Costa Rica SEO Blog » PPC

Yahoo! and Microsoft Search Alliance Annouced

admin — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 15:29:47 +0000

Yahoo and MSN took one step closer to becoming one entity . They have officially been given the green light to combine forces by the US Department of Justice. Details on the benefits from the horse’s mouth below:

Reach more customers.

•	Reach up to 150 million searchers¹ and get approximately 62% more search volume² than on Yahoo! alone through a new, unified search marketplace combining the Yahoo! and Microsoft networks.
•	To help drive future growth in search volume, Yahoo! will continue to significantly enhance the search experience on our leading web properties.

Save valuable time and effort.

•	You’ll log into one place–Microsoft’s adCenter–to manage campaigns, for greater efficiency and a better ROI.
•	With just one buy, you’ll reach users on Yahoo! and Microsoft sites, as well as other premium partner sites.

Benefit from rapid innovation.

•

Yahoo! will deliver new features and innovations to the world’s favorite online destinations, content, and web products used by hundreds of millions of consumers to connect to the people and things that matter to them most.

•

Microsoft will innovate the underlying technologies that drive high quality algorithmic and paid search results.

So what does all this mean for SEO and PPC in 2010? With exception of the dissolution of Paid Inclusion from Yahoo’s natural search results, nothing. US customers can expect to see full integration in 2011 across both PPC and SEO. For additional details on this deal check out Danny Sullivan’s killer breakdown from 8 months ago here.

Yahoo! and Microsoft Search Alliance Annouced is a post from: Costa Rica SEO Blog

List of PPC & SEO Keyword Research Tools

admin — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 22:40:20 +0000

Hey Gang,

Sorry for taking so long to get out another blog. Been busy with growing the business. Here is a list of awesome tools that I typically use to find keywords for PPC and SEO:

1. Google Keyword Research: Pretty much the standard for all things keyword research. Google just started releasing volume numbers for search terms. Before you had to rely on a number of other tools that were…well not Google. Be careful when looking at these numbers for SEO because their the data is pulled via PPC.

2. Spyfu: This used to be a free tool. However they’ve recently moved to a small fee. This is an excellent competitive research tool. My absolute favorite is the KOMBAT feature. It shows you the overlap and missed opportunities for keywords between your client and competitors.

3. KWMap: Visual thesaurus. Need I say more.

4. Google Insights: Google trends on Steroids!

5 Google Search Based Keyword Tool: HOT OFF THE PRESSES! This tool is pretty sweet. It will make recommendations for keywords that you PPC accounts are currently missing.

Got any tools you’d like to mention let us know!

List of PPC & SEO Keyword Research Tools is a post from: Costa Rica SEO Blog

Non-Branded Clicks Worth The Money? Google Thinks SO

admin — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 22:08:47 +0000

I had the pleasure of sitting on a very interesting study performed by Compete and Google yesterday. Here is a brief summary of what it was about.

Event: Uncovering the Full Value of Retail Search Clicks

Description: With the U.S. economy continuing to struggle, retailers both large and small will soon be facing another challenging holiday shopping season. As marketers look to do more with less this year, their online success will hinge in part on the effectiveness of their search engine marketing strategies.

Major questions that were addressed:

What role does search marketing play in driving online and in-store sales?

How do shoppers use branded and non-branded keywords in advance of purchase?

How can marketers measure the effectiveness of paid search and the value of non-converting clicks?

There were 4 major slides from their presentation that I found interesting. Here are the highlights:

Both branded and non branded clicks are important

· Up to 49% of purchasers using search click non-branded terms

· Click behavior prior to purchase 51% branded, 37% non-branded, 12% Both

Click Now Buy Later

-32% of mass merchant purchases occur more than 2 weeks after the initial search referral

Search Influence Beyond the Last Click (This is a fun slide. You can see Google working it’s perspective in here)

· 30% of non-branded search driven purchases happen during the same session

· 17% of non-branded search driven purchases happen later

· 53% of non-search driven purchases happen during a later session. Meaning those who typed in the site directly or referring sites. In the slide they lump the 17% & 53% together for a total of 70% of purchases happen later. When in fact they should really be highlighting the 17%

Search’s Influence on In-Store Purchase

· Up to 43% of online shoppers purchase in store

Couple of things to consider is that Google is only interested in driving click and not conversions. If you are Google you want a presentation like this to reinforce spending in the non-branded category for two major reasons:

1. Measuring ROI on latent purchases is relatively difficult for most merchants.

2. It’s nearly impossible to measure your online efforts on the purchasing behavior happening in store. UNLESS you have a very strong relationship with your business management team that is dedicated to pulling the necessary levers at corporate to get everyone to cooperate.

What are your thoughts?

Non-Branded Clicks Worth The Money? Google Thinks SO is a post from: Costa Rica SEO Blog

Automatically Automatic Matched by Google

admin — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 03:50:22 +0000

Trying to make sense of that title? So was I when I logged into one of my clients PPC accounts to be notified of this new “wonderful” service by Google.

Can someone tell me why Google insists on automatically opting in their advertisers for every new service they begin to offer for PPC? Just recently, I was automatically opted into their new automatic match feature. This is another one of their services that drives more clicks and higher CTR’s for their advertisers while not necessarily driving more conversions or a higher conversion rate. This sounds a lot like something called extended broad match.

Can I make a request Mr. Page? Provide us with the features and benefits a few weeks before you launch a new service. I swear if it make sense for increasing our clients ROI we’ll be on board.

Automatically Automatic Matched by Google is a post from: Costa Rica SEO Blog