Paul | Red Door Interactive

The Branding Value of Search

Posted by Paul Bruemmer
August 27, 2008 Leave a comment

As early as 2005, we've been writing articles saying that the SERPs provide branding as well as direct response. Here is some recent survey data from Google and Yahoo! illustrating this. Google commissioned a study through Media Screen to measure the impact of paid search ads on organic search terms for four consumer packaged goods (CPG) categories: cosmetic, beverage, food/snack, and household/laundry.Respondents were asked to complete a brand survey to measure the brand impact on aided awaren [...] Continue Reading

Google Changes Quality Score Algo for AdWords

Posted by Paul Bruemmer
August 26, 2008 Leave a comment

As announced last week on the AdWords blog, Google is making some changes in the way it calculates your AdWords quality score. This will happen over the next few weeks and is based on feedback from users and advertisers.· Removal of the minimum bid requirement. This will be replaced by "first page bid," which is the bid estimated to get your ad on page one. All listings will be eligible to appear, and positioning will be based on quality score and maximum bid amount.· Quality Score will now be [...] Continue Reading

Consumer Satisfaction Soars on Google

Posted by Paul Bruemmer
August 20, 2008 Leave a comment

As reported on AdAge, Google leads in search satisfaction. Satisfaction increased a whopping 10.3 percent in this year's American Consumer Satisfaction Index. It looks like Google's efforts to improve the user experience through universal search and personalization have paid off. Other factors like being named ubiquitously in the news doesn't hurt, either.Other search engines remained stable or declined slightly. AOL gained (3 percent), Yahoo! and Ask dropped (2.5% and 1.3%, respectively), and M [...] Continue Reading

New Business Week Site to Function As Social Media Wiki

Posted by Paul Bruemmer
August 19, 2008 Leave a comment

Business Week magazine will go public in late September with "Business Exchange," a Web site consisting of topic pages that resemble social networks. That means it will allow user-generated content and popularity rankings. Available from Business Week's Web site, the topic pages will feature links to articles and blog posts from many different sources including auto-generated aggregated content from competitors. Topic pages can be as narrow as "Toyota Camry" or as broad as "the auto market," thu [...] Continue Reading

Search Engine Activity

Posted by Paul Bruemmer
August 14, 2008 Leave a comment

Search is closing the gap with email as the most popular Internet activity. Pew Internet and American Life Project 2008 shows that the number of Internet users making search engine queries on a typical day has increased to 49 percent, inching closer to the 60 percent of users checking and sending email on a typical day. Full Report: PEW/Internet [...] Continue Reading

Worldwide Internet Ad Spend Grows at Phenomenal Rate

Posted by Paul Bruemmer
July 15, 2008 Leave a comment

IDC's Digital Marketplace Model and Forecast estimates total worldwide Internet advertising at $65.2 billion in 2008, climbing to $106.6 billion in 2011.However, compared to traditional advertising, Internet advertising still trails by substantial margins. For instance, it trails direct mail by over $30B, and spending on TV and print ads is nearly twice as much as online ad spending. The IDC report shows the following:Keyword ads will dominate Internet advertising through 2011, getting over one- [...] Continue Reading

Search Engine Indexable Flash Sites

Posted by Paul Bruemmer
July 1, 2008 Leave a comment

As reported on TechCrunch, Adobe now provides a way for search engines to read SWF files and index all information contained therein. Therefore, any text or link in a Flash application can now be indexed.Evidently Adobe is releasing technology to Google and Yahoo enabling them to crawl and index SWF files, making them searchable. This will give searchers access to millions of Flash files.As pointed out by TechCrunch, this will not take Flash sites to the top of the SERPs any time soon because in [...] Continue Reading

Google Infers User Intent Through Ads Viewed

Posted by Paul Bruemmer
June 30, 2008 Leave a comment

The New York Times reports that Google is using its own brand of behavioral targeting by serving ads to users based on the ads they previously viewed.That means if you view ads for certain items, Google would put 2 and 2 together to later serve you ads for related items. A search for canoes and vacations might elicit ads for trips to Vermont.Source: New Yo [...] Continue Reading

The Importance of Web Design in Search

Posted by Paul Bruemmer
June 29, 2008 Leave a comment

Have you seen the new "visual" search engines, Viewzi and SearchMe? They both give you a preview of the websites in their search results. You can see a thumbnail of the page before you click.With Viewzi, you type in your query and then pick among many different formats: video x3 view, 3D photo cloud view, basic photo view, simple text, web screenshot, etc. Then you see the thumbnail in that [...] Continue Reading

Google and Yahoo Dominate Mobile Search

Posted by Paul Bruemmer
June 19, 2008 Leave a comment

Nielsen Mobile reports that Google and Yahoo lead Microsoft in mobile search. Google and Yahoo together account for 79% of the mobile Internet search market, which breaks down:· Google 61%· Yahoo 18%· MSN 5%Nielsen reports mobile search usage frequency as follows per person:· Google 9 searches per month· Yahoo 6.7 searches per monthThe top 3 mobile search categories for Q1 2008 were reported as Information, Local Listings and Websites/Navigation.Source: Continue Reading

Google + Yahoo = no MSN

Posted by Paul Bruemmer
June 13, 2008 Leave a comment

Google and Yahoo signed an agreement yesterday that will potentially give Yahoo $800 million in extra annual revenue and $250-$450 million in additional operating cash flow; pending anti-trust reviewThe deal could go on for 10 years with an initial 4-year period and option to renew for two 3-year periods at Yahoo's discretion. If the deal is canceled before the initial 4-year period, there is a $250 million penalty. That makes it hard for any deal with Microsoft because obviously, Microsoft woul [...] Continue Reading

Online Advertising Is Strong and Search Dominates

Posted by Paul Bruemmer
May 24, 2008 Leave a comment

The Interactive Advertising Bureau and PricewaterhouseCoopers report online ad revenues totaled $21.2 billion in 2007, a 26 percent increase over 2006. The "2007 Internet Advertising Revenue Report" states 2007 Q4 Internet advertising revenues were $5.9 billion, 24 percent higher than Q4 in 2006. eMarketer charts US online advertising revenues from 1997 to 2007, showing $0.91B in online ad revenues in 1997 versus $21.21B in 2007. Search Leads the WayThe report shows search revenues at $8,805 mil [...] Continue Reading

Google Resurecting Newspapers

Posted by Paul Bruemmer
April 24, 2008 Leave a comment

Newspaper advertising drives online traffic and consumer purchasing.The Google Print Ads program began in November 2006 with a test that included 50 newspapers and a small group of advertisers. Since then, the program has grown to include more than 750 newspapers representing 48 of the top 50 DMAs and covering 70 percent of U.S. paid circulation.Of those who said they researched at least one product they saw in the newspaper, 67 percent said they conducted research online, compared with 48 perce [...] Continue Reading

Universal Search is kickin-in

Posted by Paul Bruemmer
April 9, 2008 Leave a comment

Out of 1.2 billion queries surveyed, 220 million (17 percent) contained a Universal search results. 87 million people searched during the measured period, and 58 percent saw a natural search placement. Within the Universal results, individual placements broke out this way: Video 38% News 34% Images 19% Multiple placements 15% Maps/Stocks/Weather 10% Source: Search Insider Rob Garner [...] Continue Reading

Online Sales to Climb Despite Struggling Economy

Posted by Paul Bruemmer
April 8, 2008 Leave a comment

Retailers report that search engine marketing continues to be the most effective way to reach new customers. Online retail will continue to be a bright spot with retail sales rising 17 percent this year to $204 billion. Apparel ($26.6 billionComputers ($23.9 billion)Autos ($19.3 billion) Source: BusinessWire [...] Continue Reading

Universal Search Reporting Traction

Posted by Paul Bruemmer
April 7, 2008 Leave a comment

The upward trend in reporting activity with regards to changes in Universal Search are increasing testimony to an ongoing and expected change in SERP landscape. This includes all forms of Google's vertical blend; video, news, blogs, images, products etc..Search Engine Roundtable reports "if you notice halfway down the page, you're seeing a whole brand new set of results that are pulled from a file built in C programming language." Continue Reading

A More Open Wireless World

Posted by Paul Bruemmer
April 7, 2008 Leave a comment

Spectrum bid: Cone of silence is lifted and Google admits "top priority heading into the auction was to make sure that bidding on the so-called "C Block" reached the $4.6 billion reserve price that would trigger the important "open applications" and "open handsets" license conditions. In other-words, their bid was a bluff to "helped ensure that the C Block met the reserve price."This helped increase the revenues raised for the U.S. Treasury, while making sure that the openness conditions would b [...] Continue Reading

GM Stands Up To Be Counted In Digital Shelf Space

Posted by Paul Bruemmer
March 31, 2008 Leave a comment

GM puts $1.5 billion into the online digital shelf space...planning to to use gaming, search, mobile and a broad array of interactive applications.GM’s Brent Dewar, vp-field sales, “to shift their focus to digital vs. spot TV”Source: MediaBuyerPlanner.com [...] Continue Reading

Online Ads Plug Away Like the Energizer Bunny

Posted by Paul Bruemmer
March 31, 2008 Leave a comment

While many sectors of the US economy are going down, online advertising keeps going up and will be 10% of the advertising pie by 2009.eMarketer predictions for US online advertising say it will account for 8.8% of total advertising in 2008, 10% in 2009, and over 15% of the US total ad spend in 2012. David Hallerman, author of US Online Advertising: Resilient in a Rough Economy says, “US online advertising is proving to b [...] Continue Reading

YouTube Analytics Released

Posted by Paul Bruemmer
March 27, 2008 Leave a comment

With a YouTube account you can now get more information about who's watching your video? Where do viewers come from? How did they find my video?Source: YouTube [...] Continue Reading