Infoserve Group

So it’s not just us who believe in the search industry, we promise.

One of the latest articles by New Media Age, suggests that “the search sector remains the most healthy of all online disciplines.”

In a relatively rare UK-stats based piece (we come across US stats all the time which support our work, but we understand SMEs may be sceptical of any trends developing across the water as necessarily reflecting what is happening here), it states that

“Google’s prices are concerning many, with 69% saying keyword costs have increased over the year…Nevertheless, 39% said ROI from Google has improved, showing that if you invest wisely, then the returns are worthwhile.”

I don’t think anyone can escape the fact that you have to spend money to make money, just make sure you’re doing it in a way that can be measured and is effective, and online advertising is undoubtedly the best format for drilling down on these kind of results. And we think you’ll be surprised anyway – compared to traditional routes of advertising and marketing – online is very, very competitive.

The latest internet advertising results are out, which provide really clear evidence of the direction of online marketing.

(They are particularly relevant given they are UK based stats rather than a lot of US information which is circulated, and secondly, they are the results for 2009 so are bang up to date)

The stats are from the Internet Advertising Bureau, in partnership with PricewaterhouseCoopers, and shows a growth in online spend despite the difficult economic conditions.

Key figures are:

• Spending on internet advertising grew by 4.2% year-on-year on a like-for-like basis.
• Paid-for search listings (the adverts that appear next to search engine results) were up 9.5%, display adverts down 4.4% and classified adverts down 5.3%
• The number of people online grew to 39.7 in Feb 2010, representing an increase of over four million active internet users in just 12 months

So what does all this mean?

In a nutshell, more and more people are spending time online and businesses are gearing their advertising towards appearing next to search engine results.

Ah, but aren’t paid-for search listings expensive I hear you cry?

It’s one of the biggest myths in online marketing. Tailored, relevant paid-for search adverts can in fact be a very cost effective way of securing more business. You can find out exactly what gives you the best ROI and you can analyse which keywords are attracting the most number of click throughs to your website. Win win.

Don’t forget though, there are many other cost effective strategies for appearing on the top pages of search engine results, such as search engine optimisation (SEO) to help improve your website’s natural rankings, or getting a listing on a business directory that features on the first page. You can find out more on all these approaches here

Well there are numerous predictions for 2010 floating around, from continued trends in online advertising through to how significant local search will be this year.

We’ve just pulled together a few salient arguments which will hopefully get your brain cells thinking about the future direction of online marketing

“Local search providers will vie for social”

There are many blogs like this one that believes this will be the ultimate test in 2010; major players competing for ad spending on the top social media sites.

You can see the appeal - online social communities are a relatively untapped source and in theory can provide a perfect platform for local businesses to sell their goods and services. If you’ve already built good online relationships with these communities, surely it will be easier than ever to promote yourself?

On the other hand, have a look at this post here, which predicts that social network advertising will rise and then fall flat. Perhaps you can develop good brand recognition but at the end of the day it’s a social site and preying on this precious space may prove disastrous. Any thoughts?

“Mobile search will capture the imagination of consumers during 2010“

The question is, will mobile search become bigger than desktop search? Local search has been shaping the general search landscape for a long time now, but maybe this is the “year of the mobile” that everyone has been quoting for the past few years.

Most people agree that the stumbling block will be user experience, which we’ve blogged about before, so weigh this argument up too. Websites and technology need to be spot on for this to expand as rapidly as predicted.

Finally, in terms of pay per click trends,

“We should see an even greater focus on display ads in 2010″

Rather than the simple (however effective) text ads there are, a whole new range of ad formats will offer a choice of appealing promotions - which surely will also improve everyone’s search experience as well.

Either way, we believe that SMEs can drive change and this is the year for them to succeed online. Maybe just having a website was enough before, but with local search soaring, and people recommending and reviewing, a whole online conversation seems to be brewing… which means 2010 points towards a range of different strategies needing to be considered.

Following on from last week’s post about the drive to improve local search, it’s also worth reiterating the steps that the search engine giant, Google, have specifically taken.

The changes have made a huge difference for small businesses - integrating local business results into Google’s main search results and introducing Google maps which list local companies are two great examples.

I also think it’s admirable that Google Ads have the same format, regardless of a business’s size or success. All this basically means is that smaller, local companies have a chance of running very successful advertising campaigns without getting crowded out by the ‘big boys’ with their larger advertising budgets.

The competition is still fierce though, and whilst the cliché  irritates me, “you’ve got to be in it to win it”

(which translated into local search speak means make sure your business can be found online when people are searching!)

Amongst the typical blog discussions on online advertising and search behaviour, details about who you are actually targeting are often missed out.

Who is it looking at your website?

There are some good recent stats from 2008; according to the Internet Advertising Bureau, there are now 32m people online, which accounts for 65% of the total adults in Great Britain, and 76% of internet users are now going online every day or most days.

The most popular online activities are as follows:

• Using email - 29.9m
• Sourcing info on activity/interest - 24.5m
• Site of a particular brand or product - 22.6m
• Compare prices - 20.8m
• Travel plans - 17.8

Other than email, you could argue that the four remaining activities all drive online spending. 21.3m people now shop online in the UK and spent an average of £661 each in the six months before August 08.

All very interesting information, but how does it relate to you?

Don’t forget that you can target your online ads to try and get a share of this market. For instance, research shows that women aged 25-34 spend more time online than men of the same group and even back in 2007, the over 50’s account for nearly 30% of time spent online.

You can turn consumer behaviour to your advantage. For example, why not try and find out if your target audience searches at a particular time of the day and gear your adverts towards them?

Being able to directly target your key audience in an online advertising campaign presents an incredible opportunity for SMEs.

And without the backing of big marketing budgets, any online advertising campaign should take advantage of this to exploit your strengths and weaknesses.

Unfortunately, running your own campaign on Google or Yahoo! can be quite time consuming and complicated to monitor. To maximise effectiveness and get the best return on your advertising spend, you need to have the ad-creatives that attract the consumer to click on the ad and then to phone or visit your business, and you need to ensure that your campaign covers all the various goods and services that you offer where you make most of the profit.

Most SMEs are great at running their own businesses but do not have the time or necessary skills to set up and run their campaigns but there are some great resellers of these campaigns who can help you through this potential minefield for a fairly low fee.

Consider:

• Time: Set your ads to run at specific times to suit you

If you run a typical 9am – 5pm type business, you may find you are wasting money by running ads that appear after work hours and missing any calls that come through.

Similarly, think about when your target market will be searching; for example, if you’re a recruitment agency, you would expect people to be searching outside of work hours

• Locality: Through IP settings, set up your ad campaigns to target people searching in a certain area

With 9 out of 10 people searching for businesses or service in a certain area, make sure your ads reach the people who are looking for you at that exact same time they are searching. You can read all about local search here.

To make sure you get the best attention try and find the Authorised Resellers of both Google and Yahoo! as the search engines themselves have picked them specifically for their honesty, integrity, and transparency of charges as well as their skills.

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

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.