Again, this is going to be very brief.  I didn’t have time for a longer post and didn’t want this to become stale.  You should see the terrific post I had going for how Herman Cain was handling online reputation management…and then he dropped out before I could finish and post.

Quick Beginner Notes on How Google AdWords Works

For those of you not intimately familiar with paid search marketing, a couple important notes that can be difficult to grasp:

1. Ads don’t necessarily display all the time.  With Google AdWords – and Microsoft adCenter for that matter – you may be advertising on a particular keyword, but not see your ad.  This can happen for a variety of reasons, but one of the most common is due to budget.  Usually you’ll set your account spend to be spread out evenly throughout the day, meaning that if you can only afford 100 clicks and Google estimates you’d get 150 if they ran you full force, you may only see your ad 2 out of every 3 times you check.*  To counteract this, I did run test searches multiple times, but that doesn’t mean I saw everything.
2. These are New Hampshire results.  Using Google’s Ad Preview Tool, I pulled searches specifically in the state of New Hampshire.  It’s possible candidates are targeting just certain districts (as we’re familiar with from running political search marketing campaigns).  So, if they only care about a particular part of NH for whatever reason, they could just be targeting that region and I wouldn’t be seeing their ads.  Also, the Preview Tool doesn’t let you open up links – I’d normally comment about landing pages as well.

   Update: Assuming he’s using the same tactics in NH as he is across the US, give Romney’s team credit.  Their landing pages are taking people to a donation page.  Click here to see (I stripped the extra tracking parameters from the url).

* Advertisers should also use Google’s Ad Preview Tool to weed out any personalization effects of search.

2012 NH Primary Search Engine Marketing

Alright, here we go.  In the interest of time, I ran only on exact candidate names (first name, last name) and just a couple phrases pulled completely at random.  Any proper AdWords campaign concerned with anything other than branding will have much larger lists of keywords.

The following is the search term and who I could see advertising on them, in order of Iowa results for candidates.  I’m including Michele Bachmann even though she ended her campaign just now because…well I already did the searches.

Update: Now two days after the primary, some more sites are cashing in.  New advertisers noted in green to distinguish.

• Mitt Romney: himself, followthemoney.com on a couple searches, then CSPAN later, then finally Rock the Vote. Now add gopmall.com.
• Rick Santorum: none the first day.  Now people jumping on board: Rock the Vote and livefreeordiealliance.com.
• Ron Paul: therealnews.com a couple times.  Later the Endorse Liberty YouTube channel (youtube.com/EndorseLiberty). BTW – did you notice the YouTube layout changes Google stealthily made over the holidays?
• Newt Gingrich: himself (newtgingrich360.com).  And now a new one, also from Gingrich – the awesomely named newthampshire.com.
• Rick Perry: followthemoney.com
• Michele Bachmann: followthemoney.com, Minnesota Public Radio (minnesota.publicradio.org).  Later CSPAN.  Now,the Endorse Liberty YouTube channel – seems like odd timing.
• Jon Huntsman: followthemoney.com

Takeaways

Here are a few things I found interesting, in no particular order:

• Interesting that in most cases the ads were showing at the bottom of the page, rather than the top where Google was showing Iowa Republican Caucus results in most cases (its own, bug with credit given to AP) along with news results and sometimes image results.  Speaking of which, some of these candidates are just getting destroyed still by Googlebombing image results.  Unless, of course, the Newt Gingrich photo of him posing in tinfoil hat with Nazi flag is an official campaign photo that I’m not aware of.
• Mitt was going strong earlier this morning, but now I’m having trouble triggering his ads at all.  Maybe he ran out of money in that campaign due to higher search volumes?
• Interesting how CSPAN has jumped into this advertising so heavily this afternoon.  They must be paying a pretty penny.
• 

  "Really, guys? C'mon!"

  No love for Rick Santorum?  Seriously?  The guy lost by 8 votes, which I can, like, count on my hands.  Quality Score issues aside, isn’t there an entrepreneur out there that can take advantage of the lack of competition and make some money here? Photo Credit: AP Photo/Eric Gay.

• Although, CSPAN surely hasn’t paid as much as followthemoney.org.  Fortunately for them, they’re paying only on a per click basis and not per impression.  (This assumes they’re not doing cost per acquisition bidding, which should be a safe assumption).  Curious why they’re not on all the candidates – would love to know if that’s a budget issue, oversight, part of their plan based on who they think has a shot at winning, or other.
• I know it’s early with Iowa just wrapping, but really surprised not to see more PACs there.
• Equally if not more surprised the political campaigns aren’t advertising on their opponents’ names.  Perhaps there’s a gentleman’s / woman’s agreement as being part of the party?  You wouldn’t guess it by some of the talk by the candidates themselves.

What stood out to you?

Justin Seibert

Justin Seibert is the President of Direct Online Marketing. He regularly speaks on search engine marketing, social media optimization, and online reputation management. Follow him on twitter. Why not check out the company on facebook while you're at it?

We'll get there - promise. Picture courtesy of the Minnesota Historical Society.

Let me start off by writing I’m not going to give you a simple “yes” or “no” answer to the title question because there isn’t one.  Instead, let’s take repair our chopper Zen-style and discuss what you need to know to make the decision.

The Basics of Advertising on Competitor Brand Terms

Just to make sure we’re on the same page here, let’s define what we’re talking about.  The concept is buying a competitor’s name and other branded keyword phrases (e.g. branded product  names, executive names) so that your ads will show up when someone searches for those terms.

The process works the same as bidding on any other search term.  You select the competitor term(s) you wish to bid on, set how much you’re willing to pay, and set up ads for that ad group. Voila, you can have your ad appear when someone searches for your competitors.  There’s no cost to you until and unless someone clicks on one of your ads.

The Search Engines Let You Buy Competitor Names?

Yes, although it wasn’t always that way.  You didn’t used to be able to do it with Yahoo! Search Marketing, for example.  And the search engines have changed their trademark advertising policies several times.

Since Google and Microsoft are the only major players left in the US, let’s look at their current trademark policies.

Google AdWords Trademark Policy

Google AdWords only blocks use of trademarked terms in the ad copy and does not prevent advertising on the keywords themselves*.  If you’ve filed a general trademark complaint with them (or a specific trademark complaint against one or more specific offenders), they can block and/or remove ads with the trademarked terms.

* There are currently 9 mostly Pacific region countries where Google will actually investigate and possibly block competitors from advertising on the trademarked keyword.  These are Australia, Brazil, China, Hong Kong, Macau, New Zealand, North Korea, South Korea, and Taiwan.  Additionally there are slightly different rules for European Union and European Free Trade Association members.

Be aware that Google made changes awhile back to allow resellers and informational sites to use your trademarked term in their ad text in the US, UK, Canada & Ireland provided that the ads:

1. Use the term in a descriptive or generic way and are not referencing the trademark owner. Or,
2. Use the trademark in a “nominative manner” to refer to the trademark owner in one of the following 3 ways:

• Resale.  The landing page must sell or facilitate the sale of the trademarked item.
• Sale of components, etc. that are related to the trademarked term.
• Informational sites, which do not sell the product itself.

Read the full policy.

Microsoft adCenter Trademark Policy

Microsoft adCenter made a major change to the intellectual property guidelines in March.  The history is a little confusing to follow because they used to have a more restrictive policy, then switched to Yahoo! Search Marketing’s trademark policies when it took over their system as part of the Microsoft-Yahoo! Search Alliance, which consummated in 2010. This Yahoo! policy they carried over was extremely friendly to trademark owners as trademark terms were automatically disapproved for competitors in most cases.

Then in March of this year, they switched to a new policy much more in line with Google AdWords.  That is, they don’t get involved with keywords.  Like AdWords, they also will investigate your trademark complaints over use of trademarked terms in ad copy.  They will, however, allow trademark terms to appear in ad text in “fair use” cases such as:

• Use by resellers
• Informational Web sites like product review sites
• Ordinary “dictionary” use
• Comparative advertising, as long as a 3rd party backs up your claims

Read their full US policy.

Is It Legal?

Who’s to say what’s legal?  Oh, I guess courts can.  Well, so far, courts have pretty much backed Google on this one when companies have sued them over their competitors buying their names.  The most reasonable argument that the courts have considered is whether or not it creates confusion.  Since the search engines don’t allow you to (or at least have a policy in place to say you can’t) use the trademarked term in your ad*, then it shouldn’t be confusing, right?  Well, the courts have found that pretty compelling.  And if your competitor’s name or other branded term isn’t trademarked, then there’s no issue at all as far as the search engines are concerned.

* Be aware there are ways to get around this with keyword insertion and display urls.

So, since the courts have basically backed Google and because they have more attorneys than Romania*, companies mostly just sue each other now.  So how’s that working out?

* may not be true, but my money’s on Google.

Turns out, pretty good for the poachers.  Here’s a very recent decision:

A judge in Wisconsin appears to have given the greenlight to search marketers who want to use people’s names to trigger pay-per-click ads.

Milwaukee Circuit Court Judge Charles F. Kahn, Jr. this week dismissed an invasion of privacy lawsuit by personal injury lawyers at the firm Habush Habush & Rottier against attorneys at the rival firm Cannon & Dunphy. The privacy claim stemmed from allegations that Cannon & Dunphy used the names Habush and Rottier to trigger search ads for its own firm.

The law firm’s claim was based on a Wisconsin state law allowing suits for invasion of privacy if their name is used for commercial purposes without their permission. If that use is “unreasonable,” a judge can issue an injunction banning it.

Kahn ruled that Cannon & Dunphy’s use of the rival attorneys’ names wasn’t unreasonable for several reasons, including that it wasn’t likely to confuse searchers. “Internet users, and consumers in general, have learned to be skeptical about the first impression they may receive from a web page or commercial advertisement,” he wrote.

By the way, if you’re really into this sort of thing, check out Eric Goldman’s Technology & Law blog.  It’s the single best source on the Web for following these types of lawsuits regarding search engine marketing.

Should I Bid on My Competitor’s Name?

From personal experience, I can tell you that advertisers have really strong gut reactions to this question.  Some find the thought offensive and would never do it.  Others think all’s fair in love and war.  And some straddle the fence – only doing it when it happens to them or for that one competitor they really, really can’t stand.

If you feel very strongly one way or the other, just go with that.  But, if you’re on the fence or haven’t made up your mind, here are a few things to consider:

Pros

• It can work.  A lot of times people are interested in that competitor for a specific reason that won’t help you at all: trying to get hired, a vendor looking up directions, etc.  But for the consumer doing research – or maybe a current, unsatisfied client looking up a phone number, the pay off could be handsome.
  

  Maybe not this handsome.

• It will jerk their chain.  Double edged sword here (see Cons), but after seeing your ad on their name, internally they may devote a lot of executive resources figuring out what can be done.  Plus, some people just really, really like ticking off their competitors.
• More competition should drive up their prices to bid on their name. While this means they’ll be spending more money they could be devoting elsewhere, their Quality Scores will likely be so much higher than yours, that the additional cost may not add up to much.  Unless they weren’t advertising on their name at all before and decided to start doing so because of your ads.

Cons

• Your time.  Your competitors may call you up and chew you out about this.  Trust me, I’ve seen this time-suck happen and had advertisers flip their feelings about bidding on competitor names 180 degrees.
• Money.  They may sue you or threaten to do so.  While you could just adhere to their cease-and-desist and potentially be done with it, most companies will at least consult their attorneys about this.  And if they don’t happen to be experts in search – and virtually none are, this can get really expensive.  (BTW, we have consulted with attorneys about this in the past.  If you’re an advertiser or lawyer needing help with this, give us a shout at 800.979.3177.  We can also advise on how to broker a fair peace accord without the courts).
• They may start advertising on your name, which could send up your costs somewhat and also decrease your click throughs.

What ends up happening sometimes is that – whether mediated expensively through attorneys or done from President to President – a truce is called.  The downside is that it needs to be brokered with each competitor as it can’t be done through the search engines (other than if there’s a legitimate trademark complaint to be filed).

Are My Competitors Advertising on My Name?

One final note – you may be interested to know if your competitors are advertising on your name.  The first place to start is just to do a search and see.  But there are some complications with that, such as:

• They can block your ip if they can figure it out.  If you have a dedicated, named ip, this would be extremely easy to do through their analytics.  You don’t want to do all the searches from home at night, do you?
• They may only show during certain times of the day – or days of the week – by design.  Or, because of how budgets get spread out if not on an ‘accelerated’ spend, Google and Microsoft will spread out the impressions.  That makes for a decent chance you simply won’t see their ad even if they’re trying to advertise at that time.
• Unless you’re both selling locally only, they may very well be showing their ads throughout the US (or world) everywhere except for your location.

For these reasons and others, if you are extremely concerned about monitoring competitor bidding on your name and other trademarked terms, you should look into outsourcing this issue.  Search engine marketing agencies should be able to handle this service whether or not they are running any paid search campaigns for you.

For example, we will create a custom reporting system for you to ensure we’re catching competitors bidding on your terms and alert you to what’s being done.  We can also evaluate the ads to see if a trademark violation has in fact occurred and, if so, file a complaint on your behalf to Google AdWords and Microsoft adCenter.  If you’d like to learn more, please give us a call at 800.979.3177.

Justin Seibert

Justin Seibert is the President of Direct Online Marketing. He regularly speaks on search engine marketing, social media optimization, and online reputation management. Follow him on twitter. Why not check out the company on facebook while you're at it?

Yahoo! Search Marketing is now officially dead.  While Carol Bartz will probably be the first one interviewed by the police, Jerry Yang shouldn’t be allowed out of the country.  To be fair, Yahoo! search is not officially dead; they are working on their user experience and the deal is only in place for a few years.  But I just don’t see how they come back with their old (or a new) platform after halting everything for so long. Don’t bet on a Frankenhoo rising up in 2015.

Justin Seibert

Justin Seibert is the President of Direct Online Marketing. He regularly speaks on search engine marketing, social media optimization, and online reputation management. Follow him on twitter. Why not check out the company on facebook while you're at it?

Dear Ambassador,

As a result of Yahoo!’s upcoming transition to Microsoft Advertising adCenter’s search platform, we will be discontinuing the Yahoo! Ambassador Program effective September 30, 2010.

Based on our current plans, after September 30, 2010, we will no longer accept new advertisers for Yahoo! Sponsored Search.

Yahoo! ended the program back in 2008 for all intents and purposes by not accepting new Ambassadors, so I guess this shouldn’t give me any pause, but it’s just kind of depressing that there is no longer any link to the very first pay per click provider.  I remember working on GoTo.com campaigns back in 2001 before it was rebranded as Overture, before that was bought by YSM.  It’s kind of amazing if you think about how Yahoo! devalued their search so completely through an amazing series of incompetent missteps.

For advertisers, your life gets somewhat easier.  If you weren’t with YSM before, you’re not going to be able to open an account after this month.  Really, there’s  not much point in doing it now any way since that doesn’t leave you a lot of time to get a robust campaign started and running.  Starting October 1, you’ll be able to reach more than 9 out of 10 US searchers with paid search advertising by just using Google AdWords and Microsoft adCenter.

As my final tribute to those salad days before Jerry Yang acted as though his only goal in life was to tank Yahoo!’s stock, I once again provide a link to my favorite and the only set of music videos featuring the personification of the three largest U.S. paid search providers, Search Engine Rap Battle.  I’ve always felt a little guilty that perhaps I played a role in Yahoo! not winning the vote tally against Google, which I thought it deserved to do.  When voting was still open I forwarded the site to my reps at Google who had not yet seen it and later told me it spread through their offices like wildfire.  Perhaps Googlers came out en masse to ensure a win for their team?

Anyway, RIP, Yahoo! Search Marketing.  I shall step outside and pour some of my diet mountain dew on the ground.

Justin Seibert

Justin Seibert is the President of Direct Online Marketing. He regularly speaks on search engine marketing, social media optimization, and online reputation management. Follow him on twitter. Why not check out the company on facebook while you're at it?

You Only Advertise in Microsoft adCenter

Really?  Well, you’re set.  Move on – nothing to see here.

You Advertise in Both Microsoft and Yahoo!

We’ve heard different strategies, but really the biggest thing for most medium-sized advertisers is just to make sure you have your Microsoft adCenter account as up to date as possible.  Check it against your Yahoo! Search Marketing account to see where there’s disconnect and make sure you’re adding all terms as appropriate.  Then just get ready to make adjustments like crazy when the switch happens as things like cpc’s and ad positions could go haywire.

Note – this advice is primarily for search networks.  If you’re running content match, you’re going to have a lot more work to do.  Check back later for more on this.

You Only Advertise in Yahoo! Search Marketing

Here’s where things get a little bit tricky. We’ve compiled a list of some of the most important things you’ll want to do:

1. Check those ads.  If you’ve been running 40-character titles on Yahoo!, chop them up.  Ad titles are limited to 25 characters just like Google AdWords.   Likewise, you actually get 71 characters for ads in Yahoo! (and need to use a period), but will only get 70 in Microsoft. That means your last word could be cut off.  And everybody loves to make fun of grammar and spelling mistakes.
2. Keywords.  Wow will this be fun.  You can actually advertise on virtually any keyword you want now, unlike being stuck with choosing one keyword choice that Yahoo! maps out to many different phrases.  That makes management a little more time consuming, but well worth it.
3. Bids. he minimum bid in Yahoo! is one penny, but a nickel with MSN.  I had actually I had forgotten about this one until an email from our friends at YSM as the minimum bid is actually higher for many keywords and virtually all the ones you’ll care about.  However, you’re likely going to have more competition on your keywords after the switch, so you’re going to need to up them anyway.
4. Country Targeting.  You’ll have a few more options here, sort of.  Whereas with Yahoo! you needed to create a separate account for anything outside the US and Canada, Microsoft will also let you do France and the UK (and sort of Singapore) within the same account if you’d like.
5. Set up an account now with adCenter.  Kind of a big ticket one here.  They’ll have tutorials and will do what they can to make the transition easy, but it won’t be.  Get used to running the accounts now even if you only put a small budget towards it.

As we go along and note some other biggies, we’ll either update this list or do a new post if warranted.  If you want to learn more and don’t mind looking through rose-colored glasses, check out the official YSM-adCenter transition site.

Remember, they are pushing for a transition ahead of the heavy holiday shopping period.  However, according to our reps, there’s the possibility it will get pushed back.  They recognize the importance of this period for many advertisers and aren’t going to push ahead if they’re not confident of a smooth transition.  So if you’re setting up new accounts now, we’d do one in both.

Finally – what the heck – just for kicks:

Justin Seibert

Justin Seibert is the President of Direct Online Marketing. He regularly speaks on search engine marketing, social media optimization, and online reputation management. Follow him on twitter. Why not check out the company on facebook while you're at it?

Often people use SEM just to refer to paid search marketing, often also referred to as pay per click, or ppc (Google AdWords, Yahoo! Search Marketing, Microsoft adCenter, et al).  If I’m having a conversation with a prospective client who uses SEM that way, I’ll go along for the sake of conversation, but you, loyal reader, should know better.  Not picking on anyone here; there’s a lot of confusion around the term – even Google itself uses it this way in their AdWords testing materials.

Alright.  Now that we’re straight, let’s dive into SEMPO’s just released 2010 State of Search Engine Marketing Report, which you can buy here if you want to curl up with 112 pages and some cocoa late at night.  Here are some key findings taken from the report synopsis and MediaPost’s write-up (hence the dueling bullet point styles):

• The number of companies who engage in search engine optimization (90%) has remained steady since 2007, while the proportion of companies carrying out paid search marketing (now 81%) has increased from 78% in 2009 and 70% in 2008.

- Due to the poor economic climate, 2009 was a slow year overall, but had a significant upturn in the fourth quarter. Overall the market is estimated to grow by 14% in 2010, and reach a value of $16.6 billion by the end of this year.

- Forty-nine percent of companies have reallocated print ad budgets  to SEM; 36% have taken money from direct mail budgets; 24% are moving budgets from conferences and exhibitions; and 23% are moving from Web display advertising.

- Overall, companies expect to spend 43% more on SEO in 2010 than they did in 2009 (44 % specifically for North America) — a big rise, but slightly lower than the expected 46 % increase for 2009 when this survey was last conducted.

- More than half of the companies surveyed (52%) expect to spend more on SEO in 2010 than in 2009, while 37% of companies expect to spend more on paid search in 2010 than they did in 2009 (38 % for North America).

- Companies consider personalization to have the most significant impact on search, while agencies see the rise of local search as most significant.

On a personal level, we can confirm the above; we’re seeing more and more companies reallocating budgets from print, tv, and radio into search engine marketing and other forms of internet advertising whether for new or existing campaigns.

If you’re not already running SEM campaigns or one sort or another, the question you should be asking yourself is: “What do the other 81-90% of companies in the United States know that I don’t?“

Justin Seibert

Justin Seibert is the President of Direct Online Marketing. He regularly speaks on search engine marketing, social media optimization, and online reputation management. Follow him on twitter. Why not check out the company on facebook while you're at it?

Owning a paid search account with Google AdWords or Yahoo! Search Marketing or Microsoft adCenter (or Yandex or Baidu for our foreign or exporter friends) isn’t all that different.  You have to keep up with your keyword lists, pruning out bad matches and keywords just like overgrown leaves and branches.

One of the best things Google did for businesses is also the worst.  They made paid search marketing so easy to do that they got a ton of businesses involved, ranging from small to large, that really didn’t know much about this tactic.  Now if the organizations spent the time to research, test, and learn, no problem.  Power to the people – they can have a tremendous amount of success marketing through PPC without having to pay an outside agency (who may or may not know any more than they do about paid search) fees.

But, they also got several people involved that did the ol’ ‘set it and forget it’ tactic.  Put in some keywords, give Google your credit card, and maybe check in twice a year.  Danger, Will Robinson!

Forget issues about opting into content match automatically – let’s just start with the keyword issue.  And let’s go beyond that and say that you’ve picked some decent keywords, which unfortunately is not always the case.  Trust me – we audit a lot of AdWords campaigns.  On more than one occasion, we’ve seen people adding in their city as its own keyword.  Not as a modifier, which surely was what they intended, but as its own keyword.

So, you have a good set of keywords, but your ROI isn’t looking so hot.  What’s your first step?  Look at your keywords.  There are plenty of potential issues like landing pages, ads, and campaign settings, but if you don’t have the keywords right, you’re going to get smoked like salmon.

First, you need to look at your keyword list and its performance.  What are the conversion rates and costs per conversion?  How about click throughs.  Depending on the size of your account, you ought to be monitoring on a daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and yearly basis.

The other thing you need to do is look at the keywords you actually ended up advertising on.  For people not familiar, there are a few different types of keywords – we’ll use AdWords lingo here.  Broad match keywords mean Google will match up your keywords with searches it thinks are related to those keywords.  Usually contain some or most of the keywords in your keyword string, but might not contain any.  Phrase and exact match only map out to searches that are much more specific that are related to the keywords you enter.

Then there are negative keywords (which can be negative broad, negative phrase, or negative exact).  They are your friends.  Hug them, love them, pet them, and call them George.

You used to have to run reports in AdWords to be able to find out which actual searches triggered your ads; now you can do this just through the keywords tab.  You can also find out this information in adCenter;  you can, too, in Yahoo!, but you’ll need your rep.  Try running this report – it’s eye opening.  Sometimes you’ll want to give it a big old smooch because you’ll find out some phrases that turned into sales or leads for you that you would have never thought of.  Other times, you’ll want to send some nihlists to meet Google in the bowling alley parking lot and demand your money for the garbage searches you paid for.

You need to go through this information and make sure you’re adding the keywords that work and – especially – using negatives to protect you from the bad traffic.  You won’t believe what a difference this will make in your ROI if you’re using any broad match keywords.  I’d wager for most accounts it will lead to a minimum 20% difference if you haven’t been using negative keywords before and the rest of your campaign and Web site experience is in decent order.

Oh and I should mention that we also produce custom negative keywords lists if that’s something you want to outsource while keeping your management in-house.  You can see a fuller list of the ppc services we provide here.

So good luck and get pruning!

Justin Seibert

Justin Seibert is the President of Direct Online Marketing. He regularly speaks on search engine marketing, social media optimization, and online reputation management. Follow him on twitter. Why not check out the company on facebook while you're at it?

I think we’ve talked quite a bit about the geo-targeting capabilities of pay per click accounts like Google AdWords (although it bears repeating that you can draw any kind of coverage map you’d like, including picking a 20-mile radius around your physical location).  And while the ability to place AdWords ads within local business listings is potentially interesting, that option is still in beta for folks in the San City Twins (San Francisco and San Diego).

What we’ve been somewhat remiss in discussing (at least me, maybe not Paul as much) is local SEO.  So, whether you’re looking for a Pittsburgh SEO firm or to rank in Pittsburg, Kansas, this article will explain a bit about how the process works.  Many of these same principles work in other countries as well as we’ve used them on clients in the UK and Germany, but let’s focus here on the good ol’ U.S. of A. for simplicity’s sake.  Learn more after the jump.

Local Business Listings Can Put You on the Map

Each search engine has its own form of local business listings to index and call attention to organizations of all sizes in their local towns or cities.  Each is cleverly named: Google Local Business Listings, Yahoo! Local Listings, and bing Local Listings.  Got that?  I can wait until you’ve had time to digest.  Good?  Good.

You’ve already seen these when you’ve done any kind of geographic search:

Local Business Listings Pittsburgh Style

Here’s your ‘What’s Interesting about that Picture’ quiz.*  The pay per click ads are at the top, but then what’s next?  The map, or Google Local 7-Pack as it’s known fondly in some circles.  10-pack sounded a lot better, but then the big G had to change the number of listings.

*Having kids allows you to experience things you hadn’t thought about in years.  Like Highlights magazine.  If I’m sitting with the buckaroos at the doctor’s office, and assuming I’m not playing with those shape roller coasters, I’ll open up that magazine and immediately flip to the ‘What’s different between these two pictures’ page.  For my kids, obviously.  It’s not like I sit there and time myself in my head as I see how many I can find.  And the kids danged well better not spot a difference before me or that magazine’s going to end up in the fish tank!

What that means: you may have a perfectly optimized site and rank #1 for your most important geographic term, but still not get first crack at searchers in the organic section.  That’s because…

Local SEO Plays by Its Own Rules

Local search results utilize their own formula.  Some of the ranking factors are the same as your daddy’s Web search, but many are different or weighted differently.  Just like Web search, the search engines may pick up your site without your doing anything, but you have the opportunity to claim this listing (or create a new one) and own another piece of the Web like you would with a twitter or LinkedIn profile.

While local SEO is becoming big business in many industries and locales, it still presents a huge opportunity for many of you to better compete against the big boys in your local market.  Plus – you don’t even need to have a Web site to have a local business listing (although it helps your local search optimization efforts tremendously).

If you’d like to learn more about local SEO, please give us a call at 800.979.3177.  We have packages available for organizations ranging from pizza shops on tight budgets to national law firms with multiple physical presences.  In some instances, value packages with small one-time fees are available.  So call now – operators are standing by.  Unless it’s night time, in which case we’re sleeping, but will call you back first thing the next business day.

Justin Seibert

Justin Seibert is the President of Direct Online Marketing. He regularly speaks on search engine marketing, social media optimization, and online reputation management. Follow him on twitter. Why not check out the company on facebook while you're at it?

It’s pretty low key – no fees, no contract, no obligation.  We’ll even sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement.  Just give us access to your account and we’ll grade how well you’re doing and give you some tips on how to optimize your paid search accounts for better ROI.  And hey – if it turns out you’d like to have us do some work for you, too, well that would just be peachy. 

On that note, I also wanted to point out that you can get varying levels of help on your pay per click accounts based on your needs and budgets.

While we do more full service management of pay per click campaigns than anything else, we also create accounts, do tune ups, and consulting.  Learn more about the different PPC services we offer.  If you’re interested or would like to sign up for a free audit of your account, visit PPC-Auditors.com or give us a call at 800.979.3177.

With that out of the way, back to your regularly scheduled programming.

P.S.  We’re trying out new design ideas as we get ready to redo our own main site in 2010.  Please let us know what you think of the new site.

Justin Seibert

Justin Seibert is the President of Direct Online Marketing. He regularly speaks on search engine marketing, social media optimization, and online reputation management. Follow him on twitter. Why not check out the company on facebook while you're at it?

• The term of the agreement is 10 years;
• Microsoft will acquire an exclusive 10 year license to Yahoo!’s core search technologies, and Microsoft will have the ability to integrate Yahoo! search technologies into its existing web search platforms;
• Microsoft’s Bing will be the exclusive algorithmic search and paid search platform for Yahoo! sites. Yahoo! will continue to use its technology and data in other areas of its business such as enhancing display advertising technology.
• Yahoo! will become the exclusive worldwide relationship sales force for both companies’ premium search advertisers. Self-serve advertising for both companies will be fulfilled by Microsoft’s AdCenter platform, and prices for all search ads will continue to be set by AdCenter’s automated auction process.
• Each company will maintain its own separate display advertising business and sales force.
• Yahoo! will innovate and “own” the user experience on Yahoo! properties, including the user experience for search, even though it will be powered by Microsoft technology.
• Microsoft will compensate Yahoo! through a revenue sharing agreement on traffic generated on Yahoo!’s network of both owned and operated (O&O) and affiliate sites.
o Microsoft will pay traffic acquisition costs (TAC) to Yahoo! at an initial rate of 88% of search revenue generated on Yahoo!’s O&O sites during the first 5 years of the agreement.
o Yahoo! will continue to syndicate its existing search affiliate partnerships.
• Microsoft will guarantee Yahoo!’s O&O revenue per search (RPS) in each country for the first 18 months following initial implementation in that country.
• At full implementation (expected to occur within 24 months following regulatory approval), Yahoo! estimates, based on current levels of revenue and current operating expenses, that this agreement will provide a benefit to annual GAAP operating income of approximately $500 million and capital expenditure savings of approximately $200 million. Yahoo! also estimates that this agreement will provide a benefit to annual operating cash flow of approximately $275 million.
• The agreement protects consumer privacy by limiting the data shared between the companies to the minimum necessary to operate and improve the combined search platform, and restricts the use of search data shared between the companies. The agreement maintains the industry-leading privacy practices that each company follows today.

It could take up to two years for the deal to be finalized. That could be an eternity in search years.

As a user, it doesn’t bother me one iota. Yes, Bing is quite a nice search engine, but it’s going to take a bit more than that to pull me away from Google. Besides, it’s about results.

As an SEO it’ll make life simpler as there’ll only be two search engines to twiddle for and gather information from. It’s about results and conversions.

But, the only thing most SEO people agree on is the general usefulness of Yahoo! back linking data. We all use it and wouldn’t be overly happy if it disappeared.

Still, there’s an opportunity for the new search presence to make inroads if it offers better PPC click through rates than Google. Currently Bing offers 1.5% as opposed to Google’s 0.97%. With Yahoo! somewhere in the middle on 1.24% you’re looking at a far better advertising proposition with a 30% joint market share. If you then take the idea that good organic results help PPC ads and vice versa, you’re developing quite a compelling online marketing case.

A jazzed up tools suite for Webmasters would be nice. Y’know, get us onside.

But, the longer it takes to get fully up and running, the more time Google has to refine and redefine themselves.

Could be fun. Follow more of the story here.

Paul Woodhouse

Paul looks after the SEO side of things here at Direct Online Marketing as well as trying to work out the best social media strategies for our clients.