The Google AdWords Blog announced they will be allowing advertisers to add their full address to their search ads through location extensions.

Location extensions gives advertisers a way to create new local ads with extensions from scratch or add extensions to your existing text ads. This will replace the need to have local business ads as a separate ad unit. The feature is not yet live for all, Google will roll it out to advertisers in the upcoming weeks, but you will be able to add this feature in the future. To do so, you login to AdWords, click on a campaign, then click on settings. Then under the Audience > Locations section, you can select “Show relevant addresses with your ads.” A Google Local Business Listing is required to make this possible.  Below is a sample of the new ad copy:

Now that the deal is official it’s bound to shake up a few things in the SEM/SEO world.  The main fact is that Bing will now power Yahoo! search and will gain access to their search technology – for specific details on the deal check out our earlier post Yahoo and Microsoft Unite.  It’s a good place to start.

So what, in plain English, does this mean for your search marketing efforts?

For starters, Bing is now – without a doubt – worth your SEO team’s time.  ComScore estimates that Bing will now have around a 28% market share when combined with Yahoo! Even if that estimate is high, 10-15% of the search market should not be ignored. If you haven’t been already, it’s time to start paying attention to the Bing algorithm and how it differs from Google’s. There are a few differences obvious at this point:  Bing currently only surfaces the top 5 results for many searches, resulting in better click rates and conversions if you make it there; the results are ‘richer’; and Bing’s traffic is more likely to convert, whether this is due to demographics or how the engine works is still unclear. This deal will result in more SEO focus on Bing, providing more insight on how exactly the search engine ranks results.

The deal may also affect PPC behavior. Many companies are exclusively using Google AdWords – now, with only two major search engines, the level of complexity and time commitment involved in having PPC campaigns across multiple search platforms has decreased. It is a compelling reason to participate in both. This may mean better quality ads and more competition (read higher costs) in the traditionally lower cost AdCenter (Microsoft) and Yahoo!

Another consequence of the deal may be that we lose some of the Yahoo! properties that have become important tools for webmasters and SEOs alike. Yahoo! Directory, Delicious, Yahoo! Maps and a host of other frequently used tools may disappear. Yahoo! Site Explorer, one of the most reliable sources of link data, may also hit the chopping block (Microsoft & Google both removed the link query operator’s functionality years ago). What stays and goes is completely speculative at this point, it will most likely become more obvious in the coming months.

There are bound to be many more important changes that effect SEO strategy to come out of this deal and we’d love to hear your questions, concerns, or insights in the comments. Keep in mind that full implementation of the deal could take as long as 2 years after regulatory approval – so SEOs have some time to get up to speed on any changes and prepare for their effects.

Its official.  Yahoo and Microsoft are now dating, joining forces to battle the evil empire Google, Inc.   Whether the combination will ultimately take market share from Google is a subject of debate in the Search industry this morning.

Under the deal, Yahoo will make Microsoft’s Bing search engine the search provider on its Web sites, licensing its own search technology to Microsoft to integrate if it chooses. Yahoo will handle sales of search ads for both companies, using Microsoft’s search-advertising technology.  Yahoo! search results will be provided and branded with Bing, “powered by Bing” will appear.

The agreement is a revenue-sharing pact, with Microsoft paying Yahoo 88% of the search revenue generated from its sites in the first year.

The key terms of the agreement are as follows (from the official news release):

• The term of the agreement is 10 years
• Microsoft will acquire an exclusive 10 year license to Yahoo!’s core search technologies, and Microsoft will have the ability to integrate Yahoo! search technologies into its existing web search platforms;
• Microsoft’s Bing will be the exclusive algorithmic search and paid search platform for Yahoo! sites. Yahoo! will continue to use its technology and data in other areas of its business such as enhancing display advertising technology.
• Yahoo! will become the exclusive worldwide relationship sales force for both companies’ premium search advertisers. Self-serve advertising for both companies will be fulfilled by Microsoft’s AdCenter platform, and prices for all search ads will continue to be set by AdCenter’s automated auction process.
• Each company will maintain its own separate display advertising business and sales force.
• Yahoo! will innovate and “own” the user experience on Yahoo! properties, including the user experience for search, even though it will be powered by Microsoft technology
• Microsoft will compensate Yahoo! through a revenue sharing agreement on traffic generated on Yahoo!’s network of both owned and operated (O&O) and affiliate sites.
• Microsoft will pay traffic acquisition costs (TAC) to Yahoo! at an initial rate of 88% of search revenue generated on Yahoo!’s O&O sites during the first 5 years of the agreement.
• Yahoo! will continue to syndicate its existing search affiliate partnerships.
• Microsoft will guarantee Yahoo!’s O&O revenue per search (RPS) in each country for the first 18 months following initial implementation in that country.
• At full implementation (expected to occur within 24 months following regulatory approval), Yahoo! estimates, based on current levels of revenue and current operating expenses, that this agreement will provide a benefit to annual GAAP operating income of approximately $500 million and capital expenditure savings of approximately $200 million. Yahoo! also estimates that this agreement will provide a benefit to annual operating cash flow of approximately $275 million.
• The agreement protects consumer privacy by limiting the data shared between the companies to the minimum necessary to operate and improve the combined search platform, and restricts the use of search data shared between the companies. The agreement maintains the industry-leading privacy practices that each company follows today.

The agreement does not cover products such as email, instant messaging, display advertising, or any other aspect of the companies’ businesses.   It’s strictly search.

Microsoft has confirmed that the deal with not close until 2010.  Users will not see a change until 3 to 6 months after that.   For now Yahoo! search will be the same until the deal is approved and complete.

The governments “cash-for-clunkers” program officially starts today, July 27th.  The goal of the program is to help energize dealer sales after months of agonizingly slow showroom traffic.  With production reduced, dealers have been working off their swollen supply in recent months and many have offered fire sale type deals with heavy advertisements in traditional media outlets.

The official name for the $1 billion government program is The CAR Allowance Rebate System (CARS).   The government says they “want to help consumers buy or lease a more environmentally-friendly vehicle from a participating dealer when they trade in a less fuel-efficient car or truck. ”

Here are some other details from the official government web site:

• Your vehicle must be less than 25 years old on the trade-in date
• Only purchase or lease of new vehicles qualify
• Generally, trade-in vehicles must get 18 or less MPG (some very large pick-up trucks and cargo vans have different requirements)
• Trade-in vehicles must be registered and insured continuously for the full year preceding the trade-in
• You don’t need a voucher, dealers will apply a credit at purchase
• Program runs through Nov 1, 2009 or when the funds are exhausted, whichever comes first.
• The program requires the scrapping of your eligible trade-in vehicle, and that the dealer disclose to you an estimate of the scrap value of your trade-in. The scrap value, however minimal, will be in addition to the rebate, and not in place of the rebate.

Many local dealers have been running TV and radio advertisements the last couple of weeks to promote their participation in the program.   A Google search this morning for the keyword phrase “cash for clunkers” generated over 4.7 million search results, with ZERO local dealer sponsored search ads.  ZERO.  What a great opportunity to drive some motivated traffic to a dealer site.  The majority of the position 1 thru 10 ads were from manufacturers, Nissan, Toyota, GM, Honda and others.  Not a single local dealer.  What a missed opportunity.   Search activity for the CARS program and related keywords will be higher than ever this week with all of the publicity from government PR and news outlets .    Why not build a “clunkers” landing page on your site, sponsor some keyword advertisements and generate unique web visitor traffic and subsequent showroom visits.    Conversions could be easily measured with a clunkers conversion worksheet.   And these visitors are obviously farther along in the sales cycle than a viewer watching a local newscast.    I counted 5 dealer advertisements in last night’s local news broadcast at probably $800-$900 per spot at least.

In addition, the few dealer sites I looked at with CARS specific content, were not optimized for these related keywords in the search engines and therefore were missing out on potentially higher rankings based on local CARS related searches.

Come on guys, get with the program!

Courtesy of Sillicon Alley Insider-N. Carlson|Jun. 11, 2009, 12:01 PM

Note Yahoo #2.   This is why Yahoo and Bing are talking partnership!

Top 100 Google Advertisers by Keyword in April ‘09
Rank	Advertiser	Advertisements	Change from Prior Month (%)
1	amazon.com	107,373	18
2	yahoo.com	102,742	13
3	nextag.com	76,189	15
4	target.com	70,329	12
5	ebay.com	69,742	-33
6	bizrate.com	59,172	5
7	shopping.com	57,855	30
8	pronto.com	56,958	13
9	shopzilla.com	52,683	13
10	local.com	46,297	22
11	ask.com	42,253	19
12	aol.com	36,774	569
13	purelocal.com	29,435	41
14	best-price.com	28,810	73
15	webcrawler.com	28,197	14
16	pricegrabber.com	26,376	32
17	expedia.com	25,887	18
18	shop.com	21,887	-1
19	winbuyer.com	21,660	28
20	smarter.com	21,418	-3
21	business.com	21,412	11
22	glimpse.com	20,658	-4
23	tripadvisor.com	20,199	19
24	priceline.com	19,427	16
25	info.com	19,168	691
26	hellolocal.com	18,854	20
27	kayak.com	18,771	15
28	sidestep.com	16,523	6
29	google.com	15,843	24
30	become.com	15,765	27
31	like.com	15,515	11
32	simpli.com	13,731	13
33	orbitz.com	13,451	9
34	travelocity.com	13,297	16
35	hotels.com	13,078	20
36	sears.com	12,523	56
37	zappos.com	12,484	27
38	blurtit.com	12,270	21
39	greatstyledeals.com	11,488	9
40	overstock.com	11,397	19
41	jcpenney.com	10,989	27
42	ebaymotors.com	10,603	-25
43	bookingbuddy.com	10,117	9
44	dell.com	10,083	27
45	hotels-and-discounts.com	9,749	18
46	classifiedads.com	9,353	22
47	booking.com	8,640	19
48	yellowpages.com	8,353	35
49	icerocket.com	8,188	14
50	homedepot.com	7,845	88
51	nordstrom.com	7,830	17
52	righthealth.com	7,498	17
53	crateandbarrel.com	7,109	44
54	lowfares.com	7,030	19
55	onetime.com	6,976	5
56	ixquick.com	6,666	19
57	hp.com	6,590	30
58	hotwire.com	6,517	9
59	edmunds.com	6,465	15
60	mapquest.com	6,354	316
61	lowes.com	6,177	52
62	courseadvisor.com	6,091	15
63	consumersearch.com	6,057	50
64	msn.com	5,926	39
65	bhphotovideo.com	5,849	9
66	buyerzone.com	5,802	20
67	newegg.com	5,749	-8
68	potterybarn.com	5,736	25
69	shopwhiz.us	5,735	123
70	servicemagic.com	5,718	17
71	jayde.com	5,660	16
72	travelzoo.com	5,543	15
73	mytravelguide.com	5,507	14
74	tigerdirect.com	5,350	61
75	gifts.com	5,153	54
76	hardwarestore.com	5,142	27
77	drugstore.com	5,046	18
78	capital.com	5,037	13
79	alibaba.com	4,991	125
80	mysimon.com	4,874	163
81	banks.com	4,811	37
82	hotelreservations.com	4,689	17
83	techserious.com	4,631	33
84	justanswer.com	4,605	12
85	2020software.com	4,524	5
86	northerntool.com	4,500	28
87	made-in-china.com	4,445	48
88	cheapflights.com	4,276	7
89	hiexpress.com	4,261	15
90	swainsinc.com	4,102	14
91	marriott.com	4,099	29
92	cheaptickets.com	3,984	24
93	justclicklocal.com	3,902	-16
94	localjobsavailable.net	3,864	3
95	areaguides.net	3,812	6
96	industrial101.com	3,620	15
97	compare247.us	3,598	289
98	hotelsbycity.com	3,596	-10
99	att.com	3,564	7
100	alottoolbars.com	3,561	12

General Mills is one of the largest packaged food companies in the world with over 4.5 billion in revenues for the fiscal year ending May 31.    Revenues were up 8% and operating profits rose 4%.   While many big marketers are cutting back on marketing budgets this year, General Mills has actually increased their marketing spend by 16% in the most recent quarter vs. the same period in 2008.   Why?  Well in these economic conditions people are more likely to head to the grocery store and eat at home than go to restaurants.  So it is an ideal time for General Mills to grab market share with products like Hamburger Helper and Progresso Soups.  Even a simple product line like Betty Crocker is getting a marketing boost.  Specifically an online marketing boost.

The company concluded that key customers of the mainstream baking brand were information seekers.   Users who bounce around online looking for recipes and ideas, so General Mills shifted Betty Crocker’s ad buys:  This year more than half its total spending will go online. (Generally, around 20% of General Mills’ ad budgets are spent online.)  The result was sales growth trajectory that outpaces the overall baking category’s increases.  General Mills also developed specialty web sites around the Betty Crocker brand, like Dinner Made Easy which serves as one-stop portal for coupons, recipes, cooking video’s and products.

General Mills understands that now is the time to spend more not slash to gain market share.

One of the world’s largest marketers just doesn’t get it.   American Express continues to not follow basic SEO best practices.  Your home page URL shouldn’t look anything like this: https://home.americanexpress.com/home/mt_personal.shtml .

You should always strive to have your home page resolve to either http://www.example.com or http://example.com.

Avoid having your home page resolve to http://www.example.com/index or any other extension if at all possible.

comScore, Inc. has recently released its monthly comScore qSearch analysis of the United States search marketplace. This is the first time the data includes Bing.com.   Google has 65 percent market share, Yahoo! has 19.6 percent marketshare, and Microsoft has 8.4 percent market share.

According to comScore, “In June 2009, Americans conducted more than 14 billion core searches, with Google Sites accounting for 65.0 percent search market share. Microsoft Sites grabbed 8.4 percent market share, a 0.4 percentage point gain versus May, after introducing its new search engine, Bing.”

Here is the actual data, as reported by comScore:

comScore Core Search Report
June 2009 vs. May 2009
Total – U.S. – Home/Work/University Locations
Source: comScore qSearch
Share of Searches (%)
——————–
Point
Change
Jun-09 vs.
Core Search Entity                      May-09      Jun-09     May-09
———-
Total Core Search                       100.0%       100.0%       N/A
—————–                       —–        —–   ———-
Google Sites                             65.0%        65.0%       0.0
————                             —-         —-        —
Yahoo! Sites                             20.1%        19.6%      -0.5
————                             —-         —-       —-
Microsoft Sites                           8.0%         8.4%       0.4
—————                           —          —        —
Ask Network                               3.9%         3.9%       0.0
———–                               —          —        —
AOL LLC                                   3.1%         3.1%       0.0
——-                                   —          —        —

* Based on the five major search engines including partner searches and cross-channel searches. Searches for mapping, local directory, and user-generated video sites that are not on the core domain of the five search engines are not included in the core search numbers.

comScore also says that we “conducted 14 billion searches in June, down slightly from May.”

comScore Core Search Report*
June 2009 vs. May 2009
Total U.S. – Home/Work/University Locations
Source: comScore qSearch
————————
Search Queries (MM)
——————
Percent
Change
Jun-09 vs.
Core Search Entity       May-09          Jun-09           May-09
——————-      ——          ——         ———-
Total Core Search        14,327          14,060            -2%
—————–        ——          ——            –
Google Sites              9,307           9,135            -2%
————              —–           —–            –
Yahoo! Sites              2,877           2,755            -4%
————              —–           —–            –
Microsoft Sites           1,149           1,179             3%
—————           —–           —–             -
Ask Network                 555             552             0%
———–                 —             —             -
AOL LLC                     438             439             0%
——-                     —             —             -

* Based on the five major search engines including partner searches and cross-channel searches. Searches for mapping, local directory, and user-generated video sites that are not on the core domain of the five search engines are not included in the core search numbers.

Bing.com, the new Microsoft-owned search engine, has taken away some of the Yahoo! search traffic, but it appears that it still isn’t eating into Google’s search traffic yet.

The votes are in! We’ve polled the office to see why the Stone Team enjoys working and/or living in Ann Arbor.

Top reasons why Ann Arbor is, awesome, a great little pocket of go-go despite the economy, where I live, pretty freaking awesome, two words,  super duper fun……

1. Excellent places for ‘people watching’ on Main & in Kerrytown
2. World class University (Go Blue!)
3. The Art Fair!!!!!
4. Named after early settler’s wife
5. Pacific Rim
6. ABC/Tractor/Grizzly microbrews
7. Zingerman’s (Deli and Roadhouse)
8. UM Art Museum / Botanical Gardens
9. Hill Auditorium / The Ark
10. 7 minute work commute door-to-door
11. Main Street at night
12. Port/cigars at Dolce Vida
13. great food!
14. Summerfest
15. Cultural diversity
16. Farmers Market
17. Sparrow’s Market
18. Beyond Juice on Liberty
19. Urban Outfitters
20. The Ark

A recent Business Week article noted that job seekers are finding that prospective employers increasingly are looking elsewhere to find new hires—the companies’ own Web sites.   More and more companies are scaling back spending on career sites like Monster.com and Careerbuilder.com.   With the explosion of social media tools like Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook, organizations are finding new ways to reach qualified applicants.  By focusing more on their own career pages, companies are saving money and reducing the number of applications they have to sift through.
As unemployment soars, applicants are still flooding traditional online job boards like Monster.com, Careerbuilder and Yahoo’s HotJobs.   In May, 22.9 million unique visitors searched for work on job boards,  according to comScore Media Metrix.  That’s up 37% from a year earlier.   So, obviously job boards are not going away,  but job seekers have definitely changed their tactics.  It is important that companies optimize their career pages and better utilize social media tools to attract candidates.   For many companies, beefing up their online career pages is part of a larger strategy to boost brand awareness to compete for the best employees.

SEOmoz has recently released their updated SEO best practices guide.  Unlike some previous releases, they used actual data to back up their recommendations.  Some of the previous best practices guides had little testing data and have now been changed.  The new guide covers the following SEO topics:

• Title Tag Format
• The Usefulness of H1 Tags
• The Usefulness of Nofollow
• The Usefulness of the Canonical Tag
• The Use of Alt text with Images
• The Use of the Meta Keywords tag
• The Use of Parameter Driven URLs
• The Usefulness of Footer Links
• The Use of Javascript and Flash on Websites
• The Use of 301 Redirects
• Blocking pages from Search Engines
• Google Search Wiki’s Affect on Rankings
• The Affect of Negative Links from “Bad Link Neighborhoods”
• The Importance of Traffic on Rankings

Stone is an SEOmoz Pro Member and we use their SEO toolsets alot.  Rand Fishkin (”the wizard of moz”) and his gang have built strong street cred in the SEO world with the release of their guides and other information.

Forrester’s latest forecast of interactive marketing spend came out recently.  They project the spend on display media, search, email, mobile and social media to reach nearly $55 billion by 2014.   The growth is due to several factors– marketers seeking lower cost, more accountable channels like search and the need to reach their target demographic more effectively.  Forester also notes that in 2009  marketers are migrating dollars away from traditional channels and into interactive ones.

This post is a follow-up to my July 6th blog post on the importance of keeping your search engine map listings current.  Many business owners want to know what determines where their Google business listing will appear in the list is produced on the map call-out box in the Google search result page .  Remember, there can be up to 10 listings per SERP.   Mike Blumenthal of the Understanding Google Maps & Yahoo! Local blog has put up a copy of his presentation slides from the recent SMX Local Mobile  about the ranking factors in Google Maps.    This will give you insights into the algorithm.  When Mike talks about “centroid” he is referring to the region of the Earth’s surface,  projected radially  as the geographical center.   Google does its best to determine your location by checking up on your IP-address or using the zip code in your Google profile.  For more information on how Google determines your search location try reading this http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Web+Search/thread?fid=49d5102092bb5df900046a9447ceb3c6&hl=en

I also want to give you the links to Bing and Yahoo’s local business centers:

Bing

Yahoo Local

Check out his presentation and don’t forget to claim your listings.

There are reports that Google has made changes to the way it uses to display search results. Since there is no official announcement for the same, it can be said that the world’s largest web site is still experimenting with the latest enhancement.

Talking about the changes, these are actually changes that would often get unnoticed with birds-eye view. First, the Google logo at the top of the page is now smaller. The second change that would catch the eyes of readers is the broaden space in between the search box and the first row of the search results page.

Google’s search results are now indented and the page size indicator has been removed which gives an idea how long the page would take to load. Google removed the word “pages” from the previous “similar pages” link as well.

With the latest enhancement, it would be interesting to notice if there is any improvement in the speed of loading the search results. In the meantime, we will have to wait to find out if the giant has done it for aesthetic purposes or revenue generation.

Apple’s new 3G iPhone TV spots have focused on the maps and GPS features which combine  Google Maps with GPS and a built-in digital compass.   This will mean even more traffic to listings in Google Maps.  So this begs the question, have you verified your company map data in the Google Local Business Center?    Better do it quick.

"florists in new york"

I have seen many client listings get hijacked by competitors and link farms as a way of confusing users from the SERP page and grabbing visitors that should be going to your site.  We had one client that prior to working with us had over 11 different Google Map listings despite having only physical location.  Each listing had a unique address and URL, but only 2 of the listings were accurate.  URL’s were wrong, phone numbers out of date, old addresses, old logo, etc.  All sorts of things can go wrong with your information.  In fact,  I have seen cases where a company’s map listing was actually the home address of the IT Manager.  It’s true!  This will kill your brand and hurt your web traffic.

You can do a quick check of all your major search engine map listings with one free tool.  Check out www.getlisted.org – one of the best gadgets I’ve seen for collecting local information form the various maps/local services.  It also let’s companies claim and submit correct information to them easily.

Although Google, Yahoo! and Bing/MSN are obviously the big ones, it can pay to have listings in the smaller directories as well, as these can send small amounts of traffic, provide links and even influence the rankings in the local results at the larger engines in some cases.

Also note that Google’s new Local Business Center interface includes the option to add coupons and view the total number of times your listed was viewed and clicked.    Great data, especially for brick and mortar retailers.  Remember, Google now shows up to 10 unique map listings in their SERP’s.

Don’t wait until the end of the year to check your listings.  It can take up 60 days for the information to get fixed in the various databases.  So, don’t delay!

I just finished reading the  June/July 2009 issue of Streaming Media Magazine.  Contributing writer Nico McLane wrote an excellent in-depth article titled, “In Search of Video SEO that Works”.     Like me,  McLane is frustrated with the hassles and inconsistencies of Video SEO or VSEO as he calls it.   He recommends using Yahoo! Video, YouTube or Hulu.com for a straightforward video search rather than relying on major search engines.   Although, he does note that the major search engines are working to integrate online video into their native search results working with native technology and third-party aggregators.

All of this comes on the heels of  PermissionTV’s video marketing survey posted recently to eMarketer.com.  The survey queried 400 senior marketing and media executives with some very interesting results.  For example:

• 67% identified online video as a primary focus of their 2009 digital marketing campaigns and budgets.
• 50% of the respondents are planning the launch of an online video project by the second quarter of 2009.

The survey also found that the foremost value of online video was as follows:

• Brand awareness (71%)
• Lead generation (47%)
• Customer retention (44%)
• Customer conversion (41%)

In addition, 33% of respondents expected that their 2009 digital marketing efforts will be least affected by cuts to budgets,  much less so than traditional marketing (24%), trade shows (21%), and guerrilla marketing (14%) efforts.
Obviously, interactive video is a high priority for marketers this year.

Any marketer, big or small, producing any type of video content needs to have a VSEO strategy as part of their overall marketing mix.    The article goes on to recommend some VSEO best practices:

• Use either social sites or search engines to promote your video, or  create your own portal—or you may be better off doing both.
• The best practice for YouTube VSEO is to use channel pages to take advantage of the searchability of YouTube content, as the site’s pages get better positioning because of its size. This is also true for MySpace, Facebook, and other large community sites that allow video to be uploaded to their pages, have a vast collection of pages, and are viral.
• Host your own video and syndicate that content to get the best metrics.
• Use Google Analytics with any open source CMS, including WordPress, Drupal, or Joomla, all of which offer free plug-ins to upload video and track usage.

The article concludes with some basic steps every marketer should take for VSEO:

• Choose where to promote your video.
• Narrow down your audience by demographic.
• Select your keywords.
• Define the naming schema for best search performance.
• Include RSS feeds with relevant metadata.
• Produce amazing video content (or syndicate it from other sources such as Truveo or blinkx).

You can read the full article here.