StanShinn.com » Search Engine Marketing

Google Now 65% of U.S. Searches, Up 5% YOY

Stan Shinn — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 22:41:29 +0000

Google now accounts for 65.1 percent of all US searches, while Yahoo Search, MSN Search and Ask.com received 21.2 percent, 7.1 percent and 4.6 percent, respectively, according to MarketingCharts, citing Hitwise.

The remaining 46 search engines it tracks accounted for less than 2.0 percent.

Microsoft Launches New Live Search

Stan Shinn — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 18:16:18 +0000

A new Microsoft’s Live Search has just launched:

The latest iteration of Microsoft’s Live Search, which was first “leaked” last week, is now live and in the wild. According to the Live Search team, the improvements cover four major areas: an expanded index (reports say Live now searches 20 billion pages), faster load times, a new look and feel, and more integrated content.

Read full article

Google retains lead in U.S. search market

Stan Shinn — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 13:57:25 +0000

The search giant’s market share among home, work and university Internet users climbed from 42.7 percent to 43.1 percent from March to April of this year–up from 36.5 percent in April 2005, ComScore said Monday.

In second place, Yahoo saw its market share hold steady at 28 percent between March and April, a decrease of 2.7 percent from last year. Less than 6 percentage points separated Google’s and Yahoo’s respective market shares in April 2005.

Creative (and Effective) Form Design

Stan Shinn — Thu, 11 Jan 2007 20:56:54 +0000

UK based Carphone Warehouse has created an innovative phone ordering application on their web site, The Phone Spot. There are two things I like about it.

First, they make creative use of animation on their cell phone ordering form. This ‘Step by Step Phone Finder’ has an animated character on the left which makes the search feel personal, and takes out some of the otherwise intimidating nature of selecting multiple products and configuring a cell phone order. The animation also catches you eye and makes you stay longer on the page, make it more likely to engage the visitors interest.

Secondly, they make good use of diagrams to show the different cell phone types. A picture is worth a thousand words, and this web form certainly makes creative use of illustrations to aid the user in their buying process.

Visit their ThePhoneSpot.com to see this buying experience in action.

Alexaholic: Website Statistics and Graphs

Stan Shinn — Thu, 26 Oct 2006 15:02:52 +0000

Alexa isn’t always spot-on accurate, but it has its uses. This site allows you to compare stats for up to five domains, side by side. An interesting tool for competitive analysis.

Alexaholic blends Alexa website traffic graphs with a lightweight ajax-enhanced interface to satisfy hard-core Alexa traffic chart junkies – aka Alexaholics.

Webmasters, SEO/SEM specialists, and domain owners can compare and measure website statistics for up to five domains at once, switch traffic chart types and ranges without page loads, and generate report pages that are easily bookmarked and shared.

Visit the site at: Alexaholic

Google’s New Custom Search Engine

Stan Shinn — Wed, 25 Oct 2006 14:14:08 +0000

Want to build your own Google-powered specialized search engine for your web site or blog? Google’s new Custom Search Engine service allows you to set up your own unique search engine that searches on certain sites you specify, and allows you to completely customize the look and feel. Some of the features:

Make money (get a share off the ad clicks)
Multi-label sites
Up to 5000 annotations per search engine
Collaborate with friends to tag sites (I’ve made my search engines public so anyone can add their annotations)
Associate weights to results and have control over the rankings (refer to the XML)
Completely brand the engine and customize the look and feel
Display refinements on the search results page
Upload XML/OPML files filled with links
Upload XML to configure the search engine labels/contexts
Nest label hierarchies on the refinements onebox
Make the search Ajax powered
Combine results with another person’s search results Source

Learn more about this new technology here: http://google.com/coop/cse/examples/

DiscountClick Online Marketing Services

Stan Shinn — Sun, 22 Oct 2006 21:28:13 +0000

Businesses wanting web marketing services usually must pay a premium to agencies to get SEO and PPC assistance. DiscountClick fills in the gap between do-it-yourself campaigns and high-dollar agencies. Their affordable Search Engine Promotion Services costs as low as $50 per month. They provide:

… dedicated SEO Consulting, Natural Search Engine Optimization, Pay Per Click Management, Keyword Analysis, Link Building Services, Non Reciprocal Link programs, Code Optimization, Affordable, Content Writing, Monitoring and Reporting, Search Engine Marketing. Our online marketing services for search engines also provides a suite of online seo tools for optimizing and tracking your web site and report on your results. Source

A must for any professional seo consultant or interactive agency serious about cost effective marketing for search engine optimization. Read more at http://www.discountclick.com.

Google Alone Allows Trademark Bidding

Stan Shinn — Thu, 19 Oct 2006 17:55:04 +0000

Google is the only search engine that currently allows you to buy a competitor’s name in paid search; this was recently upheld in court. Source

Only 11 Percent Of Searchers Use One Word Queries

Stan Shinn — Wed, 18 Oct 2006 20:54:29 +0000

11.4 percent of searchers use one-word queries, two-word queries 28.9% leads the bunch, followed by three-word queries at 27.85%, four-word queries with 17.1%, five-word with 8.25% and six-word queries with 3.7%. Source

Google Website Optimizer

Stan Shinn — Wed, 18 Oct 2006 20:49:54 +0000

Google Analytics Blog has announced a new Website Optimizer in limited release to AdWords advertisers:

Website Optimizer is a free tool that helps AdWords advertisers test different landing pages and determine which one drives the most conversions. A true multivariate testing tool, Website Optmizer allows you to test variations of headlines, promotional copy, and images. The tool allows you to update your site with the winning test combination and continue to experiment.

The beta launch of Website Optimizer is a limited release that is offered to AdWords advertisers on a sign-up basis. Source

This promises to be a great addition to Google’s already robust toolkit for advertisers.