Archive for the ‘Pay per click’ Category

Yandex – Yet ANother inDEX?

September 26th, 2011

There are parts of the world where Google is not dominant. In Russia the search engine Yandex is the market leader with a market share of over 60%. Helped by rapidly growing internet usage in Russia, the search engine doubled the number of searches it handles between 2008 and 2009. For online businesses operating in Russia there is no question about the importance of Yandex (for more about search engine marketing in Russia read our Internation Search Review post) but since the launch of an English language search engine in 2010 should the rest of the world be thinking about Yandex?

There are two aspects to this question:
1. Will Yandex gain a large worldwide market share?

2. Are there other reasons to observe what Yandex is doing?

Will Yandex gain a large worldwide market share?
In my opinion, no. Right now people have no reason to use Yandex. It is not integrated with any of the online services commonly used in the West, nor is it the default search engine on any of the main browsers. The only ways Yandex can increase market share are either by spending a lot of money on advertising (this is working, but very slowly, for Bing) or by being better at search than Google. Unfortunately for Yandex, they can’t just be a little bit better they need to be a lot better; studies (by Microsoft) show that people say the quality of results from Bing are equal to those of Google, but only when the Bing results are wrapped in Google branding. Any new search engine that wants to dominate the market needs to be an order of magnitude better, just as Google was in 1998.

The search technology behind Yandex
Google beat the competition with their PageRank algorithm. Page and Brin realised that strong webpages were more likely to be linked to from other strong webpages. In other words, they picked a feature that they thought good webpages should have and then built their search engine to rank pages with this feature.

Yandex’s MatrixNet algorithm is very different; given a list of good pages for a queryspace, MatrixNet uses machine learning to decide which features distinguish them from the average. Then they rank pages with similar features in that queryspace. This method is a great defence against spammers because any feature that becomes common is no longer a powerful ranking signal. For example, if everyone has an optimised title tag then having an optimised title tag is not a signal of quality.

The main weakness with the MatrixNet approach is getting the list of good pages to begin with. The internet is too large for this to be manually curated so there has to be another algorithm to generate the list of quality sites. This algorithm must be very conservative in the sites it selects, otherwise results quality will suffer a lot; imagine if having a large number of AdSense ads became a positive ranking factor!

Google’s recent Panda updates use a similar approach. Matt Cutts (Head of Web Spam at Google) has said that they “came up with a classifier to say, okay, IRS or Wikipedia or New York Times is over on this side, and the low-quality sites are over on this side”. However, this algorithm update can only reduce rankings, not increase them so Google do not need to be as conservative with how it is applied (some site owners say they should have been a lot more careful).

As evidenced by their Panda update (and many other projects), Google has the technical ability to do machine learning at web scale. Should Yandex’s approach begin producing SERPs of amazing quality then Google can copy their approach before Yandex’s market share reaches critical mass. This is why Yandex need an order of magnitude improvement over Google; they need to capture a large amount of market share before Google improve their algorithm to match.

Why you should pay attention to Yandex
Like Yandex, the browser Opera also has a large market share in Russia without being a big player in the West. Opera introduced features like tabbed browsing and “speed dial” that have since been imitated by Firefox, Chrome and others. Web designers watch how Opera are innovating because some new features will cross over into the mainstream.

Similarly, you should keep an eye on what Yandex are doing because they take a different approach to search and successful features from their algorithm are likely to appear in other places.

Blog post by Richard Fergie, Consultant at Reform

The new domain name game

September 12th, 2011

Starting in January 2012, companies will have the opportunity to register new tailored domain names. Traditional naming conventions such as .com and .net will continue to exist, but brands will be able to use other words or phrases, such as their own brand name, as their domain name. For example, Reform.com could use reform.reform and other variations thereof using the .reform structure.

What will the cost for this new domain structure be? There’s an application fee which costs around £180,000, plus an annual running cost around £25,000. So, for many businesses, this kind of investment will prove cost prohibitive.

At Reform we’ll be monitoring what effect, if any, these new naming conventions have on search optimisation best practices. Will Google and other search engines favour one domain name over the other, and if so, could it lead to an unfair advantage in preserving top rankings? This will be an interesting space that we’ll be keeping an eye on for our clients.

Additionally, the new domain naming convention .xxx has been approved by ICANN after eleven years. Although some countries, such as India, have already started banning the new naming convention, brands and individuals now have less than a fifty day window to register to ensure their assets are not used in the adult online industry.

While the benefits of the .xxx domain include heightened parental control, as well as the hope that people will be less likely to unwittingly stumble across adult content, the 15,000 domain names that have been reserved are almost certainly not enough to protect all the people that may be affected. What about everyone else’s reputations?

ICM Registry’s chief executive Stuart Lawley said, “Regardless of what your personal views are on the existence of pornography on the internet, at least .xxx will give people the information they need to make a choice.”

Reform provides a bespoke brand monitoring service that can help you to ensure your brand is not misrepresented. With these new developments, it is more important than ever to invest in the right amount of diligence to protect your brand. Get in touch if you would like to know more.

Blog post by Anthony Dobson, Business Development Executive at Reform

Why businesses need a digital audit

August 16th, 2011

Economic recovery or double-dip recession? Business targets achieved or way off the mark? Regardless, now is an optimal time to assess your digital marketing capabilities, to shave off any inefficiencies (both in terms of Pounds and practices) and to bolster your revenues and profit margins. Yes, you heard me right: digital can be inefficient. Comparative to traditional marketing it might come cheaper, but there are swathes of improvements to be found and made. These are improvements that lurk in the data and in day-to-day operations.

The best way to make these improvements is to have a digital expert audit your SEO, PPC and social media efforts. An audit provides the best opportunity for you to discover meaningful ways to extract full value from your digital endeavours. This is because an audit not only tells you where your digital practices stand in relation to current industry best practices, but also gives you an actionable strategy to close whatever gaps exist between where you are and where you ought to be.

It’s easy for the people behind brands to become overwhelmed by and abandon the very technology meant to enhance their digital efforts; technology can be a false friend that way. It’s also easy for the people driving a brand’s digital presence to get complacent once their efforts have achieved a certain level of success. With today’s economy demanding more output from less resource, unless a strategy is failing outright, people don’t have the time to see if that strategy could be improved. It’s easier still to leap into new digital channels before creating a sustainable strategy because of the sense of urgency created by the impression that every other brand is already on Facebook or Twitter. You feel like you need to run to catch up, but what you wind up doing is running just to stay in place. And along with all that wasted effort is wasted money.

The easiest thing of all, however, is to seek expert assistance in assessing and addressing the gaps between where your brand currently stands and where it would stand if you optimised your approach to digital.

Reform’s SEO audit takes into account overarching brand objectives and makes suggestions for website changes in that specific context. It also provides a thorough examination of every aspect of your website and guidance on how to comply with SEO best practices, adherence to which will culminate in the brand’s increased presence in natural search results.

Our PPC audit uses the same holistic approach. Rather than examining individual AdWords campaigns, a brand’s PPC strategy and performance are looked at in their entirety and refined to better meet the brand’s online objectives. This can range from increased share of voice on Google to increased website traffic and increased revenue from ecommerce.

Our social media audit simultaneously demystifies the world of personas as well as the best methods to engage with customers. It lays the foundation for the brand’s influence to grow and to improve its ability to listen to, interpret and participate in important conversations. Consultants performing a social media audit are careful to identify different target markets and create optimal strategies for each. They also take the time to build your brand’s personas; they don’t just look at what the competition is doing. This is not an exercise in keeping up with the Joneses; it is an exercise in developing a mature, sustainable strategy to drive your brand’s objectives.

Each audit will separately improve a brand’s digital performance. Taken together, the audits provide a powerful mechanism by which to enlarge a brand’s entire digital footprint.

These audits – separately or together – also save money by increasing efficiency and making digital efforts more effective. Ultimately, the consultants who perform audits deliver strategies that allow brands to squeeze more out of less by creating greater efficiency and greater efficacy – a fitting solution in today’s economy.

Blog post by Samantha Horwitz, Product Development and Projects Director at Reform

Update on International Search Review 4 – India

December 28th, 2010

Well, our review on the Search Market in India was the fourth in our series of International Search Reviews from Reform. It was an interesting piece, but I figured the best way to learn how the market really works and to generate insight is to actually go there (for a holiday of course). So here are some things that I inadvertently learned while in India, from a search and web perspective.

Things I learned in India:

1) The Market – As we’ve all been hearing, India is a market that’s barely tapped when it comes to internet usage, and the online population is set to explode, like it has in China.

Now that I’ve been there, I’m not sure if I agree 100%. While things like food and transportation were much cheaper in India than in the west, broadband was actually pretty much the same price as in the west, if not more expensive in some places. Many “offers” were still in the 15-45 dollar per month range, at the very least.

Considering that buying a home is significantly cheaper in India and an average salary is about $3.5k (though figures online do vary quite a bit, so to put it in perspective, some of the top jobs in India are in IT and they still make under 10k USD on average), broadband is proportionately an expensive offering and only for the well off. And from being outside the major cities part of the time, it felt even more far fetched (mainly because broadband was not available everywhere yet).

Though I did see a fair few billboards advertising “high speed internet access coming soon”. So at least it will be an option outside the major cities soon.

2) Google Billboards – Speaking of billboards. Google buys billboard advertising spaces on the highways of Delhi. However it took a few passes to realise it was a Google advertisement, and considering how manic the traffic is in India, with constant horns blaring and cars cutting in from all angles in their attempt to convert a three lane road into eight lanes – I doubt anyone even notices it.

Plus, they probably shouldn’t encourage speed on these roads anyway. By that I mean, the ad is for Google Chrome and it’s mainly a picture of a Windows-esque folder that says “Install Speed” on it – with Chrome’s logo in the bottom right corner. Google does dominate the search market here, perhaps because the search market is mainly those who are quite internationally savvy to begin with. Ask the regular people on the street and some of them will have no idea who Google is.

So putting an ad up that is mainly for people who already know who you are is a bit misleading.  The ad looked too subtle perhaps.  Where as every other ad on the road had the brand name in big letters, pushing the big brand name as much as it can.

3) Use PPC and Affiliate Networks To Make Money At Home! – I did manage to get a camera shot of this (shown below), seen all over trains and lampposts especially in Mumbai. Yes, perhaps some of the stereotypes are true unfortunately. Just click away on affiliates, fill surveys, click PPC ads, enter data, etc and make money at home! Ezeeincome.com was one of several sites advertising here, the shot above was from an “economy car” in one of Mumbai’s overland trains, which were busy as expected, but still worth using, though perhaps not during rush hour.

Beyond search, big name sites like TripAdvisor.in will “reimburse” you for reviews, with credits and vouchers one can use elsewhere.  On a computer in India, I saw a pop-up saying I could earn money with each review made on tripadvisor.in, but taking a screenshot was the last thing I was thinking of at that moment (plus it wasn’t my computer!).

4) Mobile Phones – The government is discussing a national broadband plan for the coming years. But with current offerings costing a fair portion of many people’s monthly salary – hopeful predictions like http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/infotech/internet/237-mn-internet-users-in-India-by-2015-Report/articleshow/6479094.cms are still far away. However, mobile broadband will make it much more possible.

Everyone seemed to have a mobile phone out there. Some looked like the one I had ten years ago. But I also saw many phones that were perhaps newer than my current phone. Even outside the cities, I saw kids calling and texting away – while piled on a 3 seater vehicle that had more than ten people in it, so this is definitely a market ready for mobile broadband. But 3G mobile broadband is not readily available yet, especially outside the big cities.

So why the big mobile takeup? Well, it doesn’t require a full computer, and it’s cheaper. Basic plans started from under $6 per month, with text messages costing less than two pennies. Calls were also about one cent a minute. But again, adding wireless internet access to the mobile phone was expensive. And 3G wireless access is just being launched – so even though many people had 3G compatible phones, they were using them for traditional means such as phone calls! Chances are the mobiles might have came with the plans, as the actual mobile device costs are again similar to that in the west, which means too expensive for most.

Articles like http://www.domain-b.com/industry/telecom/20101227_mobile_network.html are perhaps misleading. Yes, there are more mobile phone subscribers and their phones are connected to a wireless network, but the network is not necessarily one with any real internet access, let alone 3G. Major provider Tata only launched 3G in November 2010, while Airtel delayed their launch till 2011.

So will people be using their 3G phone for things like video chats and internet access when ready? Not if the Indian government have any say, as they look to delay plans further – http://www.slashgear.com/india-faces-3g-data-video-call-ban-over-real-time-security-fears-22120687/

On a side note, I didn’t see a single iPhone.  Everyone had Nokias!  I even looked this up when I got back and turns out that most of the top phones in India are in fact Nokias and iPhones are not nearly as popular here.  There’s an interesting report by Google/Admob at http://metrics.admob.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/AdMob-Mobile-Metrics-May-10.pdf if you’re interested in more details.

Summary – Is India a booming market with loads of potential in the internet marketplace? Yes. But it might take a little longer than expected before it fully expands across the country’s population.

How does it look today? Take a look at our India search market review (with downloadable PDF). Or view information about other countries in our series of international search market reviews. Thanks again to all those who commented and gave us feedback and help in 2010, Issue five of our series is set for release in early 2011.

Google Instant Creates a New Type of Query: Incomplete Match, AKA Short Tail Search

September 12th, 2010

As you may have read over the last week – be it on Amanda’s blog post or the general buzz on the web – Google Instant search was heralded, hated, mocked, loved, loathed, etc. In fact the only common opinion was that everyone had an opinion!

Now that the dust has settled, the new feature exceeds the initial shock value. No, SEO results didn’t change (although they did get pushed down a bit and number one rankings may have even more value now), and PPC impressions won’t go through the roof due to their being a set amount of time of three seconds needed for the result to display in instant search (but they will go up, as people look at their query and refine further before even clicking anything). And is Google is trying to make users customise their searches in a way that their ads can appear across a greater percentage of search queries – perhaps also forcing an increase in keyword query totals for certain queries, and reducing them for others? That remains to be seen.

So what have we discovered so far? Well, you can now get traffic for keywords you do not even rank for!

What? Yes, Google Instant has brought about a new type of search query. We have had brand search queries, market sector queries, generics and local search queries, along with the ever evolving “long tail” of search that has been an industry buzz word for years.

And the new type of search query? You heard it here first: “short tail” search. Or perhaps “incomplete match”!

Already, since the launch of Google Instant, some US sites have reported a slight growth in “incomplete keywords”. For example, one of the top volume driving keywords for our client Angel Investment Network in the last few days has been “angel inve”. Yes, by then, the main site was top of the results. And the user, well I guess the user couldn’t be bothered to type “angel investment”, saw the result they wanted and clicked away! Still, this example is quite relevant. But what about an example where the word the user intended to type is quite competitively different…

Let’s say am looking for “photography”, but by the time I get to “Pho” I see Photobucket ranked 1st – it sounds relevant to me, and I click it (as it’s a site about photo sharing, and yes while if you read the details it may not be the right site for me, first impressions are big, the site name seems relevant, and most users are impatient – so I click away).

However, this is a site that does not rank for the term “photography” yet it got a semi-relevant click that now tells the user “OK, we’re not about photography, but if you ever want to share photos online, now you know where to go”. So photobucket.com can now steal potential clicks for a term they didn’t even compete well for! And there are several other examples of this I’m sure. The whole ability to click via an incomplete keyword query opens up a new dimension to how we study keyword targeting. And that is what we call, the “short tail” or the “incomplete match” (if you have a preference, do let us know!) keywords of search.

If you’re still new to Google Instant, check out Google’s explanation of how Instant Search works here: http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2010/09/google-instant-impact-on-search-queries.html

Blog post by Niall Madden, Search Director of Reform

Search Engine Marketing in Russia – International Search Review Issue 2

February 16th, 2010

Thanks to everyone for their feedback on the first issue of Reform’s International Search Review. Issue number two is now available, as we move north into Russia.  Like China, Russia is a large market where Google is not the search engine of choice, playing second fiddle to Yandex.ru.  As a result, SEO and general search marketing strategies from international companies looking to expand into Russia often find obstacles here.

For instance, it can be difficult for foreign companies to do PPC advertising on Yandex. Their PPC service is known as Yandex:Direct – which has a user interface for accounts that is entirely in Russian. Unless you have a fluent Russian PPC person on your team (and even then), potential advertisers are advised to let Yandex manage the PPC accounts on your behalf. This is known as the “Yandex.Direct Carefree account” – which their site says will provide you with a dedicated, English speaking account manager who will help you create and run your campaign (assistance with keywords selection, composing the ad text and advertising strategy consulting).

The initial take up of broadband was behind the pace of many other markets, but in the recent years Russia has started to really experience a steadier increase, becoming one of the top countries in regards to take up and usage of Mobile internet usage and Social Networking.   Russia is currently the eighth largest country in terms of internet user population, and is set to overtake the UK into seventh place.

Download a copy of the full “Russia Search Review” issue here

Take a look through the PDF and hopefully we can answer any questions about the search market share in Russia, along with the habits of the local internet user population there.

We look at the Yandex natural search algorithm, along with recent changes in Gogo.ru and Mail.ru, which had made an agreement with Google to use their natural search results, but instead opting to build their own algorithm first and using Google’s as a back up. Gogo.ru and Mail.ru do however use Google’s PPC results, which has helped extend its reach (and earnings) there. Considering Google had a 5% market share in Russia only 4 years ago, it has come a long way. But like in China, there are many factors which will try hard to make sure it never crosses the 50% line.

The overall search market share in Russia currently (along with other key stats from the PDF include):

- Yandex – 54.5% (62% when including Mail.ru) / Google 34.5% / Rambler – 1.9% / Bing – 0.4% (Source: Comscore, August 2009)

- 42,000,000 Internet users as of Jan 2010 and only a 33% estimated internet penetration.

- The average user in Russia spent 6.6 hours per month on social networks (highest in the world out of 38 countries that were reported), compared to a worldwide average of 3.7, 4.6 in the UK and 4.2 in the US. (World Metrix / Comscore: July 2009). The top choice of social network was Vkontakte.ru, followed by odnoklassniki.ru and mail.ru – while Facebook was a distant seventh.

- Twitter integration into search results was done on Yandex first in 2009 (before Google or Bing), yet Twitter usage in Russia is still relatively low, holding less than 0.5% of the overall global Twitter market share.

To get more details on this and everything else, download a copy of the full issue here – and let us know any comments / feedback.   Contact us, and we’ll get the next issue out to you before anyone else gets it!

You can also leave a comment below too.

Blog post by Niall Madden, SEO Director of Reform

Can the gap between full-service and DIY search management be filled?

February 16th, 2010

As a director of several small businesses I have struggled to find a service provider that can fill the gap between full-on bespoke search support and do-it-yourself on AdWords- so imagine my elation when I see BT offering a service geared at SME’s for just £100 per month. Branded SearchSmart it purports to offer “Affordable pay per click management from search specialists”

Unfortunately a call to the BT sales line gives rise to a little confusion. The £100 per month for PPC is actually £300 per month unless you take other services, and BT take £90 of this and that the remaining £210 is spent on media through Google, Yahoo and Bing.  Apparently I can transfer any Google accounts that are set up back to my name without any impact on my quality score, and that “all the work is undertaken by BT employees and nothing is outsourced”. This may be news to Alex Hoye the CEO of Latitude who is quoted on their website saying “This partnership brings together BT’s reach and trust with Latitude’s technical expertise to enable small businesses to succeed as more consumers move online.”

In terms of reporting I am told that I can see reports on what is happening online, but logging on to the Demo Site suggests that I am not going to learn very much, and far less than I would learn from my existing free Google Analytics account. BT do also offer me access to Google Analytics but for £75 (with one part of the website saying this is a monthly charge and another saying it is a one off). The real killer though is in the small print on the website which says that I can’t use any of the BT services if I have had an active account with Google in the last 90 days. So much for the trouble free transfer.

Bottom line is that you still can’t get proper search management for peanuts, and the reason is that proper search management requires sophisticated and time consuming input from experienced practitioners; people who understand that each and every website is different in the same way that each and every searcher is different.

A guest blog post by James Kilpatrick, non-Executive Director of Reform and Director of Craigie Mains (http://www.craigiemains.com).

Search as a Commodity?

February 4th, 2010

The recent trend in agencies outsourcing search to cheaper suppliers, whether they be in the UK or abroad, signals the possible commoditisation of search skills in the near future.

Both SEO and PPC practitioners are available in plentiful numbers at low rates; there are companies in India willing to work on hourly rates as low as £5. That’s 80p lower than the minimum wage for an adult in the UK, so you can see why it would be tempting for clients and agencies alike.

In practice, outsourcing opportunities will deliver a very cheap solution for the simpler aspects of PPC or SEO delivery. My experience of being involved in relationships (from a third party perspective) where both PPC and SEO have been outsourced has always seen something lost in the translation though, with poor quality results being achieved through either poor campaign builds and management in paid search, or the use SEO techniques that are slightly outdated and that fail to address the real issues needed for success in natural search.

So what’s the reason for this? Where is the value being lost? Let’s face it, some of the actual delivery work in search doesn’t require a huge amount of brainpower – adjusting keyword bids when a CPA is too high or re-working meta-tags to have an emphasis on different words is a simple task. So why does it go wrong so often?

The problem comes from the fact that search strategy is inextricably entwined with its delivery. For example, with paid search, when you’ve spent several hours analysing results, understanding how various factors affect the different metrics, and deciding where to focus your efforts, the matter of performing the optimisation is a relatively simple task. Natural search will sometimes similarly require someone to immerse themself in the market, observing what’s working well for the competition, translate this into a strategy for their site, and then spend time delivering what then seems to be relatively simple output in terms of actual SEO work.

So what does this mean for clients or agencies looking to outsource work? I’d suggest that although there are cheap options out there, the skillset of this type of business or individual is never going to be able to drive real success in search for your business by using them alone. Perhaps we need to look at a more traditional model where a planner would devote their time to building a strategy and a separate buyer would then specialise in buying the media – so for search you may be able to draw value from outsourcing options by using them simply as an implementer of the more time consuming tasks, but you will still need a channel expert to decide your strategy, spend time interpreting the data and recommending what changes need to be implemented to your site or PPC account. For all but the largest of advertisers, the benefit is going to be minimal.

Of course, this may change over the next few years as businesses in lesser developed markets become more savvy and develop their skill sets further. When that does happen we may see search agencies turning into more specialist comms planning style businesses and we’ll see companies who specialise in cost effective implementation springing up to complement them. Larger agencies may choose to break staff down into planning & implementation departments to respond to the market.

So while the current standard of delivery from cheap outsourcing options isn’t yet high enough to actually benefit from the cost saving, the threat to the current search agency model from these suppliers is real – and we can expect to see it driving change in the way search is bought over the next few years.

Search Engines in 2009 & Predictions For 2010

December 22nd, 2009

It’s that time of the year again. End of year roundups and predictions for 2010. It’s been a busy year in search, well in fact its been a busy decade (but we won’t go there)! If 2009 was the year of Bing, Wolfram Alpha, Google Caffeine and expansion of AdWords usage, along with everyone’s attempts at Real-Time search integration, then what does 2010 have in store for the search industry?

From a user perspective, search engines were looking east. Taking from insights in the far eastern search markets, Bing and Google focused more on becoming a one stop destination hub. From the second you type your query into Google, suggestions are sent your way. In 2009 they upgraded the suggestions to include direct links and elements such as the latest weather reports, or even parcel tracking information, all before you even click “submit”.

Personalisation was a key objective for search engines too, as user data continues to get used to determine future results and trends. However, it met a lot of critique, from many who cited that personalisation may take away from independence (with less and less “new” perspectives given to users). Just like the improvements in audio/video searches and real time search though, 2010 looks to be a big year for the development of these technologies.

As far as traditional SEO and PPC goes, Google impacted these strategies too. Lines began to blur between the two, as Google integrated local results (map results) and expandable PPC ads (integrating PPC and Google Base results together) to include sitelinks and product prices / listings. From an SEO perspective, Google spent the latter part of 2009 emphasising the need for speed – advising that a sites load time may become a big factor for optimisation in 2010.

And Google didn’t stop there, continuing their foray into a vast range of things – some of which it has been working on for a few years, such as voice recognition search, along with working on more efficient translation tools and various apps for the Android operating system. And then there were the many mash-ups of their existing offerings, such as City Tours and Social Search.

It wasn’t all bright lights for Google though, as they continued to seem out of place when it came to other forms of media, including a much criticised attempt to push the Google Chrome browser on TV and print media ads. They also took what many people felt were a step back with a more traditional pricing on “paid placement” local listings, and YouTube ads, opting away from their cost per click rates – and instead going towards the old CPM rates in some cases.

At the same time though, marketers looked closer at the impact of TV on search. Going beyond slogans that say “search for (name of brand) on Google” – marketers looked at having the celebrity presence on their search listings too. Hilary Swank, Scarlett Johansson, Oprah Winfrey and Jessica Alba were celebrities used to endorse PPC ad copy in 2009.

The merger between Bing and Yahoo looms ever present for 2010, while Yahoo Search Submit Pro calls it a day. Yahoo site explorer is rumoured to be next in line, which was the source of many an online SEO tool that analysed links. When this will happen is unclear, but it does remind many of a search marketer of the times when the Yahoo / Overture keyword tool was silently put to sleep.

And of course, it wouldn’t be an end of year / new year posting without some predictions, so here goes. Among our predictions for search in 2010, are:

1. SEO will become the darling of marketing, as recession strapped companies look to get the most of their budgets

2. SEO’s will need to know how to communicate with designers and developers (and vice versa), as factors such as load time, script usage and site coding become key SEO factors

3. Data (advertiser and customer) debates will heat up over the year, as companies like Facebook, Google, Bing, etc tread the line between insight and privacy

4. Local and retail advertisers will see Google Maps and Google Base traffic volumes soar

5. Launched in 2009 – Scoopler.com will become one to watch in the “real-time search” race

6. Search becomes the marketing channel for geniuses (or genii), as from keyword research to semantic psychology – things are about to get really interesting!

7. International SEO and PPC strategies will evolve fast in 2010, as search engines such as Baidu spent late 2009 moving towards a more westernised search methodology in both paid and natural search listings

8. Real time search still needs a fair bit of work and will look vastly different this time next year

9. Mobile search will finally catch up to all the hype its received in the last few years

Drop us a line and let us know what you think is in store for search in 2010.

Blog post by Niall Madden, SEO Director of Reform

The reinvention of an all together more grown up search

November 19th, 2009

Search, for some has always been a dirty word. Swathed in mystery for a long time with images of wizards in ‘black hat’s’ springing to mind whenever SEO was mentioned. Lots of nerdy types claiming to have the magical fairy dust to get to number one in Google and such like. Then things started to change. Every man and his goat was ‘doing search’ with hundreds of agencies claiming to be the experts. Confusing for the client and a bad user experience all round for those of us in the industry.

Google’s tools in particular mean that literally anyone can do it, but it is now starting to be recognised that, although anyone can do it, in order to really benefit from search’s efficiencies, clients need to take more responsibility for how search is actually working for them, instead of just switching it on and waiting to see what happens.

These days change is still afoot but new trends are emerging in the way people purchase and manage their search marketing. Many of the UK’s biggest online retailers now handle all matters pertaining to search in house, with roles filled by ex agency gurus or mathematical whizz kids who are very good at excel. J There are plenty of reasons for looking after search in house. Often, dissatisfaction with agency service levels, or lack of transparency, but also the realisation that search is an integral part of marketing for any business nowadays, and it needs to be positioned within the overall strategy and understood by all stakeholders in the business.

In the agency world too, things are changing. Search is being given a new value at different ends of the process chain. Design and build agencies are being asked by their clients to work on their search strategy, PR agencies are overwhelmed with requests to manage online PR, and they all need to pull up their socks and get stuck in, and ask for help where they need it from bona-fide search experts if they want to maintain their quality of offering across everything they do.

There isn’t any mystery to search, but it requires a lot of patience, and analysis, and it can be laborious, tedious even and, well, it’s not very glamorous. But, one thing is clear: it’s undergoing a reinvention, which Reform is glad to be a huge part of, where search is at last a big cog in the process for all sized and shaped clients from the first website ideas to their 10 year business plan.

Search has come a long way in its early years as a marketing channel. But it is still immature, and we all need to take responsibility – clients, agents, engines and trade associations – to take the industry to a new level of innovation and efficiency. It’s time for search to grow up. To be reinvented.

We are conducting research into how people use search as a marketing medium. If you would like to take part, please click on the link here: www.reformdigital.com/research

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