PJA Blog: The Complex Brand

We heard a good presentation here from Anne Kennedy at Beyond Ink.Some of her points:

• Search only works when someone knows to look for something. That’s the challenge of visibility: How do you let the search engines in?
• All web business takes place on an 11″ or 15″ screen, and most of it in search takes place above the fold.
• 10% of search budgets are devoted to search, but only 1/10th of that to search engine optimization, despite the fact that more than twice as many people choose natural search results over paid by click, AdWords, etc.
• Updates to Google, such as the Jagger algorithm update, force out link strategies such as cheesy links, link farm schemes, and cloaking (showing engines one page, delivering another: though this can be a good thing for a global pharma that sells different drugs/doses/prices per-country).
• Some clients get into search engine trouble inadvertently; e.g., creating 2 URLs for the same index of content for convenience’s sake (www.x.com and x.com). This will trip a filter in some search engines to force you down the results line.
• Google still runs the show: 46.2% of all search, versus 22.8% for Yahoo and 12.6% for MSN. However, because 2/3 of first-page results are unique when searched on the top 3 engines, it’s best to focus on the quality of content, not a specific engine-targeting strategy.
• New content types allow for faster ways to get above the fold than waiting the 6 months it typically takes to get into the organic results:Shopping links: usually above the fold, good for B2CNews: usually above the fold, and a great way to go if you embed links in your electronic release, and in a sense optimize your language. You also can ‘buy your way’ up the feed for about $500 per release. These items generally stay up for 30 days. This is a particularly good way to go if you want journalists to write about you, because 100% of journalists use search. These optimized press releases are growing 12% a year in healthcare.

  Local: local content speciality can get you into this above-the-fold box.

  Premium pay per click: at the very top of the fold.

  Pay per click: on the right-hand side

• Blogs. Blogs are big. 57% of journalists read blogs, and 27% of them rely on blogs to do their jobs. Blog strategies should cover content (at least 3x a week), syndicated guests, and MyST, which can filter out competitor mentions. I’m on shaky ground here. Doug Reynolds, can you throw me a lifeline?

That’s it for now.

Remember to brush starting on the inside.

h

This entry was posted on Friday, January 13th, 2006 at 2:43 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.