Search Engine Marketing

Consumers are increasingly looking to video to fulfill their information needs and Google is taking notice by allocating more of its search engine territory to video content and less to traditional web results. Although Google's integration of video has created more competition for plain-text results, it has opened the door for video assets to acquire coveted search engine rankings.

To beat web "spam," Google continues to change the rules and algorithms on how consumers find websites and products through its search engine. With the latest algorithm debuting on April 24, "Google Penguin," many online retailers are scratching their heads as they find their website traffic has slowed or come to a complete stop. Unfortunately, their poor page ranking in Google is the result of being penalized for search engine optimization practices in use for over the past 10 years.

Retailers, more than most marketers, have a wealth of data and information at their fingertips. Retailers also have more product, geographical, and inventory diversity than marketers in other industries.  Thus, being able to leverage all data is crucial.  By leveraging your data across all aspects of paid search optimization you can do some amazing things. 

From June to September, there will be an estimated 1.2 million weddings in the U.S. And if you’re like me, you have two or three wedding invitations stuck to your fridge, serving as reminders of the plans I need to make, dress I need to buy and, of course, gifts I need to buy.

An unusually mild winter this year (along with with a recovering economy) resulted in an earlier jump in search queries for garden, patio and outdoor equipment. By mid-March, query volume on Google for the outdoor and patio category had already reached May 2011 levels. Many advertisers benefited from this earlier spike in interest though more sales earlier in the year. Those who succeeded most were the ones with competitive search bids and daily budgets that were already set up to capture demand when it occurred, regardless of the time of year.

With spring springing and my daydreams increasingly occupied by thoughts of outdoor fun and games, I recently completed an analysis of pay-per-click activity in the sporting goods shopping category (U.S. only). I reviewed the top 100 category keywords (in terms of estimated volume of AdWords queries in the fourth quarter of last year) and designated each of those keywords as retail brand, product brand or nonbranded. Here's a look at the results:

We live in a Google-dominated world; more accurately, we use a Google-dominated internet. The search engine (and purveyor of social media, cloud services and other daily necessities) accounts for over 80 percent of the online query market, making it safe to assume that it set the standard for internet search functions. When choosing to shop online, modern consumers expect no less from the search boxes of the virtual stores they're browsing than they do from King Google.

With over 20 percent of Google searches now containing a location element, rising to over 40 percent of mobile searches, retailers are becoming increasingly focused on using online mapping to their advantage. Google has launched a new site (www.whenisamap.com/retail) aimed at showing the ways in which mapping can be put to work for retailers, and have found it interesting to see the varying ways retailers have chosen to use Google Maps for Business. The site has examples of great implementation, ranging from classic store locators to promoting in-store events to indoor mapping.

Etsy is letting users opt in to a test of its search results page designed to help shoppers browse listings. Etsy wrote in a press release, "Browsing on Etsy can feel like a conversation. You enter a search, then you refine, navigate and click around in order to find the perfect item. Oftentimes you might see one or two items that stand out from the rest, but want to find more before making a purchase."

State of the Social Universe: What Marketers Should Keep in Mind, from 4 Experts Who Can Help You Reach for the Stars

They shared their insights on where things are now, what trends are emerging, what marketers need to emphasize, and how they can make the most of it all. Sections include:

1) Drive the Mobile Vehicle Smartly, and Honor Your Email Opt-In Relationships
- Sara Meaney President, Strategy & Growth, Hanson Dodge Creative

2) It's About Location, Location, Location: Know Where Your Customer Is
- Asif Khan Founder and president of the Location Based Marketing Association

3) On the Rise: Social Intelligence
- Doug Camplejohn CEO of Fliptop

4) Start - and End - with Your Content
- Ann Handley Chief content officer for MarketingProfs