Tag Archives: price

Search Ads Top Record High of $6.3 Billion Ad Spending in Q4 ’09

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The Interactive Advertising Bureau and Price Waterhouse Coppers’s IAB Internet Advertising Revenue Report for 2009 is showing some quite interesting findings regarding the comparison of online ad spends and search spending. Search Ads topped the spending over the past year, comparing Q4 2008 & Q4 2009. According to the report search advertising revenue grew slightly from 45% in 2008 to 47% in 2009. This is despite the fact the overall U.S. internet advertising revenue went down 3.4% at $22.7 billion in 2009 (but again, increased in Q4). In a nutshell, search rules! So, while overall spending decreased, online search & display ad spends increased icon smile Search Ads Top Record High of $6.3 Billion Ad Spending in Q4 ’09 Thanks to an upsurge in spending during Q4 2009 (a good sign), the overall increase in internet ad revenue increased. If the recent couple of months are any sign, this increase is not ending anytime soon. I do not know about every particular search marketing firm or consultant, but we are busier than ever and the end does not look like it’s in sight! Other interesting findings of the IAB report: Display-related advertising—which includes display ads, rich media, digital video and sponsorship—totaled nearly $8 billion in 2009, showing an increase of 4% from 2008. One component of display-related advertising, digital video, continues to experience robust growth, with an almost 39% increase from 2008 to 2009. These latest revenue figures underscore the significant share shift taking place from traditional media to digital. Based on industry data from PwC from 2005 to 2009 in five key U.S. ad-supported media (television, radio, newspapers, consumers magazines and Internet), the Internet’s share of combined ad revenue grew from 8% to 17%. Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal . Search Ads Top Record High of $6.3 Billion Ad Spending in Q4

Top 5 iPhone Apps for Search & Internet Marketers

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Search and Internet marketing can, at times, be a 24 hour job. It doesn’t necessarily HAVE to be, but if you want good results and want to keep up with new information often times it is. Sometimes we just want it to be regardless; it’s something we enjoy. Even when we leave our computers we’re still tempted to take a peek at things or be able to manage our tracking and analytics. Thanks to the beauty of the iPhone and the app store, we can be slightly obsessive but in a not-so-obvious way. 1 . SEJ News                   This application should be the beginning of your quest for up to date information. SEJ News for iPhone is constantly refreshed when articles are added to Search Engine Journal. When you have some down-time in your day you can open up this application and read your heart out. Simply pull the top to refresh and you’ll always have the newest read available. 2. Social Pop                 SocialPop! This is a social media/internet marketing/search marketing/social news aggregate from your top favorite sites, including: Digg Reddit Fark Mixx and many more. This is necessary if you want to keep your head above the water with the technological changes from day to day. I’ve noticed that every time I open something, Facebook is adding/improving/changing something. This could be dire if you’re a search or internet marketer. 3. Analytics Agent                     There is both a free version and a formal paid version for this- the application uses your Google Analytics API to access your information for you.  It doesn’t allow you to actually manage your data but it lets you view it directly from your phone. The lite version is good enough if you don’t feel like paying for it. It includes features such as: Site usage Visitor information Absolute page views Direct Traffic Referring Sites                   There are many other features. The formal version is only $2.99 and includes novelties such as: Graph and pie charts depicting your traffic for easy viewing Top landing pages Adwords information- it follows and analyzes customer actions such as purchase, page view, register and the sell opportunity. This will help you figure out how effective your Adwords campaign is. Adsense - Improve the effect of Adsense according to click-throughs picked up in Google Analytics. Also provides the sales status. E-Commerce data- It can show total revenue, conversion rate, purchased products and more. The Analytics Agent app is very handy and useful for having data at your finger tips at all times of the day… and the price certainly isn’t anything to shake your head at either. 4. SEM Calculator                     This awesome little free application has multiple calculators so you can figure out those pesky search engine marketing equations that nobody wants to carry around another calculator or a notepad for. This is also great if you’re involved in online media buying. Abilities include: CPM calculator CPM to CPA conversion Banner/Email campaign CPA CPC to CPM Max CPC for PPC                     SEM Calculator is very clean and easy to use… not to mention- everything is mostly black. Your eyes won’t be hating you later if you need to stare at it for extended periods of calculating glory. 5. iNetUtil                   This is another free application. It doesn’t really have much that it can do; what it does do is extremely useful. I’ve been using a few different services online to make sure that my website is up and running at all times. It’s actually really nice to know when you’re website is offline so you can contact your server company and let them know they need to step up their service. Aside from that, if you’re a web design company and you’re hosting the sites you make, you need to know that the company you’re using is reliable. iNetUtil does just that- it lets you check on your website status from anywhere, at anytime; letting you know whether: Internet access is available If it cannot connect If connection is reachable There aren’t too many useful iPhone apps available yet for search and internet marketing. I mean, there’s lots that are OUT there, but most of them have horrible reviews or an interface that isn’t that great. These are what I managed to find… are there any others that you readers find useful? If so, please post them into the comments so I can keep growing this list! What search and Internet marketing  iPhone applications do you use? Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal . Top 5 iPhone Apps for Search & Internet

Google Tests Hotel Price Listings on Google Maps

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Google Maps is a pretty useful tool for conducting local search on business establishments, directions and yes route maps.  It’s been getting wide usage and yet Google seem to have not capitalize on its monetization potential especially from local search advertising. But this perhaps might change soon, as Google has started testing out a new Maps feature that shows hotel prices for selected local hotel listings. The new feature will let you enter the dates of your planned stay in a hotel in your search phrase. Google Maps search engine will then display real prices on selected listings and as you click on  a specific price, you’ll see a list of  advertisers who have provided pricing information for specific hotels. To avoid issue on search results relevance, the pricing information will be labeled “Sponsored.”  Of course you can click through to reserve a room from the advertiser’s site. Hence, a faster, more convenient way of planning your next trip, thanks to Google Maps. Now for those who are concerned that this might affect the ranking of hotels in Google Maps, Google was quick to explain that  this would not be the case. Business listings are still ranked based on their relevance to search terms and other factors. Google is currently testing this feature with selected advertisers only and is visible to selected users as well.  It’s availability to all Google Maps users will be determined by how the testing will push through. Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal . Google Tests Hotel Price Listings on Google

Different Search Results for the Same Term On Google

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When I got home on Friday I started to put the mac away for the night and just relax, but for some reason I decided to check some email and see what was happening on Twitter. Boy, was I glad I did that. On Twitter, Brad Gosse (his last name rhymes with boss) had a tweet that really caught my attention, “Google Algorithm Updates http://su.pr/ADk8o7 ”. The link took me to his website where a video was posted: Needless to say I went right out and picked up a copy. The article alone is worth the price of the magazine (about $5 US). One of Wired magazine’s senior writers interviewed a few members of Google’s team and a member of Bing was also interviewed. This is a really great piece, I recommend reading it. One of the points mentioned in the article that Brad brought up is the varying results for the same term when searching on Google. Since I’m not giving away anything Brad hasn’t already from the article, I feel okay expounding on my opinion about one revelation of the many revealed in Wired. Google revealed they are placing users in two different algorithms when performing searches. One is the normal or “control” algorithm and the other is the “test”. If a user gets different results than normal the chances are he/she just got to experience the test algorithm. I was sharing this news with a client who asked me days earlier why he got different results in Google from time to time. So I called him back and explained what he might be experiencing. He responded, “What? You mean they are intentionally skewing the results? That’s not fun.” And I have to admit for a split second I agreed with him. Then I realized as an SEO what Google was potentially offering me, a behind the scenes look at what the engineers are testing. Now I realize this is just a test algorithm which means there is no guarantee that the changes will be made. Not to mention this same articles tells us that Google is planning 550 changes this year. But the fact remain, we are being given a chance to see what is being tested. So how can you use this to your advantage? The next time you notice Google providing some different search results ask yourself these questions: How are these results different from the usual? Are these results better than what I normally find? If so how? Would these new alerts benefit my clients? What challenges would they present? I realize that this may seem trivial, attempting to look at what Google is testing in order to predict what may come. Ultimately no one knows what Google will do but Google. But come on, you can’t tell me a chance to see what is being tested isn’t intriguing. Part of SEO is staying on top of trends and changes. Google is offering us a chance to look at what is being considered. I think this is incredible. What do you think? Joshua Titsworth is a Ouachita Baptist University graduate currently working as a Digital Marketing Specialist at Chemidex in Overland Park, KS. Josh got his start in digital marketing working for a non-profit in Kansas City as the Director of Development and Project Manager. Since finding his niche he left the non profit realm to purse a career in digital marketing. In addition to this job at Chemidex Josh volunteers at various non-profits in the area to aid and educate in their online endeavors. Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal . Different Search Results for the Same Term On

An Unconventional Way to Choose Hosting

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Choosing a hosting provider can be a big hassle. The first time I started paying for hosting was close to ten years ago and since then I have gone through a lot of hosts. And to tell you the truth, up until this year, I just picked the cheapest I could find with the features I needed. I had already gone through learning SEO to make money online and then PHP to make the SEO more effective. I did not want to have to learn one more thing that was better left to someone else. But this year, Google came one step closer to providing the type of search engine results people want. And they don’t want your slow as molasses website. I know I don’t. You get about a two count and then I am back at Google looking for the next result. I still have the habit beat into me during phone modem times of opening two or three results in new tabs and letting the quickest one win. So the people at Google decided why not make that part of their ranking algorithm. And I decided, time to look at hosting again. Hosting can be your weakest link when it comes to the load time of your website. I have seen a lot of emphasis placed on shrinking images, tidying CSS and javascript and compressing web files when the fact of the matter is that you are only shaving milliseconds doing this and every little bit does help, but when the load time of a web page is in the multiple seconds, you are just wasting your time. You need to look at optimizing Apache, PHP and MySql. It is the only place you are going to shave whole seconds off. I have seen 3-5 seconds shaved off the load time of a WordPress page with just a few MySql tweaks and PHP caching. Once you can load a web page in one or two seconds, then is the time you starting compressing files and images. I now can say I have developed sites on shared hosting, VPS hosting, dedicated hosting and I even played around a bit with cloud servers, but I don’t categorize hosting providers that way. I have a different method. If you are a hosting company and your company does not fall under one of these categories, I am sorry I did not list your type. I just have run into another category personally. The Unlimited Domains and Email Addresses