Get More from Search - Trends in Search & Social Media

Think you’re getting the most out of search marketing by staying loyal to the likes of Yahoo! and Google? A new study by JupiterResearch reveals that 40% of search marketers are missing out on acquisition customer opportunities with vertical sites by only buying placement in the major engines. While it may seem that you’ve just begun to unearth some keys to successful search marketing campaigns with the major search engines, it just might be time to consider what lies beyond.

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Enough with the bubble talk already. Online advertising is far beyond those postulations. We’re increasingly living more digital, connected lives and we actually don’t mind relevant ads when we’re online. Besides, the latest benchmark data from the Interactive Advertising Bureau and PricewaterhouseCoopers revealed that total online advertising revenues in the U.S. hit $12.5 billion during 2005, exceeding 2004 numbers by 30% and making 2005 a record year. Search continues to lead with a 41% share of online ad revenues.

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Traditional ad agencies are embracing the search medium and many businesses now understand the importance of having a strong presence in search engines.

Search advertising used to be an afterthought, but now search has become a fundamental part of the overall advertising strategy of most major brands.

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iProspect and Jupiter Research just launched a report about user reactions to search results. Increasingly, users click on a link on the first page of results - 62% - up from 48 percent four years ago. A full 90% of searchers click on a link in the first three pages of results. While it has been surmised that the Internet community is becoming more impatient, we would postulate that adeptness at deciphering relevant results is more likely. It’s not that we’re less patient for the right answer, it’s that we’re better able pinpoint relevant results, or, refine our queries and/or change search engines when met with irrelevant results. We’re a community after fast answers and connections, and the more we engage with search, the better we become at procuring those answers, right here and now.

Take away: Continue to improve your organic SEO so that you’re in the first three pages for your top keywords.

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Taking a queue from print and television advertisements, search engines will start targeting searchers by age, gender and other demographics. This news comes from a recent search engine conference.

Nahum quoted one of his customers, Matt Van Wagner, President of Find Me Faster in Nashua, NH, who said that it was “very cool that you can select time of day, and adjust bids overall for demographics so easily. To use an analogy—it’s like paying a little extra for that better cut of beef.”

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Below is a rather interesting response from a question that Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft was asked by Fortune.

Do you have an iPod?

No, I do not. Nor do my children. My children–in many dimensions they’re as poorly behaved as many other children, but at least on this dimension I’ve got my kids brainwashed: You don’t use Google, and you don’t use an iPod.

Read the full interview.

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