Archive for February, 2008

Search Is Opening Up

Yahoo! Search gives Web site owners ways to make their search results more relevant

You’ve been hearing a lot of talk from us lately about openness—open ad exchanges and open development platforms—but now Yahoo! Search itself is open. As an advertiser, this gives you a way to add much more relevant information about your site to our search results—and have more control over the way that information is displayed.

“Because the platform is open it gives all Web site owners—big or small—an opportunity to present more useful information on the Yahoo! Search page, as compared to what is presented on other search engines,” says Vish Makhijani, SVP & GM, Yahoo! Search in a blog post this week. Instead of just a title, abstract and URL, you can add into your search results the data currently buried in your websites—things like ratings, reviews and images.

You should read the whole post on the Yahoo! Search Blog, but to whet your appetite, here are before-and-after examples of the difference when a social media site like Yelp starts adding some of its content to search results:

Before:

After:

You’ll be hearing more about this change in the next few months. Time to start thinking about how openness could help you.

—The Team

Search Marketing Expo – SMX West

Hear from Yahoo! experts in Santa Clara, CA this week

Whether you’re a seasoned search marketing pro or a new advertiser taking your first search marketing steps, Search Marketing Expo - SMX West promises to deliver great value for those attending the conference this week, February 26-28 at the Santa Clara Convention Center.

SMX West has designed some stellar sessions to help firm up your search marketing goals. For the newbies, there’s an SMX Boot Camp covering the fundamentals of search engine marketing and design. And for the more advanced, the expo will feature more than 20 sessions to match your skill level.

We’ll be there participating in many of the sessions, with Yahoo! Search Marketing panelists offering their insights on best practices, tip and strategies to help give you that extra edge in your search marketing endeavors.

Here’s a sample of some of the sessions at SMX West.

Tuesday, February 26
10:30 – 11:45 a.m.
Decrypting Quality Scores
Yahoo! panelist: David Pann, VP, Sponsored Search Product Management

Wednesday, February 27
4:45 – 6:00 p.m.
Paid Search Roundtable
Featured Yahoo! Panelist: Dmitri Krakovsky, VP, Global Product Management

Thursday, February 28
9:00 – 10:00 a.m.
Keynote: Generation Next: Search in the Coming Decade
Yahoo! panelist: Larry Heck, Search and Advertising Sciences

There are many more exciting sessions, so for more information on the schedule, check out the conference agenda.

For more information check out the Yahoo! Search Blog, too.

Not able to attend SMX West this year? No worries…we’ll report back with some conference coverage, so stay tuned for best practices and other strategic gleanings.

— Roger Park, Manager, Marketing Communications

Reserve Prices

Minimum bids no longer fixed at $.10 for Sponsored Search

If you go to any auction, whether it’s Sotheby’s, eBay or your rural county’s hog auction, there’s usually a reserve price (or minimum bid) set according to what is believed to be the minimum value of the product. It’s their way of making sure that no one walks away with a cheap Van Gogh just because people aren’t lifting those paddles fast enough.

Following the auction model, we are changing the way we set the minimum bids required to participate in a Sponsored Search keyword market. In the next several weeks, we will start calculating a variable minimum bid for some of the keywords you’re bidding on. That means that sometimes the minimum bid may be lower than 10¢. Sometimes it may be higher. Content Match minimum bids currently will remain at 10¢.

What your minimum bid means

An auction house has guidelines it keeps in mind when it sets a minimum bid, or the reserve price—how rare a painting is, how famous the guy who painted it is, things like that. We have guidelines that help us set minimum bids, too. Minimum bids can be based on multiple factors, including the quality of the keyword and its value—or how much we think that keyword is worth to its bidders. Here’s how we do it:

Quality—If you haven’t noticed before, we like quality. High quality generally means that your ads are being clicked more often, relative to your competitors. And that usually means that searchers are finding what they want more readily. So we try to reward quality—first with higher rankings and lower costs, and now, potentially, with lower minimum bids.

Value—While figuring out the value of a keyword can be complicated, we may look at a number of things to determine what it’s worth: for example, how many advertisers are bidding on your keyword, and what they’re willing to pay for it. (Note: we do not use conversion data to determine minimum bids.)

A keyword term becomes “active”—switched “on” in the system and eligible for display—when your bid is equal to or greater than your minimum bid. Keywords become inactive when your bid falls below your minimum. You will be notified in an alert on your Account Dashboard if your bid is about to drop below your minimum, and you’ll have a grace period of up to a few days to raise your bid to keep your keyword active.

What you can do to prepare

A lot of the best practices that are always important in search marketing are especially important when you’re managing your minimum bids. Here are some of the best ways to manage your account:

Get to know your keywords and their value. Since variable minimum bids may be set for each of your keywords, it is important to know which ones work best for your business.

Improve your ad quality. Better ad quality can potentially translate into lower minimum bids.  Plus, it also affects the price you pay per click and your ads’ position in search results.

Learn about updates to the account interface. To help make your bids easier to manage, we are offering some enhancements to your account interface. These include a new search and management tool that allows you to find keywords that are below the minimum bid—bids too low for your keyword to become active—within a selected ad group or campaign.

For more about this change, read our FAQs.

—The Team

More is Better

Excluded keyword limits have increased from 50 to 250 to help relevance

Although the word “excluded” may sound negative, especially if you were someone who was left out of the prom, the Excluded Words feature is definitely a positive when you need help blocking unwanted searches you believe may not be relevant. (And yep, excluded keywords are also called negative keywords—but they’re still positive.)

If you’re using the Advanced match type, you should definitely use Excluded Words to help you refine your matches.

Sometimes, rejecting words that may not be relevant to what you are selling is a good strategy.  Whether rejecting words is supposed to feel good or not is between you and your therapist. In the past, the maximum for the Excluded Words list was 50. Well, we recently increased the maximum to 250 words at both the account and the ad group level to give you more control.

Why use Excluded Words?
• Excluded Words may provide you with more control over Advanced Match traffic.
• This feature helps block unwanted and irrelevant searches.
• You may block searches not related to what you are selling, helping you to receive more targeted leads.

Identify the keywords that do not apply to your business but may be commonly used by potential customers. If you are a travel company selling cruises exclusively to Acapulco, if you use the Advanced match type for the keyword “cruise,” you may want to exclude keywords like “Caribbean” and “Alaska.” 

Finding Excluded Words in Your Account
Excluded words can be set at the account level in the Administration tab of your account. You can also activate or change excluded words (up to 250) at the ad group level in the Ad Group Settings page. Here’s how:

• Go to your Ad Group Settings page.
• Click on “Tactic Settings.”
• On the “Tactic Settings” page the “Excluded Words” feature is displayed.
• Click on “Excluded Words” to open the entry field.
• Add your excluded words but do not to use any commas or semicolons after each word.
• Click “Save Changes,” to process the Excluded Words list.

Now you’re ready for more potential relevancy.

Whether you’re selling only new electronic consumer goods and want to exclude keywords like “used,” or you give music lessons only to children and want to exclude words like “adult,” we recommend that you consider adding excluded words to help guide the right kind of searchers to your ads.  

For more information on Excluded Words, visit the Help center.

—Roger Park, Manager, Marketing Communications

Velvet Rope photo, copyright Jolene Oldham/OldhaMedia

Start Spreading the News

SES hits NYC in March; take advantage of a special 20% Yahoo! discount to attend 

They say you never forget your first time. Granted, that phrase isn’t usually referring to “when I visited New York City,” but for this lifelong Left Coaster, it remains etched in my mind. Eleven years old and on a summer trip with the folks, I can still remember the cab ride from JFK to Manhattan, staring wide-eyed as the collection of skyscrapers grew larger and larger. Many natives may take New York’s hugeness and hubris in stride, but even as an adult, it’s still pretty thrilling to visit The City That Never Sleeps.

You can reconnect with The Big Apple yourself, while at the same time growing your search marketing acumen, by attending the upcoming Search Engine Strategies conference, March 17-20 at the Hilton New York. In the past, SES has yielded a wealth of data and tactics for everyone from Fortune 500 marketing pros to online sole proprietors who want to take the next step in their advertising efforts.

The SES Expo—consisting of booths with the requisite tchotchkes and eager company representatives—is free to attend, provided you sign up in advance. Of course, Yahoo! will be there, so be sure to come by and say hello. The Conference section of SES includes keynotes speeches, valuable panel discussions and other breakout sessions. As a reader of the Yahoo! Search Marketing Blog, you can get a 20% discount off of your Conference registration fee, using the discount code 20YAHOO at the official SES site.

Springtime in New York City: The Central Park flowers will be starting to bloom, and—by picking the collective brains of search marketing’s superstars–so can your paid search campaigns.

— Jeff Hecox, still aspiring to King of the Hill and Top of the Heap

 Photo courtesy jbparker via Flickr

Top Search Agency Shining Bright

Yahoo! congratulates Outrider on winning the 3rd Annual Searchlight Award

If you ask us, the biggest election story last Tuesday was not the Obama and McCain landslides in the Potomoc primaries, but rather, the election of this year’s winner for search marketing excellence. Outrider, the search unit of Group M, was awarded the Searchlight Award for 2008 on a snowy, blustery day at the Time Life Building in New York City. An audience of more than 200 interactive marketers braved the elements to watch four agencies duke it out for top honors.

Expert Perspective
The day began with a stirring keynote by Rob Norman, CEO of Group M Interaction. Rob shared with the audience his thoughts on the intersection of performance marketing and brand advertising, and how Yahoo! is in an ideal position to capitalize on this convergence. It’s always a treat to hear Rob speak, and this keynote was no exception. After Rob finished his remarks, it was on to the finalists.

First to the stage were Renee Robertson and Jessica Mainelli from Carat, who explained how search marketing was used to build awareness and brand intent for Reebok’s “Run Easy” campaign. Panelist Greg Sterling, a local search expert, was impressed with the use of geo-targeting in this campaign, as it tied in nicely with the unique messaging in Carat’s out-of-home buys.

Outrider then walked the audience through its work to promote Smirnoff’s recent additions to the growing “malternative” beverage category. Not wanting to leave anything to chance, chief Outrider Chris Copeland flew in to help sell the audience on its candidacy for the Searchlight Award. One of the most impressive screen shots of the presentation was a search results page on which Outrider had secured multiple search listings for Smirnoff by using both organic and paid search tactics.

Lance Neuhauser and Neal Wilson of Resolution Media presented a case study of work they had done for FedEx around their 2007 Super Bowl buy. While many digital marketers will generally dismiss the efficacy of a Super Bowl buy, the folks from Resolution made a strong case for building on The Big Game for a strong multi-channel effort with an incredible halo effect. They supported their case with compelling data, including an impressive chart taken from the Yahoo! Buzz Index that highlighted the surge in search activity for FedEx immediately following Super Bowl Sunday.

The last agency to showcase its work was Digitas. The firm’s Chris Paul and Matt D’Ercole walked us through an inspirational campaign called “The Members Project,” which called upon American Express members to ideate and vote for projects that would better the world, and American Express would then fund. Digitas discussed how to leverage a parent brand for a philanthropic enterprise, and how to connect social media, video and celebrity endorsements to a search campaign. Chris and Matt showed the great work that can happen when creative and media are tightly aligned.

The audience was then asked to vote, and Outrider was announced as the 2008 Searchlight Award winner. The event was capped off by a comedy performance by Jeff Caldwell and a cocktail reception.

From all of us at Yahoo!, we warmly congratulate not only Outrider, but each of the other finalists. All of us left winners, as we got to hear from these great marketers and expand the way we think about leveraging search marketing in our campaigns.

It’s an event that I look forward to each year, and hope that you can join us in 2009.

— Ron Belanger, Vice President, Agency Development.

Convert Your Clicks

Ten landing page tips to turn visitors into customers

There’s something about a ten-item list that makes us want to get all Hestonian on you and break out the archaic pronouns, especially when it comes to something like getting people who visit your site to actually buy from you. After all, you work hard to get clicks. What could be more important than turning those clicks into customers?

But we’re kind of a live-and-let-live bunch here, and we’re not so big on telling people what they have to do. So consider these a set of suggestions about how to help optimize your landing pages. That way, when people get to your site, they’ll be more likely to make a purchase.

1. Tell them why they should buy from you
According to Marketing Experiments Journal, “Clarity of your value proposition is the most important factor in determining whether a customer buys from you or not.” To evaluate your value proposition, ask yourself the question: “Why should I buy from this site?”

2. Keep ‘em with you
There’s no way you’re going to get a potential customer to the intended destination—the “sale completion” page—if the path to get there is overgrown with weeds or rife with dead ends. This is what Marketing Experiments Journal calls “site flow disruption”; the way to combat it is to express your value proposition throughout the shopping process in a consistent and compelling way.

3. Don’t try to say too much
Don’t clutter your landing page with unnecessary details. Instead:
• Clearly state your key message using as few words as possible
• Use summary descriptions, sub-headings, bulleted lists and short paragraphs
• Adopt a standard one-column format for easy reading.

4. Make it simple
Improve the user experience with a site that is easy to navigate. A simple page layout that employs a clean visual and straightforward design is best. Here’s how:
• Design your site with a clear hierarchy with color and contrast for easily legible text
• Use meaningful and high-quality graphics (don’t clutter with too many)
• Use breadcrumbs to let visitors know where they are on your site
• Employ a clickable logo that takes the visitor to your homepage
• Use color to distinguish between visited and unvisited links.

Just as important, make sure you don’t:
• Employ horizontal scrolling
• Direct links to new browser windows
• Have flash-based content unless required.

5. Call them to action
Focus on one primary action per screen (don’t stuff too many products onto one screen). Make the call-to-action button clearly visible without having to scroll; don’t bury it under pages of information. Consider using tabs or a pop-up box to consolidate information.

6. Get specific
Provide product details and a large product image while displaying incentives—such as free shipping and warranty information—high on the page and close to the product. Don’t discourage visitors by requiring registration to your site.

7. Flaunt what you’ve got
What differentiates you from your competitors? Free shipping (both ways?), discounts, a 365-day warranty, price protection, privacy, customer service, etc.? If you’ve got it, flaunt it!

8. Search yourself
Make your site easy to navigate by helping potential customers find what they are looking for as quickly and easily as possible. A search feature box should be simple and visible with a type-in field, not a link. To help increase conversions, make sure your search results link to product pages.

9. Rally the believers
Credibility is a true testament: people don’t buy from websites, people buy from people. Thus, testimonials from devout customers—or even a letter from the CEO/Editor—persuades the unbelieving.

10. Let them make the choice
“Why should I buy this specific product?” Almost every e-tailer forgets about this, but it’s the question that’s key to Mr. or Ms. Customer’s mind. Prove to him or her why they should buy this over the competitive product by offering reviews, ratings and comparisons.

– Amy Borowicz

Three Questions to Ask About Your Clicks

What to do when you get an unexpected traffic surge

There you are, reviewing your account from last week, when you notice a jump in your clicks. Before you call us to find out what’s going on with your account, keep in mind that unexpected traffic is not necessarily a cause for alarm. Consider the following three questions:

First: Have you changed anything in your account recently? 

A broad question, to be sure, but try to recall: Have you added keywords or changed your bids? Either of these actions can affect your traffic.

Second: Are you noticing abnormal click activity, or just traffic that’s not converting? 

Examine your account and your web logs. Are your ads appearing on sites that are not meeting your business needs? If so, we offer tools to help you control your traffic. Find out more about Blocked Domains, Geo-targeting and Continent Blocking in your Search Marketing Help Section, and get to know your traffic by visiting the Traffic Quality Center.

Third: Have you set a daily spending limit?

Your traffic may fluctuate from day to day. But by setting a Daily Spending Limit, you help control the amount you spend. For example, if you average $250 in clicks per day and set your Daily Spending Limit at $350, you can capitalize on the extra clicks that result from a spike, without breaking the bank.

Submitting a Click Review Request

If you feel you have explored everything above and still have questions, or would like us to investigate your traffic further, our Traffic Quality Center provides simple instructions for submitting a Click Review Request.

After you submit the request, we will perform a series of diagnostic tests and analyses to attempt to identify potential issues that may have affected your traffic. We take all inquiries seriously, and though the length of investigations may vary, we work to achieve a resolution within 10 business days of your request.

Remember, keep an eye on your account, monitor your traffic regularly, and if you do spot something suspicious, let us know—we’re happy to help.

— Kastle Waserman, Communications Manager, Customer Solutions

Protect Your Account From Phishing

They say it’s the login page to your account? Make them prove it

At some point, there’s a chance you may receive an e-mail that looks like it came from Yahoo!, taking you to something that looks like a Yahoo! Search Marketing login page, but something’s…not quite right. It could be a “phishing” attack from someone who is trying to duplicate a Yahoo! page in order to get your user name and password to hijack your account.

To help combat these phishing scams, we have installed what’s called a “sign-in seal” on our log-in page. Already in use by many financial institutions, a sign-in seal is a cookie-based secret message or image that is displayed on your computer(s) only. (That is, the machine(s) you use to log in to your account.) If you use more than one computer, you’ll need to set up your seal for each. You can create your own custom text message to use as a seal, or upload your own image.

If you do not see your custom seal—and you haven’t cleared your cookies on your browser—when signing into your account, the site you’re on may be a “spoof” site designed to hoodwink you into giving up your valuable personal information. We encourage you to create a customized sign-in seal for your Yahoo! Search Marketing account today, then look for it every time you log in. You can set up your seal from your Yahoo! Search marketing log-in page (the real one).

—The Team

Introducing All-You-Can-Eat Web Hosting

Beginning today, Yahoo! Web Hosting has gone “unlimited”

Editor’s Note: If you have a web site or want to build one—and since you’re doing search marketing, we’re guessing that’s probably the case—Yahoo! has good news for you. Starting today, our colleagues in Yahoo! Small Business are offering unlimited disk space, unlimited bandwidth and unlimited e-mail storage to their web hosting customers.

Yahoo! Small Business customers have told us loud and clear that they want getting online to be as easy and painless as possible. Instead of worrying about things like, “How many visitors can my site handle?” and “How many pages can I build?,” small business owners want to focus on growing their businesses and driving traffic to their sites, feeling comfortable knowing their hosting package will grow with their business.

The new Yahoo! Web Hosting offers unlimited disk space, unlimited data transfer, unlimited email storage and 1,000 email accounts—all for $11.95 a month. For the very large majority of small business owners who want a professional-looking site in hours, the decision to choose Yahoo! has suddenly become much easier.

Don’t know the first thing about web design? No sweat. Every Yahoo! Small Business service includes award-winning, easy-to-use web site design tools that can help business owners with little or no technical experience to quickly and easily build great-looking sites. You’ll also get a free domain name and 24/7 customer support, plus your satisfaction is guaranteed for 30 days. And if that wasn’t enough, Yahoo! Small Business automatically optimizes your web site and submits it to top search engines (I can think of a pretty good one) to help customers find your business.

Existing web hosting customers have already received an email invitation with the option to migrate to this new plan. If you’re not an existing customer and you want to get your business online, please visit Yahoo!’s Web Hosting site for more information.

Now go spread out. There’s plenty of room!

— Guy Yalif, Director, Web Hosting Products, Yahoo! Small Business

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