.
Recent reports tell that they are ready to approve the acquisition of DoubleClick by Google - regardless of what had previously been thought to be a move closer to an online monopoly.
The latest is their decision not to make ISPs give the information of users who have used P2P software for sharing files, a battle that has been fought globally for copyright issues of music and film.
“The European Union’s highest court ruled this week that Internet service providers in the EU do not have to give entertainment companies the names of Web users suspected of illegal file sharing.
Internet service providers only have to disclose the names of suspects in criminal cases, not in civil lawsuits, the EU court upheld.
EU countries generally provide consumers a broad range of privacy protections,” AVN reported today.
It will be worth watching how these new decisions change the internet legal landscape in Europe.
Yahoo’s Yodel Turns Into a Whimper. That’s how BusinessWeek described the Yahoo earnings call. In his NY Times Tech blog, Saul Hansell savaged Yahoo execs on the conference call for not articulating a strategy, obfuscation, and excessive use of jargon.
I disagree, so we’ll let our search industry readers decide for themselves.
Here are the 5 most important questions Wall St. analysts asked and Yahoo executives answered about Search, excerpted courtesy of SeekingAlpha.com, where you read the full transcript of Yahoo’s earnings call and tomorrow’s Google earnings call (January 31).
Judge the answers for yourself. There are golden nuggets you’ll be able to use when developing your search engine strategies.
Brian Pitz, Banc of America: Would you comment on whether you continue to see click-through rate improvements from Panama accelerating since Q3?
Susan Decker, President, Yahoo: Brian, the click-through rate improvements have been the primary driver of the RPS (revenue per search) gains, as we have said in the past. We don’t get too specific on all the components, but I did mention that in Q4 a couple of initiatives that will help advertiser ROI actually may have limited our gains and were deliberate moves against coverage. We have seen continued improvement in click-through rates and as I mentioned, the RPS gains in Q4 were pretty consistent with what we saw in the prior two quarters of close to 20%.
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Want a snapshot of the day’s search marketing news? Here we’ve collected today’s top news stories posted to the Search Engine Watch Blog, along with search-related headlines from around the Web:
From the SEW Blog:
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Google increased its slice of the growing global search pie in just-released search engine market share stats from comScore. In 2007, searches at the five major search engines — including partner searches and cross-channel searches — finished with 9.6 billion searches in December, 2007.
The surprise winner? For December 2007, total searches on Google sites increased more than 30 percent year over year, totaling 5.6 billion searches.
Yahoo sites ranked second with 2.2 billion searches. Microsoft sites, third with 940 million searches in December.
Time Warner Network with 442 million searches finsihed neck-and-neck with Ask Network, at 415 million total searches - but lost ground: down 4 percent from this time last year.
Microsoft sites gained 8 percent year-over-year, with Ask (415 million) posting a 5 percent gain on a small base of 396 million searches last December.
AOL (part of the O&O Time Warner network) didn’t fare much better than Yahoo, posting a 4 percent decrease in total search volume.
It’s important to note that searches conducted on mapping sites, local directory sites, and video sites (read YouTube) are not counted in the core search statistics.
On the Yahoo earnings call, Yahoo President Sue Decker complained about the accuracy of the comScore numbers. Unlikely Eric Schmidt will do the same.
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Yahoo Panama posted a 20 percent improvement in RPS (Revenue Per Search) in Q4, following three consecutive revenue growth quarters. “Yahoo O&O” - owned and operated — was the new search buzzword tossed around during the conference call. More good news: search revenue grew by approximately 30 percent. International search for Yahoo properties showed RPS gains accelerating into the high teens.
Improving the quality of traffic with domain controls and ad quality filtering promise to improve lead quality and advertiser ROI over time. The cleanup, though, limited Yahoo’s revenue growth in Q4. Yahoo’s stock price dropped below $20 again.
Search marketers, agency owners, CEOs, and CMOs need to know whether Yahoo CTR improved due to Panama; how the recession will affect search and display advertising; and how much Yahoo share of total searches improved.
4 Yahoo Q4 Trends All CMOs Need to Know
1. Search marketers can count on improved click-through rates from Yahoo searchers clicking on paid search (PPC) ads.
2. Search continues to be strong and as close to “recession-proof” as any form of online advertising. Advertisers can expect high ROI unless the recession significantly reduces commercial searches.
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Quote: Universal search has arrived and is here to stay ? This will change how people create content for the web.
