It’s common for businesses to ask how SEO is going to help their paid search efforts. This is an often misunderstood relationship, and when working with Fortune 500 companies, you can’t simply say because I said so. So, I thought I’d tackle this with a three-fold approach:

1. Market Share

2. Improved Metrics

3. Revenue

Market Share

For small service-oriented or e-Commerce businesses, click-through-rate and conversions are paramount. However, for large companies, brand recognition is an equally important component of search marketing. Combining organic search with paid campaigns increases exposure for important branded and non-branded key phrases, ensuring that you are in front of your target audience at critical times. It’s pretty simple math – more listings means more chances someone will see one of your listings and associate your company with the search term. When presented with a viable opportunity to increase exposure and position your company as the industry leader, why wouldn’t you?

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Potentially on the horizon, there could be digital “outdoor” ads available on Google Maps, as Google was recently granted a patent for placing virtual billboard ads in their Google Maps Street View. Inevitably, the Google vans that drove around recording routes for their Street View tool also captured billboards along the way. However, these ads become outdated over time, as they exist within Google Maps (Which leads to, oh heavens, no, wasted ad space?!).

The patent details how advertisers can update the billboard ad within Google Maps with a new ad, or that even, alternatively, a bidding system could be put in place for advertisers to bid for the ad spot on unclaimed properties. The patent also extends beyond billboards, mentioning other features such as “signs, posters and banners,” which could potentially mean any type of promotional features that are visible within a street view.

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The New York Times reported Tuesday that Google has stated it would stop cooperating with Chinese Internet censorship and consider shutting down its operations in the country altogether, citing assaults from hackers on its computer systems and China’s attempts to “limit free speech on the Web.”

This stance taken by Google is a bold move. 

Google has been in China since around 2006.  China has always been a challenge to penetrate for Google.  Unlike the U.S. and U.K. and many other parts of the world, Google only reaches about 30% of the Chinese market; in China, Baidu is the dominant player. All indications were that business from Google was moving forward in China, all be it perhaps more slowly.

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Looking for new (and exciting) opportunities for your paid search campaign? Trying to go beyond the same ol’ boring text ads? If so, this post is for you.

Both Google and Yahoo are constantly enhancing their paid search offerings, and this time, they are turning to images, although in two completely different ways. Google’s feature is called Promote Your Image (PYI), and will be used to test run an image with a text ad in its Global image search section results. Yahoo will focus more on the main search engine results and will also offer videos, quick links, etc (Yahoo Image Search).

Sounds complicated? It’s actually pretty simple.

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December 7, 2009 Google launched real-time results and it changed the world of SEO as we all knew it. After reading the news and experiencing it for myself, I was left with a few questions. Does the change present more positive or negative implications to the art and science of SEO?  How do I, as an online marketer specializing in SEO, continue to tout to clients the value of SEO and importance of showing up in organic search?  In regards to whether the implications are positive or negative, as usual in the world of SEO, it’s a draw. Depending on who you talk to, the answer can go either way. On the other topic though, the vote was almost unanimous; we maintain our value by refocusing what we report as important, and draw inferences on visibility and rank.

So, what is important?  Traffic volume and conversions are now the two most important data points of interest.  We continue to build trust and value with our clients by proving to them, through data, how our efforts are impacting these metrics.  This puts visibility in the area of “inference.”  One can infer that if traffic and conversions are increasing in Google, then one has a pretty good ranking in the results.  Along with traffic volume and conversions, we should also focus on engagement (time spent on site), bounce rate and link popularity. This is a more streamlined approach to reporting which highlights activity that is relevant to the client.

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