When search queries are ambiguous, Google attempts to disambiguate and present the most relevant results based on the user’s previous search history and analysis of the concepts within the query. We know this is the case with the organic results. Earlier this month, Amit Singhal on the official Google blog described some of the philosophy behind the ranking of search queries. He writes about the advances in understanding what the user actually wants beyond the 2-3 words that they type at any given time.

I saw some evidence of disambiguation happening in adwords just recently.

The example was with the query “web contacts”. The first search and you get a mix of ads, some for contact lenses and some for online dating. If you then search for “contact lenses” and then search for “web contacts” again, the ads shown are only those relevant to contact lenses. If you then do a search for “singles online” and then search for “web contacts” again, the mix of ads appears again.

Interestingly, once I got the subset then it didn’t matter if I typed in lots of unrelated queries, opened a new browser, restarted the computer or made sure I was logged out of personalised search. Whenever I searched for web contacts I only got contact lens ads. The only way to get the full set again was to search for singles online and then search for web contacts.

It’s similar to intersecting queries except that in this case it’s narrowing the results set rather than widening it and it appears to be wider in application than two consecutive queries.

Does search engine marketing belong in marketing, IT or somewhere else?

It’s a marketing job right? That’s why the word marketing is in there.

So is it just the case that the medium is different? Online rather than print or television? Do the same general marketing skills apply and should the person responsible for creating and managing a paid search campaign have a marketing background?

I’ve been pondering these questions because I see many more people from an IT background rather than a marketing background in a SEM role. It’s also an often voiced concern within the industry that there is a divide between traditional marketing agencies and search marketing consultants or agencies.

My overall thoughts are that it’s necessary to understand the whole process in order to get results. I touched on that in this post about the real problem for adwords beginners. PPC marketing does however require a technical, analytical approach that suits typical IT skills. There are also restrictions which I can see make it unappealing for creative marketing types. Here are some of these aspects:

Search marketing is largely pull rather than push

Pay per click advertising is keyword driven and the searcher has already expressed an interest in the product, or at least the topic, by entering a search query. The searcher is goal driven and the advertising copy that works best is one that does three fairly simple things:

• conveys that they’ve found the right place (most effectively done by simply echoing the keywords in the ad headline)
• states the offer
• provides a call to action.

There isn’t a great deal of creative scope for a copywriter or marketer. Also the rules imposed by the search engines are very restrictive. You get a certain number of characters and some formatting rules to follow. Anything unusual isn’t allowed and even if it falls within the guidelines it’s likely that quality score will suffer.

Don’t get just one shot

It’s quick and easy to create an ad, start it running and then see what happens. It doesn’t involve any significant design process. The general technique is to try multiple things and keep tweaking to improve the results. It’s an iterative process rather than one shot at a best effort. Ready, Fire, Aim rather than Ready, Aim, Fire.

Huge amount of data to work with

One thing that really differentiates pay-per-click advertising from other advertising mediums is the sheer volume of data that it produces. You know what people searched for, what they clicked on, whether the click converted into a sale and how much it cost. It requires analytical and statistical skills to analyse this data and take action.

I think in the future search engine marketing will be a more integral part of marketing courses and roles but with some cross discipline elements to cover the technical and analytical aspects.

The format for Local Business Results in Google has changed. 10 businesses are now listed on page one in the local business results box. Prior to today, or at least until very recently, only 3 businesses were featured. You can see a screen shot from when I first noticed local business results in Google Australia. The screenshot below is what I’m seeing today. Google are obviously experimenting with local business results.

It might not seem like a big deal but a page one spot for a popular search query, in this case a search for accommodation, is valuable and now there are more slots available thus creating an opportunity.

On the other hand it’s putting even more choices on the first page which might not necessarily be a good thing for the searcher. More studies are being done into how people interact with the search pages including this excellent one by Gord Hotchkiss.

The numerous list posts you see on the most common mistakes made by adwords beginners don’t get to the root of the problem.

They focus on the use of adwords features like this:

1. Too many keywords in one ad group
2. Not opting out of content network
3. Only using broad match keywords
4. Not using negative keywords
5. Not split testing ads

Adwords beginners do generally make these mistakes but the lists miss the main point that beginners often have no clue what they are trying to achieve or how the whole process works. And by the whole process I don’t mean how to log into adwords and opt out of the content network, I mean the process that starts with someone searching for something.

A lot of beginners have no idea of the absolute basics of what they are trying to achieve. They don’t understand the fundamental building blocks of search queries, keywords and ads and the relationship between them. This lack of understanding makes discussion on things like keyword match types and split testing ads pretty redundant.

I know this to be true and I’ve seen numerous examples. A while ago I reviewed a campaign set up by the owner of an entertainment website. The business is an entertainment booking service with a wide range of categories from clowns to bands to motivational speakers.

The campaign had one ad group with about 20 keywords and one ad. I explained the need to create targeted ad groups. He made some changes and asked me to take another look at the campaign. He’d created an ad group called “bands” with the keywords “rock”, “country”, “blues”, “world music” etc.

I think Google are at fault for giving the impression that adwords is easy. As Andrew Goodman said in a SEM group I follow, “It sure ain’t “five minutes and a credit card” - as the seductive sales pitch suggests”.

Which adwords topics got the most attention in 2007? Here’s my top 5 list. What have I missed and what will be important in 2008?

1. Quality Score

This is always a favourite for discussion given that it has such an impact on campaign performance. It’s also complex and therefore susceptible to misinterpretation. Brad Geddes does a good job of explaining quality score.

2. New Adwords features - Top Ad Placement

The one that caused the biggest debate ahead of implementation would have to be the changes to the formula for top ad placement. Bloggers and forumites jumped on the idea that it would unfairly drive adwords costs up. Most commentators didn’t even bother to read the announcement properly or stop and think about it but jumped on the bandwagon once the consensus of opinion was reached. I’ve seen hardly any feedback since it was launched.

3. Most Maligned Adwords Feature - Expanded Broad Match

Expanded broad match would have to win the prize for the most hated feature. Here are a couple of “expanded match is EVIL” forum threads.

4. SEO versus PPC

The best posts on this were those describing how they work well together rather than one being better than the other but maybe I’m biased. Here’s a recent post from Dave Naylor with an example of organic and ppc working well together.

5. Pricing Models

How you charge for PPC services is always a favourite for debate. Alan Rimm-Kaufman shared his agency’s model and rates in a bid to open up the secrecy about pricing and structure.

Happy new year to all who read my blog.

I’ve been blogging for just over a year so it’s a good time to think about the achievements and the goals for the coming year.

Benefits

1. I’ve received a steady and growing number of website visitors that I wouldn’t have got without the blog. This is due to a number of reasons including the long tail of search, referrals from sites where my content is syndicated such as webpronews, and referrals from other blogs I comment on.
2. Blogging has enabled easier participation in social media including other blogs, forums and sites like sphinn.
3. I’ve formed valuable relationships and contacts both online and also offline at events like the bloggers conference.
4. I believe I’ve increased my knowledge substantially more than I would have done otherwise because of the need to keep up to date, research topics and articulate points of view.

The hard things

1. Finding the time and making blogging a priority when there‘s a list of other urgent tasks to complete.
2. Breaking through the psychological barriers during the times when you feel unmotivated to post, run out of ideas or feel you have nothing valuable to add to the conversation.
3. Keeping an eye on the goals and not getting sidetracked.

This year

I’m committed to blogging and to doing more in this area. After a couple of months of light posting I’m ready to re-assess the direction of my blog and start contributing again both here and in other places. On that note, a group of Australian bloggers, notably Meg, Andrew and Snoskred have formed an Australian Bloggers Community. It has a forum which has got off to a great start and a group blog which will launch on 21 January. I’m pleased to be part of the community as a forum moderator and a contributor to the group blog when it starts. Hope to see you there!

I’ve posted before that I’m a fan of the search marketing standard magazine. I’m a subscriber and each issue has had some excellent articles. I wondered whether print would work for search marketing especially as there are so many resources available online and it’s a fast changing industry. As it happens I’ve read each issue pretty much from cover to cover and thoroughly enjoyed flipping through the pages of a magazine targeted at my industry.

For the next two weeks there is a 67% discount for new subscribers plus there will be a $1 USD donation to the charity “toys for tots” for every subscription.

It’s a great deal with Australian subscribers paying $6.60 USD for a 1 year subscription (4 issues).

Here’s the link to subscribe (active until 10th December). The coupon is: HOLIDAY67

And just so you know, it’s not an affiliate link. I think it’s a good offer so i’m happy to pass on the information.

An SEO and PPC competition is running from January next year with the entrants judged over a one year period. I’m not entering (for a start the entry fee is $5000 per category) but I’m interested in the criteria and the sample questions for a bit of self evaluation.

In the PPC category, entrants are judged on customer satisfaction, depth of knowledge, reporting methods, internal principles and competitive advantages.

There are sample questions here.

This is worth a read, even on the weekend. It’s Lisa Barone’s live blogging of a webinar with Seth Godin.

To give a taste of what it includes, here are some notes I made but you really need to go and read the whole thing.

• Consumers are starting to expect a lot more direct communication with organisations. The Internet has created channels for this communication and organisations that don’t use these channels will lose customers.
• It’s no longer possible for a company to control their message. Blogging and other avenues have changed the landscape. Now a company better have an authentic story because they won’t be able to hide anything.
• Too few organisations are really embracing the long tail.
• Marketers are obsessed with “how many”. They need to shift their thinking and start focusing on “who” instead.
• The effectiveness of Internet advertsing (ppc) can be measured unlike buying TV ads. That frightens a lot of traditionalists in big companies.
• No-one is forced to read your blog! Blogs need to be a magnet not a microphone.

There is a great thread on cre8asite forums about creating user personas.

The discussion focuses on how to create a better website by thinking about the types of people who might visit the site. The technique is to invent a fictional person or persona for each type and then analyse how that person might interact with the site. The more real or fleshed out the persona, the better able you are to gain insights into what their experience might be on your site. You then use that information to improve the site and better cater for users’ needs.

That’s a quick summary and there are some good explanations and links to other resources in the thread.

Search marketers could benefit from applying this technique. Here are 10 thoughts.

1. People are at different stages in the buying cycle.
2. Each person will probably be doing multiple searches to find what they want. With each search they may learn something that has an influence on the next search.
3. People notice brand names familiar to them.
4. Some people are looking for aggregators first to make their task easier.
5. Often people get the comparison information they want from the aggregators and then seek more information from individual suppliers.
6. Some people ignore anything that they recognise as an ad.
7. Some people go straight to the ads particularly if they have previously found them more relevant to their needs than the organic results.
8. People trust authoritative sounding sites.
9. Some people will select video or images over text.
10. Some people are looking for free information and have no intention to buy.