Infoserve Group

Ofcom has reported that online advertising overtook advertising spend on mainstream TV in Britain last year, yet businesses do not seem aware of this dramatic growth.

Infoserve speaks with over 10,000 SMEs a week, but there’s a worrying lack of understanding about what can be achieved with online advertising, not only in terms of its effectiveness but also in terms of its value for money. But if we’re talking about return on investment, then online advertising is second to none and it offers more control and flexibility than ever before.

This report should go a long way in helping SMEs realise the potential of internet advertising - you can read a general summary here

Many SMEs will no doubt be feeling the squeeze of the credit crunch but now is perhaps one of the best times to plan your marketing budget to ensure guaranteed targeted leads and the best ROI (return on investment).

In the UK, internet advertising has grown faster than any other mainstream advertising medium, making it larger than press classifieds and paper directories.

Why? Well, with online ads;

- you can receive detailed feedback, including how many people have seen your ads and whether they have clicked through to your website

- you have the option to only pay when someone does actually click through to your website, meaning you only pay for direct leads

- you have tight control of your budget, ensuring you only spend what you can afford

- you can monitor the best results so that you can drill down on the best keywords that generate the most potential customers for you (which also helps when you’re considering sponsored links and how best to optimise your website)

There are so many different advertising opportunities – many of them very affordable for small business - so if you’re looking for ROI in the current economic climate, it’s definitely worth investing online.

I came across a very interesting interview with Udi Manber, the Google vice president in charge of search quality, about how search has developed over the years.

It’s easy to forget that even five years ago, it wasn’t obvious to most people to turn to a search box on the internet to find what they are looking for. Now, search is the most natural starting point for so many of us.

For Udi, it was all very obvious;

“It was very clear that to have an information revolution, it’s not enough to store the information and move it around, you have to find it.”

And what’s more,

“We are finding that user expectations grow. The kind of searches people do now are more complicated than the kinds they were doing five years ago. People expect a lot more from us.”

So, what are the predictions about the future?

For Udi, its universal search that is “more in-depth, easier, and allowing you to control more of what you’re looking for, giving you more input, finding more things”.

For us, we think local search will continue to develop and in our eyes, the shift to mobile devices will change and shape user experiences the most. The biggest challenge will be keeping up with these expectations.

You can read Udi’s interview here

A new report shows that online shopping has surged in the first six months of 2008, growing by 38% over the same period last year. This strikes me as a great opportunity for businesses to make sure they get a piece of the internet-shopping pie.

The figures may come as a surprise given the credit crunch and reports that high street spending has been falling, but whether it’s the online discounts or the offer of free delivery, online shoppers are obviously bucking the trend. The report even predicts that within five years up to 50% of all retail spending would take place online.

Whether it’s through online advertising, increasing your visibility on search engines or improving your SEO for your website, have you got a plan in place?

Tipped as a rival for both Google and Microsoft search, it will be very interesting to chart the development of Cuil (”Cool”)

Dave Naylor’s followers are watching it closely already.

Offering to deliver greater relevance in search engine results than Google and Microsoft Search, it’s a bold promise. Watch this space?

Yet again, the predicted power of mobile local search has been highlighted, this time by Frazier Miller, general manager of Yahoo!Local.

Not only has he predicted that by 2010, mobile phone are expected to outnumber PCs by three to one, he also believes mobile users will be demanding local information the most.

This means:

“We have a perfect storm brewing between user demand, advertising desire for targeting and mobile evolution that’s going to make this an incredibly rich arena for the next few years.”

You can read more about the growth of mobile local search here.

Just an interesting thought I wanted to share..

In August last year, Nielsen Netratings announced that 7.4 million Britons (23% of Britons online) visited at least one of the ten most popular national newspaper websites.

In the last month, there are some distinct difference of opinions over which is the most popular online newspaper, but one thing is for sure, now that the internet is a source of information for breaking news, newspapers now have no choice but to put everything they publish online.

This also creates an interesting future angle for online local newspapers;

With more and more people searching online for local information, and seeing as local papers are often seen as a resource for this (whether it’s community events, classifieds or what’s on at the cinema), do you think we are going to see local newspapers and Local Search engines merging?

We could even take it one step further; would this combination ultimately replace the traditional forms of print media and be a perfect one-stop-shop for us?

A good summary has been posted about Yahoo!Local, advising how it ranks businesses when consumers search for local services.

You can read the top tips here

(Or click here to find out more about Yahoo!Local in general)

After commenting on how people are searching – and highlighting that nearly one in nine search in a particular location – we’ve had requests to outline some of the best ways to exploit this.

For many search engine optimisation (SEO) campaigns or online advertising accounts, getting traffic through to your website is the number one priority. Actually targeting specific customers – such as those local to you - however, requires a more tailored approach and local search is one way to ensure you are reaching exactly the right people.

Local pay per click (PPC) campaigns, such as a Google Adwords, is one option. Here, you can target potential customers who are searching on your doorstep, e.g. “Restaurant in Leeds” because ads will only show on searches carried out within e.g. 10 miles of your business.

Another option is to be listed on Local Search engines. With paper directories and phonebooks becoming a thing of the past, more and more potential clients are turning to online directories, so perhaps look at sites like Yahoo! Local or industry specific websites, like www.eatsomewhere.co.uk, for ideas.

Alternatively, local SEO is proving to be a very a good long-term strategy for increasing your online presence. It’s just a question of thinking about how people may search for you and gearing your website towards this, e.g. “Restaurants in LS1”.  It’s definitely worth reading this article here from Hitwise about postcode searches, which also highlights the potential for SEO and how people are searching.

How do directories and search engines determine what information a consumer is searching for?

Without doubt, it’s one of the biggest dilemmas facing search engines today. A classic example is when someone types in “glasses” into Google - are they meaning opticians or crystal glassware specialists?

Very few people carry out one word searches anymore because they know they won’t be able to find what they are looking for. Typing in the exact term, e.g. “waterford crystal”, is one option assuming you know what you are looking for, but it’s clear that people are becoming wiser as they get more and more frustrated with irrelevant search results.

Changes in search patterns are showing that consumers are learning smarter ways of searching, moving to more specific four and five keyword searches. And as we have continually championed, more and more customers are using local search, looking for a business within a location. Marchex’s report sums it up:

“Consumers are increasingly relying on local search to make decisions about where to spend their money and time offline. In fact, 86 percent of Internet users search for local products and services, up from 70% in 2006, and more than 90 percent of the transactions resulting from these searches are completed offline.”

So, with nearly one in nine people searching in a particular location, can anyone tell me why businesses wouldn’t chose to tailor their marketing to local search? Surely this is becoming the most obvious strategies for businesses. All that remains to be seen how well the search engines keep up with demand and drill down on exactly customers are looking for.