My Buy Essay

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The use of search engines in locating information has become so central to our daily lives that it is hard to imagine a world where one cannot simply “google” driving directions just before heading out to the car. This availability of information, unprecedented in human history, is still a new concept, yet it has revolutionized the way we live, even in our humdrum, day-to-day activities. Need a new recipe in time for dinner? Conduct a search (and forward it to meConductSearch.com!). Forgot your anniversary and need a gift by tomorrow morning? Piece of cake. It’s become second nature to not only snatch instantaneous solutions from the Internet, but to trust that they will be there.

Just because we’ve so readily accepted search doesn’t mean anyone thinks it’s fully developed. I offer only your typical financial headlines: Google does this, Yahoo does that, Exxon searches for oil &ndash everybody searches! Tech advances beget tech advances and search is still a work in progress, a particularly interesting work in progress.

The concept of search need not even be limited to alphabetical means. Microsoft is firing imaginations with image search…for more imagery. Somewhere in Washington State (I think) teams of cyber savants have been taking steps toward incorporating this imagery hunt functionality into the search engine. The goal is to allow users to input an image file as the search parameter in order to return associated image results.

While the technical process admittedly remains mysterious to those of us not actually working on it, its aim of a searchable database free from the ambiguity of language is a beautiful notion, even if it’s not the end all of search itself.

Let’s say that you were interested in researching a fancy home furnishing company called “Hammer and Co.”. You’d open up your web browser and enter the name in the search bar on Google, right? Your Search Engine Result Pages (SERP) will show hundreds of results…M.C. Hammer, tools, and the like. There will be some, if not lots of, sifting to do. But, were you able to input an image of Hammer & Son’s distinctive purple tulip logo in the search field, you

may get a glimpse of Hammer’s lovely wormwood designs. Heavenly.

Engines utilizing “image search” will distinguish content, spatial qualities, pixel dimensions and placement, the size of images, and various other factors in its comparison. While the technology is not quite ready to be unveiled for general use, Microsoft’s purchase of Vexcel, a specialist in imagery, remote sensing and “photogrammetry” does bolster support for the theory that we are not far off from being able to take a photo of a stranger with a camera-phone and running an internet-wide search for that person instantly.

It seems the internet cannot be further leveraged to the end of radical technological advancement and social change, it is. Web 2.0 expands infinitely outward into a world of possibilities that need only be imagined to become true.

Damian Verutes

Marketing Analyst

MarketingConductSearch.com

ConductSearch.com

To stay relevant or even solvent, a company must keep itself informed. That’s why research, of both the in-house and outsourced varieties, is essential. At ConductSearch.com keeping tabs on who’s doing what in the marketplace is key to our success, and it doesn’t matter whether our information comes via mailman or email – at the end of the day, it’s still content, right? Recently, I happened to come upon the work of a reliable investment banking firm that specializes in Chinese tech research, New York Global Securities. I learned that New York Global thinks as highly of search advertising’s positioning in China as I do of it was here in America. They initiated coverage of a major Chinese Search Engine, Baidu (which translates to “a hundred times”), with a “Buy” rating.

Funny enough, ConductSearch.com and Baidu, the Chinese search giant, have something in common. But what, you ask? Baidu is based in mainland China (we’re not quite there, yet) and has little American presence. Yet, both companies, one small, one large, and on opposite sides of the earth, share a sentiment associated with search advertising – a sentiment shared by search advertisers all over the earth &ndash namely, that there’s still brilliant opportunities in the field. As players in search advertising, no matter what the size or where we are, we must avail ourselves to these favorable conditions.

We’re no GE, but we’ve got exclusive search technology surpassed by none, while Baidu, an indexer of 700 million pages, is located in a country that didn’t even have Internet access only 7-8 years ago. Incredible, sure, but these are hardly unique success stories in the field.

One great aspect of search is that as it evolves, advertisers grow increasingly aware of its effectiveness. This makes the task of selling the revolutionary concept much less difficult, and industry forecasts indicate this advertiser confidence with predictions of continued search advertising growth through at least 2010. Advertisers simply can’t get enough of measurable, targeted end-users.

According to Andrew Collier, New York Global’s analyst who’s recommending Baidu, the Chinese populace is even more receptive to Baidu’s relevant advertising than would be Westerners since existing Chinese advertising channels (that’s print, TV, and radio) are relatively weak.

So enticing is China’s advertising landscape for the accommodating platform of search, that Yahoo and, as of last January, Google, have launched Chinese versions of their popular search engines themselves. Baidu is sure to meet some stiff competition from Google.cn. Says New York Global’s Andrew Collier: “search is one of the best advertising models for the Chinese market because of its ability to target a specific customer base.” Do no evil and do much business, right Google?

In the meantime Baidu, with a 50% share of the Chinese search market, is reaching targeted customer bases within China. Search, by its flexible nature, adapts well to that frenzied economy. Massive ramp ups in Internet connectivity has been all the impetus needed. New York Global rates Baidu (BIDU) with a “buy” recommendation largely due to its positioning as a provider of this highly effective search advertising platform.

The deep reach that search advertising provides Baidu in connecting with Chinese Internet users contrasts greatly with the Chinese Internet Portals whose total end user numbers are still too small to deliver mass goods to large audiences through banner ads and the like. So, too, is this a problem with traditional media, where government ownership is essentially a monopoly, thus preventing a healthy advertising environment. In China, Internet search marketing shines brightest in a sky of less than stellar advertising opportunities.

Maybe I’m biased, but I believe it’s the best means here in America, too. Domestically, my company or yours might not have 50% of the search market, but, like any firm involved with search, we do have the same wind of opportunity blowing at our backs as Baidu.

Jeff Conduct

Director of Marketing

ConductSearch.com

.conductsearch.com

marketingconductsearch.com

If your business is focused on a very particular, small market, you are going to love search engines. The more focused you are, the easier it is to win on the engines.

Search Engines and Small Markets

Once you have identified a small market and built a site, you need to start thinking about Internet marketing. Search engines present the best marketing platform on a dollar for dollar basis. There are two specific ways to go about the process.

Pay-per-click advertising on search engines is a great way to immediately reach your target audience. Google Adwords and Overture represent the two best ppc platforms. Place ads using these two platforms and the ads will appear on the search results for Google, Yahoo, MSN, AOL and a host of other search engines.

The second platform for getting in front of your market on the search engines is search engine optimization, better known as seo. The goal in seo is to identify the keyword phrases your prospects are using to find things. You then try to get your site ranked in the top three or four positions when the relevant search engines return results for any of the searches. The upside of seo is you don’t pay for advertising and rankings tend to stay high once you achieve them. The downside is it can take a couple of months before you appear high in MSN rankings and up to a year or longer on Google.

Regardless of the approach you take on the search engines, your focus on a small market gives you a huge advantage. By focusing on a lucrative, defined area of the Internet, you have limited the number of competitors you must take on. It is far easier and cheaper to market to “San Diego Mortgage Loans” than going after “Mortgage Loans.” The first phrase has a limited number of competitors while the second phrase is contested by huge sites with lots of advertising dollars. To this end, make sure you stick to your area when pursuing your marketing. If you offer services in a location, only advertise for keywords incorporating that location. Having a person three states over call you is just a waste of time.

Advertising for small, defined markets on the search engines is inexpensive compared to general markets. It is also easier and quicker to get seo listings.

With its global audience, the Internet provides a unique revenue generation platform with search engines. This is where your business will be made or thrown on the refuse pile.

Marketing on Search Engines &ndash Getting the Biggest Bang for Your Buck

Search engines are similar to the streets of a major city. Some search engines represent the major avenues where people congregate while others are more similar to back alleys where almost nobody goes or at least not the kind of people you want to meet in…a dark alley.

Cutting to the chase, your traffic generation efforts should focus on Google, Yahoo and MSN. These three search engines control the vast majority of traffic on the Internet. Not only do lots of people uses them to find things, the big three provide search results to many other search engines as well. For instance, Google supplies ads and search results for AOL. Dogpile compiles the various search results from the big three in its listings. Alta Vista uses Yahoo search results. This scenario is so expansive that the big three search engines are simply the only way to go. This means you need to focus on them to the exclusion of others.

When you focus on these sites, two approaches can be taken &ndash pay-per-click advertising and search engine optimization. Other forms of search engine marketing, such as banner ads, produce poor results and should be avoided. Let’s take a closer look at the big two.

Pay-per-click advertising [ppc] is platform whereby you pay for placement on a search engine. The two major ppc platforms are Overture and Google Adwords. Overture places ads on the Yahoo and MSN search engines. Google Adwords places ads on Google and AOL search results. Both platforms place ads on other search engines and sites, so you will see your listings appearing everywhere.

The advantage of PPC advertising is you get immediate traffic for your site. You can use the traffic to test the content on the site and whether visitors convert into paying customers. The downside is you are paying for traffic, which means you must pay close attention to your return on investment. All and all, PPC advertising should be used at the outset of a marketing campaign while you wait for optimized pages to get natural rankings.

Search engine optimization [seo] is by far the most effective way to go on the big three. Once you obtain top three rankings for a keyword, you receive more traffic than you would from ppc and it is all free! This does wonders for your profitability. If you can figure out seo on your own, your cost of marketing should eventually become your time and a few dollars a month for tools. This results in obscenely high profits margins. If you prefer to use a seo firm, your costs are going to go up significantly. Once the free traffic starts rolling in, however, you should get an excellent return on investment.

The downside to seo is it takes a lot of time and work. You can expect to wait up to a year for top Google rankings, although Yahoo and MSN rankings will appear much sooner. In light of this waiting period, PPC advertising is a must at the outset of a search engine marketing campaign.

Internet marketing is a fairly simple game. Focus on the big three search engines with a combination of ppc and seo efforts. Stick to these two and you should see good results.