This post was originally published at SearchEngineWatch on 12/12/2011.

With news this week that Facebook is beginning to roll out its new Timeline feature, it reminds us that so much of what’s captured on the world’s most popular social networking site are our fondest memories. And if you look at your newsfeed in any given day it will often reflect the present – what’s happening in the world around you today. But there is not typically a lot of discussion about more aspirational topics, and what people are hoping for in the future.

A new social networking phenomenon appears to be taking off that just might fill this need. Online pinboard sites, led by Pinterest, represent your wants, desires and the future memories you wish to create. If this trend has not yet appeared on your radar, online pinboards are basically shareable scrapbooks that you create using online content you find around the web. If you see an image that you want to “pin” to your “board” you can simply snag it via a plugin and add it to your online profile. Everyone that follows you can view your pinboards, comment on them, and add to them if they have permission.

I heard about this emerging trend from a colleague, who used Pinterest as a central component of her wedding planning. She is able to create specialized pinboards for everything from the wedding dress to the invitations to potential honeymoon destinations. Her collective team of de facto wedding planners can all work in unison to vote up and down on every detail in order to deliver the perfect wedding experience. Although it would seem like Facebook and Twitter have most of the ground covered from a social networking perspective, there is always room for an innovator to tap into the existing cultural zeitgeist. According to recent comScore data, it’s clear there is considerable and growing appetite for this kind of social engagement.

Pinterest: The New Player in Town

Pinterest has emerged as the main player in the online pinboard space, skyrocketing to nearly 5 Million U.S. unique visitors in November 2011 after first appearing on our reporting radar just six months earlier.

From what I can gather, the growth for this site has been completely organic, coming from the sharing of pinboards and personal invitations going out from existing members. Pinterest did not respond to my invitation request in time for this column and I had to have my colleague Kate invite me before I could get into the site and explore what it was all about.

“Pinterest” as a brand name also appears to be entering the general lexicon in a similar fashion to words like “Twitter” in 2008-09, as evidenced by the number of searches on this new branded term. Considering that the word did not exist in 2010 but in October 2011 nearly 900,000 has searched for the term “Pinterest” more than 2.4 million times, it’s clear that awareness of this brand is accelerating. Search data like this can often be a leading indicator to investors regarding the viral growth of a company, especially in the absence of more concrete data such as sales.

Who is Pinterested?

Living in New York City, it is easy to think that every new trend starts here on the Coast (geographic arrogance to the max!), but online pinboarding appears to have tapped into a region that normally comes up later in the internet adoption cycle: The Midwest.

When analyzing Pinterest’s visitor base, we see that visitors from the Midwest regions are up to 102% more likely to visit Pinterest.com than the average U.S. Internet user. This is in stark contrast to East/West coast regional visitors, who are 63% less likely to visit the site. This difference is even more pronounced when analyzing “Pinterest” searchers, with Midwesterners up to 185% more likely to search for the term as opposed to the Coasters, lead by New England, which is 83% less likely than average.

My anecdotal research (i.e. me speaking with my female colleagues in Chicago who introduced me to the site) suggests that Online Pinboarding mirrors scrapbooking as an activity, which is apparently huge in that area of the country. This is further backed up by my discussions with my East/West coast colleagues who all seem to agree; they are just not scrap-bookers at heart. The real growth to this point has come from the scrapbook-heavy Midwest, and it is only recently that the too-cool-for-school Coasters have begun to catch on. With the coasts still waiting to be conquered, now might be a good time for Pinterest to begin thinking about some regionally targeted paid search advertising before one of their competitors swoops in and capitalizes.

Pintresting Trends

Pinterest is on its way up, and online pinboarding looks like it just may represent the next wave of Social Networking. The intuitive functionality related to pinning images from around the internet to your board, combined with an existing Midwestern proclivity for scrapbooking, have allowed for huge growth in a very short period of time. Just remember that you can’t look at your site metrics in a vacuum. Visitor trends relate to search trends and can all be used in conjunction to better understand both your existing and future users.

This post was originally published at SearchEngineWatch on 11/14/2011.

In the age of global digital information, news travels remarkably fast. Occupy Wall Street (OWS) launched on September 17th and less than 2 months later, according to OccupyWallStreet.org, the movement has spread to more than 1,500 cities around the world. Similar to this year’s “Arab Spring” the internet has proven to be an integral part of these movements and their evolution. Without Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and the like, the world at large would never have been able to experience, and participate, in such real-time and visceral fashion. While the protesters, their cause, and their constituency are the obvious beneficiaries of the extensive news and social media coverage, the benefits can echo well beyond the message to the media companies who carry it. Publishers who deliver OWS content benefit from more viewers, more ad sales, and best case scenario, more permanent return viewers. But how many are actually capitalizing on this opportunity?

comScore Search Planner data suggests that an opportunity has been missed by nearly every news or video streaming publisher because they have not utilized paid search to their advantage. Search associated with Occupy Wall Street terms ballooned almost overnight, going from non-existent to more than 300,000 searches in just the final 2 weeks of September, highlighting the market demand for this content. Even more importantly from a marketing perspective, the first 3 weeks of October produced 1.6 million U.S. search visits to websites. Visitors to websites, and of even greater monetary value, video viewers on websites, mean advertising dollars for publishers. And it’s not just the short-term value of the event itself, but the lifetime value of new visitors who return to the site over the long term.

So you can imagine my surprise upon realizing that despite this incredible interest in Occupy Wall Street, publishers have collectively whiffed on capitalizing on paid search. Of those 1.6 million search click-throughs, more than 99% occurred on organic search links. The remaining paid search clicks are going to retailers capitalizing on customized OWS merchandise and the occasional political action group or organized movement associating itself with the cause. But almost none are going to publishers.

If you want to be the go-to destination for real-time video consumption, why wouldn’t you at least take a chance and run some tests associated with paid search advertising on a movement like Occupy Wall Street? Most every search seems related to news and video of the protests, not the purchase of OWS coffee mugs. Large, viral news stories don’t happen every day, but they are opportunities for specific outlets to establish an audience outside of their existing core group. Livestream is the official video streamer down in Zucotti Park; certainly there is an opportunity to introduce new content consumers to their brand. Instead of being lost in the extended collection of organic search links, why not sit alone on top of everything with a message front and center? Pole Position is a good place to start a race. And while paying for those paid search clicks in the immediate term might not pay off, it can be the beginning of a fruitful long-term relationship with that consumer.

OWS paid search notwithstanding, the lesson here is that any emergent news event is an opportunity for news organizations to gather up share of eyeballs with paid search. Because so few companies actually take the time and money to invest in current event paid search, the cost and barrier to entry will be relatively low -- at least until others wise up to the opportunity. It’s time to stop thinking about paid search only as a direct response tool and begin thinking about it for brand-building purposes, especially when the price is right. While the short-term ROI might still tell you you’re in the red, the long-term ROI could tell a much more positive story. The publishers who gather the clicks now might just be making the right investment to develop their news brand for the future.

This post was originally published at SearchEngineWatch on 10/17/2011.

It’s October, which means that football season is in full effect! Suffice to say I was eagerly anticipating a resolution to the NFL lockout to ensure there would actually be a season.

I can’t even begin to wonder what I would do on Fall Sundays and what I would talk about all week without the NFL. How would I spend my Monday mornings if not obsessing over my fantasy football team’s performance, wondering whether I would be able to pull out the win with Monday Night Football? Thankfully, the players and owners found room to agree and I was able to avoid being forced to start following regular season hockey.

Fantasy football has, in many ways, become its own favorite pastime. If your favorite NFL team is having a down year at least you can root for the guys on your fantasy team each week.

Fantasy football first emerged in the 1980s, allowing millions of armchair quarterbacks to more deeply immerse themselves in what has become an enormous time and money pit. Prior to the advent of the Internet, managing a fantasy football league was a cumbersome activity to say the least, requiring participants to peruse newspaper box scores and manually tabulate each team’s score.

The Internet created an ideal environment for the growth and adoption of fantasy football as the powerhouse of engagement that it is today. This engagement has translated into what is now a multi-billion dollar industry, making it a highly competitive market for digital marketers.

While NFL football appears tightly linked with fantasy football, the reality is that these are two different consumer markets requiring very different digital marketing strategies. Marketers who understand these differences will be much better positioned to optimize spend and attract more than their fair share of these lucrative markets.

NFL-Related Searching

Search activity for the NFL and individual teams begins to spike every year in July with the start of training camp and grows over the next few months.

More than 28 million people conducted 105 million searches containing either “NFL” or team name searches in September 2011 (e.g. Bears, Giants, Raiders). These searches tend to peak each year in October, and we anticipate a similar peak this month when every fan still believes their team has a chance (well, except for maybe the Dolphins). Searches decline in November as many teams fall out of the playoff race, but then December sees a pickup in activity as the final playoffs races are decided.

Overall, however, this sort of general NFL-related search activity remains active throughout the season and presents ample opportunity to market to NFL fans with at least 40 million related searches each month. This is especially important for any NFL league sponsors, heavy NFL advertisers like beer and auto companies, and NFL apparel retailers, from both a direct response and branding perspective.

(As an interesting sidebar, the Dallas Cowboys tend to be the most searched for team every season, although something as trivial as winning the Super Bowl and the Cowboys missing the playoffs at least allowed the Green Bay Packers a brief moment in the sun back in January and February. The Cowboys have once again assumed the mantle of “most searched team.”)

Fantasy football searching exhibits some different patterns from the more general NFL-related search, and relevant marketers should take note. Every year the fantasy football providers compete mightily to win your business. Whether they want you to renew your league, expand your subscriptions, or to try out their service as a first time subscriber, they all know that search plays a critical role in your NFL and fantasy football navigation.

The main difference between fantasy football searchers and regular NFL searchers is the peak of activity. NFL searchers open the search season in July and more or less continue it until the season ends in February. Search activity on fantasy football, however, is heavily concentrated in August and September, with a peak in September.

As illustrated below, “fantasy football” search volume peaked in September 2011 with 3.4 million searchers and nearly 11 million searches. But there is a precipitous decline as soon as the season starts in September, as many fantasy footballers have already conducted the majority of their research and preparation in advance of the season. Once fans have their fantasy leagues set, they are less likely to search for information and insight and instead rely on bookmarks and direct URL navigation for ongoing team management.

Reviewing the search click-throughs on fantasy football terms, 14.4 million out of the 15.2 million total search click-throughs In September (95 percent) were organic. Therefore, “evergreen” SEO content around fantasy football should be an incredibly important part of any fantasy football marketer’s customer acquisition strategy. Although the window for conversion is very short, the need to work on your SEO rankings year round is essential for those wanting to capitalize on the high-demand part of the season.

A simple analysis of the search data clearly demonstrates important insights for how to best maximize your digital marketing investment. This sort of analysis can be applied to any overlapping markets to reveal actionable insights that will drive success.

This post was originally published at SearchEngineWatch on 9/19/2011.

Search Engines are like mothers: they are built to understand you. With the most basic cues, they know if you are happy or sad, coming or going, getting ready for bed or just waking up. They didn’t start out this way, but Google Page Rank gave birth to the viability of getting what you needed just by asking for it. Clearly this process has been refined over the years and will continue to evolve.

Over the past decade we have been presented with every type of specialized search engine you can imagine: Web search, vertical search, retail search, travel search, mobile search, social search, job search… the list goes on and on. In the beginning, specialized search appeared to be the wave of the future for finding exactly what you wanted. If you only desire travel searches, you best go to an Online Travel Agent because they are the only ones that really understand your travel needs and won’t inundate you with extraneous results. Same idea with shopping engines or job search sites – the results you get will be filtered to the right universe of results you’re seeking.

As a result of these specialized search needs, not only has the search engine market ballooned over the past decade, but so have the number of places where people conduct their searching. As people continued to move more of their lives and interests online, vertical search entities spread like wildfire because they were designed to deliver against very particular searcher needs.

This trend is illustrated by the tremendous growth of non-search engine search entities during that time. In August 2011, of the 27 billion searches conducted on desktops in the United States, more than one-third occurred on non-search engines. Search on sites like Amazon, eBay, and Facebook has been growing faster than (and therefore gaining market share from) the core search engines for several years. But in the past year, this vertical search market actually contracted by 6% after several years of strong growth.

While these vertical search sites’ search volume has leveled, the core search engines have actually continued to grow at double digit rates. Searchers are actually migrating back towards their origins, like transplant New Yorkers that have had their fun and are ready to move home and start families. So what might be driving this shift in trend?

I believe the answer lies in searcher intent, and people’s desire to be understood by their search engine. Nothing is more maddening in a search context than having to continually refine your searches to find what you want. (I don’t even want to think about trying to find anything via search online in the 1990s -- it just gives me heartburn.) This problem was of course the driving force behind the initial emergence of vertical search, which enabled searchers to get a higher signal to noise ratio. Vertical search inherently signified searcher intent, while search engine results were often too broad. Even if the top results were what you wanted, they became diluted pretty quickly and you suddenly had too many interpretations of your intended destination.

What’s happened is that the search engines have shown considerable improvement in their use of blended search results to better reflect possible searcher intent. The search experience and their algorithm refinements have gotten so good that it sometimes feels as if they are inside of your head reading your thoughts.

If we take a look at a Google SERP today, it looks quite different than what it used to look like just a few years ago. It includes filtering for topic, location, and date on the left, a map on the right, Google Places results for restaurant reviews, and any number of other refinement options that present themselves depending on a particular search. The search engine’s ability to both interpret searcher intent and offer a multitude of options to be answer your question at that moment is vastly superior to what was available a few years ago.

The below Bing SERP also demonstrates the expanded capabilities of the core search engine experience. Here, upon searching for “flights to Brazil,” we are presented with a variety of options for reviews, price comparison, flight finders with interactive calendars, related searches, and the like. Once again, this experience simply did not exist on the core engines a few years ago, and the vertical search sites flourished as a result.

As these user improvements manifest themselves in the search results and searchers have increasingly begun to rely on them for their more vertically-oriented search needs, we are finally beginning to see a significant shift in the market. Growth in vertical searches is now actually conceding ground to the core search engines in a reversal of the past few years.

Now, don’t go taking this as the beginning of the end of non-search entities. Their business is still alive and well and will continue to serve a critical function for specialized searching behavior. But increasingly, search engines are improving the quality of their results in a way that is helping to fill the void once created by searches with vertical intent. With continued acquisitions of vertical search providers like Google’s acquisition of ITA for travel search or Zagat for restaurant reviews, the core search engines appear focused on this type of searcher intent and I would expect their results, and their share of the search market, to only get better with time.

This post was originally published at SearchEngineWatch on August 22, 2011.

“Different strokes for different folks”: a simple enough idea to understand and one that resonates with everyone. We are all defined by what we like, what we don’t like, what we buy, and what we don’t buy. Although we are all amazing and unique individuals (like our parents told us), we do share common attributes. Generalization tends to lead us to choosing between two universal identities, often associated with brand names. In other words, “Are you a Coke person or a Pepsi person?”

Search terms can be parsed in a similar fashion. Every searcher can be defined by the words they use when searching. Search engines and marketers alike know this and do their best to deliver you relevant results based on who they think you are and your intent at that exact moment.

As an extension of the targeting by intent strategy, a sophisticated and growing segment of brands are turning to searcher demographics to conduct detailed analyses of their online audience. There are already lots of opportunities for marketers to customize their messaging, placement, landing pages, and the like, for every consumer segment, but the brand managers out there have been using search terms to actually identify the attributes of a “Coke” vs. a “Pepsi” searcher. Considering the money that is spent on brand advertising, knowing how your branded search audience differs from that of the competition should be a valuable nugget of information.

To illustrate the point, below are some fun and interesting universal brand identities with dichotomous stances. Each example analyzes the demographics of searchers that used the branded terms for the month of July, and are based on head of household. The index baselines are the searcher demographics for the entire US search population. Available measures are Age, Income, Location (home/work), Region of the US, Household Size, and Presence of Children in the Household.

Google+ or Facebook?

The most striking differences between Google+ searchers and Facebook searchers are in Age and Income level. Google+ searchers overwhelmingly skew towards 18-34 year olds. Clearly Google+ is a popular brand with the younger segments, and good knowledge for Google to have as they develop their acquisition strategy and evolve their user base. Since Facebook is a much more mature brand in the social networking space, their search audience falls closely in line with the search population at large.

The income skews are even more distinct, essentially polar opposites of each other. More than 32% of Google+ searchers have a household income of $100K or greater, compared to 23% of Facebook searchers. Google+ is definitely off to a fast start in reaching the most desirable income segments, which may make it more attractive to advertisers.

iPhone or Android?

iPhone vs. Android is definitely one of the most frequently debated topics around my office. Which phone do you have? Why that one and not the other? Our San Francisco office almost exclusively has iPhones, and our New York office is littered with Androids. But when it comes to searching for these devices, there is almost no difference between us.

As you can see below, iPhone searchers and Android searchers mirror each other very closely. Considering that searchers of both brands also conduct almost the exact same number of searches for these phones (about 4 per searcher), I would liken these searchers to independent voters. They have not made up their minds yet and there will be multiple times to speak with them before they convert and make a purchase. Knowing that there isn’t a distinct branded search audience would lead me to believe that these searchers are more interested in features, functions, pricing, and carriers, than they would be in defining themselves by the brand, ala Apple Fanboys.

Red Sox or Yankees?

The Red Sox vs. the Yankees is as heated a rivalry as there is today. Both sides have won, both sides have lost, and their respective fan bases hate each other with a passion. Rarely have I ever heard a Bostonian say anything nice about New York City, nor discussed the great merits of Boston with other New Yorkers. But baseball fans are baseball fans, and will have common demographics regardless of the team they support. That said, we do learn a couple of things about their searchers when reviewing the demographics.

Most interesting is where their searchers are based. Both receive a comparable percentage of searches from their own region (43%), but Red Sox searchers definitely stay close to the East Coast. 75% of their searchers are in the New England, Mid Atlantic, and South Atlantic regions. The Yankees, on the other hand, have a more broadly distributed fan base across the country, even receiving 13% of their searchers from the Pacific region.

With this kind of information, teams, ticket sellers, and sports-themed travel companies can better determine where to focus their geo-targeting and messaging efforts. The Yankees Faithful certainly don’t seem to be settling in New England, and Red Sox Nation doesn’t appear terribly interested in places west of the Mississippi.

Like this Column or love it?

Searcher Demographics can prove to be valuable for your business and your brand. It’s one thing to quantify your branded searchers, it is another to know and understand them. The conversation you’ll be able to have with them will only be enhanced. To paraphrase Curb Your Enthusiasm, you will elevate the discussion from small talk to medium talk.

This post was originally published at SearchEngineWatch on July 25, 2011.

Summer travel is a daunting prospect. Everything is packed: the planes, the hotels, the roads, and your cars (especially those with kids). We have all witnessed epic meltdowns by fellow travelers and travel workers alike, the heat and the impatience pushing everyone to their breaking point. Fortunately the Internet has taken some of the hassle out of the process, offering up a myriad of options for research, planning, and booking. Search plays an integral role in this process and tells us quite a bit about both travel marketer and consumer.

Search clicks to Travel sites from the Big 5 search engines are up 10% year over year reaching to 272 million in June 2011. This annual upward search trend tends to start in April and peak in July, so proper planning and execution is critical for marketers this time of year. Summer travelers begin their planning process early and turn to search for information and advice on where they should go and stay, as opposed to lots of holiday season travelers that know where they are going (e.g. to see family, which requires much less preparation and lead time). Marketers must take this into account when they are preparing their campaigns for the season, as there will be many more touch points to reach their consumers during their purchase process.

To further illustrate this point, 50% of the 2011 travel season search growth is driven by clicks to Travel-Information sites. Travel-Information sites are content based sites where prospective travelers can read reviews, learn about different destinations, and engage with their fellow travelers in a variety of fashions (TripAdvisor is a main player in this space). Visits to these sites traditionally happen early in the travel purchase funnel and are great opportunities to work with one of the big search retargeting vendors like Magnetic in order to drive a higher conversion rate. Search and display advertising synergy has been proven to work in tandem to deliver the latent activities that you covet, such as branded searches and conversions. Since the online travel purchase can take some time to develop, the earlier you imprint your targeted brand message into the minds of the travelers on these content-based travel sites (perfect for display advertising), the better your results are likely to be down the road.

One of the big reasons targeted brand messages via search and display are so important early in the travel purchase funnel is because travel searchers are incredibly brand specific later in their purchase process. They may start out their travel planning with a general term like “hotels in Las Vegas” or “flights to London,” but by the time they are ready to book they start typing in branded destinations.

10 of the top 10 search terms driving traffic to travel sites are brands (although “Cheap Tickets” and “Cheap Flights” can have both branded and generic meaning). Online Travel Agencies (OTAs) used to completely dominate travel search share, but have relinquished much of that share to the supplier sites over the years (i.e. Airlines and Hotels). The battle is fierce, and every marketer will do whatever they can to get you to convert during your visit, since they know you are beginning to reach the point of purchase when you visit their sites by way of branded search terms.

Due to how important these branded search clicks can be in converting prospective travelers, most every travel marketer spends a considerable amount of money bidding on their branded terms via paid search. This allows them to own multiple spots on the ever important travel SERP and deliver multiple targeted brand messages to the travelers during a critical juncture in their (search) journey.

Although it may be too late for you to launch a major campaign this late in the season (and with the annual August drop off fast approaching, I don’t recommend it), the numbers point towards a travel search renaissance following a considerable slowdown over the past couple of years. Organic clicks to travel information sites are king these days, but the OTAs and Supplier sites are not far behind. Paid search should be combined with your display advertising strategy and pushed hard with brand messaging by April at the latest.

And most importantly, remember that “cheap” is a bad word… except when it comes to travel. As the 2nd most popular word used by travel searchers every month, it should be in your search toolkit... don’t leave home without it!

This post was originally published at SearchEngineWatch on June 27, 2011.

Optimizing your social presence for search is important, right? That is certainly what we've all been told for some time, but determining why it's important and deciding where to focus can be challenging. Exponential growth of a medium is great and all, but your problems figuring out how to tame the wild beast tend to grow exponentially as well.

Let's discuss a couple of simple ideas regarding conversational media (i.e., social networking sites and blogs) and its relation to search:

1. How to help your social pages rank better
2. How to help your website rank better with social influences

A Little Perspective About the Market as a Whole
The growth in activity at conversational media sites is undeniable. The number of unique has increased more than 80 percent since 2007 to 213 million in May 2011, while total visits to the category grew 136 percent to 6.2 billion.

Since a search click to a website represents one type of site visit, this is where we can begin to connect the dots on influence between navigation events. The number of search clicks to the category reached 845 million in May, accounting for 13.5 percent of the total visits to the category. That number has grown 145 percent since 2007, outpacing gains in both unique visitors and total category visits.

Branded social media searches (e.g., Facebook, Twitter) and people searches (e.g., friends, celebrities) appear to be the two primary growth drivers of search clicks.

Although these types of terms still make up the vast majority of the terms driving traffic to conversational media sites, the fastest growing search traffic segment is actually big name brands. Well-known consumer brands have finally begun to embrace their conversational media assets and are driving a considerable amount of traffic directly to Facebook and Twitter in addition to their own websites.

When combining the top 20 brand names in retail, finance, and travel, their branded searches delivered over 1.6 million clicks directly to Facebook, a 1,300 percent increase since mid-2009.

How to Help Your Social Pages Rank Better
Links on SERPs are like shelves in a store: Owning more shelf space, and the more varieties you have to offer, invariably will drive more sales (clicks). Because you will already own the premium position for your website for your branded searches, further promotion of your social media assets can only improve your end game.

In collaboration with SEO software vendor BrightEdge Technologies, we've identified three simple steps you can take to improve the rankings of your social pages.

Link From Your Homepage
It can’t be as simple as linking from your homepage, can it? Actually, it can because search engine algorithms absolutely value these links when scoring sites (more on this later).

Despite this reality, 6 of the top 20 most searched for Retail brands did not have any sort of social media integration on their homepages. Talk about a missed opportunity! Linking from your home page and using your brand name in the link will have immediate impact.

Use Brand Names in Posts
URLs that match search terms have a built in advantage for high SEO rankings on that search. This same principle will apply to the words you use in your social media posts, so be sure to use the brand names of your company and your products when posting for maximum effect.

Get Likes
Search engine algorithms value crowd science quite heavily in their rankings (link building relationships). This same type of value is given to likes, follows, +1's, etc. This is an inherent trust metric and will impact rankings as well.

Getting likes can be easier said than done. It may require some creative marketing tactics that engage your customers and make them smile.

Helping Your Website Rank Better With Social Influences
The first part of this column discussed how to drive better rankings for your social media pages. Clearly this has become more of a priority than it was a couple of years ago – particularly for branded terms – but will never be of the same volume and SEO coverage as your own websites. The more important goal is figuring out how to use social media influence to impact your owned media assets.

Social signals drive SEO performance, but how important is it? According to data from BrightEdge, between 75 and 90 percent of the top 10 search results on any given SERP have at least one Facebook like or Twitter tweet. These numbers and the related influence will spike sharply, especially for industries such as retail and finance.

Start With the Basics
Visitors to your website are usually interested in your company and your products, so don't miss the opportunity to invite them into your treasured social media circle. Invite them to connect, like, follow, and/or share your company and your product pages.

Target Head Terms With Social Media Friendly Pages
For most companies, head terms make up a large percentage of their referral traffic. Although these terms drive high volume in both searches and clicks, they are often very competitive for page/position rank.

Ensuring that your head term landing pages are social media friendly with further impact your overall SEO ranking for these coveted terms. The more likes and follows your landing pages have, the higher they will rank. Therefore, encouraging visitors to take social media action with a “bookmark & share” drop down menu will further your landing page SEO efforts.

Create Tools That Are Easy to Share
An easy to share tool is something that is visually appealing and simple to use. Too many times you arrive at a website that has expert only tools available for analysis, searching, sorting, and the like. Or you find a tool that is easy to use for all of these things, you would love to tell someone about it, and there is no sharing drop down.

Either of these scenarios is negatively impacting your use of social media SEO influence. Think about the types of assets you have on your site that begat social involvement and make it simple to do.

Drive Social Engagement to Your Website
Facebook offers a variety of social plugins you can utilize on your site. Different plugins encourage different types of engagement, so choose wisely on which ones work best for each part of your site.

Conclusion
Social media and search share a two way street of influence. Social media assets have reached enough critical mass to rank on the first page of search results, as well as directly contribute to the SEO ranking of your website pages.

Although many companies are taking advantage of this established medium, many others have not and are missing a sizeable opportunity. By implementing some of the best practices mentioned here, you can ensure that your social media and search teams are working together and that your organization isn’t being left behind.

comScore & BrightEdge recently presented a webinar titled “Social SEO: How to Optimize your Social Presence for Search.” You can download a copy of the slides from our presentation gallery.

This post was originally published at SearchEngineWatch on May 2, 2011.

A funny thing happened on the bus on my way to work recently. I was on my phone searching for a lunchtime haircut spot, the lady next to me was shopping for new curtains on her iPad, and a Wall Street type was talking loudly on his phone asking for tips prior to laying a bet with his bookie (you have to love New York City).

Each of us, in our own way, was using our mobile devices to reach out and find answers to our pressing questions. But until a few years ago, the only way we could reach out and answer these questions in a mobile fashion was via email and/or asking someone on the other end, a process that was inefficient at best and frustrating and without closure at worst.

Due to the advances in mobile hardware, software, and user experience, much of this has changed and finally rivals what we love about desktop searching. Screens are big enough to read, keyboards are ergonomic enough to allow for speed, and - most importantly - the search engines and marketers have begun to adapt their search offerings to address our mobile needs.

Mobile Market Maturation Means Money in Search Marketing

As of February 2011, there were over 234 million mobile phone users (age 13+) in the U.S., with nearly 50 percent searching on their mobile devices in some capacity during the course of a given month. Mobile searching is especially prevalent among smart phone users, which now accounts for over 30 percent of the total U.S. mobile marketplace.

Considering that 50 percent of all new phones purchased in the U.S. are smartphones, it's clear that mobile searching will not be slowing down anytime soon. Toss in another 10 million or so iPad/Tablet users (and counting) and you begin to see why we are finally reaching the tipping point where marketers must address their mobile paid search strategy as its own concern, and not simply allow the search engines to serve mobile ads by default.

6 Keys to Mobile Search Marketing Success

In a recent webinar collaboration I did with The Search Agency, we ran through a variety of best practices and practical recommendations for mobile search marketers.

According to The Search Agency's client files, mobile CPCs (cost per click) are 30 percent less than those on desktop, but the mobile CTR (clickthrough rate) is roughly five times higher than that of desktop. This data presents a rather compelling argument on why your paid mobile strategy requires separate targeting.

Below are some of our highlighted points and recommendations for search marketers:

1. The AdWords interface will show you what portion of your clicks and conversions come from mobile vs. desktop, and if 10 percent or more of a campaign come from mobile devices, consider targeting separately.
2. Google allows for targeting by specific devices, operating systems, and carrier (with further tablet targeting options expected later this year), which is important because the end user mobile search experience is different on a mobile phone than it is on an iPad/tablet.
3. Mobile searching lends itself to shorter query lengths and hyper-local results. Google's mobile keyword selection tool offers great assistance for getting started when choosing your ad keywords.
4. The searcher's attention span is limited, so make mobile specific ad copy short and sweet. Include clickable phone numbers and/or geo-targeted maps to enhance your CTRs and conversions.
5. Landing pages from mobile search clicks should reflect your conversion goals. If you want them to call you, download something, watch a video, and/or view a map, optimize these pages accordingly.
6. When launching new campaigns, it's best to start with an aggressive bidding strategy, which will allow you to establish a strong quality score off the bat. Securing position in the top two paid results is imperative with the limited viewing area on mobile devices.

Conclusions

Mobile marketing techniques must keep up with mobile user and technology sophistication.

Desktop search may continue to dominate overall search market share, but mobile search is a new frontier with potentially different searcher intent. Lumping the two in together without taking the time to analyze the differences could lead to costly mistakes, both short and long term.

Although the advent of new mobile devices like the iPad are closing the gap in experience between mobile and desktop searching, the ubiquity of smartphone adoption requires some alternate thinking in order to best capitalize on your mobile strategy.

You're probably tired of hearing that it's the "Year of Mobile," but these numbers and results indicate it may actually be the time to starting thinking differently about this medium.

Make the effort. You won't be disappointed.

Webinar recording and slides for Mobile Search: Techniques and Tactics for Marketers can be downloaded here.

This post was originally published at SearchEngineWatch on April 4, 2011.

This past week I decided to download the newly released Firefox 4 web browser, which featured several noticeable improvements over previous versions. As someone who lives and breathes search every day, my eyes were immediately draw to the new look of the search bar in the top right hand corner of the browser. While it defaulted to Google search, there was a dropdown that enabled me to access several different search experiences.

I began to wonder about the relationship that the search browser has with consumer search behavior. Does your affinity for a particular browser make you more or less likely to engage with certain search engines? Do the default search options in browsers make a difference? I thought it would be worth investigating whether or not any particular affinity existed between browsers and search engine usage.

(I will state at the outset that we must remember that correlation does not equal causation in these cases, so just because someone chooses a browser does not mean it necessarily caused them to be more likely to engage with a specific search engine. It is also very possible that someone with a natural affinity for the Google brand, for example, might be more likely to be both a Chrome user and Google search engine user. In this case, the brand affinity is the cause and the browser and search engine selection would both be the effects.)

Browser Wars Heat Up
For a long time, Internet Explorer was the dominant web browser but over the years Firefox emerged as a strong second player. In late 2008 Google got into the browser game with Chrome, which has gained traction and proved to be popular as well with a segment of Internet users. Chrome was notable for its speed, providing more competition for the established players. More recently, both Mozilla (with Firefox 4) and Microsoft (with IE9) introduced new versions of their browsers that represent strong upgrades for anyone who used the previous versions.

Now obviously search engines have a vested interest in being the default engine and/or toolbar on your browser. Even though many users will customize their browsers to fit their search needs outside of the defaults (e.g. a Google toolbar on Internet Explorer), or just download and use the browser that is already aligned with their favorites (Google Chrome), not every Internet user is so discerning. And this may perhaps explain why we see the affinity we do for search engine usage with different browsers, which the numbers below illustrate:

Google Chrome
Google Chrome has the most obvious affinity for Google searches. 87.1% of the searches that take place on Chrome are on Google. This represents a significantly higher percentage than the 64.9% share Google has in the Total U.S. Internet universe. Yahoo! and Microsoft combined account for just 12% of search share on Chrome (8.3% and 3.6% respectively). Although it stands to reason that many of the users that have downloaded Chrome are probably already loyal Google users, do not discount those that previously used other browsers (and in turn other search engines), and took a chance on Chrome and enjoyed their experience enough to keep using it.

Mozilla Firefox
Mozilla Firefox is an open source application that partners with Google for their default homepage and toolbar, but due to its extended reach these days, tends to be standard software present on most machines when purchased. The fact that PC users have a choice perhaps somewhat lessens the Google bias from the dominant Chrome numbers, but those default settings would appear to still play an important role with 73.4% of the searches on Firefox take place on Google. Yahoo! (16.4%) and Microsoft (7.1%) have inched their way back up towards their overall combined Total U.S. Internet share, but there is still a significant delta between those numbers and their total universe share.

Microsoft Internet Explorer
Internet Explorer has been the leading browser in the marketplace for many years, with Firefox and Chrome beginning to catch up. With Microsoft still controlling the lion’s share of computer operating systems, their packaging of Bing with IE would seem to benefit its cause. The value of this reach is apparent when we see that the Google search share on IE drops considerably below their overall market share, with only 55.8% search share. Bing and Yahoo! finally catch up a bit, hitting 18.7% and 20.7%, respectively. Considering that more than 60% of the Core Searches in the U.S. in February were performed on an Internet Explorer browser, those seemingly small slices of the total pie assume much greater importance than you might think.

Conclusions
Search experience, relevancy of results, and let’s face it, behavioral inertia, are still the main drivers behind which search engines we use every day. If you love Google, you’ll find a way to use it anywhere. If you are a Yahoo! mail user, you probably have a Yahoo! toolbar downloaded and you might use that for some of your searches. If you are an Xbox Live member, maybe you ended up downloading a Bing toolbar and that becomes your search engine of choice.

Even though such factors can strongly contribute to your search activity, do not overlook the influence the browser has on your search behavior. Browser choice and search engine usage are interrelated, so it’s little surprise these companies are racing to improve their browsers in the hopes of gaining market share, which may help deliver incremental revenue such as increased search activity on their engines. Only time will tell how these browser battles will play out, but whatever happens we can be sure it will have some effect on the complexion of the search landscape.

This post was originally published at SearchEngineWatch on March 7, 2011.

A search query, in its essence, is a question requiring an answer. Fortunately the search engines are intelligent enough to find us what we need with most any query, but some inquiries require more specification than just a term. Searchers use modifiers to fish for greater accuracy with their terms all the time, the proverbial long tail, of course. But what happens with the Searchers who are as specific as directly asking a question? With the recent Demand Media (eHow) IPO and the buzz regarding Google’s algorithm changes, my questions suddenly required answers as well.

For the sake of this analysis, let’s define the marketplace as all search terms in the United States that contained at least one of the following words in January 2011 vs. year ago: Who, What, Where, When, Why, and How.

Below is an illustration of the number of searchers and searches on these terms in January:

Each of these question terms tells its own story, so let’s analyze them one by one.

Who

Searchers ask 4 main questions when using the word “who”:

• Who is?
• Who are?
• What was?
• Who were?

As of January 2011, U.S. searchers ran more than 57 million searches containing “who,” an increase of 38% year over year. These searches were run by 21 million people, representing a year over year increase of 18%. Both of these increases outpaced all other question terms on our list…but why?

The simple answer is Kei$ha, Flo Rida, and Akon. Their songs, “We R Who We R” and “Who Dat Girl” both heavily skew the increased results, potentially driving a Q&A publisher down a rabbit hole regarding search analysis. (Content owners should remember that simply analyzing search term sets without detailed review can lead you down the wrong path!)

As for the modifier questions that deliver relevant answers, “Who is” dwarfs the respective competition, accounting for 7.9 million search clicks to websites in January 2011.

Narcissism and/or paranoia also rule the day here, with 4 of the top 20 “who is” search clicks being:

• Who is searching for me?
• Who is looking for me?
• Who is looking at my Facebook profile?
• Who am I? (A bit philosophical if you ask me, but self centered nonetheless)

Otherwise, it’s all about who’s dating who in the celebrity world.

What

“What” is the second largest question modifier used on our list, with 253 million searches by 52 million people in January 2011. Although the total searches are up 35% since last year, the total number of searchers is only up 6%. (As we analyze the rest of our question modifiers, we’ll see that this 6% number is pretty standard across the board - something I will address a bit later).

The main 5 “what” questions are:

• What is?
• What does?
• What are?
• What was?
• What were?

“What is” takes the prize in this category, with 67 million search clicks from their respective searchers. “What does” and “What are” are no slouches though, with 22 and 15 million clicks, respectively.

When using “what” in your search query, the main definition of the term tends to almost always be a noun and directly leads to learning something new.

Top examples include:

• What is refinancing? (Informed home buyer market anyone?)
• What is Taco Bell meat made of? (Topical news stories)
• What is FICA? (January receivers of W2s)
• What is love? (Baby, don’t hurt me)

These questions tend to be the most straightforward as to their meaning and should allow for easier targeting from a search destination perspective than some of the other terms on our list. As soon as you start typing “what”, it’s all about education.

Where

“Where” comes in towards the lower end on volume with 52 million searches and 20 million searchers in January 2011, up 21% and 6% respectively.

“Where” lends itself to contractions a bit more than its related cousins, as the top variations are:

• Where is?
• Where are?
• Wheres? (exactly as typed…texting has destroyed contractions!)
• Where’s?
• Where was?

“Where is” continues our use of “is” as most important phrasing associated with question searching at 8.7 million search clicks.

What’s interesting about “where” searching in January is that it’s top heavy with tax-related items; specifically searchers wondering “where’s my refund.” This may actually represent strong marketing efforts on the part of the IRS this year, since “Where’s My Refund” is their branded area on IRS.gov to allow tax payers a convenient way to receive updates while efficiently addressing the needs of their constituents. The IRS may not be known as the most forward thinking organization, but its commitment to the web, as well as its investment in its campaigns allows for much greater efficiency than we have seen in past years.

Beyond taxes, “where” is an overwhelmingly location-based question (big surprise), with most of the questions asking where they can accomplish a particular task as opposed to finding something (e.g. Where to buy Amazon gift cards.)

When

“When” runs neck-and-neck with “Where” in volume, with 54.8 million searches and 21 million searchers, up 26% and 6% respectively.

The top 4 “when” variants are:

• When is?
• When was?
• When did?
• When does?

“When is” drove 4.4 million clicks in January 2011, with the mass majority of them concerning upcoming holidays and events. Superbowl, Mardi Gras, Easter, and the State of the Union address bubble to the top that month.

With these queries being so time sensitive, this would be a great market for news organizations to review and consider. News publishers of all kinds online can use these queries to better prepare for annual/recurring events with their SEO architecture, since a large volume of searchers will be asking the same questions year over year and these news organizations will inevitably have content related to these items, year after year. Knowing “when” these searches begin to pop up prior to the events can only help with your targeting efforts.

Why

According to most anyone you talk to, “Why” things happen is the most important part. This defines the meaning behind everything that happens in your life…but when it comes to searching it is the smallest area by far, with only 33 million searches and 13 million searchers in January 2011, up 27% and 6% respectively.

“Why” finally breaks our streak of “is” winners with the following Top 5 list:

• Why do?
• Why is?
• Why are?
• Why did?
• Why does?

“Why do” makes up almost 30% of the search clicks for this modifier, with 9.8 million clicks deliver. “Why do” definitely falls into the same category as “what” questions with edification being the main driver, but it is also prominent with searchers that are confused and looking for people with similar problems. The other modifiers on our list are more straightforward with the problem that needs to be solved or the question that needs to be answered. Even “who” related searches tend to be about other people, while “why” questions are centered around and/or include the searcher:

• Why do I hate myself?
• Why am I depressed?
• Why did I get married?
• Why do we dream?

Any publisher out there pushing “why” content should remember that and act accordingly. ”Why” is less about answering a question about the world around you and more about answering questions about you.

How

The big daddy of our question modifiers, “how” related searches making up almost half of the question marketplace with over 431 million searches by 71 million searchers in January 2011, up 27% and 7% respectively.

Without a doubt, our largest question online is “how to” do something:

• How to?
• How do?
• How much?
• How many?
• How does?

“How to” drove over 253 million clicks in January 2011, up 35% since last year and growing every day. While the other modifiers lend themselves to text-based answers quite often, “how to” searching has shown an exceptionally high affinity for video search results. Google, eHow, YouTube, Yahoo! Answers, and others will all deliver you “how to” instructional videos with your results, whether you run this search on a search engine or on a vertical search site.

Some of the most popular searches month in and month out:

• How to tie a tie?
• How to kiss?
• How to get pregnant?
• How to lose weight?
• How to write a resume?

“How to” searching tends to skew towards younger demographics, which makes sense since you have less knowledge about everything the younger your age (how to kiss and other such variants come to mind). That said, “how to” items related to job searching are as collectively large as any “how to” topic at this stage, reflecting the needs of a population in search of work.

Conclusions

Although every search inherently answers a question, those with the above modifiers help define searcher intent in a very particular way. The marketplace is growing and will likely continue to see growth in the coming years. It is important to note, however, the low overall increase of searchers in relation to the large overall increase in searches.

U.S. searchers are averaging over 120 searchers per searcher at this stage, with that number growing double digits every year. Just keep in mind that the searcher population here is not growing so expediently, so the growth in this marketplace is more about searcher engagement than it is to an expanding searcher marketplace. This makes consumer experience on your website, and the ensuing return visitation if satisfied, so important in the Q&A space.

This post was originally published at SearchEngineWatch on February 7, 2011.

Snowpacalypse. Snowmageddon. Blizzaster. For those of us not fortunate enough to live in Miami or Los Angeles, this winter has no doubt pushed our psyches to the brink of insanity. Even a prediction of an early spring by Punxsutawney Phil last week won’t impact our irritation with the soul-crushing deluge of snow this year (ski bums not withstanding). With this being the time of year where “the weather” evolves from meaningless small talk into a legitimate current event, there’s no better time to consider the internet’s role in our relationship with weather and how search fits into the (wintry) mix.

In December 2010, about 85 million internet users visited Weather websites, representing more than 40% of the US online population. Considering this does not even include those getting their weather from other internet driven sources (apps on their desktops/cell phones, blended search results on SERPs, ski/surf reports, etc), that’s quite a considerable reach. The days of waiting for your static weather prediction on the back of the USA today with a high/low are soon to be thing of the past.

Knowing that visits to Weather websites represent a consistently growing part of our everyday lives, it is rather fascinating to see how much more important search becomes during this time of the year.

Visits to Weather websites always begin to spike between November and December, this year demonstrating a 7.6% bump month to month. But weather related search activity increased 44% month to month, and search click-throughs to weather websites increase 56% month to month. With total visits to weather websites increasing by 20% month to month, we can see that while winter weather causes only moderate increases in audience visitation, it produces much more sizeable gains in engagement and search activity.

The increased search activity in relation to the modest increases in visitors offers a few observations. The first is that the winter is clearly a peak season, but the increased activity amongst the already astute consumer of online weather means more opportunities for weather vendors to engage with their customer base, meet their weather needs, and monetize their websites. There’s no shame in attracting repeat visitors.

The second observation is that a huge search increase coupled with a considerably lower increase in visits means that the blended weather search results on the SERPs are likely doing their job and getting weather searchers their answers without having to go to a website. Not the best news for weather marketers, but the increase in visitation is large enough I’m sure they’ll get past it. And this is certainly good news for searchers who are able to answer their questions with fewer clicks.

Third, and in my opinion most important, is that this crazy winter offers a huge opportunity to engage the US online population that is now interested in weather, but does not regularly visit weather websites. Remember, about 40% of the US online population tends to visit weather websites this time of year…a large chunk, yes, but that still leaves 125 million potential visitors untouched. With such large increases in weather interest, it is hard to imagine a better time for a weather publisher to invest in paid search to attract a new and potentially sustainable visitor base. Every new visitor to your website represents dollars in advertising sales, and as they say, it takes money to make money. At this time, less than 1.5% of all of the click-throughs to weather websites are paid clicks…an enormous opportunity to own the space this time of year and increase your reach to the non-standard weather visitor.

Many U.S. marketers often feel like they are dealing with a saturated marketplace, where the online population just isn’t growing like it used to. And while it’s true there may not be as many new Internet users coming online, the real growth opportunity revolves around increased engagement with medium and light internet users and introducing your website to new audiences. It is perhaps not surprising to hear that search is a fantastic way to do that, but can be problematic for many organizations (reasons I am sure you all understand…money, expertise, timing, etc). Just remember that even a basic analysis of market data and seasonal activity can ultimately contribute to your bottom line.

This post was originally published at SearchEngineWatch on January 10, 2011.

Food is big business, maybe the biggest. I can't think of a more routinely asked question than "What should we eat?"

Thankfully we now have technology - namely search - to help us answer that question so we don't hurt our brains thinking too hard. Although we've probably all used the Internet to help us find a local restaurant or order a pizza, the vast majority of our eating is done inside the home and the food is procured the old fashioned way - from a visit to your local grocery store.

Impulse decisions aside, grocery shoppers tend to be an informed (and often thrifty) bunch who turn to the Internet in increasing numbers to research and prep for their trip to the store. comScore's latest search data sheds some light on how consumers and manufacturers are making the most of search with this ubiquitous consumer behavior.

Just how important is search to the food industry? In the fourth quarter of 2010, food related websites attracted nearly 400 million visits from U.S. internet users via search, a number that has grown 22 percent in the past year and shows no signs in slowing down as more opportunities to "play with your food" become available online.

Paid Search for "Recipes" is Huge

Far and away the most prevalent interest in all of online food searching is the quest for "recipes." U.S. Internet searchers ran more than 150 million "recipe" related searches in Q4 (with chicken recipes consistently leading the way).

Savvy marketers are well aware of this fact and are investing heavily in attracting these consumers via paid search, serving nearly 1 billion paid search ads to recipe searchers during that same time period.

Three of the largest paid search food marketers - Kraft, Betty Crocker and Pillsbury - use search to drive traffic to their branded websites, which offer a variety of recipes and cooking ideas.

This paid search investment helps these big brand marketers drive brand engagement in order to ensure their products remain top of mind during their customers' next shopping trip. While these branding paid search dollars most certainly are being invested, we shouldn't neglect those direct response opportunities either.

Online Ordering via Search

Many local grocery stores have begun to allow online ordering -- if not for an entire set of groceries, certainly for specialty items during high traffic times throughout the year. (More than 5 million "ham" searches had been conducted by late holiday season).

Because my family listens to me at least some of the time, they are savvy enough to take advantage of these emerging technology trends and found the new local grocery store that accepted online ham orders, via search, reserving our delicious bounty. Search was just the start of this online ordering process, but leads directly into deeper analysis food merchants must consider.

The Ham Wars: Search Lessons for Merchants

The importance of online ordering (and ensuing execution) became quite apparent to me as my mother sent me to the store to pick up our honey-baked ham for Christmas dinner. I had a pre-scheduled time for pick up, an order number already in hand, and it should have been simple.

But an orderly system will break down if not enough people utilize it. Based upon the chaos that followed at the deli counter (an event to which I now affectionately refer to as "The Ham Wars") you would have thought we were all vying for spots on the lifeboat of the Titanic. Elbows were flying as we each made our move for the best ham.

As a grocery retailer, these are the types of events that can be anticipated. If online ordering is offered, retailers must effectively process those customers in an orderly and timely fashion.

Although my experience was an example of a retailer watching the online trends and trying to be ahead of the curve, all goodwill engendered by such an effort can be lost when the in-store experience doesn't match the convenience and efficiency of an online order. Let's not lose sight of the fact that these decisions are all part of a greater supply chain and customer experience plan that must be taken into consideration before implementation.

Search got me through the door, but the Ham Wars almost prevented me from making it out alive. There is plenty of opportunity for food manufacturers and retailers to acquire customers online, but they'll need to consider the logistics further down the purchase funnel if they intend to keep them.

This post was originally published at SearchEngineWatch on November 7, 2010.

Last Tuesday was Election Day (I voted, I promise!) in the U.S. One of the most prevalent themes on the campaign trail this year was the size and role of the federal government.

All of the recent coverage got me thinking about how, even though many Americans would like to see government play a more limited role, it has always served an important function in our lives. One way to better understand its influence is through Americans' search behavior and how that has changed over time.

For the sake of this analysis, we looked at the top search terms driving traffic to government websites, which include sites containing information on voting, the election, and government and state agencies (e.g., FBI.gov, Texas.gov, Army.mil).

Traditionally, we've used search click-throughs and their volumes as a proxy for relevance. The more often a search term drives click-throughs across the Internet, the more relevant it is to the searcher base at large.

Intent of these terms is further refined by analyzing their website and industry destinations. By analyzing the top search terms driving traffic to government websites at any given moment, we can determine what is politically relevant to the U.S. population at that time.

Big Government

Looking back at this data over the past three years tells a fascinating story of our fluid relationship with the government and how it serves us in times of not only administration and general information assistance, but also in times of irritation, preparation, and need.

Since 2007, the government category has averaged between 180-190 million search clicks in any given month, generally peaking around 235 million during tax season, everyone's favorite!

This year is different, however. Instead of falling back to normal levels by May, searches maintained historic highs throughout the year, even registering 240 million search clicks in September.

This consistency of volume throughout 2010 would point toward a greater increase in government related searches (most probably driven by the recession and the heated election cycle), as well as the U.S. government's efforts to better establish their online presence under President Obama.

Irritation, Preparation, Need

But not all government searches are as benign as downloading IRS forms and avoiding the DMV. A timeline analysis of the most popular topics offers insight into events that can have the greatest impact on our lives and the trust we have in our government to provide answers at a particular moment in time.

In September 2007, the government search landscape looked relatively serene, with the top 10 search phrases included:

• AKO (Army Knowledge)
• NOAA (Weather)
• FAFSA (Student Aid)
• IRS
• Social Security

These same terms consistently rank near the top, year in and year out, and as a result don't represent any particular societal event. "Do Not Call" searches also ranked high, representing the most pressing non-systemic issue of that time.

September 2008 tells a far different story from the prior year, as Hurricane Ike arrived in the gulf. Ike was the third major hurricane of the 2008 season, and the U.S. population turned to search and government websites to prepare. The top five search terms driving traffic to government websites that month were all weather-related:

1. NOAA
2. National Hurricane Center
3. Hurricane Ike
4. National Weather Service
5. FEMA

In times of crisis and disaster, we can see the important public service governments provide when citizens need to prepare. Government's most intrinsic reason for existing is to protect its citizens, and the ability to efficiently inform and prepare the populace for a disaster like Hurricane Ike is a great example of why a government search strategy is so necessary.

By September 2009, the economy took a severe turn for the worse as we were mired in a full blown recession. No news there, but the clear cut objective at that point for the government was to stave off a depression and address the financial needs of Americans.

With that understanding, unemployment-related searches become the single largest traffic driver to the government section. Unemployment search clicks had more than doubled since the year prior to the government category, reaching to almost 4 million by month's end. (Interestingly, "swine flu" related clicks gave "unemployment" a run for its money for awhile, but even at peak were less than half the size of the "unemployment" need.)

Fast forward to September 2010 and "unemployment" still tops the list of search topics driving traffic to government websites (nearly 4.4 million search clicks).

Even more unfortunate is a review of the top paid search phrases driving traffic to the category. The first six are military recruiting related (noteworthy for the military's efforts in adopting an online paid strategy), but the seventh most popular paid search phrase driving traffic is "Chapter 7 Bankruptcy."

This seems macabre on the surface, but in the grand scheme of things not an awful indicator, because the volume on this term in general hasn't risen considerably. It's just that government websites have invested dollars to better inform the populace on how to address this situation as opposed to first hearing from a for-profit entity.

Summary

So as we review the evolution of government searches over the past four years, clearly search plays an important role in providing citizens with the information they need for their most pressing areas of need and assistance, in good times and bad.

Whether it's as simple as downloading student loan forms or as complicated as applying for social security disability, search is an integral part of the 21st century citizen's idea of government.

Related industries should take note and consider where they fit into the government funnel of information gathering, crisis management, and policy resolution, and adapt accordingly.

This post was originally published at SearchEngineWatch on October 11, 2010.

Universal search - or blended search - has been an integrated part of the search experience since 2007. Heralded at the time as a revolution for searchers and marketers alike, the ensuing popularity has led to virtually every search engine today delivering blended results.

What originally began as simple weather updates and celebrity image results has evolved into a plethora of blended results options slicing and dicing your results pages into rather helpful sections.

Type in [San Francisco] and you're met with local results, images, maps, news, weather and an endless number of other options outside of the standard destination links. Although you are casting a wide net with a search as broad as "San Francisco," the engines are doing their best to offer you every possible option on the first page of results.

While universal search has clearly been a revolution in delivering information, there is a legitimate question as to whether it "works," which of course depends on how you define that word.

The funny thing about these types of results is that these success metrics can be very different for searchers vs. marketers. Searchers type in [weather 10019] and get exactly what they need in the blended weather result at the top of the page. But a marketer, say in this case Weather.com, would prefer that the searcher click-through and visit their website so they can deliver ads against that audience and monetize their content.

On the other hand, if you type in [Avatar DVD], although you'll receive blended shopping/news/etc. results as a searcher, the real winners are the marketers that show up because they are getting what they want -- to advertise with images/video to the consumer, and potentially get a shopping click-through and subsequent conversion.

Not All Blended Results are Created Equal

Every search engine must strike a balance between pleasing their customers as well as their clients. What is that balance? Let's run the numbers on the Big 3 search engines (Google, Yahoo, and Bing).

In August, a full one-third of all searches performed contained at least one blended result on the SERP from the Big 3 search engines. Although we generally see a fluctuating number above and below 33 percent for Google and Yahoo, Bing stands out with more than 54 percent of their SERPs containing a blended result.

Consistent with Bing's value proposition as a "decision engine" as opposed to a search engine, they are pushing hard with some of their blended result innovations to try to capture a grander share of the marketplace.

Give the searchers good results and they will come back. Bing's blended result percentage has nearly doubled in the past year, so it would appear that blended results have been clear point of emphasis.

Clicks, We Don't Need No Stinkin' Clicks!

Strictly speaking, clicks are the simple definition of success between the searchers and the marketers when it comes to blended results. If a search engine can answer a question for a searcher without a click being needed, the searcher is satisfied in the fewest actions possible.

But the marketers want the clicks (and resulting customer store visits) as they will inevitably convert a certain percentage of the searchers.

Using this click-based criterion, which blended results are best for searchers and which are best for marketers?

Best for Searchers

The three types of blended result pages with the lowest click-through rates (CTRs) (and best searcher satisfaction) are:

• Stock quotes (66 percent CTR)
• Maps (73 percent CTR)
• Dictionary definitions/answers (80 percent CTR).

This intuitively makes sense, right? These three provide the precise information the searcher is looking for without requiring clicking through for additional information, thereby considerably driving down the CTR.

As for blended result pages with the highest CTRs, shopping dominates the space with a 127 percent CTR. (A CTR over 100 percent is easily achievable because searchers can run one search and click on multiple search results during that session -- i.e., comparison shop).

Local results rank second at 107 percent, but anytime a search engine determines shopping blended results are relevant to you, the overall CTR shoots through the roof.

Best for Marketers

Even more interesting is the relationship these shopping blended results have with their paid search counterparts.

The average paid CTR on any search engine result page is about 9 percent. But if the SERP shows blended shopping results, the paid CTR will jump to 27 percent!

Of course the engines have determined the search is shopping related, and shopping searches have higher paid CTRs, but it's enlightening nonetheless. A marketer's dream, indeed.

Video and SEO

According to search engine optimization (SEO) firm, RankAbove, search results with video thumbnails have a 41 percent higher CTR than plain text results. The best part: every SEO position benefits. Regardless of the average position, video search results have a considerably higher CTR than their equivalent text result.

This differential in CTR is especially stark the lower the position on the page, driving incredible value for you if you're stuck in the 9 or 10 position on Page 1. Merging video together with these results will exponentially increase your value by position.

The Moral of This Story

Searchers are more inclined to interact and engage with blended results than they are with text results. Different types of blended results drive different types of behaviors, but the value to the searcher vs. the marketer can be delineated prior to focusing your efforts.

Just remember to take into account how blended results can impact your search marketing and optimization efforts. The value isn't in just being seen, but being found.

This post was originally published at SearchEngineWatch on September 13, 2010.

When asked for directions, most people use one of two methods of response: they either offer you detailed turn-by-turn instructions with street names, or they use landmarks to guide you around.

If you live in, or have visited Atlanta, how many times have you been offered directions based on which way to turn at the Big Chicken? It's like the nexus of the northern Atlanta universe. One method is not necessarily better than the other, but I'll bet you that you figure out how to get to the Big Chicken faster than you would find your way to "12 Cobb Parkway North" (the actual Big Chicken address).

Search activity can be quite similar at times. Even with an end destination in mind (let's say Amazon.com in this case) when you begin your search, you may enter "DVDs" because your journey begins in a more obtuse fashion and maybe there's a better route to good "DVDs" than to go directly to Amazon. Each link on the page is like a street corner, ensuring that you stop, look, read, and review before moving on to the next step in your navigation process.

But imagine entering "Amazon.com" as your search term, and you now have your landmark specific directions. You aren't concerned with any particular street corner or stop light along the way, but simply using the landmark -- in this case the Amazon.com website -- as your point of reference. The search page now becomes quite focused for you because you're only on the lookout for Amazon.com, right?

A navigational search is defined as any search phrase that doubles as a website address (think anything containing the suffix .com, .net, .org, etc). The scenario mapped out above represents an ongoing SEM and SEO issue for all website owners.

How often are searchers searching not only for your brand name, but your actual web address? Should you bid on it (given that you will already be the top organic listing)? Is it worth the money? Are your competitors bidding on your address? Do searchers actually do this? Let's look at the data.

About 12.5 billion searches were performed in July on the Big 5 search engines (Google, Yahoo, Bing, Ask, AOL Search) in the United States. Of those, approximately 1.9 billion were navigational in nature, or more than 15 percent of all searches in a given month.

Of the 1.9 billion navigational searches, 83 percent were with the ".com" suffix. No major surprises here, but the notable fact is that the ".com" percentage is decreasing year over year, down from 85 percent in July 2009. As the global Internet keeps expanding and ICANN continually revamps their domain registration rules, we're seeing large increases in search activity for the less popular web address suffixes.

The fact is that the ".com" web address search marketplace is a bit saturated, but the alternative suffixes are growing at decent, if not fantastic rates. Since last July, ".edu" is up more than 80 percent; ".org" is up 12 percent; even ".tv" is up almost 85 percent.

As an organization looking to corner valuable future Internet real estate, alternative suffix addresses should be part of your consideration. Search activity is always a killer proxy for the evolving lexicon of the public, so don't discount the growth in the alternative suffix searching.

When a traveler (or in this case, a searcher) is in unfamiliar territory, there is no better navigation tool for them than landmarks. Based on the enormous portion of searches that involve web addresses, determining a navigational search marketing strategy is by all means worth your time.

Just do your best to be the Big Chicken and not the third stop light past the highway overpass.

This post was originally published at SearchEngineWatch on July 19, 2010.

Search is a multipurpose tool with potentially unlimited uses for each of us. Whether we need to find a birthday present for Mom, find out the latest news on the World Cup, or determine the best driving route to the game, a simple query in the search box will provide us an answer. Online search has clearly evolved to become the de facto answer delivery system for our questions. Though it helps us quickly and efficiently get answers to our questions, is search actually making us any smarter?

Answers are our goal, but they inevitably lead to more questions. Think about how many times you have immediately asked “why? or how?” after your initial investigation was concluded. Prior to the Internet, we were stopped dead in our tracks time and time again without an available medium to address those follow up questions. Maybe we saw an interesting fact on Jeopardy, but short of having an encyclopedia handy or heading off to the library our options were usually pretty limited in finding the answer we were seeking. The Internet -- and search specifically -- has opened up learning opportunities that even the least intellectually curious of us is taking advantage of every day.

Currently, reference-related searches account for 13% of the total U.S. monthly search volume (over 3 billion queries). With about 2 out of every 3 U.S Internet users visiting a reference site last month, there is no question that finding answers online is important, but how considerable a role does search play in driving traffic to these sites?
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The world’s largest reference site Wikipedia.org represents one of my favorite examples of how people become smarter through search. If you have ever conducted a search, you have surely come across a Wikipedia link in that first or second position of the organic results, offering an informational response to your query (even if you didn’t ask a question). Interestingly, Wikipedia receives an astounding 90% of its inbound traffic via search! And those of us who have landed on Wikipedia after a search know how that visit frequently serves as a springboard to further navigation through Wikipedia as we inevitably learn far more about that subject than we ever intended. These follow up “why and how” questions are both answered and initiated by information we didn’t anticipate desiring at the beginning of the search.

Another example of how search educates us is the Google Doodle, “the decorative changes that are made to the Google logo to celebrate holidays, anniversaries, and the lives of famous artists and scientists.” One of the most popular Google Doodle’s was the recent celebration of PAC-MAN’s 30th anniversary.

These Doodles are designed to be interactive, such that if a searcher clicks on the image it will populate the search box with a pre-defined term and run a search when clicked.

PAC-MAN is a ubiquitous pop culture icon that perhaps offers little educational value, but Google Doodles frequently pay homage to important historical events and figures. One such subject recently highlighted by a Doodle was renowned composer Antonio Vivaldi on his birthday in March.

During an average month, Vivaldi’s name generates around 20,000 searches in the U.S., but after the Google Doodle was shown this number ballooned to 650,000 in March, an increase of more than 3000%. Or put another way, an additional 630,000 people who likely would not have otherwise searched for Vivaldi were exposed to some new information about him.

While these Google Doodles have perhaps a unique ability to drive these searches, they represent only a tiny fraction of all the new educational information to which search exposes us – both directly and indirectly – every day. Search clearly has an important role in how we gather information, become more educated, and nurture our collective curiosity and intellects. It is making that process as simple and streamlined as possible, and is most definitely making us smarter as a result.

This post was originally published in two parts at SearchEngineWatch on April 26, 2010 and May 24, 2010.

The number of searches conducted on Facebook has been surging over the past year, more than doubling to 647 Million searches in the US as of March. While their numbers still pale in comparison to the 10.5 billion searches generated on Google during the same month, Facebook’s footprint in search is significant enough that many in the search community are beginning to sit up and take notice. I continue to hear more and more people ask: Is Facebook on its way to becoming a serious player in the search marketplace?

To evaluate its potential, it is illustrative to consider how search has evolved to the current point in time. Historically, there are 3 primary factors that coalesce to drive change in the evolution of an emerging market: Technology, Marketing, and Consumer Behavior. As each of these factors evolves over time, new developments tend to occur in a symbiotic fashion.

To use a non-internet example as reference, think about Henry Ford’s application of the assembly line to automobile manufacturing (Technology) and the evolving relationship with both Marketing and Consumer Behavior in the United States. Cars begin to be mass produced (Technology), driving down the price for entry and allowing even average citizens the opportunity to become owners and begin driving everywhere possible (Consumer Behavior). In order to address the driving demand, more and better roads/highways are built across the country, and as a result billboards and road side gas stations/shopping begin to pop up (Marketing), which in turn creates more demand, fueling further investments in technology, lowering the price to the consumer even further to bring new consumers into the market. At this point, our driving culture truly begins to take shape and evolve into our relationship with our cars that we have today. The circular nature of these factors influencing one another becomes apparent.

A similar type of evolution can be seen when we look back at the maturation of the search marketplace. The internet becomes widely available in the 1990s and consumers hit the web to consume information, interact socially, shop, and generally run their lives online. As this behavior progressed, marketers of all kinds begin to spend dollars online. Although search engines cropped up in the early days, the quality of results simply weren’t good enough in the beginning to drive people to use search as their main channel for internet navigation, and “portals” became the primary channel for exploration. It’s not surprising given the early quality of results that we tended to search on more obtuse terms such as “shoes” or “news,” which had very little specificity.

With the launching of Google’s PageRank technology, incredibly relevant search results launched a revolution in both marketing and consumer behavior that has forever changed our economic and behavioral landscape. Since this technology pioneered by Google generated more relevant results, searchers began to feel comfortable with extending the length of their search phrases, in effect being more specific about their needs. On top of this developing consumer behavior, this evolution of specificity has encouraged innovation from marketers en masse. Marketer strategy continues to improve with well researched paid search campaigns and increasingly more optimized landing pages to accommodate these longer phrases.

You’ll notice that the average number of words per search in the United States in March was nearly 3.2 words and it has been growing for some time. This is a far cry from our original limitations of “shoes” in order to now search for and find a pair of “nike air jordans.”

What this trend illustrates is that as the technology and sophistication of search results gain, consumers have learned to adapt their searching behavior to reflect the increased specificity the results will convey. This change in behavior enables them to inch closer to a result that reflects the true, original intent of their search. But increasingly there is new information available on the web -- especially as it relates to one’s social graph --that offers potential for even greater specificity; one that filters results through the people, and not just the pages, of highest relevance to you.

As we look at the chart below, we will notice that the average number of words per search at the top search properties has been steadily increasing over the past two years while searches on Facebook contain only two words on average, a trend has not increased in any meaningful way over the past two years. Perhaps these numbers should not be too surprising given that the majority of searches on Facebook are people searches – first and last name. But if you delve a bit deeper into the list of top searches on Facebook, beyond the “first name, last name” searches, you will see that people are beginning to search on more traditional search topics, things like “games,” “shoes,” and “iPad.”

In other words, non-people related searching on Facebook looks somewhat similar to the types of searching we saw during the early evolution of the search engines. If these are the same people who are typing 3+ word searches on Google and Bing, why are they still relying on such rudimentary search terms on Facebook? I think the simple answer is that when people are unfamiliar with a search experience, they prefer to dip their toe into the pool rather than dive in head first. Until they get a better sense of how the engine will respond to their requests, they will continue to keep it simple.

But the fact that we are seeing the first real signs of a burgeoning “traditional” search experience bodes well for the future potential of Facebook as a search engine. I anticipate that we will see this type of consumer behavior evolve along the same lines of traditional search as more dollars flow towards social media.

It will also require further development of the search technology on the part of Facebook. The true promise of traditional search on a social platform like Facebook is the ability to apply a social filter to search results. When I search for “shoes,” I want to see which of my friends are fans of Nike, or which ones “liked” that pair of Pumas being sold on Amazon, or which ones raved on their newsfeed about their comfortable new running shoes. For now there are some options allowing for broad matches to Friend & Everyone posts, but much more can be done.

Facebook must improve their ability to relate your search results, on the first page, to you as an individual. Search engine algorithms do their best to deliver you relevant results based on all of the people that searched on similar terms as you, but Facebook has the unique position with which to analyze your personal relationships and further differentiate results. The Facebook display advertising targeting features are quite impressive, considering factors such as your latest updates, your “likes” and those of your friends…but its ascension as a search property will be directly impacted by its ability to do this same sort of qualitative analysis of you and your entire circle and customizing the search results accordingly. Being that they partner with Bing in order to deliver the web search results, it puts Bing in a strong position from which to innovate using an incredibly large and yet closely personal data set. My ideal Facebook search result page format would be universal in nature, with a collection of the most relevant internal Facebook information combined with appropriately filtered external web results.

As consumers become more comfortable with an inherently social search experience, their search behavior is likely to evolve with it. We will see the average length of their search phrases increase, and it will be driven by both technology innovation and more relevant marketer content before these consumers make the jump.

We are still very early in the evolution of social search, but the nascent search behaviors we see developing on Facebook right now suggest it not only has the potential to become a viable search engine, but in fact has a chance to help redefine the way we currently think of search. The social filter can provide a new layer of meaning to search results, but it will be a matter of technology, marketing, and consumer behavior evolving until we get a true sense of what the future of social search will bring.

This post was originally published at SearchEngineWatch on March 22, 2010.

How do you define a "brand?" Traditionally when you think of a brand, you might envision a logo, a sponsorship, perhaps even an ad campaign. The American Marketing Association defines a brand as a "name, term, sign, symbol or design, or a combination of them intended to identify the goods and services of one seller or group of sellers and to differentiate them from those of other sellers."

That definition is a good start. But a brand is really more than that, isn't it? It's the long-term equity and associations that help formulate an identity. So what happens when you want to change your identity?

Last year, cable television channel the Sci-Fi Channel announced plans to shed its genre specific name to create a more brand specific name: Syfy. Opinions on this change ranged from "great idea" to "are they serious?" It was a decision loaded with risk.

A colleague recently mentioned that this brand relaunch decision was partially driven by its search strategy. Given the increasingly important role that search plays in the way we discover and interact with brands, the decision begins to makes more sense.

Would you rather own a brand, or are you content to just take a piece of "genre pie"? Syfy decided it wanted to own its brand, and maybe help itself to some leftover genre pie at the same time.

To determine whether this re-branding strategy was a success from a search perspective, let's dig into the data and evaluate exactly what happened.

On July 6, 2009, Syfy officially relaunched its brand.

As the chart shows, there hasn't been a noticeable attrition in the number of searches on the genre-specific term "SciFi" subsequent to the launch, which suggests that the genre itself was driving much of the searching behavior. The number of monthly searches on this term has generally varied between 600,000 and 800,000 a month, both before and after the Syfy launch.

Now if we look at the number of searches on the term "Syfy" post-launch, we can see that it went from virtually non-existent to between 300,000 and 500,000 a month.

If we combine the two terms, the total search volume has effectively increased demand by about 40 percent per month. Even more importantly, there has been a significant net increase in clicks of more than 20 percent. Clearly, the rebrand is consistently paying dividends from the standpoint of search engagement and reach.

Syfy created demand in the marketplace for its new brand and became more relevant to its search audience, while also increasing its consumer reach substantially via search.

To bring us back to the original AMA definition: a brand is an identity, and an identity can easily get lost in the clutter of search. The reality of branding today is that search is now a fundamental component of brand identity. If you can't differentiate your brand in the search environment, you don't have much of an identity.

Syfy's risky brand relaunch makes a lot more sense and it has clearly been successful in helping differentiate its identity from the genre, enabling it to cut through the clutter and reach more people. And isn't that really what a brand is all about?

Now, if you'll excuse me, it's time to go watch some "Battlestar Galactica" reruns.

This past Thanksgiving weekend was an interesting one for me. I got the opportunity to spend time with my adorable nieces, ages 3 & 5, and since I don’t yet have children of my own, I am constantly learning new things each time we get together. A few of the valuable lessons I learned this weekend include:

1. Children’s books are apparently meant to be read 2 to 3 times in a row, per sitting.
2. Some days kids will just wake up and decide that today is their day to be in a bad mood.
3. Marketing of retail items to children during the holidays – or any time for that matter – works. And perhaps more notably, search activity can serve as a proxy for interest and buzz.

Obviously today’s post is about item #3. Let’s take a look at Zhu Zhu Pets. Have you heard of them? They’re robotic hamsters that scurry around on the ground and make various cooing noises, and they’re apparently on the top of most kids’ “wish list” this holiday season, including my two nieces who barraged me with questions this past week about their likelihood of getting the tiny creatures for Christmas. A recent article from HuffingtonPost.com confirms that Zhu Zhu Pets are in fact the hot toy of the season (“Zhu Zhu Pets Madness” is compared to “Tickle Me Elmo Disease” in the article).

Zhu Zhu pets are actually a relatively new toy – they officially launched nationwide in August 2009 – and the rest, as they say, is history. Parents immediately started blogging about, searching for and trying to get their hands on these furry creatures. If you take a look at the below chart, you’ll see that searches related to Zhu Zhu Pets (including misspellings such as “Zu Zu Pets” and the like) spiked as soon as the toy stormed on to the scene. In August, we see over 129,000 searches for these branded terms, followed by 193,000 in September and up to 234,000 through October. As our November numbers are coming online, the searches and searchers are increasing still.

Parents who searched for and purchased their Zhu Zhu Pets early are likely heading into the holiday shopping season a lot more care free than those who are still trying to hunt down a Zhu Zhu Pet in time for Christmas. The lesson here is not just for moms and dads to start searching and buying early, though. Retailers and manufacturers can also gain a lot from analyzing search activity leading up to the holidays. They can use these insights to try to identify and hone in on the hot toys of the season, allowing them to make informed strategic decisions about production and inventory levels.

The digital world is evolving at a rapid rate, and search marketing is no exception. I was fortunate enough to be on a panel recently at Search Engine Strategies (SES) in San Jose titled: “The Future of Search: Where to Next?”, the purpose of which was to speculate on the roles search marketing might play in the coming years, and how it will evolve along the way. Each panelist was asked to discuss three of their own predictions for the future of search, and I thought it would be valuable to share mine with readers of the comScore blog.

Prediction #1: Searcher Intent Will Not be Judged by Destinations Alone

For the past several years, most of the search industry has held to the belief that Web searchers’ intent can best be determined by the destination of their click. In other words, the theory holds that the best way to determine what a Web user was originally searching for is to examine the site he or she visited after clicking on a link from the search results.

For example, if a person types in “Chicago Bears,” their ‘search intent’ would be determined by the site the searcher chose to visit after considering the various search results suggested. However, the searcher could end up visiting a variety of sites, e.g. the Chicago Bears website to purchase apparel, Ticketmaster.com to buy game tickets or a sports blog with the latest news and updates on the team, etc. As a result, this is not a perfect way to judge the intent, since the exact same search entry can lead to many distinct websites, each fulfilling different objectives. Now, if the searcher conducted a unique search and was led to one unique destination each time, this method has the potential to provide some relevant insight. However, consider the times when the searcher runs only one search query, clicks to visit a site, realizes it isn’t the right one, hits the back button, and clicks on the next link. Using the traditional method of tracking intent, you’d be left with one search query and three possible intentions. Each click would be counted as an intended destination, when in fact the user was only looking to find the final site they visited, (not the first ones they clicked on in error). I have always called this the Homonym Effect of search.

My belief is that, as the search marketplace progresses, search engines and search entities will continue to refine their algorithms in an attempt to produce search results that more accurately reflect searcher intent. Achieving 100% relevance, however, won’t be easy. At comScore, we have also been working to improve our understanding of searcher intent in ways that consider:

• the destination URL (this is important, but not sufficient on its own)
• all of the sites that a searcher visited long before and long after the actual search being analyzed
• all of the types of individuals that use the defined terms

Prediction #2: Search Will be Used More Widely as a Branding Tool

In the not so distant past, online ad dollars made up a very small share of total ad spend across all media. Content with traditional methods of branding advertising, many marketers were not inspired by the idea of venturing into the digital world. According to Lehman Brothers and Think Equity partners, total U.S. measured media spend in 2008 was $186 billion, of which $118 billion was spent on branding. As a subset of these numbers, U.S. online advertising spend was $26 billion, of which $6 billion was spent on branding advertising. As you can see below, even as recently as 2008, only 5% of all media branding ad dollars were spent online:

However, 2009 is showing us that the search market is one of the most vibrant segments of the online channel. As it continues to grow in volume, and as more and more people use search throughout their day, we are beginning to see investments in search advertising by traditional branding advertisers. Companies that had been basking in the comfort of traditional offline media are now beginning to transfer their branding dollars into the online channel.

A great example of this is Kraftfoods.com. Used almost exclusively as a branding vehicle, Kraftfoods.com saw more than 10 million search clicks in the U.S. during the first half of 2009, 33.4% of which were paid clicks (see below). Visitors to Kraftfoods.com can learn about the latest recipes, promotions, and healthy living suggestions before making a purchase of a Kraft brand at the supermarket.

Prediction #3: Search Will Become Increasingly Important Earlier in the Buying Cycle

Traditionally considered one of the final steps in the consumer purchase process, search is moving up the funnel. We are now seeing search activity taking place much earlier in the consumer buying cycle, even in the beginning stages. The number of total monthly searches conducted per unique searcher grew 25 percent in one year (data from June 2008 to June 2009) bringing the total number of searches to 202 million in June 2009. Whether it is an online purchase or an eventual offline purchase, searchers are becoming increasingly dependent on social media and product reviews to assist them at the onset of shopping. The searches conducted to access these tools are also becoming more specific in describing their needs, with the average search phrase now containing more than 3 words per search query.

This shuffle of the consumer buying cycle means that search marketers must be aware of the need to reach consumers earlier in the process. While it used to be typical for consumers to use search after having established interest in a type of product, buyers are now also using search as they establish interest – one of the first stages of the cycle. Given the boundless amount of information that search allows consumers to access, it no longer makes sense to only deliver search ads to consumers when they are ready to make a purchase. It is much more likely that a purchase decision will be made before arriving at a vendor website. Marketers should adopt new strategies to accommodate this change, and opt to market up the funnel to attract customers.

So, there you have it. Those are my three predictions for the future of the search market. Search has already proved to be a very successful tool for marketers and consumers, and it is still growing at an incredible rate each year. As search technology continues to improve, we can expect that search will become integral for many more web functions. Search allows marketers to reach consumers in ways that are not as easy through other channels. The future of search should see an ability to more accurately decipher searcher intent, followed by a push of marketers’ branding efforts online as a result of the use of search by consumers earlier during their consideration and buying processes.

Well, it looks like I came up empty on my prediction about the winner of American Idol last week, so I’ve done some follow up investigation to see where I might have erred. A few qualitative points have come to light that may help with future search-related prognostication:

• The Buzz Factor: Search totals can be a good predictor of interest, but analysis of the terms themselves and the buzz associated with each contestant are also important. Adam Lambert is a polarizing media figure, and the analysis of the positive and negative type of terms used by the Searchers tell an interesting story about the psyche of the American Idol audience. With the South traditionally leading the voting in American Idol, the socially conservative/small town element of the audience was heavily involved. Mark Walsh of Mediapost commented on this approach taken by the folks over at OneRiot, who accurately predicted the outcome.
• The Gokey Factor: I’m kicking myself after the fact for not making the connection.....with only 1 million votes separating Kris and Adam towards the end, the Gokey voters would inevitably throw their support behind Kris for the Finale matchup. Again, I bring this back to the similar style of Kris and Danny Gokey vs. Adam Lambert, the agreed upon “patently original” performer for this season’s show, and if there is anything that we know about crowd behavior, they often fall in line with that which is closest and most familiar.
• The Democracy Factor: Okay, so I wasn’t factoring in that voting for American Idol is not exactly a democratic process. Each fan has the ability to phone-in as many votes as they want, and totals can potentially be further manipulated by the use of auto-dialers. I won’t go so far as to say the system is rigged, but it can certainly be influenced in a way that might not reflect the actual sentiment of the voting public.

So, lessons learned for the next time that comScore lets me be so bold as to prognosticate on the basis of search activity. As Gian Fulgoni said to me the other day, while smiling broadly, “Forecasting is always difficult, but especially when it concerns the future.” ;)

If Americans’ search behavior is any indication which way they’re leaning towards voting for the next American Idol, it looks like it’ll be a runaway victory for Adam Lambert. Compared to other contestants Kris Allen and Danny Gokey, Lambert generated a whopping 78% of all searches for the three finalists during the week ending May 10, according to comScore Marketer data. (Incidentally, Females Age 35-64, who apparently have a track record of predicting the annual Idol winner, gave Lambert a slightly higher 80% of the vote.)

Okay, so maybe predicting that overwhelming favorite Lambert as the eventual victor isn’t exactly going out on a limb. But the search behavior also seems to have picked up on an interesting trend, which is that it shows Kris Allen narrowing the gap considerably with Danny Gokey from the week ending May 3 to the week ending May 10. Certainly an interesting indicator in hindsight considering that the dark horse leapfrogged Gokey to make the final two.