As a board member of SEMPO, the Search Engine Marketing Association and a multilingual internet marketer, I need to weigh in on many things when I consult my clients and one of them is what search engine to choose [...]]]> As a board member of SEMPO, the Search Engine Marketing Association and a multilingual internet marketer, I need to weigh in on many things when I consult my clients and one of them is what search engine to choose to market through.

As a SEMPO board member, I also need to be aware of things such as the FTC’s investigation into Google and this prompted me to think “how can an organization like Google be reviewed, how can a company that relies only on its IP (intellectual property) be examined without having to yield and explain their algorithm and what is then left when the chef has given the secret spice in the award winning recipe?” Not much.

There are so many search engines out there including Yahoo!, Bing (now powering Yahoo! in many locations around the world), Ask and some regional ones such as Baidu in China and Yandex in Russia. You are actually likely to find literally hundreds of them.

Why then do most of the internet users around the globe start their online searches with Google? What makes Google better (or worse) than its competitors?  What is it that makes Google so special that even in languages that are considered hard to crack, such as my native language Icelandic, is Google superior to home-made engines that should at least give Google some contest and a run for their money?

In simple terms, Google gives the people the answers they’re looking for – it may be the latest news, information on a product or process, or the sellers of merchandise or services – but Google has everything in its massive database, everything needed to fulfill the needs of the user and they return, in most cases, the most relevant results based on my experience and tests conducted regularly at my company.

Google algorithms actually seem to understand what the users have in mind and do return relevant and excellent search results. But how does one define excellent search results? Perhaps, you can wind back to 1996 when search on AltaVista and Ask Jeeves comprised short tailed queries. You had to search manually through pages and pages of results before finding anything that made sense for you. It was Google that changed all that. Thanks to its superior search algorithms, you rarely need to go beyond the results of first page for any search.

Companies such as Microsoft and Yahoo have been gunning for Google’s level of search relevance for years. Certainly they do have access to talent for developing great algorithms but still Google continues to rule and is the favourite search engine for all.

There is a lot of hard work that goes behind Google results you are so accustomed to. The search engine makes up to 500 changes to search algorithms every year where each change aims to give better and more relevant results to users. It knows that users come to search engines to help them sift through all the information on the web and not every site can appear at the top of the results.

Certain websites complain that frequent changes in Google algorithms cause them to lose their ranking and traffic. But Google does provide huge information to websites on the techniques to improve their own performance through tools like the Google Webmaster Tools.

Google has also impacted technological innovation in positive ways. Its well-known Android mobile platform has sparked new improvements in mobile devices. Also its web browser Chrome helped to initiate innovation in the otherwise inactive browser domain.

Google’s search quality team has worked hard to develop algorithms that give better visibility to small and local business home pages. It was observed that web pages of small and medium business enterprises got buried or lost amidst big brand names on the web. But with Google publishing results based on local searches, they have better chances of reaching the top of search results. The search engine leader keeps small businesses in mind while improving and testing its new algorithms.

The biggest problem that small businesses face is that they do not have a website to reflect in results. But even they get the required support from Google through features like Google Places and Google Maps.  And Google’s new “Getting America’s Business Online” initiative is helping bring even more businesses online. This initiative actually interests me and I hope that they roll it out in more countries.

Based on what I have experienced and seems to be Google’s only consideration is to give the best answers to users’ queries – without any political viewpoints or advertising dollars. Indeed it also claims that free organic listings are clicked more often than PPC ads.

Sometimes the best answer to a query may be among one of the traditional “ten blue links.” But there are instances where it can also be a news article, sports score, stock quote, flight timing, video or a map — and Google can place it above other results if that’s what the user needs!

The bottom line is that no chef will give out their secret ingredient nor should they be forced to. The secret behind Google’s global success is that they serve their users in a simple and straight forward manner the right relevant results and while they do that they have the upper hand.

The user is wise enough to distinguish between relevant and non -relevant results.

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I have written before about how Bryan Eisenberg introduced me to his tools site and how there were several tools that stuck out as “must try now” tools. Among them was a tool based on the data from a Wordpress [...]]]> I have written before about how Bryan Eisenberg introduced me to his tools site and how there were several tools that stuck out as “must try now” tools. Among them was a tool based on the data from a Wordpress plugin called AddThis.

When reviewing the data it got me thinking that there was another dimension to it, especially when we look at how users across various nations and countries share the content they read.

When companies go global, and are targeting various markets, they tend to fall into the trap of generalizing their approach. By that they might be taking something that works in the U.S. or UK and applying it to Germany, Russia and China, to mention a few.

Why is this important? Well let me illustrate: If you are running a content rich site that you want the user to share with others, it is important to understand that not all sharing options are equal in all countries. If you are choosing the four most used in the U.S. you might opt for targeting Facebook, Twitter, Print and Email.

However, despite the fact that the U.S. is one of the leading online nations in the world, the rest of the world use various other channels, as well as the aforementioned.

Here are few random samples:
Russia has Vkontakte, Twitter, Facebook and Mail.ru
Saudi Arabia has Facebook, Facebook Like, Google and Google
The Netherlands has Facebook, Twitter, Print and Hyves
Brazil has Facebook, Facebook Like, Orkut and Twitter
India has Facebook, Email, Twitter and Google
Switzerland has Facebook, Ping.FM, Print and Twitter
China has Twitter, StumbleUpon, Facebook and Favorites

So while you might be safe with Facebook in most countries, it is important to understand that there are other channels unique to each country you are targeting. This is vital in order expand your content’s reach to local users.

Bottom-Line: Don’t generalize, localize!

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In a research done by Nordic eMarketing in cooperation with the eNewsPR network, journalists are found to use less than 2.5 keywords most of the time. In the same research Nordic eMarketing found that French journalists are lazier than the [...]]]> In a research done by Nordic eMarketing in cooperation with the eNewsPR network, journalists are found to use less than 2.5 keywords most of the time. In the same research Nordic eMarketing found that French journalists are lazier than the English when searching for content and Scandinavian journalists are likelier to venture outside of their ccTLD and use .COM or other ccTLD endings when searching for content through their preferred search engine.

After reviewing well over 2 million individual visits and search referrals, filtering out various media from over 40 countries and all continents, Nordic eMarketing found among other that Twitter is a poor organic referrer and Google returns close to 90% of the reporters coming through search.

Stay tuned at Multilingual Search and be among the first to get this report/white paper on the behaviour of journalists and how they search for content.

It is due to be published late October this 2010.

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Over 13 billion videos were watched on YouTube in December 2009 in the US alone, and the video sharing site is undoubtedly the global market leader. After the US, YouTube is most popular in Japan, Germany, India and Italy, [...]]]> Over 13 billion videos were watched on YouTube in December 2009 in the US alone, and the video sharing site is undoubtedly the global market leader. After the US, YouTube is most popular in Japan, Germany, India and Italy, with Mexico, the UK, Brazil and France following close behind.

Almost 25% of the global internet population visit the site each month, a testament to the international appeal of the site, and the extensive range of content that attracts a wide demographic of users.

At the International Search Summit in May, Bruce Daisley, the UK Head of YouTube, will speak on how organisations can harness the international power of YouTube to increase global brand awareness and engage with audiences around the world.

Any organisation serious about international video marketing needs to have a YouTube presence as it really is a global tool.

The International Search Summit will cover a range of search and online marketing topics including mobile search, international domain names, global Twitter campaigns and social network advertising.

Register for the Summit – February Early Bird tickets are just £140.

Sources:
www.alexa.com
www.comscore.com

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Universal Search and Digital Asset Optimisation

Anne Kennedy – Beyond Ink

Universal Search – more content from the databases to get quicker to the information, created more ways to increase brand engagement and conversion.

We are actually doing [...]]]>

Universal Search and Digital Asset Optimisation

Anne Kennedy – Beyond Ink

Universal Search – more content from the databases to get quicker to the information, created more ways to increase brand engagement and conversion.

We are actually doing marketing

Why care?

• multimedia is a driver of search marketing
  • YouTube
  • Flickr
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
• Tap into these opportunities

• Use Video, upload it and have your contacts talk about it. These assets can be favored by the search engines and can send a lot of quality traffic

Photos and video require great attention in the descriptions – avoid alpha-numeric photo names.
VERY IMPORTANT: embed video and audio in keyword relevant text – it works !!

The message: text messages are good but images and video are more and more relevant and should be used.

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Threadwatch and ThomasB report that Google has extended the GoogleMaps application to cover many more countries in Europe. Then have even followed route E30 all the way to Moscow!

As Thomas writes, the implications for local search are [...]]]> Threadwatch and ThomasB report that Google has extended the GoogleMaps application to cover many more countries in Europe. Then have even followed route E30 all the way to Moscow!

As Thomas writes, the implications for local search are significant. With multilingual searches and user reviews this can become a useful tool for companies marketing into the EU zone.

Germany | Spain | Italy

Of course this will also open up new opportunities for API mash-ups and help drive the Google brand in these areas. The results for Moscow are still some way behind the local engines (searching for hotels in Google against a hotel search in Yandex as an example) but as always, it will be interesting to watch this develop.

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