Press "Enter" to skip to content

Month: June 2007

Search Engine Strategies Toronto 2007 – Day 2 Highlights

Published June 20, 2007

The Search Engine Strategies Toronto conference was held in Toronto, Canada on June 12-13, 2007 at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre. As always, it was a tightly-run event that was jam-packed with valuable information.

Here are some of the highlights from sessions I attended on Day 2:

Session: Seth Godin Keynote Presentation

  • "Search didn’t become a business until the yellow pages." – Seth Godin
  • In the battle between SEO tricksters and search engines, "the search engines are really winning" because they are becoming much better at determining relevance.
  • "Search engine advertising is a classic example of permission marketing."
Continue readingSearch Engine Strategies Toronto 2007 – Day 2 Highlights
Comments closed

Search Engine Strategies Toronto 2007 – Day 1 Highlights

Published June 18, 2007

The Search Engine Strategies Toronto conference was held in Toronto, Canada on June 12-13, 2007 at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre. As always, it was a tightly-run event that was jam-packed with valuable information.

Here are some of the highlights from sessions I attended on Day 1:

Session: The Canadian Search Landscape

  • Canadians conducted 12 billion search engine queries in 2006.
  • Canadians are now conducting an average of 1.4 billion search engine queries per month.
  • 80% of Canadian search queries are for Website content, 18% for images, and the balance are for video content, which is growing fast
  • Depending on whose numbers you want to believe, Google currently has approximately 75-80% of the Canadian search engine query share, with Yahoo! and Microsoft evenly split over the remaining 20-25%. Expect Microsoft’s share to increase as they continue to invest heavily in search.
  • MSN adCenter’s a ‘bargain’ deal for Canadian paid search advertisers because it is still relatively new and there’s less competition.
  • Only a small percentage of advertisers are taking advantage of the Quebec search engine advertising market; lots of great opportunities to get cheap traffic this way.
  • 50% of Canadian search queries are related to finding a product or service.
  • 78% of Canadians will turn to search engines to research a product or service.
  • Martin Byrne from Yahoo! Search Marketing made the interesting observation that companies who have top ranking organic search results convey a "perception of [brand] leadership."
  • Canadian searchers are knowledge seekers not bargain hunters.
  • Canadian searchers are engaged: they are very active, will look at more brands, explore more choices, and like to build and share their expertise.
  • 82% of Canadian businesses with Websites engage in online advertising, but only 36% of them use search engine advertising or search engine optimization.
  • When asked why they weren’t using search engine advertising, the number one reason Canadian businesses cited was "too expensive" … which, of course, is ridiculous.
  • Search engine advertising in Canada is now as large as the entire online advertising market was in 2004.
  • In general, Canada is a less competitive search engine advertising market, which means there is still a great opportunity for advertisers.
Continue readingSearch Engine Strategies Toronto 2007 – Day 1 Highlights
2 Comments

Leveraging the Power of Beta

Published June 18, 2007

Given the popularity of ‘Beta’ websites, it is surprising that very little is written about them, especially in the online marketing world. “Beta” is a term used to describe a website or online service (e.g. Facebook, flickr or several of Google’s services) that is in a development phase, but is not ready to be commercially launched.

The Beta theme is a potentially powerful tool for online marketers because it acts as a cue to website visitors. Basically it indicates that, while a website is designed to provide a certain type of experience, its present version may not be able to satisfy visitors’ expectations. As with many websites in development, visitors may encounter functionality problems, navigational issues, missing tools, and a whole range of possibilities.

Launching a website that is in a Beta phase can result in two positive outcomes for website owners. First, it can generate forgiveness from visitors if they experience problems. In those cases, instead of people being deterred from returning, they will be more likely to give the website another opportunity at a later date.

The second benefit is that Beta can encourage people to participate in a website’s development. For virtually every Beta website there will be visitors that, if they can see the potential value of the site, have the motivation to help develop the experience by providing suggestions and feedback. A person who engages in the act of contributing may also become a powerful evangelist for the site.

I emphasized the word ‘can’ above because it’s important to understand that to foster forgiveness and participation, the Beta concept must be leveraged – but how? I had to answer this exact question at the company I work for, MovieSet, and so I began to review a number of Beta websites using the Top 100 Beta Websites list as published on this Museum of Modern Betas Blog.

Continue readingLeveraging the Power of Beta

Comments closed