Web Search & Marketing News

August 2004 Newsletter

Welcome to the latest edition of our monthly newsletter. We have had some excellent feedback to this over the past few months and I hope you continue to find some helpful tips and advice in this issue.

Best regards,
Clive Hawkins

In this month's news...

• Microsoft Unveils New Search Engine?
• UK Online Marketing Spend Increases by 80%
• Local Search
• Conversion Tracking

Microsoft Unveils New Search Engine?

You may have noticed that the MSN search engine changed its appearance last month. With all the rumours that MSN is about to unveil a new search engine it would be easy to think that there is a new search engine behind this but at the moment the changes are mostly cosmetic.

The main changes have been a clearer differentiation between 'natural' search results and the pay-per-click results it serves from Overture, with the latter now being displayed in 'Google Green', both above and to the side of the main search results.

Microsoft is in the beta testing phase of developing a new search engine, but currently they are still using search technology licensed from Yahoo and as such their search results are similar to both Yahoo and AltaVista. When Microsoft does move to its new technology expect to see a shake up in search results!

UK Online Marketing Spend Increases by 80%

A new report issued by the Interactive Advertising Bureau shows that over the last year there has been a big increase in online advertising spend in the UK, with an 80% rise over the last year. In comparison, the advertising industry as a whole grew just in line with inflation by only 3%.

The report shows that out of a total online advertising spend of £353.6m in 2003, with search advertising accounting for £84.4m - almost as much as cinema advertising. This illustrates the dramatic growth in this area over the past few years, with pay-per-click advertising now becoming the new customer acquisition tool for direct marketers, being both high-measurable (see below) and cost-effective for many businesses.

If you believe that online marketing should be playing a more significant role in your business, or would like to find out how it can work better in your market, contact us to find out more.

Search Tip - Local Search

One of main challenges for search engines at the moment is being able to pinpoint businesses in a certain location easily. This remains a major barrier to small businesses that are geographically constrained, for example hairdressers or plumbers. Until recently these businesses have relied heavily on the Yellow Pages and other local directories to advertise to their region.

Experienced searchers who use town names and local area phone codes to search for businesses are in the minority, and less experienced searchers who just type in 'plumber' will usually miss out.

Search engines are aware of this opportunity and have been working to integrate localisation within search results. In the US you can now use Google Local to search for services in a specific area. For example, searching for 'car hire Miami' returns a list from the Yellow Pages, a detailed map of locations and relevant search results taken from the main Google index.

Google also allows US AdWords advertisers to select where their adverts are served to, based on location. This is done by checking the physical location of the user's IP address, although this system is still not perfect as the user may be in a completely different location to their ISP.

UK businesses can expect to take advantage of features similar to this in the near future, but how can they target local customers now through search now?

A number of our clients have experienced success by targeting town and county names within their optimisation. These localised terms tend to be less competitive, allowing the proportion of users who search with localised keywords (such as 'Swindon car hire') to see the business listed near the top of the rankings! This will naturally generate fewer site visits but will attract highly targeted, relevant leads who make excellent business prospects.

Pay-Per-Click tips - Conversion tracking

Conversion tracking is an effective way of measuring the performance of your pay-per-click advertising - yet many websites do not take advantage of this useful feature as it requires the addition of a small snippet of code to an online form on your site in order to work. Once set up, however conversion statistics are automatically included in your reports and can provide powerful data.

The average cost per conversion (how much you are spending on pay per click for every enquiry or sale) provides a good measure of how effective your campaign is. This information can easily be used to assess the worth of pay per click, and to adjust the use of search terms and bid rates to achieve better results.

The conversion rate (how many site visits for every enquiry or sale), can also provide a good indicator of how effective your website is at converting visits into actions. You may find that by creating specific landing pages or directing a user to an individual product page when they click on your adverts provides you with a better conversion rate than just sending a user straight to your homepage.

If you're not using this useful feature and have an ecommerce site or use an online enquiry form, contact us for advice on how to get it set up.

• Google AdWords conversion tracking FAQ
• Overture conversion tracking FAQ

If you would like any further information on any of the issues that we've covered this month, please contact us.