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Overdrive Partners with Aquent Healthcare Consulting to Launch SEO Compliant WebsiteOverdrive is happy to announce the launch of a new website for Aquent Healthcare Consulting. Overdrive worked with Aquent to develop an information architecture that allows the healthcare organization and professionals to easily learn about the large-scale international recruitment services that Aquent Healthcare Consulting provides. The design has a friendly, welcoming feel to help reinforce the fact that Aquent Healthcare Consulting understands the healthcare industry and has the experience to help healthcare organizations address their workforce planning needs. All of the architecture, design, and copy components consider SEO best practices. View the new Aquent Healthcare Consulting website at http://health.aquent.com.
Aquent Healthcare Consulting is one of the largest premier healthcare workforce planning consultants in the world, helping healthcare organizations attract, procure and retain skilled, experienced nurses and physical therapists. Aquent Healthcare Consulting's large-scale international recruitment program allows healthcare organizations to open physical therapist and nurse recruitment efforts as far as London/U.K. and Dubai/UAE. Get comprehensive, strategic workforce solutions for your organization, and build winning workforce strategies for the future. Labels: Agency News, SEO Born to Have Good Search RankingsWhen my older sister announced that she was pregnant with twins last year, as her younger sister I was thrilled to be a first time aunt. As an online media professional, I was thrilled to (jokingly) offer her advice on how to optimize the babies’ names. From what my sister has told me, competition among expectant parents for baby names is just as fierce as getting accepted into a nursery school in Manhattan. Remember that Seinfeld episode where Susan’s cousin took George’s favorite baby name, Seven? Well here are some ways to beat out the competition by using search engine optimization techniques to enhance the ranking of your baby’s name. These tips were taken from a MediaPost article written by David Berkowitz entitled Baby Name Optimization.1) Write a press release the day your baby’s born with the baby’s name in the headline, and optimize the entire release. As soon as the little one takes its first breath, he or she can even appear in the body of Google’s natural search results thanks to universal search. 2) Buy all potential domain name misspellings of your baby’s name. If you’re blessed with ample foresight or come from an ages-old tradition of arranged marriages, buy versions of the last name of any potential suitor you have in mind. Redirect the names to your baby’s main dot-com domain. 3) Film the birth and syndicate it to dozens of video sites. One of those sites will have to be around by the time of your kid’s communion or bar mitzvah, right? On your primary domain, optimize the video by tagging every second of it so those clips are accessible to search engine spiders. 4) Blog as if you’re the baby. Then, when your kid is old enough to blog, you can hand it over to your child, or you can go on blogging as if you’re his or her therapist. 5) Tag your baby. Don’t forget that you can use these search engine optimization tips for your business as well. It doesn’t matter if your business has been established for a long time or is just getting underway, these tips and tricks will help build your company's brand for years to come. To read the rest of Mr. Berkowitz’s tips and the full article please click here Labels: Online Media, SEO, Strategy Extending the Reach and Effectiveness of Your Marketing Efforts with Paid SearchMuch has been said about Paid Search and its effectiveness as a direct marketing medium. It’s targeted, cost effective and generates tremendous results.However, an often overlooked aspect of Paid Search is its effectiveness as a complimentary medium to other forms of media being deployed to market various products and services. For example, when a prospective customer sees an ad on TV or in a magazine, it is highly unlikely that they are going to stop what they are doing and act on the message or offer right there and then. More likely they are going to continue watching the program or reading that magazine. In fact, to assume that your target will be completely captivated by your ad and stop what they are currently doing to act on it, is a big assumption. And you know what they say about assumptions. So is all lost? Not at all. While your prospect might not be able to recall the entire message word for word, it’s very likely that they can recall a portion of it. They might not know your company name, but remember the product name. They might not recall the headline, but remember a part of the concept. So, once they have finished doing what they are doing, where is this prospect going to go in order to turn this fragmented piece of information into a complete idea? The Search Engines. Yes, as we all know, search engines are a great place to take an idea or big piece of information and turn it into something more. Therefore a user who is interested in what you have to offer, but does not necessarily have enough information to go directly to the source, is likely going to turn to the search engines in hope of finding the necessary information needed to access your product or service. This is where Paid Search Engine Marketing can step in and really act as a means to extend the life of your other marketing efforts. By dissecting the message and thinking of all the various ways a user might react to or apply it to their lives, you can build a list of terms that, when searched on, will ensure that the prospect will be able to find your product or service, even if they can only recall a small portion of what was actually said in the advertisement. Additionally, with Paid Search, you have the ability to choose which terms you want your product or service to be associated with, and assuming you have enough budget allocated, secure a high profile and very visible placement. You can also control the message that appears when users search on these terms to complement the message associated with your other marketing efforts and direct the user to a destination that provides them with everything they need to access or purchase your product and service. Additionally, the fact that you can turn it on and off based on the needs and timing associated with your other marketing efforts provides a huge degree of flexibility that ensures your message is placed exactly where and when you want it to be accessed. Sounds pretty easy and basic enough doesn’t it? I mean, you’d think that all companies would take advantage of this strategy. Unfortunately this is not always the case. In fact, more often than not, companies see Paid Search as an island; not something that can be tied into and extend the life of their other marketing or PR efforts. A Case of Missed Opportunity - Bag, Borrow or Steal & Sex and the City Movie To support this claim, just take a look at the company Bag, Borrow or Steal. This company received a huge boost – a direct mention in one of the of most hyped movie releases of the summer - Sex and the City, as well as a huge article in the May 27th edition of the Wall Street Journal. This is press and publicity that almost any company would kill for! The focus of the Wall Street Journal was how Bag, Borrow or Steal was planning to leverage the mention in the movie to grow their business. So what has Bag, Borrow or Steal done to capitalize on their 10 seconds of movie fame? Well, according to the Wall Street Journal article they have trumpeted its affiliation with the movie on their website as well as launched a contest on YouTube. Now this is all great, but it really assumes that you are already somewhat familiar with the company or are going to remember this line from the movie. My guess is that people will remember bits and pieces from the movie, such as the handbags being carried by the characters, but are they really going to remember a specific line from one particular scene? Not likely. Therefore, by buying terms such as “Sex and the City Movie” or “Sex and the City Handbag”, Bag, Borrow or Steal could really extend the life of this mention in the movie and procure additional traffic and sales. Additionally, my guess is that via PR they are pushing their YouTube contest and people are writing about it, just like we saw with the Wall Street Journal article. While this is nice, users still have to go and search out the contest. Therefore, people are likely going to turn to the search engines to search for the contest using terms such as “Sex and the City YouTube Contest” or “Sex and the City You Tube Contest”. However, after reading this article, I decided to do some searching on my own, and much to my surprise, when I searched on all of the aforementioned terms, Bag, Borrow or Steal was nowhere to be found in the Paid Search results. Talk about a huge missed opportunity. Here is a company that received national press in the second most widely circulated paper in America, and you could not find them. Now this may have changed by now, but below are screen grabs of search results taken the day after the Wall Street Journal Article was published. Search Result for "Sex and the City movie"
Search Result for "Sex and the City handbag"
In short, whether they knew when the article was being published or not, once it was printed they should have had a plan of action in place. Therefore, by having a Paid Search campaign ready to go, they could have started capitalizing on their affiliation with the movie some time ago, or at least immediately after the article was published. The moral of the story here is that Paid Search should not be looked at just as an isolated medium or silo in your online marketing program. Rather it should be closely integrated into all of your marketing efforts as it can really work to extend their reach and life. By considering how people use the search engines to complete ideas and to find what they are looking for based on what they have seen elsewhere, you can really garner tremendous added value from your marketing investment. Labels: Integration, Paid Search, Search, SEO, Strategy One Stop Search ShoppingYahoo! India recently launched Glue Pages Beta, a new search experience that collates and integrates information from across the Web onto one enhanced visual results page. Glue Pages run across searches for select terms in categories such as health, sports, entertainment, travel, technology, and finance. Glue Pages Beta works well when searching for topics that have broad search results.For example, if you search for “yoga,” the classic paid and natural search results will show up, but the page is also complimented with a Wikipedia definition for yoga, Google Blog Search results, as well as links from HowStuffWorks, YouTube videos on yoga and information from Y! India Answers. “Searching on Glue Pages Beta will result in an experience that promises more than just web links. Users will receive more relevant, visually appealing search results from across the Web in one topical page. The new Glue Pages Beta feature for Yahoo! India Search supports our strategy to make Yahoo! the leading starting point on the Internet and demonstrates our commitment to provide a compelling online search experience,” said Gopal Krishna, Head of Audience, Yahoo! India. To try out Yahoo! India Glue Pages Beta, click here Labels: Paid Search, Search, SEO, Yahoo Paid and Natural Search - Complimentary MediumsI was recently asked the following question by a client: "If we are appearing in the Natural Search Engine Results, why should we we also be paying to appear in the Paid Search results for the same term?" In short, if they're getting the clicks for free, why should they be paying for them as well? However, I don't think the answer is really that simple, as a truly effective search engine marketing campaign is not about Paid vs. Natural, rather its about understanding what makes each medium strong thereby playing to and understanding those strengths.
 Please do note that while it may sound like I am trying to discount the natural results, that is not the case at all. Natural results most always drive more traffic and getting top positions is the true benchmark of success when it comes to any SEO program. However, what I am trying to illustrate is the value that Paid Search results do have, even when you are also appearing naturally for the same term, as paid search offers a level of flexibility and control that you cannot get from Natural SEO. In the end, this is not a case of one versus the other, but about illustrating how having a fully integrated SEM and SEO program can ensure that you can take advantage of all that is being afforded to you in the search environment and driving the optimal user experience for all facets of the page. Labels: Google, Industry, Landing Pages, Paid Search, POV, Search, SEO, Strategy, Yahoo Yahoogle! –A New Way to Define the Online Marketing Landscape…according to Microsoft.Yahoogle (Ya-hoo-gle) n. 1. An arrangement between Google and Yahoo! that would involve or lead to the outsourcing to Google of key paid Internet search terms offered by Yahoo! 2. A world, according to Microsoft, in which talent flees, prices increase, the Feds come after you and most of all Google becomes an Evil Price Fixing Baron.
Labels: Google, Industry, Paid Search, SEO, Yahoo Look Out - Here Comes Yahoogle!Well folks, if you have not already heard the news, Microsoft has withdrawn its offer to acquire Yahoo!. Despite having raised its offer by $5 Billion, from $29/Share to $33/Share, Yahoo! still walked away from the deal unless Microsoft would pony-up an additional $5 Billion ($37/Share).However, what I find makes the collapse of this deal really interesting is that when you read the letter that Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer sent to Yahoo! CEO Jerry Yang on Saturday, May 3rd while price was certainly deciding factor, the straw that broke the camels back appears to be Yahoo’s decision to further expand their “partnership” with Google. In short, it’s the prospect of having to acquire “Yahoogle!”, not Yahoo! that has really made Microsoft stop its pursuit and not go hostile. In a letter to Yahoo! CEO Jerry Yang, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer stated that “We regard with particular concern your apparent planning to respond to a “hostile” bid by pursuing a new arrangement that would involve or lead to the outsourcing to Google of key paid Internet search terms offered by Yahoo! today. In our view, such an arrangement with the dominant search provider would make an acquisition of Yahoo! undesirable to us for a number of reasons.” So what would the world according to Yahoogle! look like? Well according to Mr. Ballmer, its one that’s pretty dark in which talent flees, prices increase, the Feds come after you (Microsoft certainly knows about this) and most of all Google becomes an Evil Price Fixing Baron. But who am I to tell you about Yahoogle!, let Mr. Ballmer be your guide! The following is a summary of why Mr. Ballmer feels that Yahoogle! would make Yahoo! undesirable acquisition for Microsoft: 1. No More Panama 2. Talent Will Flee 4. Google Now Sets Every Price So what do you think? Is Yahoogle! good or bad? Whether you agree with Microsoft or not, the paid search and online advertising landscape is quickly changing and Yahoogle! is certainly going to play role in paving the way. Labels: Google, Industry, Online Media, Paid Search, SEO, Yahoo Database Driven Website Have Duplicate Content? Here's A WorkaroundSometimes despite the best efforts of webmasters, database driven sites fall prey to duplicate content issues. One of the more common ways duplicate content can occur on database powered sites happens when more than one URL results in the dynamic creation of webpages with identical code. To search engines, this represents duplicate content - and having large amounts of it can negatively impact your site's indexing and ranking.But the good news is there is a workaround. Technically, it doesn't matter that there is more than one way to call the same page from a database driven site. So as long as the page is linked to from other site pages using a consistent URL, the search engines will not detect the "duplicate content". In other words, search engine bots would have no way to discover the alternative URL of the page (assuming it is not linked to from an external site using the unfavorable URL). Therefore, a temporary workaround maybe to consistently link to a duplicated page using a single preferred URL. If you have massive amounts of duplicate content, you may find there is a pattern to the URLs of duplicated pages. For example, let's say you have the following URL problem:  In this example, both the Services Page and Product Page have two URLs that can call them from the database. However, the structure of many database driven content management systems (CMS) will often produce duplicate content in easily decipherable patterns - such as the one in the simplified example above. The next steps are to select a preferred URL nomenclature (In the example above, this would likely be the URL that uses letters to call pages) and ensure that only this naming convention is used throughout the site. However, this should only be a temporary solution. Ideally, you want to completely remove any way identical pages can be called from your database. Depending on the length of time it is estimated to find a permanent fix for the issue (more than 2 months), you may want to go into Google Webmaster Tools and go to --> Tools --> Remove URLs. Next, input the URLs that you wish Google to delete from its index into the tool. Only do this after the above recommendations have been implemented. Hope this helps. Wordpress SEO Plugins and Other Quick Blog TipsIf you are going to use Wordpress as your blog platform, here are a few plugins I would recommend for SEO:AllinOne SEO Pack - use this plugins to quickly insert the Meta description tag and Meta keyword tag into your post. Also, you can use it to set a search compliant URL scheme, and eliminate duplicate content by adding "no index" tags where applicable. You can download it from http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/all-in-one-seo-pack/#post-753. Google Sitemaps Plugin - install this plugin to automatically generate XML sitemaps and ping Google when a new page is added to your blog. This is a must-have for any blog. You can download it at http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/google-sitemap-generator/#post-766. Google Analytics for Wordpress - will help you to easily connect your blog to your Google Analytics account. I would recommend treating your blog as another website as far as Google Analytics goes. Downloadable from http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/google-analytics-for-wordpress/#post-2316. ShareThis - use this plugin so that visitors to your blog can send your articles to a friend or submit them to the social web. Downloadable from http://sharethis.com/. Don't forget to register with Feedburner, so you can grab metrics about your RSS subscribers. I would also strongly recommend registering your blog with blog aggregation sites, such as Technorati, to increase your web traffic and inbound links to your blog. Generally, the more you participate in Web 2.0 communities the more traffic you'll drive to your site. Labels: blog, blogging, SEO, web 2.0, wordpress Using Meta Search to Make Intelligent Travel ChoicesEveryone who has ever spent any time traveling for business or for pleasure has an airline horror story: “They lost my luggage and I had to buy all new stuff when I got to the hotel!” ‘We sat on the tarmac for three hours and then they canceled the flight!” “My plane was so small you couldn’t even stand up in the aisles!” What if you could find out which flights were almost always late? Or see the type of aircraft you were going fly? Or access what the load factor was for a particular flight before you purchased that non-refundable ticket? You can get this information now if you’re willing to spend a fair amount of time on multiple web sites to ferret it out but wouldn’t it be nice to find everything related to the speed, comfort, and ease of your flight in one spot? Take a look at InsideTrip.com (http://www.insidetrip.com) when you’re planning your next flight. The site is still in Beta so there are limits on the carriers listed and the type of passengers (adults only for now) but the real value here is in the depth and breadth of useful information available to the average airline traveler. The interface is simple and very familiar to anyone who has ever booked a flight on any of the major travel sites or through an individual carrier’s site. Pick your departure and arrival cities, enter your travel dates, and decide on the time of day you want to fly. Click on the search button and in addition to seeing the results of your search in a listing of carriers, flight times, and connecting flight numbers you get a flight dashboard that assigns a quality score to each flight. The quality score is determined by a dozen preset variables you can modify to ensure that the flight you choose matches your preferences. Always carry on your bags and never check anything? De-select the “Lost Bags” variable and ask InsideTrip.com to recalculate the trip quality score. Know that you get habitually get to the airport more than an hour ahead of the time the airline recommends so security wait time isn’t an issue for you? Again, a simple mouse click removes that variable from the quality score calculation. This redefinition of meta-search for the travel industry has implications for search marketing as well. The move away from simple text listings and toward more all-inclusive results for searches is already well underway: Google’s Universal Search now includes images, videos, and other items in their search results while Ask.com and other search engines provide site thumbnails as a standard part of their results listings. This expansion of types of data in search results means sites need to implement a consistent approach to tagging their site content because being “search-friendly” now applies to more than text-only keywords. Imagine you’re searching for a software tool to help make your sales force more productive and when the results come up, one company’s listing shows only a few of lines of text describing their product while another company offers not only the few lines of product text but also access to their deployment metrics, pricing matrix, and a few customer testimonials relevant to your industry? Which site do you think you'd click on first? Labels: Integration, Paid Search, SEO Google Subscribed Links Offers Powerful Branding Opportunity in Search ResultsThere are a few things constant about Google - frequent acquisitions of cool companies, an increasing stock price, and an ever expanding catalog of products. Google Subscribed Links, the latest tool to roll off the Google widget assembly line, allows webmasters to connect with previous visitors to their site through search results.Google Subscribed Links works like this:
 Of course, designing and managing the site feed requires at least a minimal command of XML and HTML. Additionally, you’re going have to induce your visitors to subscribe to the link (market the marketing tool); however, the potential opportunity for visitor retention and branding is just too good to pass up, particularly if your website ranks highly for frequently searched keywords. View examples of Google Subscribed Links. One application of this new product that springs to mind is to serve as a complement to paid search campaigns. You could post a Subscription Link button on a landing page for a pay-per-click campaign. A visitor in the early stages of their search may not be prepared to convert right away, but assuming your site ranks organically, e-marketers could conceivably push customized natural listings to the prospect at every stage of their search and entice a conversion at a later time. Labels: Google, Industry, Integration, Paid Search, SEO Is Google’s Universal Search Designed to Improve the Experience of the User or Stockholder?More Relevant Results? MaybeMore Google Revenues? Likely As Google continues to roll out expanded universal search listings, it will become increasingly difficult to achieve and maintain a strong natural search presence. The new search results will “incorporate information from a variety of previously separate sources – including videos, images, news, maps, books, and websites – into a single set of results” according to Google. Although Universal Search was rolled out in May, Google will gradually include a higher proportion of its local information, maps, images, video, and news results in the prime natural first page real estate. Although the shift will be gradual, the addition of this content into the natural results means that it will be increasingly difficult to achieve or maintain your coveted first page ranking through traditional natural optimization tactics. Inbound links, metatags, and keyword density will still have their place in making pages pop undoubtedly, but savvy marketers will need to make sure they optimize different types of content as well to ensure continued visibility as the natural results continue to evolve. If maps, videos, images and other non-traditional listings continue to take natural real estate from the standard text listings, it will also be important to develop and optimize this content to at least ensure the opportunity to get the highly desirable above the fold natural real estate. So how will the shift to universal results impact Google? Revenue. PPC will become increasingly important for organizations that are currently ranked in the middle and lower portion of page one on Google for their key SEO terms. Now instead of competing with Wikipedia and more direct competitors within an industry, they are also competing with Google itself for a natural first page ranking. Organizations that typically invest more in natural SEO will begin to shift budgets to the paid side if they see universal results bumping their natural listings down to the second page or beyond for important, high frequency queries. When organizations invest in SEO efforts like keyword-centric content development and link-buying, Google loses out on those marketing dollars, so Universal Search certainly makes sense for Google’s shareholders. The increasing PPC spend from dollars that previously funded SEO, coupled with the increase in the volume of advertisers, means a more highly competitive PPC market, and as a result, click costs will likely increase across the board. Natural SEO and PPC marketers alike will certainly be challenged as Universal Search expands, and the competition for the top paid listings will be amplified. PPC will become an even more crucial marketing tactic as natural rankings become harder to attain. So is Universal Search really all about improving user experience? What do you think will happen to Google’s revenue if CPCs double? $500 a share might still be a good time to buy. Labels: Google, Industry, Search, SEO, universal search Seminar: Search Engine, Blog and Social Media MarketingExciting news! I am giving a Search, Blog and Social Media seminar at the NEDMA (New England Direct Marketing Association) Conference on April 30, 2008. You can see my seminar description below. It's not on their site yet but click on the link below to see the preliminary info and sign-up for their newsletter via the "subscribe" box at the bottom of their page to get updates.http://www.nedma.com/annual-conference Search Engine, Blog and Social Media Marketing: Accessing the Critical Moment and Joining the Customer Conversation Search engines have become the number-one resource that consumers as well as business and technology decision-makers use to find and research products and solutions. No other point of consumer or prospect contact has the ability to access the "critical moment" when your target audience is seeking exactly what you are selling. On top of that blogs and social media have become a trusted source of opinion and reviews for consumers, technology professionals and business people researching purchase decisions. They also offer an unprecedented opportunity for businesses to join the marketing conversation between consumers and weave their messages into user generated content and the market place instead of simply broadcasting to it. The main question that every marketer must ask is: "Do I have a strong presence on the search engines, blogs and social media sites?" If not, then the obvious next question must be: "How do I build one in a cost effective and politically correct way?" The answer is search engine, blog and social media marketing. This seminar will focus on the statistics, strategies, tactics, and benefits of search engine, blog and social media marketing. It will also detail the linkages between search engine optimization and a strong presence in blogs and social media sites. Any marketer (both client and agency side) who wish to access prospects when they are researching or discussing their products and services should attend. -Topics covered will include: -Current and predicted trends in search, blog and social media behavior and technology -Assessing your company's search engine presence -A detailed overview of paid search listing and advertising opportunities -A detailed overview of organic search engine optimization -Some tactics regarding universal and image search -Converting search engine traffic into customers and leads -A breakdown of the major search properties, the blog landscape and social media sites -The anatomy of a blog and social media site profiles and channels -Some basic blog and social media outreach and politically correct saturation tactics -Case studies -More... Please come prepared to have a good time and ask lots of questions specific to your organization's products and marketing goals. About the instructor: Harry Gold Founder and CEO Overdrive Interactive Harry started his online career in 1995 when he founded Interactive Promotions. Since then he has been at the forefront in developing successful online programs for various agencies and Fortune 500 companies. His client experience includes search and online media management for top companies that include General Motors, Harley-Davidson, John Hancock, Dow Jones, EMC, Progress, LoJack, Cognos, Mosnter.com as well as many other companies who now enjoy a strong Internet presence. Harry brings to Overdrive a highly distinguished background in online development, search engine marketing, and online media that goes back over 12 years. As the architect and conductor behind Overdrive's programs, Harry's primary mission is to create innovative marketing programs based on real-world success and to make sure that the best marketing and technology practices that drive those successes are continually institutionalized into the culture and methods of the agency. What excites Harry is the knowledge that Overdrive's collaborative environment has created a company of online experts, all of whom drive success for the clients and companies they serve. Harry is a frequent lecturer on search engine marketing and online media for The New England Direct Marketing Association, The In-House Agency Forum, The Ad Club, and Boston University. He is also a recognized subject matter expert and columnist for ClickZ. Labels: Agency News, Google, Industry, Online PR, Paid Search, Podcasts, SEO, Social Media, Strategy Complimentary Webinar - Latest Trend in Social Media: How to Listen Effectively and Engage in the ConversationOur Client Dow Jones is having a free webinar that looks pretty interesting - definitely seems worth checking out. We all know how important social media is to Search Engine Optmization.
Labels: Podcasts, SEO, Social Media, Strategy Search View Emulator - Lynx ViewerHey everyone, have a nifty little tool that lets you look at a page on your site and see it as the search engine see it. It's called a Lynx Viewer or Search View Emulator.http://www.ovrdrv.com/search_view/index.asp I recently sent someone an email on how to use it to illustrate a point of how negative flash was from an SEO standpoint. Have a look at what I wrote to them: *********************** Take a look at this application. The link below shows what the search engines see when the crawl your site. (Since your site is all in flash they cannot see anything.) 1) Click on this link to see our Search View Emulator: http://www.ovrdrv.com/search_view/index.asp 2) Enter your full domain name: http://www.managemydollars.com/ 3) Then enter mine: http://www.ovrdrv.com/ Notice all the content you can see on mine and with yours the engines see nothing. The search engines have no way to know what you are about. Labels: SEO How I tried to Save the Yahoo! Search Term Suggestion ToolSo if you have a little time to read all of this you may actually find this post to be entertaining. Below is an email chain that resulted from me hearing that the person in charge of the Yahoo! Panama launch, planned to do what I consider to be one of the most wasteful things Yahoo! ever did.It all started when we attended the Panama road show at the Harvard Club in Boston and this person (to protect his privacy I have replaced his name, contact info and title with XXXXX) announced that Yahoo! would be replacing the current Search Term Suggestion Tool with something that, instead of reporting historical search volume, would predict clicks. (Much like the Google Click Estimator.) Now this flew right over the head of most of the people in the room but I raised my hand and said, "Wait a second, are you saying that the Search Term Suggestion tool that every search marketer on the planet loves and uses every day is going away?" His answer was, "yes." Could this guy be unaware of how essential that tool was and how cool everyone thought Yahoo! was for proving search marketers with this info? The strange part was his reaction was as if no body had protested before. So from there a whole little feud let loose between me and this person who admittedly said, "I am the one directly responsible for this decision." The really funny part was I started making a huge stink about this and when I told Yahoo! reps about it one of two things would happen: A) They would say "Oh my god – I use that tool all the time in my presentations to show potential clients how much people are searching under their keywords – this is terrible." (My reaction.) B) They would say, "Oh I heard about you." Clearly my protests had made their way around the company. Ok, so the real reasons why I think they stopped maintaining the tool are as follows. ( It is certainly not that people were "confused" by it or that what they have given us as a replacement is better.) A) Most people used the tool as an SEO keyword scoring tool and clearly that was of no benefit to Yahoo! B) All that usage, data storage and other applications that scraped the results of the tool into their interfaces was probably very taxing on Yahoo! from an IT, storage and load balancing standpoint. C) It could have shown that search volume on a month by month basis for certain terms was trending down on Yahoo! and that they were losing. Now to XXXXXX's credit he did have a conference call with me, let me express my opinions and engaged in the lengthy email exchange that I am about to share with you and I give XXXX and the whole Yahoo! team major kudos for that. Also Yahoo! did leave the tool up but it often does not work and now only displays 2007 data. However, it is still a good scoring tool and they should use it as a way to build a search marketing community made up of Yahoo! Search Term Suggestion Tool members. (Basically this is what I say in all the emails.) So as you read these emails realize that they started right after the event at the Harvard Club. The last email was from me to on of our Yahoo! reps that was facilitating the dialogue between me and XXXXXXXX. Actually, I must add that we did in fact all survive the Search Term Suggestion Tool effectively going away and all is well. Panama is indeed leaps and bounds above were it was and Yahoo! is very often the top performing property in many of our B2C paid search campaigns from a cost per action and ROI standpoint. ******************* Email # 1 ********************** From: Harry Gold Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2006 13:32:44 -0700 To: XXXXXXX XXXXXXX@yahoo-inc.com Subject: It was great talking to you! Hi XXXXXXX, I just wanted to tell you what a pleasure it was to meet you the other night and talk to you about the coming changes at Yahoo! I also want to thank you for letting me express my views on the importance of the current suggestion tool and for you agreeing to take the time to see how our company uses it in the new business process. I know you are either on or winding down from the road show so as we discussed I will give you a couple weeks to catch up then I’ll send you some of my pitch materials that use the tool and we can schedule a time to talk though them. Again thank you so much for this opportunity, I look forward to talking again. Best regards, Harry- ___________________________ Harry J. Gold founder, managing partner 617-254-5000 x 1100 direct ______________________ overdrive 46 Leo M. Birmingham Parkway First Floor Boston, MA 02135 http://www.ovrdrv.com/ ******************* Email # 2 ********************** From: XXXXXXX [mailto:XXXXXXX@yahoo-inc.com] Sent: Thursday, August 31, 2006 6:31 PM To: Harry Gold Subject: Re: It was great talking to you! Harry, Indeed it was fun meeting you and your team. I love the passion around this industry, and getting out of the “Panama factory” to get in front of actual customers really revs me up.I appreciate the perspective you brought me on how valuable keyword search data is to sell the search tactic to customers. Let’s definitely continue the dialog there. If you have proposals ready to ship my way, please don’t hesitate, as I’d like to put my thinking cap on around this topic as soon as possible. But if you want to think on it for a bit, just send them along when you’re ready. Looking forward to the next conversation! XXXXXXX XXXXXXX Sr. Director, XXXXXXX ManagementYahoo! Search Marketing searchmarketing.yahoo.comAddress: 3333 Empire Ave. Burbank, CA 91504 USAO: XXXXXXXXXXX F: XXXXXXXXXXX E: XXXXXXX@yahoo-inc.com ******************* Email # 3 ********************** From: Harry Gold Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2006 21:12:17 -0700 To: XXXXXXX XXXXXXX@yahoo-inc.com Conversation: It was great talking to you! Subject: RE: It was great talking to you! Hello XXXXXXX, Below is a link to a download page where you will find a portion of our capabilities presentation. In order to see the stats we use from the suggestion tool you will want to view it in Slide Show mode and then click on the live links embedded in the Current Search Situation slides. (Some links may require a user name and password to access the destination pages and they are listed in the presentation.) I have included three Keyword Usage Analysis Tables from past pitches. What I am basically showing here is that there are millions of searches per year that describe these companies’ products and then illustrate with position reports that they have no presence in those terms responsible for the majority of those searches. I then present paid search as the best and fastest way to capitalize on this channel. Please do let me know what you think and in the mean time I will try and send you more relevant materials as they arise. I have dozens and dozens of these pitches and these types of analysis slides have been critical parts of the close every time. I look forward to speaking with you about this further and again thank you so much for this opportunity. Download Page:XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX (sorry, cannot post this in the blog) Talk to you soon, Harry- ******************* Email # 4 ********************** From: XXXXXXX [mailto:XXXXXXX@yahoo-inc.com] Sent: Friday, September 22, 2006 1:48 PM To: Harry Gold; XXXXXXX Subject: Re: It was great talking to you! Harry, Hope all is well and that you’re enjoying a nice early fall in New England. This is the one time of year where we southern Californians are justifiably jealous of your climate. We’re going gangbusters here to get project Panama ready and out the door. You’re going to like it. I’ve spent time with some of the Product Managers on my team thinking about the use case around search volumes that we discussed in Boston. We think that the Panama offering actually will allow you to make your pitch in a much more compelling manner. We’d like to get an hour to talk with you (and others from Overdrive if you want them there) to kick the tires on what we’ve been thinking. Can you suggest a couple of times in the latter part of next week or early in the first week in October that might work for you? If you can, I can rally our team here and get a call set up for us to talk. Thanks, XXXXXXX XXXXXXX Sr. Director, XXXXXXX ManagementYahoo! Search Marketing searchmarketing.yahoo.comAddress: 3333 Empire Ave. Burbank, CA 91504 USAO: XXXXXXXXX F: XXXXXXX E: XXXXXXX@yahoo-inc.com ******************* Email # 5 ********************** From: Harry Gold Sent: Monday, October 02, 2006 8:56 PM To: 'XXXXXXX'; 'XXXXXXX' Subject: RE: It was great talking to you!Importance: High Hi XXXXXXX, Please let me know that you are getting my emails as for some reason our IP is getting blocked here and there. I sent you some dates but have not heard back from you and I am a bit concerned you didn’t get my emails. I am very excited about seeing your new tool but I still get the feeling from your email (below) that the tool that is at the foundation of everything we do is going to go away. I am still a bit mystified as to why you would want to remove the most valuable search marketing tool on the entire web. One that is used literally several times a day by every search marketer on the planet. Why not simply leave it and offer the other one to? Also, look at the interface for your current tool: http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/ If people are confused by it simply put more info on it to tell them what they are looking at. (Tell them specifically they are not looking at click or traffic projections if it is causing confusion.) I always look at that interface and the lack of promotions and registration requirements you have on it and think it is the biggest lost opportunity for Yahoo! Again, why not leave it and use it to your benefit? You could: 1) Use the interface as a branding, marketing and cross selling page for search marketers 2) Use it to promote the new tool 3) Make search marketers register for access to it – think of the amazing email/direct mail database you guys will be able to create I can understand closing it to tools that use it to display the info in their environments but if you put a password on it like the bid viewing tool you would stop those kinds of queries. Finally, why even risk upsetting a community that represents a significant customer base and disrupt their research and selling process? (I know I am incredibly stressed about it. Its absence will rock the foundation of my business and force us to change a winning way of doing this that scored many clients for us and you. Again, I am very excited about the tool you are launching and if it gives the total search volume on Yahoo! for a previous month then I am all for it and we have no issue. If it does not give that data and replaces it with click and position projections based on max bid levels then you are changing the whole way we and thousands of other search marketers pitch our services. It is my sincere hope that you choose to simply leave the tool alone and add the new one. The current tool is the only credible source of the simple info it provides and the whole industry loves Yahoo! for providing it! (See all the links to it below.) I hope to connect with you soon. Best regards, Harry- The links below are typical of thousands of pages on the web that promote and link to the tool. (According to Yahoo! there are over 4500 links pointing at the tool. According to MSN there are over 5400 links pointing at the tool. Why not capitalize on that presence with my suggestions above?) (I removed the long list of links for this blog post.) ******************* Email # 6 ********************** This was the one to the Yahoo! sales rep that was trying to appease me – I definitely commend her for her efforts – she was really great about the whole thing. From: Harry Gold Sent: Wednesday, October 11, 2006 1:31 PM To: XXXXXXXXX Subject: RE: Yahoo! Buzz Index Information Hi XXXXXXXX, Thank you for this information. After the call with XXXXXX and team I have to confess that I am still as concerned and confused as ever. I am really grateful that he would take the time to talk to me but I think Yahoo! should ask themselves quick question from a sales point of view: Taking away a tool that is known, loved and used everyday by the search marketing community (see me email from last week below) will a) make search marketers happy or b) upset search marketers? The reality is that no matter what John says this new system is not going to make my life easier or my sales process better. I am sure the new tool is great but why take the other tool away? Again – the big question is “Why take the other tool away?” It is like telling a person who has been eating toast everyday for the past 5 years that your are now going to take the toast away and give him a bagel. On top of that you are telling them that they will like the bagel more because you think bagels are better. Why not offer them both and let them decide? I am sorry to be such a nudge on this but it just makes no sense to me since the forecasted click and cost data that the new tool is going to provide is going to be equally, if not more, inaccurate as the historical date the current search term suggestion tool provides. Harry- Ok, in conclusion I may have devoted way to much energy to this but I still believe to this day that the Yahoo! / Overture Search Term Suggestion tool was an amazing resource and I will miss it. I guess I am grateful that it is still up in its current form but I do wish it was more reliable. Labels: Industry, Paid Search, Search, SEO, Yahoo |
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