Web Search & Marketing News

October 2004 Newsletter

Welcome to the latest issue of our newsletter, providing an update on the latest trends to help market your business online.

As we forecast in last month's issue, the Autumn has got off to a busy start in September with a number of new developments in the search market. First of all, Amazon finally launched its own search engine, called A9, which has some interesting features but it is a thinly disguised version of Google! Ask Jeeves has launched some new features, which we review below, and Google has announced that it will be launching its Froogle shopping search engine in the UK shortly. We assess this tool alongside other shopping comparison tools.

In the pay-per-click advertising market, Google and Overture have both made small changes to their service this month and we shall cover these tools again soon. A different area we cover in this issue is the use, and abuse, of e-mail marketing.

So, enough of the preamble and onto the news! We just a reminder that if you want to refer to any items included previously, or view this current issue online, you can find them here.

Best regards,
Clive Hawkins

In this month's news...

• Ask Jeeves serves up new features
• Selling products through comparison shopping sites
• Email Marketing - A Quick Overview
• How much of your site is indexed?

Ask Jeeves serves up new features

During September the eponymous butler has been 'missing' from the Ask Jeeves search engine, but has recently returned, having discovered new features for this tool. At the moment, it is only the US version that includes these, although these are likely to filter through to the UK version in time - meanwhile the UK site includes a movie of Jeeves' adventures!

So what's new? The most original feature is the ability to personalise search results online, with users being able to login and set up a MyJeeves area where searches and search results may be saved for later retrieval, plus notes can be added if required. In addition to this, the main search results include a preview image of a website's homepage (by hovering over the binoculars graphic), plus there are a range of other 'SmartSearch' options focused on different themes, including a local search option.

Ask Jeeves has improved considerably over the past year, with better accuracy of results, fewer confusing features and now this improved functionality, which may prove to be popular. The underlying search engine is powered by Teoma, which Ask Jeeves purchased in 2002, and this is the closest index in comparison to Google. Until September, you could pay to include your website on Teoma, but this has now been removed. There is no way to submit a site to this tool now, other than being spidered through regular updates and therefore links into your site from other established websites remain important.

Ask Jeeves still remains some way behind Google in terms of popularity, but it is still the 4th most used search tool in the UK and shouldn't be ignored, particularly in the consumer market. If you want to achieve better visibility on this search engine, contact us to find out how.

Selling products through comparison shopping sites

Shopping comparison websites are becoming increasingly popular with the price conscious shopper, so we have reviewed 3 of the main competitors in the UK, now that Google is entering the fray with its Froogle search tool.

is the current leader in the UK - according to the online measurement company Hitwise, it holds a 17% market share. The next largest contender is , which has recently rebranded under its new name Shopping.com in the US, and although it doesn't own the UK equivalent URL, there is a redirect to a UK mirror site that includes shopper reviews.

Both of these sites list product information from a range of participating retailers, allowing users to sort and compare products by price and category. To get your products listed in Kelkoo you need to contact them to obtain a quote, whilst Dealtime allows you to sign up online. You also need to set up a data-feed to each of these services with your product information and any images, although this is not as complicated as it sounds!

They both charge for this activity on a pay-per-click basis, which varies depending on the category of product you are offering. From our experience this cost tends to be similar or slightly higher than the PPC advertising offered by Google and Overture, but conversion rates can be better. This is because visits that are received from these sources will be from people who are actively interested in making a purchase, although as you will tend to get many visits from people comparing your cost to your competitors, price is a key issue!

Froogle is a shopping search and price comparison site owned by Google. This tool is currently only available for US shoppers but is due to be launched in a UK version shortly. Advertisers can provide product information for free and results are displayed based on search criteria and product descriptions used. Searchers can sort by price and category or display more products from a selected retailer.

Google has not been particularly active in promoting this tool to date as it remains in a beta format, so it will probably not attract as much traffic as Kelkoo or Dealtime who market their sites through a number of channels and also buy pay-per-click advertising on search engines. However, the launch of Froogle in the UK indicates an extension of this service which may be supported by more advertising to make it a serious tool of first resort for online shoppers!

If you sell products online and would like to know more about using these comparison shopping sites, including adding products to the new Froogle UK search engine, contact us now for more details.

Email Marketing - A Quick Overview

On face value, email is a highly effective method of reaching a target audience. It's cheap, time specific, easy to personalise and measurable. Crucially it also pushes information to an audience in their homes or workplace in an obvious way, but this attribute has also been its greatest weakness as it has encouraged the rise of 'spam'. We are now all inundated with trash email which can be irritating, offensive, or damaging if it carries a virus - all of which pushes up the barriers and makes it a real challenge to communicate effectively with potential customers through email.

Used well, email can support a wide range of marketing activities, including prospecting for new customers, promoting special offers and events, publishing newsletters (you're reading one!), customer service and market research.

Successful email marketing now relies heavily on personalisation to provide information that is more relevant to an audience and on the sender having permission to contact a recipient. Therefore data collection and 'opt-in' requests are vital, as is the need to design messages to enable them to reach the recipient in case spam filters are in place for certain 'hot' words.

If you are considering using email as a marketing tool you may want to consider the following factors:

• Which marketing activities should you be using email to support?
• How can you integrate email with your other marketing campaigns and activities?
• How can you build your list of addresses effectively and legally?
• How should you obtain permission to contact an audience by email & have you considered the impact of data protection and privacy laws?
• What is the best way to design & create the actual email?
• How can you measure the effectiveness of your campaigns?

If email marketing is an area you would like to explore with our help, we can advise, implement and manage campaigns for you. Speak to us for more details.

How much of your site is indexed?

We often refer to the way websites get 'deep indexed'. This refers to the way that the search engine 'spiders' can follow links into your site and record all the pages within their search indexes. The advantage of getting more of your site indexed by the main search engines is that it can provide you with more opportunities to target a range of popular keywords and will also increase the profile of your site in the eyes of the search engine.

In last month's issue we showed you how to find out the number of links to your website. You can now find out how many pages of your site are indexed by Google and Yahoo by typing the following into their search boxes:

• site:www.yourdomainhere.co.uk

The results will show the number of pages indexed from your domain which should ideally be the total number of pages available. You can also see all the pages that are indexed and how these are optimised.

We hope you've found the above information useful. Please contact us if you need any more details on the items covered, or our advice on any aspect of your website's performance.