Search Trends - Search Engine Marketing

Everybody in SEO know's Google's resident SEO-Google liason, Matt Cutts. He has a cult following at all the conferences he attends and he does a good job of being honest and helpful in person as well as on his blog. He answers questions from readers in this blog post. The questions are all over the map, but some interesting info as usual.

This article on Clickz refers to some new research by Kelsey Group and Constat that claims poor customer satisfaction with local shopping search. I think the low satisfaction ratings are probably due more to a lack of consumer understanding of how to use the available tools, but this presents a huge opportunity for the company who can improve on the local search experience, or do a better job of educating consumers on how to search on a local level.

As MSN Adcenter gets ready to go out of beta with their new adcenter offering, they're looking for people to fill positions in the new department. A Microsoft recruiter contacted me today to see if I knew of anyone interested. I forwarded his info along to a few people I know who could do it. The positions are Search Media Analyst and Search Media Strategist. Contact me if you are interested in getting this guy's contact info and job descriptions for the positions. Sorry I don't know what they pay...commensurate with experience, I suppose. You'll have to ask that yourself if you get that far with them.

I've always thought Google's recent toe-dip into print advertising is an interesting concept that would probably not work. This BusinessWeek article talks about how Google's recent print ad auction flopped. Unless Google is somehow getting the ad space at bargain basement prices (I mean dirt cheap), it's probably not going to turn out to be profitable. I just don't see how they can possibly make this print ad thing work with the lackluster demand...unless they're doing some kind of barter deal where they give the magazines free credits for adwords. But even then, they'll lose out on real money from other advertisers in exchange for the print ad space. I don't see that working long term.

It's interesting to see that the auction prices for those print ads were so far below the list price...by creating an open marketplace, Google may have simply exposed the true market value of those types of ads.

I've been a long-time advocate of the branding benefits of search marketing. I never had any data to back it up, so I relied on anecdotal evidence and simple logic to back up my argument. I mean, think about it. What kind of branding effect does it have on me if I'm searching for shoes, and I keep seeing this Nike company showing up every time I search for shoes...hmmm...maybe this Nike company knows something about shoes. Maybe that's a poor example because Nike already has a stong brand (and indidentally doesn't show up when I search for shoes), but imagine the branding power it would have for a company that is trying to establish a brand to show up for their keywords. Yes, it only makes sense that people will begin to associate that company with the category of products or services they were searching for.

Yes, you can and should use search marketing for your direct marketing-type initiatives, but don't forget about the powerful influence search can have on your brand.

This article on Multichannel Merchant talks about the braning benefits of search marketing. The author cites a session from the SES conference earlier this year in which Jonathan Mendez from DigitalGrit had some powerful evidence to show the effectiveness of search for branding purposes.

One of the most interesting quotes from the article is the part where Mendez talks about how their display ads actually caused an increase in search impressions on their PPC campaigns. It's not really surprising, but something that I think is often ignored, that other types of advertising (online and off) can actually create demand within the search engines. After people saw the new product in the ads, it made them want to search to find out more info about the product. Pretty cool.

Psst...one last little secret...I believe that showing up in the natural results has an even more powerful branding effect because people know that the ads on the side and top are paid for and the tend to trust the "editorial" listings more. Plus the long-term cost per new customer from the natural search listings is miniscule compared to the sponsored listing costs.

The next list in my series of Utah web-related businesses is web design companies in Salt Lake City and across the state. There are a lot of web design firms in Utah, so I'm sure I will miss some in my list, but I'll try to include as many as I can think of and/or find in the search engines. All the biggies should be included, but if I somehow misses a web development company that's based in Utah, feel free to add a comment to let the world know about you. I won't comment on each of these web designers because I have a feeling that the list is going to be my longest so far--besides, I don't know anything about most of these companies, so I can't really make a fair assesment. So I'll just lay this list out there and you can investigate each firm on your own.

Now on to the list, drumroll please...

Salt Lake
Cue Media
Modern8
The Digital Ranch
MWI
Convina
Red Olive Design
Single Edge Development
Internet Gateways
Luna Webs
Utah Web Services
Odyssey Web
iNetz
Plain Simple
Turbo Gold
ThirstyPixel
CogBox
Axis41
Humaniz
HyperX Media
Humdinger Media
Fusion Creations

Utah County
One Studio
Thinktricity
Media Rain
Infogenix
Candesa
Crystal Canyon Interactive
Heritage Web Solutions
Farr & Partners
Web Mirage
MidScape
Phusion25
Blue Gene Studios
Highland Technologies

Northern Utah (everything north of Salt Lake)
I4 Solutions
Silvergear
H4 Technology
Pongo Web
Iwo Creative
Brubaker Street
Digital Slant
SADI
Inerlinx Group

Park City
Sunbeam Design
Park City Web
Chad Allen Designs
GSWeb

Southern Utah
SUwebs
Cedar City Sidewalk
DeltaCom
Southern Utah Web Design
ProShay
Holy Cow

Other directories and resources for finding a web designer or web development company in Utah:
Marketingtool.com - Utah web design
Top Design Firms - Utah
Utah web design firms - Google Search
The Firm List - Utah (a little outdated)

I've tried just about every keyword tool out there from Yahoo's keyword inventory tool, Wordtracker, Keyword Discovery, and several others. One I tried lately was Keyword Domination, which I wasn't too impressed with. It worked ok, but the database is the same as Keyword Discovery, just more expensive.

Keyword Elite is the newest keyword tool on the market. This one was created by Brad Callen, of SEO Elite fame. I just bought the software, so I don't have much to say about Keyword Elite yet, but I'll be trying it out and give a full review later on. From the demo videos, it looks like a pretty comprehensive tool. Unlike most of the tools out there, it doesn't include an actual database of keywords. Keyword Elite is more of a keyword analysis and aggregation tool that uses these other tools to create huge, useful keyword lists. So, the bad news is that you still have to pay for your Wordtracker and KeywordDiscovery subscriptions. But the good news is that Keyword Elite is a software download, so you just buy it once and you own it.

I like the idea of having all the keyword list tools in one piece of software. I also like the ability to research and analyze the competition for certain keywords much more quickly than other methods. The competition analysis tools look much more comprehensive than anything else I've seen out there, too.

One final comment (for now) about Keyword Elite, or really any keyword research tool, you can't rely on the research tool to do all the work. You still have to use that little thing between the ears to understand the keyword data and logically think through the entire keyword research process. Software tools like Keyword Elite are great, but they're really just there to speed up and streamline the process. You've still gotta know what the heck you're doing.

For more info about Keyword Elite:
Check it out at KeywordElite.com

As usual, you can find a synopsis of the latest SES conference sessions on SERoundtable.com. This one is Search Engine Strategies China. That would have been a fun one to go to.

PJ Fuzco wrote about salaries for SEM professionals in her mailbag article on Clickz. Here numbers appear to come mostly from researching job postings for search engine marketing jobs, but they look pretty accurate. There is a pretty huge range in salaries, but it's good to see that top-level SEO/SEM talent is being recognized and compensated for their skills.

I'm sick in bed today with the stomach flu, but thought I'd continue my series of lists of local Utah business resources with one that's near and dear to my heart. The following is a list of search engine optimization firms in Utah. There are a lot of web design companies that claim to offer SEO services, but there are actually only a few companies here in Utah that truly offer professional search engine marketing services. I've included companies that I am aware of and/or that I found in the search engines. If you're an SEO and your own site isn't showing up in Google, Yahoo or MSN, you're probably not doing your job. So, here's the list:

Utah Search Engine Optimization Firms

1. Web Targeted - yes, I'm biased, but I truly feel that we are one of the top SEO firms in Utah. We're based in Lehi, Utah, but provide services to clients nationwide.
   
2. bMarketer - I co-founded this company back in 2000. I keep in close contact with my friends over at bMarketer. They've got a lot of projects going that help keep them on the cutting edge. They do great work.
   
3. Convina - One of the few companies here in Utah that offers a full suite of web services and actually delivers on the search marketing part. Based in Salt Lake (Herriman).
   
4. MWI - a very good design firm that has come on very strong in the search engine optimization arena of late. Their office is right of I-15 in Draper.
   
5. 10X Marketing - originally started by Paul Allen (founder of MyFamily.com and Provo Labs). Based in Provo.
   
6. Infogenix - another full-service company (web design, hosting, marketing) based in Orem.
   
7. LavaBall - another relative newcomer that has stormed onto the scene and do a good job of SEO. Based in Lindon.
   
8. Utah Web Services - web design firm offering a pretty comprehensive list of services including search engine marketing. Seems to be more focused on small business. Based in Salt Lake.
   
9. Online Web Marketing - we can't forget our friends down south. This St. George-based firm was acquired last November by Local Matters.
   
10. TeksFX - another Salt Lake City company that offers a little bit of everything, including SEO.
    
11. MidScape - a Provo-based web design firm offering search engine optimization services.
    
12. eHarbor - based in Orem, but not very aggressively promoted locally. They have a big sales team and several sites offering SEO services including Submit Solution, Element Marketing, Real Estate Promoter, and Attorney Promoter
    
13. 97th Floor - a new SEO company. Looks like they're in Pleasant Grove. Lots of broken links on their site, though. Maybe it's still under development.
    

I'm sure I've left some good SEO companies, but these are the search engine marketing companies in Utah that are most visible (as of today). I find it very interesting that there seem to be a lot more SEO firms per capita in Utah County than in Salt Lake County. Is it something in the water down here in Utah county that just makes us yearn to optimize a website for the search engines? Or maybe it has something to do with an overflow of talent from early Utah e-commerce leaders like Freeservers, MyComputer.com, and MyFamily.com.

I just logged into my adwords account and noticed this message:

The more info link goes to this page with more info about demographic targeting.

On that page you'll find the following information:

The demographic website data used by AdWords comes from comScore Media Metrix, an Internet audience measurement provider. At this time, AdWords has demographic information on users from the United States only. For this reason, demographic site selection is available only for campaigns which geo-target users in the United States. If your campaign doesn't geo-target the United States, you will not see the demographic option on the site tool.

I must have missed this in the hustle and bustle of the expo last week, but I didn't realize until today that Google settled that click fraud lawsuit for $90 million. Of course, it's not $90 million in cash, but as much as 90 million, depending how many people apply for it and the refunds will be given in the form of advertising credit not the green stuff. Google still says they think they do a good job managing click fraud. To their credit, they are probably the best in the industry at filtering invalid clicks, but this settlement could open a whole can of worms for Google and their PPC amigos.

I don't give a lot of credence to Alexa rankings unless we're talking about the top 10,000 sites or so. Beyond that the numbers are too easy to manipulate. A collegue referred me to Alexaholic, which is a site that uses Alexa's API to provide comparative graphs of whichever sites you choose. I tried a few obvious ones to see how it worked and found the 5-year trend for Google, Yahoo, and MSN very interesting. With Google's current position, it's easy to forget that Google used to be the new kid on the block. That's some pretty serious growth, wow! Check it out Also, keep in mind that the Alexa numbers take total portal traffic into account, so even though it looks like Yahoo and MSN are currently close behind Google (you'll see Yahoo is actually ahead of Google), that includes users who are using all the other content and services on Yahoo and MSN, while Googlers are still primarily searching the web.

Here's the first of my useful lists, a list of websites that offer Business news for Utah. The truth is there is a ton of Utah business news that flies under the radar, but a few good sites are cropping up that will help catch some of the news in a more timely manner than the business magazines. The Utah business magazines tend to feature the same writers and kind of the same old stories year after year anyway. That's the beauty of the web, you get a lot more of the cool and exciting stuff, but you've got to know where to look for Utah news about business. So, without further ado, the list of Utah Business News websites:

• * Utah Business Magazine - the old standby for Utah business mags, their site leaves something to be desired, but they do include current Utah news items in their daily briefing section on the homepage.
  
• * Watatch Digital IQ - this one is actually owned by Utah Business, but they focus more on tech, and will often have different news items in their daily IQ email than what Utah Business has.
  
• * Business sections of the local Utah newspapers, including Deseret News, Salt Lake Tribune, Provo Daily Herald, and for our southern Utah reader(s), there's The Spectrum
  
• * Utah business news on Utah TV stations including KSL, ABC 4, KUTV 2
  
• * Connect Magazine - newish business magazine (a couple years old), has some good articles and some news items.
  
• * Utah Monitor - new site from the geeks over at Provo Labs, looks promising.
  
• * Utah Valley Business Q - their print magazine is good, but their site is useless. Hopefully someday they'll get a clue and and least improve to the same standards as Utah Business, which still has a lot of room to improve.
  
• * Salt Lake Enterprise - another company that does a decent job in print, but is completely clueless about the web.
  
• And of course, you can always dig up some good news on Utah companies with the biggies like Google News, Yahoo News, or Topix.net
  
• * And sometimes you can find gems on press release sites like eMediaWire, but you'll have to wade through a lot of junk.
  
• * To get the real current happenings on the web, you've got to subscribe to RSS feeds of bloggers in the know like Paul Allen or Phil Windley... Or you can always search current blog posts with tools like DayPop, Technorati, IceRocket, or Google Blog Search.
  

Basically there's a lot of business news going on all the time here in Utah, you just might have to dig a little bit to find it.

Also, one last quick tip if you don't want to visit every site to see if they have any good news, you can subscribe to all the RSS feeds and for the sites that don't provide an RSS feed, you can use FeedYes.com to generate an RSS feed for any site. How's that for a time saver, eh?

I'm going to start posting various lists of various resources that I find useful. Many will be non search marketing related, but these are mainly for my own information, to reference back to, but feel free to use them if you feel so inclined.

Day 2 was even busier than the day before. Met a lot more great people and made some good connections that will certainly turn into some business. This was the first time we've exhibited at a show like this, and I thought it was definitely worthwhile. It's a great way to meet a lot of people in a condensed period of time.

Yesterday was the first day of the two-day Business and Technology Expo at UVSC in Orem. I met a lot of great people and made some good business connections. It was fun to meet a fellow blogger and Adsense guru, Chris Sandberg. He seems like a sharp guy. I was glad to meet him. It's nice to meet others in the industry. There are a lot of us around, but many keep pretty low under the radar.

I also got to hear Hyrum Smith speak. Not that Hyrum, I mean the other Hyrum Smith. He gave a 90 minute overview of his Galileo Perception Model, which was very interesting. It makes me think about things differently.

Well, gotta run. See you at the expo.

If you live here in Utah County or don't mind driving down to Orem, come by and visit us at our booth at the Big Business and Technology Expo. It's in the McKay Events Center at UVSC.

I'm watching this video of a Seth Godin speech right now. It's from a speech he gave at the GooglePlex. I'm just a few minutes into it, so no comments on it, yet, but Seth ususally has interesting things to say.

Just announced yesterday on the Google Sitemaps blog, more new features including average position for keyword queries, top mobile search queries, and the ability to download more detailed sitemap stats and errors.

MarketingSherpa.com interviewed 12 of the hottest gurus of search and this is what they said...

We moved into our new office yesterday. It's less than 10 miles from the old place, but in another city. This new place is in Lehi and I'm not 100% certain, but I think it's a little bit closer to my house. We outgrew our old space, so it was time to move on. The move did come pretty quickly, though, because our lease at the other place went through March, but this new place came available and we didn't want to lose the opportunity, so here we are. Here's a picture of the new place. I took this with the camera on my cell phone, so it's not the best quality, but you get the idea.