 Baidu Continues Its Search And Ads Growth
Seeking Alpha
According to recent comScore data, in July searchers in the entire Asia-Pacific region conducted about 7.4 billion queries on Baidu. That's about the same amount of searches that U.S. users conducted on Google in August. "If you back these searches out of Baidu's search volume provided by comScore, you will see that these two search heavyweights are almost equal in their respected home countries," says Shane Farley.
But Baidu's growth is not just limited to search. "Their Baidu Union ad network now claims more than 1 billion daily ad impressions or around 30 billion a month," Farley says. "This 14-month-old product has grown exponentially since its start last summer and has become an important part of Baidu's revenue growth. Just imagine how big this ad network could be in a few years." - Read the whole story... How Has Social Media Impacted Search?
TopRank Online Marketing
Social media optimization (SMO) has seemingly been assimilated into the search marketing lexicon, and Lee Odden uses this post to examine just how and why social media has affected search from both a user and marketer perspective.
First, social media has changed searcher expectations. "Searchers no longer have the sole expectation of searching to find information for a specific outcome," Odden says. "As people spend more and more time connecting, sharing and interacting with the social web, they now often expect to interact with what they find in the search results."
Odden also suggests that social media efforts can have the same "push and pull" effect on search results and query volume that other forms of media do. But if advertisers want to make the most of that effect, they can't just use social media sites as a place to "dump" their content. Instead, they should "consider understanding what is important to social communities through content, link and tag analysis (a keyword based listening exercise) and create content that meets those needs." - Read the whole story... Google Helps Voters Search For Their Local Polls
Understanding Google Maps & Local Search
The latest Google Maps feature is geared toward helping voters get set for the upcoming election. In addition to offering links to info about registration and various candidates, the apps point users in the direction of their nearest polling place.
"Being able to generate a driving map for each potential voter to every polling place offers incredible benefit to every 'get out the vote' organization, particularly smaller ones that might not have the resources to gather this information," says Mike Blumenthal.
He also notes that the apps are indicative of the greater impact that local information is having on the search (and Web) experience as a whole. "It points to a time when having in-depth local data will fundamentally change the way that the web is used," Blumenthal says. - Read the whole story... What's In A Company Name? Good SEO, If You're Smart
aimClear Blog
Marty Weintraub explains why entrepreneurs should think long and hard about the search pros and cons before they come up with a company name. Using the example of a Minnesota-based company called "Masters Recording Institute," Weintraub shows that it can be difficult to gain organic traction and costly to gain sponsored search visibility with highly common keywords or initials in a company name.
"To start: everybody loves initials. From our experience, a good percentage of future direct brand searches could occur on the initials 'MRI,"' he says. "Sadly, searches for 'MRI' result in harvesting all sorts of information about 'magnetic resonance imaging,' which is useless in this context. Needless to say, ranking on the average search engine results page (SERP) for the keyword MRI might take a team of link-building-specialists months--and perhaps cost quite a bit."
Meanwhile, for paid search, "the keyword 'MRI' could cost our friends a veritable fortune to defend over time because the commercial landscape is so contested," Weintraub says. There's even a conflict when it comes to local search, as entering "Minnesota MRI" would likely turn up doctor's offices and even massive content sites like WebMD. He goes on to offer some "must read" tips to consider before choosing a company name, starting with a search to see what comes up. - Read the whole story... Keyword Confidential: A Guide to List Expansion And Negative Keywords
Semvironment
The Semvironment team has written up a pretty extensive guide to keyword list expansion and negative keywords, part of the search firm's ongoing "PPC Management" series of posts. The nine-part guide offers links to individual sections, as well as a massive list of sample negative keywords (as a .txt file).
Keyword list expansion "consists of taking the keywords that are ranking well organically and that are generating conversions and efficiently adding them to your campaigns and ad groups," the guide says. The team offers details on how expanding your keyword list can affect your overall quality score as well as various ad groups and even your analytics data.
Negative keywords, are "those search queries you don't want your ad to be displayed on. These are words that may appear fraudulent, unrelated to your landing page, unrelated to your product or service, etc," the guide says. "Many times words have multiple meanings, and adding negative keywords allows you to filter out those searches that shouldn't apply to your intended keyword meaning." - Read the whole story... If Google And MSN Had Record Deals...
Search Engine Rap Battle |
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