"Search Marketing Standard will cover pay per click advertising, search engine optimization, web analytics, click fraud, local and contextual search, and other search-related topics. Each publication will feature articles and advice from leading experts in the field, interviews with the who’s-who of the industry, reviews of the most popular tools and services, latest news and trends, and much more."

AOL sure knows how to throw a party. Whereas MSN’s recent lunch looked like something that was planned the day before (sorry MSN, but it’s true) – AOL had a premier venue, first rate gourmet food, and a polished, exciting multimedia presentation that was on topic.

Zunch, along with other major online advertising firms in Dallas, was invited to a lunch with AOL last week, where they were rolling out the new programming, talking about advertising opportunities, and oh, sure, addressing that Google thing.

Yes, we were mostly interested in that Google thing. And addressing it was something like this: “We know there’s an elephant in the room, and everyone wants to talk about it – so before we get to the meat of the program, we will. Yes. It’s an elephant. Next topic.” All they did was acknowledge that there is indeed a partnership. But the presentation wasn’t about search – it was about programming.

I haven’t paid much attention to AOL in a few years. Now, however, it looks like AOL has grown up. It’s opening up programming to non-subscribers, and embracing interactive media in exciting ways. The concept of marketing fully integrated into programming has never been closer to being realized. And well, it’s hard to argue with numbers like 112 million new uniques a month on the network

For example: you go to an AOL channel, like fashion. On that channel, they have programming that is determined in part by user feedback and preferences. They run user commentary. The page has spots for advertising on the top, on the screen playing the video program, within the video program… you can skin the whole thing… taking over the design of the page for a limited time while the program runs –putting your brand name in the face of the viewer… and they even have the ability to click on the image in the program and be led to sources to buy that product. Yes, this latter is limited right now, but has tremendous possibility.

Other opportunities include blog marketing and product reviews.

With so much programming, you have channels to reach several specific demographics. They focused on the following, but there are many more:

• Music (with unique concerts and unplugged shows as well as videos, mp3s and artist information – much like Yahoo Launch) – with more live music programming than any other site, they have the potential to draw a lot of repeat visitors
• Celebrities – entertainment news and gossip, the kind content that gets people talking
• Television – the closest thing to true TV on demand that exists. Choose which programs you want to watch, when, from Warner Bros. inventory – with interactive features like information about the actors and the episodes
• Gaming – reviews and clips of video games and platforms, a great place to reach young males with disposable income
• AOL news – where people spend a remarkable 28 minutes per visit on average. A good potential venue for more sophisticated advertising, perhaps – messages that are more complex than the usual eye-blink a user spends taking in a page
• Movies – not only the basic movie information look-up, but fun programs like “Unscripted” where celebs interview one another using a combination of viewer’s and their own questions
• Life Coaches – aimed largely at a slightly older and mostly female demographic, a group that is known to have powerful brand loyalty once you win them over
• Professional Blogs – not just the personal blogs they have on their main site, but some of the most well-respected and often visited blogs out there. Blog marketing is just beginning to develop – and there is a lot of potential for businesses to utilize this type of venue
• Fashion – some of the best usage of interactive marketing here. Those shoes the model is wearing? They cost $346 at Nordstrom.com
• Kids programming – get ‘em while they’re young! Advertise on websites with content parents trust and kids enjoy

While much of the type of advertising they offer is currently outside of our scope, I certainly see the possibility for Zunch to grow in this direction – especially as the difference between in-programming spots, skins, blog marketing, and search marketing continue to be blurred.

Yahoo has decided to cut the length of their creatives down to the same length as Google - 70 characters.

The strongest advantage of this, is that it will allow advertisers to run the same ad on both networks, giving them the opportunity to more directly compare results and to present a more consistent message.

The biggest disadvantage is that Google's ads are too short, particularly considering that Yahoo has editorial rules in place that will make it even more difficult to maximize that small amount of real estate.

Yahoo's longer ad length allowed the advertiser to more clearly qualify the click - presenting a better idea to the user of what lay beyond the click at the advertiser's site. I never thought that anyone read a full 190 character ad, but relevant bits would jump out to their eye. A 70 character ad scans more easily, and can be absorbed in less than an eye-blink - which is as long as you've got to get your point across anyway before a user moves their eye on to the next item on the page or navigates away.

But there's a huge difference between the two. 100, 110 characters would still allow for a little more messaging, while keeping the ads concise both verbally and visually.

Yahoo has also stated that they are not changing any of their editorial rules, which makes no sense with such a radical change. You must include the entire search term in an ad – shoot some of my search terms are that long. You can’t use ampersands, or abbreviations. We aren’t allowed any of the neat “tricks” that allow us to squeeze a little more information into our ads as we can on Google.

Yahoo also doesn’t allow advertisers to run multiple ads simultaneously, which puts them at a disadvantage. Advertisers will use Google to test creatives first, and apply what they learn from Google to Yahoo, secondarily.

So, this is going to be a little bumpy at first. Until editorial standards are changed to more closely reflect those at Google, it still won’t be a simple matter of using the same ads and being able to compare results from one engine to the other. Ads will still have to be re-written, sometimes dramatically. Still, I think that shorter is better in the online world.

(Not that you’d know it from my blog posts!)

Mobile phone users are finding yet another way to put their phones and other portable devices to use— by cruising the Internet with mobile devices. And while it can be expensive to surf the Web this way, millions of mobile device users are already doing so.  In fact, enough users are doing so that a new domain extension has been created: .mobi.

.mobi that has been established for sites created for websites targeting the mobile Web surfer community.

Search engine companies are focusing their sites on this community of users, offering mobile search options. In fact, Google mobile search is already a major player in this market.

So how do you make sure your site is search engine optimized for mobile devices?
 
Thankfully, the SEO practices are the same as with conventional website SEO, although you should keep in mind that with a mobile site you want your code lean in order to enhance downloading time. Moreover, content should be separated from format by using CSS through an external style sheet. This CSS file can be loaded into a mobile browser's cache once and can then be used repeatedly.

As with conventional websites, you should use quality content and have an effective design and navigation scheme to make your site a must-see, and an easy download, on the mobile web.

Not everyone is a good candidate for PPC. It can be hard to learn when to turn a potential client away.

Reasons to tell a potential client not to do PPC:

1. They don’t have a completed website.

You can’t develop a decent PPC campaign without a website. If you are building the website internally, then you may be able to work with the developers on it and actually tailor the site to make a smoother PPC campaign. However, if all you have to go on are the client’s descriptions of products, it’s difficult to assess the feasibility of PPC. The client’s descriptions may be overly optimistic. They may describe something as a “gourmet gift basket” when it’s just sausage and cheese.

2. The product is a commodity, or otherwise not well differentiated or branded.

If there’s nothing outstanding about the product – whether it’s better or cheaper – it’s damn hard to sell it through any advertising medium. But if you have Acme Little Guy selling Acme way-cool widgets – and they are up against Big Guy Widgets, who is one of the names everyone thinks of for widgets, and up against Discount Widgets who are cheaper, and Universe of Widgets that has more kinds of widgets than have any sense existing - well, the chances of diverting some of that traffic to Acme are slim. You have to have something unique. This is a problem many internet retailers have. They see that there are many companies doing well in a vertical and think that they can jump in the market, without finding their own niche.

3. The site has no focus.

Any business needs to have a clear focus. People want to know that they are at a hardware site, or a gourmet food site. They don’t like to go to a site looking for widgets and also see caviar. The widgets and the caviar might both be quite good, but it throws people off. They don’t have confidence in the product. Yes, some big names out there have a broad focus, but they almost all started small, with a narrow product line in a brick and mortar store and built a name for themselves.

4. It’s a poorly branded product where the competitors are well branded, or in a vertical where people are looking for a brand-name.

This is partly the issue of commodification – as in the case with Big Guy Widgets in #2, but also a case of brand loyalty. Women, especially, are brand-loyal, and will rarely jump to an unknown brand. Things that are tied to traditions, as well, such as holiday or religious items can also face this issue. You are unlikely to get people to try a new brand of summer sausage for Christmas, when most of them buy one from Hickory Farms for their dad every year. To change people’s buying habits requires a strong branding campaign. PPC can have a role in this, but it’s not going to be a big money-maker at the outset.

5. There are no good, specific keywords which designate the product.

That is, the product is hard to describe, or not quite what people usually mean when typing in the relevant keywords. A good example of this kind of thing is gift baskets. A gift basket contains so many different items, that to get specific with search terms can be quite difficult. People who are looking for “smoked gouda” are unlikely to want to purchase a gift basket in which gouda is one small component. Another example is new technology. A combo widget-thingamabob might be a fabulous idea, but if few people know they exist yet, then few people are searching for them. People searching for “widgets” and people searching for “thingamabobs” are going to be difficult to convince to buy a combination item.

What is a good candidate for PPC? A well-branded, discount product with a unique benefit… that comes with something free. People love free.

OK, so not many of those come through the door. I’ll go into more detail about good candidates next week.

The ideal client offers well-branded, discount product or service, in a wide selection, with a unique benefit… that comes with something free. For example: Nike, promoting their latest shoes with a new patented suspension system, in more colors than are available in stores, on sale – with free shipping.

No, not many of those come through the door – but each of those elements are what is needed to set a campaign apart.

1) Well-branded:
It doesn’t matter if you’ve heard of it, only if the target client has heard of it. If you don’t buy widgets, you have no reason to have heard of Acme Widgets… try doing a little research. Use the internet, and ask your uncle who buys widgets for his watchamacallits. They don’t have to be the biggest name out there, but if they are a name people know – that gives you the strongest possible advantage over other advertisers.
In a PPC campaign, unless the brand name is not known, or is similar to a common non-branded search term (for example: if the company’s name was “red tomatoes” and they sold make up,) then we can expect to see click-through rates of over 10% and conversions of over 5% consistently on branded search terms. One of our clients saw click through on their brand name averaging 40%, and conversions averaging 15% on that term. This is a simple matter of making sure that the client is there, at the top of the page, when people look for them.

2) Discount:
Comparison shopping is easy online. If you offer the same or similar product as anyone else, you better be sure you are selling it cheaper – or at least for the same price. This is especially important when the competitor mentions price in the ad. This is more important in women-oriented verticals, and verticals where the product is widely available. The client doesn’t have to offer the lowest price on everything, especially if some of the other factors mentioned here are going in their favor (especially brand and uniqueness,) but they should at least appear to be competitive.

3) Wide selection:
Again, comparison shopping is easy. So is finding exactly the color/style/size or the precise service someone is looking for. If your client doesn’t carry it, chances are, someone else does. A wide selection, or variety of services, allow you to not only advertise that selection in the copy – but to use more tail terms, and get broader coverage.

4) Unique benefit:
Are your client’s widgets the shiniest? Do they come in more colors? Do they widge more effectively than any other widget on the market? Are they highly rated by critics? Bestsellers?
In short, as an advertiser, you should always be looking for what it is about this product that sets it apart. Exclusivity is almost as much of a sales driver as brand or selection – so if your client carries something that can’t be gotten from anyone else, you can capitalize on that.

5) FREE!
People love free. Whether it’s a free pair of sunglasses when you order tanning lotion, or a free night’s stay when you book at least 2 months in advance… but the best offer of all is free shipping. Free shipping is the single biggest reason why a user will click on one listing rather than another. So if it’s at all feasible, try to talk your client into having a free shipping offer of some kind, and be sure to mention it in the copy.

• you have more sites come out of the sandbox than go in.
  
• you see the fruit of your labor from 2005
• you enter the black before Black Friday
• your ROI increases