Consumers will seek out brand content, but only if it appeals to them on a local and personal level. That's why your content strategy needs to factor in context as well.
Despite the challenging economic times, organizations everywhere are still taking their business global. While there's no question that going global opens doors for many companies, who ever heard of a global consumer? Today's interactive marketing efforts need to be local, personal and focus on everything from consumption patterns to the weather.
Meaningful starts with "me"
Maybe it's because digital content is delivered to me on devices that I consider to be extremely personal: my iPod, my laptop, my smart phone. Unless I think that a marketer is truly speaking to me, the content they offer will not gain access to my wired world.
Montrealers and Parisians both speak French, n'est-ce pas? But as I have witnessed firsthand, while Quebecers "understand" brand communications aimed at their overseas brethren, they don't necessarily respond to them on an emotional level. In digital media, where the goal is to interact with your audience, a marketer needs to speak like a local.
Digital media is local -- and personal
Local terms and language are also key to a successful search strategy. Think about it: The keywords and expressions people type into search engines reflect the natural language of their region or community, not what a bilingual dictionary (or heaven forbid, Babel Fish) suggests. The takeaway? It's probably not a good idea to tap an American writer to adapt content meant for a U.K. audience.
Consider this example: A tourist board that communicates worldwide wanted to create a Spanish-language emarketing campaign. The writers in Madrid came up with teaser copy in letter-perfect Castilian. But during tests, the target consumers -- Mexicans -- said the words for "nightclubber" and "shopping" didn't correspond to local usage. The vocabulary was adjusted so it would resonate with the target audience.
You may have heard that Italians equate translation with treason in a pithy aphorism ("Traduttore, traditore"). When rolling out online marketing campaigns in multiple markets, global brands need to pay attention to the content adaptation -- or else their audiences won't pay attention at all. It's not just the words that require translation; nuances and "flavor" require adjustment as well.
Paco Rabanne just launched 1Million, a new fragrance for men, with a slick online buzz campaign in three countries: France, the U.K. and Spain. The campaign content included scores of tongue-in-cheek buzzwords and allusions to celebrity lifestyles, which demanded painstaking transposition for each local market. A straight translation simply won't do justice for a word-of-mouth campaign.
Content strategy is context strategy
Brand content that speaks to your target like a local is just the first step toward relevance. Working in markets all over the world, we've learned that an effective digital content strategy is a context strategy that factors in not only language and cultural references, but also bandwidth, technology, media consumption patterns and even climate.
Case in point: Recently, tire manufacturer BFGoodrich sought a way to connect its brand with young-adult Canadian males. How does this segment spend time online? Gaming and socializing. Given the audience and the context, it made sense to create an interactive racing game and place the application on Facebook, where players could invite their friends to compete. To make the game feel even more authentic, it was designed to reflect the harsh winter driving conditions that Canadians know so well. Successful content marketing entails approaching consumers in their contexts with content that both satisfies them and engages them with the brand.
Marketers need to meet the challenge of developing digital content for a broadening range of contexts because connected consumers now expect to interact with brands on demand: "on my terms," "in my timeframe," "on my preferred device." Ever-smarter devices and clever, specialized apps further stimulate those rising expectations.
Technology, tastes and regional behaviors also determine a user's context. If you were to map out a mobile content strategy, for example, you wouldn't take the same approach in Tokyo, where it's not uncommon for people to watch sitcoms on their phones; Paris, where passengers in the Métro can talk on their cell phones; or New York City, where people can do neither, but instead download podcasts to while away their commutes.
Once you have a handle on how, when and where your audience chooses to experience digital media, you can start creating content that your customers desire and is in line with what your brand can credibly provide. (Honestly: Do I need Lexus to teach me how to pack a picnic?)
Why serve ads? Serve content
We know from experience that consumers all over the world will welcome -- and seek out -- brand content that is valuable, targeted and offered at the point of need.
In Beijing during the Summer Olympics, wine and style enthusiasts consulted dining and nightlife recommendations offered by Australian winemaker Jacob's Creek. Celebrity bloggers recruited for the occasion wrote reviews of Jacob's Creek partner restaurants, and users were invited to post comments as well. Thousands of visitors took advantage of this useful, entertaining service provided on both web and mobile platforms.
In France, to coincide with the release of the iPhone late last year, L'Oréal Paris debuted a custom iPhone site that makes the brand's expert beauty content -- from skin analysis to product recommendations, from customer support to how-to videos -- available to consumers at their point of need, whether in the store, in a car or in front of their mirror. This is the way forward for brand communications: providing desirable digital content in a personal context, on demand.
In North America, interactive content can be a key differentiator for ecommerce sites. In a move away from a strictly utilitarian approach, successful online merchants are building relationships with online shoppers before, during and after purchase with user-generated online reviews, interactive buyers' guides, auctions, clubs, video demos and project how-to demos. Initially developed to boost SEO rankings, branded content -- particularly the bloggable, shareable kind -- is proving to be a traffic driver as well.
Get creative with content services
Think about it: Doesn't it make sense for marketers to offer consumers content rather than ads? It's a win-win situation. Consumers benefit -- for free -- from the expertise and brand-relevant services that companies can provide around their products. On their side, brands can free up the advertising dollars devoted to hiring models or filming TV spots and devote those funds instead to creating digital content services that consumers actually want and willingly connect with.
The next time you sit down to brainstorm with your interactive agency, focus on coming up with fresh ideas for content services aligned with your brand. The process is just as "creative" as coming up with a catchy tagline, but the result is far more satisfying to your audience.
Sheila Mooney is director of content development at Nurun.
Tuesday, December 09, 2008
Wednesday, December 03, 2008
Gasta News:New domain to be web's phone book
source: BBC
The .tel addresses will be reachable via mobiles too
From 3 December companies will be able to buy addresses associated with a new web domain.
Called .tel, the domain is intended to act as a universal contact point rather than as a hook on which to hang websites.
Owners of .tel domains will be encouraged to populate it with details about how they can be contacted.
The domain is designed to work on the web and with mobile phones such as the Apple iPhone and Blackberry.
"All other top level domains like .com use the net's domain name system in the same way," said Kash Mahdavi, head of Telnic which runs the .tel registry. "They all store IP address and they are all about websites."
By contrast, he said, .tel had been designed to act as a repository for all a company's or individual's contact details. A .tel domain, said Mr Mahdavi, could feature phone numbers, e-mail addresses, GPS data or buttons that kick off a Skype call.
Mr Mahdavi said it had some similarities to the Enum projects that aim to bind phone numbers and e-mail addresses into a unified contact system.
The flaw, he said, with Enum was that it demanded people be on the web. By contrast, .tel will work with many different devices such as smart phones.
Phase one
Owners of .tel domains will be able to manage their contact details via a simple dashboard and surrender as much or as little information as they desire, said Mr Mahdavi.
He added that .tel domains have a "friending mechanism" that will grant close friends access to private areas that give more ways for a person to be contacted.
"It will become their place on the cloud," said Mr Mahdavi.
Access to the domain is being granted in three phases. The first begins on 3 December and is the "sunrise" phase for trademark owners to get domains related to their brands.
The second phase begins on 3 February 2009 and is a "landrush" phase open to anyone though domains will be on sale at a premium.
The final general availability phase starts on 24 March 2009 when the domain will be open to all comers.
Phil Kingsland, director of communications for Nominet, the firm that manages the .uk domain, notes that a number of new domains will go online when a new process for allocating them rolls out next year.
"Businesses will need to be aware of the potential uses of .tel and how it can work for them," said Mr Kingsland.
"They should have a clear and robust domain name strategy in place, so that when new top-level domains such as these come onto the market, they are ready for them."
Mr Mahdavi would not be drawn on the final price for a .tel domain but said it would be in line with that charged for other domains.
The .tel addresses will be reachable via mobiles too
From 3 December companies will be able to buy addresses associated with a new web domain.
Called .tel, the domain is intended to act as a universal contact point rather than as a hook on which to hang websites.
Owners of .tel domains will be encouraged to populate it with details about how they can be contacted.
The domain is designed to work on the web and with mobile phones such as the Apple iPhone and Blackberry.
"All other top level domains like .com use the net's domain name system in the same way," said Kash Mahdavi, head of Telnic which runs the .tel registry. "They all store IP address and they are all about websites."
By contrast, he said, .tel had been designed to act as a repository for all a company's or individual's contact details. A .tel domain, said Mr Mahdavi, could feature phone numbers, e-mail addresses, GPS data or buttons that kick off a Skype call.
Mr Mahdavi said it had some similarities to the Enum projects that aim to bind phone numbers and e-mail addresses into a unified contact system.
The flaw, he said, with Enum was that it demanded people be on the web. By contrast, .tel will work with many different devices such as smart phones.
Phase one
Owners of .tel domains will be able to manage their contact details via a simple dashboard and surrender as much or as little information as they desire, said Mr Mahdavi.
He added that .tel domains have a "friending mechanism" that will grant close friends access to private areas that give more ways for a person to be contacted.
"It will become their place on the cloud," said Mr Mahdavi.
Access to the domain is being granted in three phases. The first begins on 3 December and is the "sunrise" phase for trademark owners to get domains related to their brands.
The second phase begins on 3 February 2009 and is a "landrush" phase open to anyone though domains will be on sale at a premium.
The final general availability phase starts on 24 March 2009 when the domain will be open to all comers.
Phil Kingsland, director of communications for Nominet, the firm that manages the .uk domain, notes that a number of new domains will go online when a new process for allocating them rolls out next year.
"Businesses will need to be aware of the potential uses of .tel and how it can work for them," said Mr Kingsland.
"They should have a clear and robust domain name strategy in place, so that when new top-level domains such as these come onto the market, they are ready for them."
Mr Mahdavi would not be drawn on the final price for a .tel domain but said it would be in line with that charged for other domains.
Gasta News:Get Drunk on Google ads this Christmas
NMA Reports
Google lifts prohibition
Google is to allow spirit brands to run search campaigns for the first time as the search engine company looks to drive slowing AdWords click rates.
The search giant will lift restrictions in the New Year, letting spirit brands run branded search campaigns tied in with overall marketing activity. However, advertisers will not be allowed to promote or incentivise actual sales.
Google is understood to want to encourage spirit brands to run search campaigns as part of a wider media buy across its portfolio of channels, including AdSense and YouTube.
Google is set to make a formal announcement in the next few days, and while the actual date of UK restrictions being lifted has not been finalised it is expected to be in the first two weeks of January.
The move is the latest by the company to boost click rates on AdWords, which former Google chief financial officer George Reyes acknowledged had slowed when revealing its Q2 results back in July.
It follows October's lifting of gambling and gaming restrictions on AdWords. Back in May, Google allowed brands to bid on rival trademark terms. The company hoped both these moves would drive up click rates.
Brands and agencies have said they will increase search spend as a result of the latest decision.
Tom Jefferies, digital marketing manager at Bacardi Global Brands, said, "To be allowed to run AdWords advertising on Google.com is a big opportunity for us, so we will be looking to put money behind it."
Charlie McGee, MD of Carat Digital, which buys media for Diageo brands including Gordon's Gin, said: "[Using search] we can amplify all of the on and offline work that's done to promote these brands."
A Google spokesman said: "We're constantly evaluating our ad policies to ensure they are up-to-date and as consistent as possible with local business practises."
Google lifts prohibition
Google is to allow spirit brands to run search campaigns for the first time as the search engine company looks to drive slowing AdWords click rates.
The search giant will lift restrictions in the New Year, letting spirit brands run branded search campaigns tied in with overall marketing activity. However, advertisers will not be allowed to promote or incentivise actual sales.
Google is understood to want to encourage spirit brands to run search campaigns as part of a wider media buy across its portfolio of channels, including AdSense and YouTube.
Google is set to make a formal announcement in the next few days, and while the actual date of UK restrictions being lifted has not been finalised it is expected to be in the first two weeks of January.
The move is the latest by the company to boost click rates on AdWords, which former Google chief financial officer George Reyes acknowledged had slowed when revealing its Q2 results back in July.
It follows October's lifting of gambling and gaming restrictions on AdWords. Back in May, Google allowed brands to bid on rival trademark terms. The company hoped both these moves would drive up click rates.
Brands and agencies have said they will increase search spend as a result of the latest decision.
Tom Jefferies, digital marketing manager at Bacardi Global Brands, said, "To be allowed to run AdWords advertising on Google.com is a big opportunity for us, so we will be looking to put money behind it."
Charlie McGee, MD of Carat Digital, which buys media for Diageo brands including Gordon's Gin, said: "[Using search] we can amplify all of the on and offline work that's done to promote these brands."
A Google spokesman said: "We're constantly evaluating our ad policies to ensure they are up-to-date and as consistent as possible with local business practises."
Tuesday, December 02, 2008
Gasta News: Report from NMA Editor Justin Pearse
The Phorm saga rolled on this week, with the announcement of the departure of four members of the behavioural targeting company's board. It could be argued that the appointment of ex-Ofcom executive board member Kip Meek as one of the replacements was more significant than the departures for a company fighting regulatory and PR battles on all fronts, Meek's experience in the regulatory arena at Ofcom, on a European as much as domestic level, will be invaluable. Behavioural targeting itself got a welcome boost in support with BBC Worldwide's plan to launch it across its international website BBC.com. As large publishers board the behavioural targeting bandwagon, it should help to build a level of confidence to help address the reactionary hysteria it so often generates.
Targeted advertising has always been one of the promises of mobile, of course, although the operators' reluctance to release deep customer data has stymied this somewhat. Content providers, although happy with the traffic operator portals generate, are desperate for more control. So it was a heartening sign to see Sky start selling advertising around its content on the T-Mobile and Vodafone portals
Bauer is the only other content owner to do this. The resulting control should help encourage publishers to commit further to mobile advertising but few will have the market muscle to force such deals through to operators. Especially as mobile advertising is failing to meet the lofty heights its hype promised. One of the reasons behind O2 launching global media sales division O2 Media Group. The move is designed to let O2 sell integrated ad opportunities across its entire real estate, from mobile and online to in-store and DM. Rival Vodafone is also planning a similar offering. As all operators look to bolster their online operations, such holistic views of themselves could be powerful in convincing media agencies and advertisers to view them as media companies rather than telecoms suppliers.
Towards the end of the month came news of the government's tacit admission of its lack of understand of the new media industry. The IAB began a programme to educate civil servants in government departments from the DCMS to Berr. The move generated mixed emotions. On the one hand, anything to increase government understanding of the fast moving digital industry is to be applauded. On the other, it could be seen as worrying this education was needed following a year of increased regulatory attention to the internet by government, from Andy Burnham’s speech on the readiness of the internet for governance, to the Byron Report and the Council for Child Safety.
The evolution of online video and internet TV is clearly one area where regulatory confusion will see increasing government attention over the coming year. The sector is moving so fast that multi-platform commissions are becoming commonplace. However, the complexity of getting such projects to market was highlighted this month with Virgin Media's delay of launching Prom Queen due to the lack of a sponsor. Sony Pictures Television is the latest to be searching for distribution partners for its multi-platform series Gemini. The three minutes series was broadcast in the US by Amazon Unbox, NBC Online, NBC Mobile, Xbox Live and Zune. Just the type of fascinating broadcast model we'll be seeing more of in the UK in the coming year.
Targeted advertising has always been one of the promises of mobile, of course, although the operators' reluctance to release deep customer data has stymied this somewhat. Content providers, although happy with the traffic operator portals generate, are desperate for more control. So it was a heartening sign to see Sky start selling advertising around its content on the T-Mobile and Vodafone portals
Bauer is the only other content owner to do this. The resulting control should help encourage publishers to commit further to mobile advertising but few will have the market muscle to force such deals through to operators. Especially as mobile advertising is failing to meet the lofty heights its hype promised. One of the reasons behind O2 launching global media sales division O2 Media Group. The move is designed to let O2 sell integrated ad opportunities across its entire real estate, from mobile and online to in-store and DM. Rival Vodafone is also planning a similar offering. As all operators look to bolster their online operations, such holistic views of themselves could be powerful in convincing media agencies and advertisers to view them as media companies rather than telecoms suppliers.
Towards the end of the month came news of the government's tacit admission of its lack of understand of the new media industry. The IAB began a programme to educate civil servants in government departments from the DCMS to Berr. The move generated mixed emotions. On the one hand, anything to increase government understanding of the fast moving digital industry is to be applauded. On the other, it could be seen as worrying this education was needed following a year of increased regulatory attention to the internet by government, from Andy Burnham’s speech on the readiness of the internet for governance, to the Byron Report and the Council for Child Safety.
The evolution of online video and internet TV is clearly one area where regulatory confusion will see increasing government attention over the coming year. The sector is moving so fast that multi-platform commissions are becoming commonplace. However, the complexity of getting such projects to market was highlighted this month with Virgin Media's delay of launching Prom Queen due to the lack of a sponsor. Sony Pictures Television is the latest to be searching for distribution partners for its multi-platform series Gemini. The three minutes series was broadcast in the US by Amazon Unbox, NBC Online, NBC Mobile, Xbox Live and Zune. Just the type of fascinating broadcast model we'll be seeing more of in the UK in the coming year.
Monday, December 01, 2008
Gasta.com: Support New Irish Band BabyJenx Growing
Gasta.com are supporting two new bands from Ireland that are tipped for the top, venues and musicheads have been going mad on Myspace and Facebook to download the latest singles from Babyjenx, and The Beat Poets, to get information about these fantastic new and emerging talents, you can find links to both bands on Gasta.tv
About Baby Jenx
BABY JENX
"So beautiful, so intoxicating, so heavenly . . . Gary Reddy's voice reaches soaring glorious falsettos with an ease that would make Thom Yorke envious" – Musician.ie
THE BAND: Gary Reddy – guitar/vocals; Ewen Ferguson Denny - keyboards; Mick Reddy – bass; Graham Carey – drums
THE PAST: Named after a character in Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles, Baby Jenx have been together since the summer of 2005. Influenced by the big stadium sounds of U2, Radiohead and Muse, but with their own musical aesthetic firmly to the fore, they played their debut gig in legendary Dublin venue Mother Redcaps later that same year.
“Thrilling and epic, two words to describe the performance on the night… with melodic grooves and superb vocals on board, this is one act you need to get out and see” - Musicreveiw.com
Over the following months, Baby Jenx honed their live skills with a multitude of gigs. Their sparkling shows at the Irish IMRO showcase, Boston's NEMO Music Festival and Castlepalooza earned them rave reviews.
"... singer Gary Reddy is a natural performer and exceptional singer" – IMRO magazine
They recorded their first demo with producer Declan Lonergan in Bluebird Studios in Co. Kildare. This demo received extensive radio airplay, and was immediately chosen as Hot Press magazine's 'Demo of the Fortnight' by none other than Jackie Hayden (the former CBS boss, known for giving U2 their first record deal).
"The real gem is 'So Long', which opens around a slow staccato piano before it builds with sensitivity and pathos to a real ear-opener" – Jackie Hayden - Hot Press
THE FUTURE: Baby Jenx are currently in studio recording their debut album proper. Entitled “Trial By Fire” it will be released early 2009.
"… the band of this year to hit the music scene, with melodic, streaming vocals and uplifting sounds … you must catch a live gig from these guys, you are missing something special" – Hotpress.com
About Baby Jenx
BABY JENX
"So beautiful, so intoxicating, so heavenly . . . Gary Reddy's voice reaches soaring glorious falsettos with an ease that would make Thom Yorke envious" – Musician.ie
THE BAND: Gary Reddy – guitar/vocals; Ewen Ferguson Denny - keyboards; Mick Reddy – bass; Graham Carey – drums
THE PAST: Named after a character in Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles, Baby Jenx have been together since the summer of 2005. Influenced by the big stadium sounds of U2, Radiohead and Muse, but with their own musical aesthetic firmly to the fore, they played their debut gig in legendary Dublin venue Mother Redcaps later that same year.
“Thrilling and epic, two words to describe the performance on the night… with melodic grooves and superb vocals on board, this is one act you need to get out and see” - Musicreveiw.com
Over the following months, Baby Jenx honed their live skills with a multitude of gigs. Their sparkling shows at the Irish IMRO showcase, Boston's NEMO Music Festival and Castlepalooza earned them rave reviews.
"... singer Gary Reddy is a natural performer and exceptional singer" – IMRO magazine
They recorded their first demo with producer Declan Lonergan in Bluebird Studios in Co. Kildare. This demo received extensive radio airplay, and was immediately chosen as Hot Press magazine's 'Demo of the Fortnight' by none other than Jackie Hayden (the former CBS boss, known for giving U2 their first record deal).
"The real gem is 'So Long', which opens around a slow staccato piano before it builds with sensitivity and pathos to a real ear-opener" – Jackie Hayden - Hot Press
THE FUTURE: Baby Jenx are currently in studio recording their debut album proper. Entitled “Trial By Fire” it will be released early 2009.
"… the band of this year to hit the music scene, with melodic, streaming vocals and uplifting sounds … you must catch a live gig from these guys, you are missing something special" – Hotpress.com
Friday, November 28, 2008
Content Sites Win With Gasta.com
Gasta.com search network of over 250+ search engines and the content relevancy tools InstantAds and SearchMatch our winners on the content site platform.
Gasta.com offers Increased site engagement:
Gasta Search is the primary mode of navigation on the web, and a better search experience will keep users on your site longer.
Gasta.com Increased content consumption:
Industry research projects that within three years nearly 87 percent of all internet users in the U.S. will be regularly viewing online video – an audience of well over 150 million people. Surfacing your audio and video content as part of a user’s overall search experience is the key to driving increased multimedia consumption and the associated advertising opportunities.
Increased advertising opportunities:
Exposing a previously buried treasure trove of multimedia content opens a new stream of advertising revenue. In addition, Gasta SearchMatch provides enhanced targeting opportunities from the rich metadata that wraps your audio and video content. With video advertising commanding premium pricing, enhancing multimedia consumption and targeting is the key to unlocking this $4 billion advertising opportunity.
Gasta.com offers Increased site engagement:
Gasta Search is the primary mode of navigation on the web, and a better search experience will keep users on your site longer.
Gasta.com Increased content consumption:
Industry research projects that within three years nearly 87 percent of all internet users in the U.S. will be regularly viewing online video – an audience of well over 150 million people. Surfacing your audio and video content as part of a user’s overall search experience is the key to driving increased multimedia consumption and the associated advertising opportunities.
Increased advertising opportunities:
Exposing a previously buried treasure trove of multimedia content opens a new stream of advertising revenue. In addition, Gasta SearchMatch provides enhanced targeting opportunities from the rich metadata that wraps your audio and video content. With video advertising commanding premium pricing, enhancing multimedia consumption and targeting is the key to unlocking this $4 billion advertising opportunity.
Gasta News: Mobile advertising on the Rise say analysts
Advertising: an emergent stream of revenues for the mobile industry
LONDON – 25 November 2008 – Mobile advertising could become a strong source of revenues for the mobile industry. The European mobile industry has extensively explored the use of advertising recently as a sustainable business model for mobile content, mobile messaging and other services. Despite being in the initial stage, these models have galvanised the industry. The level of confidence of the mobile communications and advertising industries in the potential of mobile advertising is very high.
New analysis from Frost & Sullivan (http://www.wireless.frost.com), Ad-based Content and Communications: A Lucrative Avenue for the Mobile Industry estimates that the mobile social and content advertising market revenues should reach 2.18 billion euro in 2012 in Europe. Mobile content advertising, ad-based music, video, TV and games will represent the major source of revenues.
“To achieve high revenues, the mobile advertising industry will need to successfully confront three main challenges. What should be concentrated on is: continuously enhance the mobile user experience through high-speed connectivity and high-quality user interfaces; use ads as a transparent value to consumers’ mobile experience without being intrusive; and educate the advertising industry on how to exploit the advertising power of mobile devices,” notes Saverio Romeo, Frost & Sullivan Research Analyst. “If these challenges are not adequately faced, the advertising market will not grow strongly as the mobile industry expects.”
From the mobile industry point of view, advertising is a potential revenue stream that can counterbalance the continuous decrease of revenues from voice and SMS services. However, advertisers and agencies, the sources of the advertising revenue stream, are, only now, gradually learning the use of the mobile device as an advertising medium.
“Agencies’ budgets rarely include a specific allocation for mobile communications,” states Romeo. “An intense synergy between the mobile and the advertising industries is crucial to transform today’s enthusiasm into strong revenues in the future.”
Ad-based Content and Communications: A Lucrative Avenue for the Mobile Industry is part of the Mobile & Wireless Growth Partnership Services Programme, which also includes research in the following markets:European Mobile Premium Content Markets, Mobile Messaging Markets in Europe and Exploring the European Market for Mobile Smart Devices. All research included in subscriptions provide detailed market opportunities and industry trends that have been evaluated following extensive interviews with market participants. Interviews with the press are available.
If you are interested in a virtual brochure, which provides manufacturers, end users and other industry participants with an overview of the ad-based content and communications market for the mobile industry, please send an e-mail to Joanna Lewandowska, Corporate Communications, at joanna.lewandowska@frost.com, with your contact details. Upon receipt of the above information, an overview will be sent to you by e-mail.
Frost & Sullivan, the Growth Partnership Company, partners with clients to accelerate their growth. The company's TEAM Research, Growth Consulting and Growth Team Membership™ empower clients to create a growth-focused culture that generates, evaluates and implements effective growth strategies. Frost & Sullivan employs over 45 years of experience in partnering with Global 1000 companies, emerging businesses and the investment community from more than 30 offices on six continents. For more information about Frost & Sullivan’s Growth Partnership Services, visit http://www.frost.com.
LONDON – 25 November 2008 – Mobile advertising could become a strong source of revenues for the mobile industry. The European mobile industry has extensively explored the use of advertising recently as a sustainable business model for mobile content, mobile messaging and other services. Despite being in the initial stage, these models have galvanised the industry. The level of confidence of the mobile communications and advertising industries in the potential of mobile advertising is very high.
New analysis from Frost & Sullivan (http://www.wireless.frost.com), Ad-based Content and Communications: A Lucrative Avenue for the Mobile Industry estimates that the mobile social and content advertising market revenues should reach 2.18 billion euro in 2012 in Europe. Mobile content advertising, ad-based music, video, TV and games will represent the major source of revenues.
“To achieve high revenues, the mobile advertising industry will need to successfully confront three main challenges. What should be concentrated on is: continuously enhance the mobile user experience through high-speed connectivity and high-quality user interfaces; use ads as a transparent value to consumers’ mobile experience without being intrusive; and educate the advertising industry on how to exploit the advertising power of mobile devices,” notes Saverio Romeo, Frost & Sullivan Research Analyst. “If these challenges are not adequately faced, the advertising market will not grow strongly as the mobile industry expects.”
From the mobile industry point of view, advertising is a potential revenue stream that can counterbalance the continuous decrease of revenues from voice and SMS services. However, advertisers and agencies, the sources of the advertising revenue stream, are, only now, gradually learning the use of the mobile device as an advertising medium.
“Agencies’ budgets rarely include a specific allocation for mobile communications,” states Romeo. “An intense synergy between the mobile and the advertising industries is crucial to transform today’s enthusiasm into strong revenues in the future.”
Ad-based Content and Communications: A Lucrative Avenue for the Mobile Industry is part of the Mobile & Wireless Growth Partnership Services Programme, which also includes research in the following markets:European Mobile Premium Content Markets, Mobile Messaging Markets in Europe and Exploring the European Market for Mobile Smart Devices. All research included in subscriptions provide detailed market opportunities and industry trends that have been evaluated following extensive interviews with market participants. Interviews with the press are available.
If you are interested in a virtual brochure, which provides manufacturers, end users and other industry participants with an overview of the ad-based content and communications market for the mobile industry, please send an e-mail to Joanna Lewandowska, Corporate Communications, at joanna.lewandowska@frost.com, with your contact details. Upon receipt of the above information, an overview will be sent to you by e-mail.
Frost & Sullivan, the Growth Partnership Company, partners with clients to accelerate their growth. The company's TEAM Research, Growth Consulting and Growth Team Membership™ empower clients to create a growth-focused culture that generates, evaluates and implements effective growth strategies. Frost & Sullivan employs over 45 years of experience in partnering with Global 1000 companies, emerging businesses and the investment community from more than 30 offices on six continents. For more information about Frost & Sullivan’s Growth Partnership Services, visit http://www.frost.com.
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Gasta Marketing News: Mobile advertsing
Some 98% of marketers say online marketing is crucial to business success through the economic downturn, according to research by Efficient Frontier.
The survey of over 300 UK, French and German marketers found 73% expect to see the headcount of digital marketing teams increase through 2009, and 87% of those surveyed predict digital marketing will grow at the same rate in 2009 as it did in 2008.
UK marketers ranked SEM higher than both its French and German counterparts, some 78.5% of UK respondents rated SEM as a 'top three' priority in marketing campaigns.
David White, general manager of Efficient Frontier Europe, said, "We're continuing to see enormous growth from our UK, French and German offices. It's pleasing to see these survey results reflecting a positive story during this current economic environment."
Mobile Ads
Coca-Cola and Xbox are among brands set to increase their mobile ad investment, as new research shows mobile marketing budgets will grow by 150% over the next five years despite the economic downturn. An O2 survey by Vanson Bourne of 100 marketing and IT directors from the financial services, manufacturing and retail sectors found that 60% favoured mobile marketing due to its targeted nature. Some 85% said mobile marketing campaigns generate a higher response than traditional methods....
The survey of over 300 UK, French and German marketers found 73% expect to see the headcount of digital marketing teams increase through 2009, and 87% of those surveyed predict digital marketing will grow at the same rate in 2009 as it did in 2008.
UK marketers ranked SEM higher than both its French and German counterparts, some 78.5% of UK respondents rated SEM as a 'top three' priority in marketing campaigns.
David White, general manager of Efficient Frontier Europe, said, "We're continuing to see enormous growth from our UK, French and German offices. It's pleasing to see these survey results reflecting a positive story during this current economic environment."
Mobile Ads
Coca-Cola and Xbox are among brands set to increase their mobile ad investment, as new research shows mobile marketing budgets will grow by 150% over the next five years despite the economic downturn. An O2 survey by Vanson Bourne of 100 marketing and IT directors from the financial services, manufacturing and retail sectors found that 60% favoured mobile marketing due to its targeted nature. Some 85% said mobile marketing campaigns generate a higher response than traditional methods....
Gasta News: Yell Rollout
Yell.com adds more local content while BBC plans set back
Yell is rolling out a series of ultra-local sub-sites featuring town and city information as part of a move to ramp up content across its website.
The classified listings specialist is hiring journalists to create content, including advice on things to think about when hiring a serviceperson as well as quick facts about towns across the UK.
Yell is also considering including local news and event information, if the trial is successful. It plans to use the content to boost its position as a key destination for local services and information online, as well as its search rankings.
Its push comes in the week that local news services were thrust into the spotlight following the BBC Trust's decision to refuse permission for the BBC's planned rollout of local video sites (nma.co.uk 21 November).
The Trust halted plans to spend £68m of licence fee funds on local video, deeming it unjustified.
The proposed move was highly criticised by competitor commercial news providers, such as Northcliffe Media, which owns 151 sites under the Thisis brand. It said it would be unable to compete with such investment by the BBC.
Johnston Press claimed the BBC's Where I Live sites had already damaged its local sites, and Trinity Mirror accused the Corporation of losing sight of its purpose.
The rejection of the plans by the BBC Trust has received a cautious welcome by commercial rivals, with many concerned the setback won't keep the BBC away from local services for long.
Sam McIlveen, digital publisher at Independent News and Media, said, "I don't think this is the end of it. We're still worried because these plans were hugely disadvantageous for local media. Local sites can't compete with the BBC, especially when it's willing to spend £68m."
The Newspaper Society's director David Newell also expressed concern at the BBC not giving up on the area. "We must be on guard to ensure the BBC isn't allowed to expand its local services by other means," he said.
Sir Michael Lyons, chairman of the BBC Trust, said that while consumers want better local services, video sites were unlikely to meet their needs.
Regulator Ofcom said the plans would have a significant negative impact on commercial providers.
Author: By Will Cooper & Luan Goldie | Source: nma.co.uk | Published: 26.11.08
Yell is rolling out a series of ultra-local sub-sites featuring town and city information as part of a move to ramp up content across its website.
The classified listings specialist is hiring journalists to create content, including advice on things to think about when hiring a serviceperson as well as quick facts about towns across the UK.
Yell is also considering including local news and event information, if the trial is successful. It plans to use the content to boost its position as a key destination for local services and information online, as well as its search rankings.
Its push comes in the week that local news services were thrust into the spotlight following the BBC Trust's decision to refuse permission for the BBC's planned rollout of local video sites (nma.co.uk 21 November).
The Trust halted plans to spend £68m of licence fee funds on local video, deeming it unjustified.
The proposed move was highly criticised by competitor commercial news providers, such as Northcliffe Media, which owns 151 sites under the Thisis brand. It said it would be unable to compete with such investment by the BBC.
Johnston Press claimed the BBC's Where I Live sites had already damaged its local sites, and Trinity Mirror accused the Corporation of losing sight of its purpose.
The rejection of the plans by the BBC Trust has received a cautious welcome by commercial rivals, with many concerned the setback won't keep the BBC away from local services for long.
Sam McIlveen, digital publisher at Independent News and Media, said, "I don't think this is the end of it. We're still worried because these plans were hugely disadvantageous for local media. Local sites can't compete with the BBC, especially when it's willing to spend £68m."
The Newspaper Society's director David Newell also expressed concern at the BBC not giving up on the area. "We must be on guard to ensure the BBC isn't allowed to expand its local services by other means," he said.
Sir Michael Lyons, chairman of the BBC Trust, said that while consumers want better local services, video sites were unlikely to meet their needs.
Regulator Ofcom said the plans would have a significant negative impact on commercial providers.
Author: By Will Cooper & Luan Goldie | Source: nma.co.uk | Published: 26.11.08
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Gasta Mobile News:Buongiorno
Buongiorno uses viral to push mobile social network
A viral ad campaign supporting digital entertainment company Buongiorno's mobile social network has been viewed over 400,000 times.
The 411,101 views in the first three weeks of the campaign resulted in 3,135 visits to the Real Time Real People website, which contains more information about the mobile-specific social network.
According to the company, around 12% of unique viewers requested an invitation code to Blinko with over 27% subscribing.
Blinko is a pan-European attempt from Buongiorno to enter mobile social networking following success from established online players including Bebo, Facebook and MySpace.
The viral campaign was designed and created by DLV Proximity to generate interest in the new product. Buongiorno has allocated a total marketing budget of €500,000 (£426,000) to promote Blinko.
A viral ad campaign supporting digital entertainment company Buongiorno's mobile social network has been viewed over 400,000 times.
The 411,101 views in the first three weeks of the campaign resulted in 3,135 visits to the Real Time Real People website, which contains more information about the mobile-specific social network.
According to the company, around 12% of unique viewers requested an invitation code to Blinko with over 27% subscribing.
Blinko is a pan-European attempt from Buongiorno to enter mobile social networking following success from established online players including Bebo, Facebook and MySpace.
The viral campaign was designed and created by DLV Proximity to generate interest in the new product. Buongiorno has allocated a total marketing budget of €500,000 (£426,000) to promote Blinko.
Monday, November 24, 2008
Gasta News:Mobile internet is growing eight times faster than PC-based web
Mobile internet is growing eight times faster than PC-based web
The mobile internet is growing eight times faster than traffic to the PC-based web, according to the first set of mobile data from Nielsen Online.
The research company has released its first Mobile Media findings which show traffic on the mobile internet increased by 25% to 7.3m during 3Q 2008. The survey found 25% of mobile internet users are aged 16-24 compared with just 12% who are older than 55.
BBC News is the most popular mobile internet site, attracting 1.7m
Kent Ferguson, senior analyst for Nielsen, said the mobile web was a great opportunity for advertisers and publishers to reach important demographic groups. "People often need fast, instant access to weather or sports news and mobile can obviously satisfy this, wherever they are," he said.
The mobile internet is growing eight times faster than traffic to the PC-based web, according to the first set of mobile data from Nielsen Online.
The research company has released its first Mobile Media findings which show traffic on the mobile internet increased by 25% to 7.3m during 3Q 2008. The survey found 25% of mobile internet users are aged 16-24 compared with just 12% who are older than 55.
BBC News is the most popular mobile internet site, attracting 1.7m
Kent Ferguson, senior analyst for Nielsen, said the mobile web was a great opportunity for advertisers and publishers to reach important demographic groups. "People often need fast, instant access to weather or sports news and mobile can obviously satisfy this, wherever they are," he said.
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Gasta News: Google Personalized search, Personified
Interview with Googles Matt Cutts
Cutts said, "I'm not sure I would say ranking is dead but it's not as important as it used to be. The fact is the smart SEOs are not just necessarily looking at the rankings. They are looking at conversion, they are looking at their server log. It's great if you're ranking for a phrase but unless that leads to sales that doesn't help you very much."
"The challenge is not to pay so much attention to ranking, pay attention to traffic, pay attention to conversions and keep building good content and don't worry about 'can I show people that I rank number one for my trophy phrase.'"
Universal Search In 2009
"Universal is really useful and I think it will continue to expand and what that means in 2009 you can't just think of yourself as an SEO," said Cutts.
"SEOs are starting to embrace the fact that they are marketers. It's a broader spectrum. You have to think about how you build buzz, how do you get loyal customers, how do you optimize your ROI. All those different things and that can include how do I make good videos, do I have a book, things like that."
Cutts says that people will continue to pay attention to video and images in 2009 but noted a down side. "Of course anywhere there is money there will be spam." Google has been focusing on its different properties to manage the spam issue.
Metadata
Google has gotten better on Flash and submitting a video to video sitemaps is really helpful in getting onto Google Video Search. "We want to be able to present video from all kinds of places," said Cutts.
Video File Format
"Whatever file format you want to use is totally fine."
Mobile
Cutts says that just because search engines are getting better at Flash does not mean mobile is. On mobile devices you can't just think about search engines. You have to think about the user experience.
Competing with Black Hat SEO
"Black Hat SEO is getting a little more malicious. In a world where Black Hat is moving towards really illegal things as an SEO you have to decide your risk tolerance and do I really want to try to compete with people who are doing illegal stuff or do I want to make a long term site that's gonna stand the test of time."
Subdomains
There is no real advantage to using Subdomains. If you have a lot of Subdomains that can be a lot of work. You don't want to overdo it. Really it's what ever is easiest for you.
Cutts said, "I'm not sure I would say ranking is dead but it's not as important as it used to be. The fact is the smart SEOs are not just necessarily looking at the rankings. They are looking at conversion, they are looking at their server log. It's great if you're ranking for a phrase but unless that leads to sales that doesn't help you very much."
"The challenge is not to pay so much attention to ranking, pay attention to traffic, pay attention to conversions and keep building good content and don't worry about 'can I show people that I rank number one for my trophy phrase.'"
Universal Search In 2009
"Universal is really useful and I think it will continue to expand and what that means in 2009 you can't just think of yourself as an SEO," said Cutts.
"SEOs are starting to embrace the fact that they are marketers. It's a broader spectrum. You have to think about how you build buzz, how do you get loyal customers, how do you optimize your ROI. All those different things and that can include how do I make good videos, do I have a book, things like that."
Cutts says that people will continue to pay attention to video and images in 2009 but noted a down side. "Of course anywhere there is money there will be spam." Google has been focusing on its different properties to manage the spam issue.
Metadata
Google has gotten better on Flash and submitting a video to video sitemaps is really helpful in getting onto Google Video Search. "We want to be able to present video from all kinds of places," said Cutts.
Video File Format
"Whatever file format you want to use is totally fine."
Mobile
Cutts says that just because search engines are getting better at Flash does not mean mobile is. On mobile devices you can't just think about search engines. You have to think about the user experience.
Competing with Black Hat SEO
"Black Hat SEO is getting a little more malicious. In a world where Black Hat is moving towards really illegal things as an SEO you have to decide your risk tolerance and do I really want to try to compete with people who are doing illegal stuff or do I want to make a long term site that's gonna stand the test of time."
Subdomains
There is no real advantage to using Subdomains. If you have a lot of Subdomains that can be a lot of work. You don't want to overdo it. Really it's what ever is easiest for you.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Gasta Search Statistics
Search engine data is the most relevant on the net
The net reveals the ties that bind
Regular columnist Bill Thompson wonders what it will take to get used to living in a networked society.
One of the throwaway remarks I sometimes make at conferences is that "Google knows you're pregnant before you do".
I can say this because the things you search for will change as your life changes, and search engine providers may well be able to spot the significance of these changes because they aggregate data from millions of people.
Now Google's philanthropic arm, google.org, has shown just what it can do with the data it gathers from us all by offering to predict where 'flu outbreaks will take place in the USA.
It has found that "certain search terms are good indicators of flu activity", in that they correlate well with reports from the official Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
And it claims that "across each of the nine surveillance regions of the United States, we were able to accurately estimate current flu levels one to two weeks faster than published CDC reports", a result that could save people's lives by alerting them to have 'flu vaccinations earlier than they might otherwise have done.
This is a really interesting piece of work and clearly demonstrates the power of data mining. Its potential usefulness is not limited to health matters.
Pick and mix
As John Naughton pointed out in The Observer, "everyone I know in business has known for months that the UK is in recession, but it's only lately that the authorities have been in a position to confirm that - because the official data always lag the current reality."
Perhaps the answer lies buried somewhere in the queries being made online, with company directors or politicians searching for terms that imply a coming recession, like details of redundancy pay or bankruptcy protection.
It isn't only Google who can do this of course. Its database of queries is vast and fast-growing, but it is only one among many databases that underpin the modern world.
The banking system is really only a collection of collected databases recording who has which assets, while neither government nor business could operate without complex data stores.
Soon the national ID register will store details of everyone in the UK, while the forthcoming Communications Data Bill is likely to include proposals to create a vast system that will record details of every e-mail sent, every website surfed and every file downloaded.
As we have seen with flu trends, sometimes the "interesting" knowledge that can be extracted is well-concealed until comparisons can be made with other sources, as it was the correlation between some search terms and the real-world data that mattered.
Of course Google has not revealed which search terms it analysed because doing so would undermine the model's effectiveness.
Unfortunately it is being equally reticent about how it has ensured that the data its uses is properly anonymised so that users cannot be identified on the basis of their queries.
A letter from the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) and Patient Privacy Rights to Google boss Eric Schmidt has not been answered, leaving those concerned with online privacy uncertain over the broader implications of the project.
Early warning
But as Cade Metz points out in an insightful article in The Register, we may all be happy to know that a 'flu outbreak is coming, but what happens when the disease involved is more life-threatening and the government asks Google for the names and IP addresses of anyone whose search terms indicate that they are infected?
It's not that I don't trust Google. I don't trust any company, government department or individual without a good reason to do so.
In the case of search engines that claim to protect my privacy I want to know just how they do it and will not accept vague reassurances.
In the case of governments that want to build vast databases, I want strong legal sanctions against their abuse and full disclosure of the technical details.
Those of us living in the west with access to technology and the network have lived through a revolution in the last decade and a half that is as radical in its impact as the industrial revolution, and it has happened a lot faster.
It is hardly surprising that we do not yet know how to operate in a networked world where amazingly detailed data is routinely stored, processed and made available.
We will need to think in new ways, learn to assess risk according to new criteria, and find ways to hold those who have power over us - whether political, social or cultural - accountable in new ways.
The US writer Curt Monash has written about this topic many times over the years, arguing that since we clearly cannot halt the move towards data capture and use we should put legal and regulatory frameworks in place as a matter of urgency.
We have made a start in Europe with data protection legislation which could be strengthened and reinforced if politicians were willing to make the effort.
But first we need an active press and an engaged population, one that asks hard questions, forces those who want to develop new databases to be accountable and open, and makes the boundaries of acceptable surveillance a matter of public debate.
And perhaps we should ask google.org to start work on "Privacy Trends", hoping to spot privacy disasters before they happen by looking at searches for "compromised data", "hacked database" and "lost USB stick".
Bill Thompson is an independent journalist and regular commentator on the BBC World Service programme Digital Planet.
Gasta Ready for the New search3.0 wave
At PubCon, Bruce Clay, Inc. President Bruce Clay presented at a session entitled "Top-Shelf Organic SEO" in which he discussed the approaching future of SEO as search engines evolve into more modern ranking methods. Bruce was good enough to take the time to speak with our own Michael McDonald in a one-on-one interview, which can be viewed in the video below.
Behavior Based Search
Bruce says that everybody who does a search will end up with different search results based on their prior search history. Personalization is going to be "web-wide" using third party cookies and things.
He provided a specific example of a search for "java". Some are looking for programming, some are looking for the beverage, and some are looking for travel information. Theoretically, the search engines will know that and provide results accordingly.
"We can't search for any term and look at rankings because I can get different results than you for exactly the same query. So that's going to change a lot," he says. It doesn't matter if you're logged into Google or not. Bruce believes that personalized results will be coming out within the first quarter of next year.
Intent-based Search
Google has been looking up your IP and revising results based on IP. They know where you're located and can make assumptions about the intent of your search. As you get more into intent-based search, it's going to change the way pages rank, Bruce explains. "The page that ranks for a shopping query is an entirely different architecture than the page that ranks for a research query."
Where Does this Leave the SEO Crowd?
"Ranking is dead," says Bruce, recalling his words from his presentation. Going forward, he says you're going to have to look at analytics, measure traffic, bounce rates, action, etc. SEOs will have to ask themselves questions like:
- Did I get the conversion I was after?
- Did I really deliver on the promise of SEO?
Bruce thinks that in the first six months of 2009, we're going to see a lot more implementation of behavior and intent-based search leading to a mindset of "ranking is dead, and traffic is all that matters."
Universal Search
Bruce ClayBruce says this will be the most significant factor of 2009. Google looks at soundtracks and convert them to text. They can jump into the middle of videos, scan sites to determine if you have video/images or not. There are a lot of variables in universal search, and some of these variables tell how engaging your site is.
If you don't have video and your competition does, Bruce thinks we're going to see a big shift in rankings. He thinks if the top ten sites don't have video, they may lose their ranking over night.
Bruce notes that Google has been testing some of these variables, and will really start testing them a lot more in the first quarter, once the holidays are out of the way. He mentions the criticism Google took over the Florida Update, which took place in the month of November, and believes the company wants to avoid that again. He thinks we're going to see a lot of "Google Dances" early in the year though.
The Impact on Spam
According to Bruce, this is all going to really help Google fight spammers. He says it will affect the way scrapers and spammers work, because if they are just scraping text, they wouldn't be able to rank.
He also says that all of the variables that come into play may diminish the value of linking, which will certainly not help the spammers' cause either. He says it will be a big win for Google, and big win for the searchers.
There's no question that if everything Bruce talked about comes true, the SEO world will be turned on its ear. Bruce says, "If you're not ready for it as an SEO, you're gonna lose."
Behavior Based Search
Bruce says that everybody who does a search will end up with different search results based on their prior search history. Personalization is going to be "web-wide" using third party cookies and things.
He provided a specific example of a search for "java". Some are looking for programming, some are looking for the beverage, and some are looking for travel information. Theoretically, the search engines will know that and provide results accordingly.
"We can't search for any term and look at rankings because I can get different results than you for exactly the same query. So that's going to change a lot," he says. It doesn't matter if you're logged into Google or not. Bruce believes that personalized results will be coming out within the first quarter of next year.
Intent-based Search
Google has been looking up your IP and revising results based on IP. They know where you're located and can make assumptions about the intent of your search. As you get more into intent-based search, it's going to change the way pages rank, Bruce explains. "The page that ranks for a shopping query is an entirely different architecture than the page that ranks for a research query."
Where Does this Leave the SEO Crowd?
"Ranking is dead," says Bruce, recalling his words from his presentation. Going forward, he says you're going to have to look at analytics, measure traffic, bounce rates, action, etc. SEOs will have to ask themselves questions like:
- Did I get the conversion I was after?
- Did I really deliver on the promise of SEO?
Bruce thinks that in the first six months of 2009, we're going to see a lot more implementation of behavior and intent-based search leading to a mindset of "ranking is dead, and traffic is all that matters."
Universal Search
Bruce ClayBruce says this will be the most significant factor of 2009. Google looks at soundtracks and convert them to text. They can jump into the middle of videos, scan sites to determine if you have video/images or not. There are a lot of variables in universal search, and some of these variables tell how engaging your site is.
If you don't have video and your competition does, Bruce thinks we're going to see a big shift in rankings. He thinks if the top ten sites don't have video, they may lose their ranking over night.
Bruce notes that Google has been testing some of these variables, and will really start testing them a lot more in the first quarter, once the holidays are out of the way. He mentions the criticism Google took over the Florida Update, which took place in the month of November, and believes the company wants to avoid that again. He thinks we're going to see a lot of "Google Dances" early in the year though.
The Impact on Spam
According to Bruce, this is all going to really help Google fight spammers. He says it will affect the way scrapers and spammers work, because if they are just scraping text, they wouldn't be able to rank.
He also says that all of the variables that come into play may diminish the value of linking, which will certainly not help the spammers' cause either. He says it will be a big win for Google, and big win for the searchers.
There's no question that if everything Bruce talked about comes true, the SEO world will be turned on its ear. Bruce says, "If you're not ready for it as an SEO, you're gonna lose."
Friday, November 14, 2008
Gasta Long tail keywords
Keywords can be split into two main groups, short tail keywords and long tail keywords, or broad keywords and narrow keywords. The term ‘long tail’ was coined by Chris Anderson and is used to describe the strategy of targeting less-competitive niche markets rather than the hugely competitive broad keywords. A long tail keyword is something like ‘Small Business Web Design’ while a short wail keyword is something like ‘Web Design’.
When you compare the two keywords, ‘Web Design’ has about 30 times as many competitors as ‘Small Business Web Design’ but ‘Web Design’ also gets far more searches each month. A small number of broad terms such as ‘Web Design’ and ‘Marketing’ account for a large proportion of searches but an equally large proportion of the searches are made up of millions of more specific search queries such as ‘Small Business Web Design’. This search distribution can be understood through the following graph.
Long Tail
A real life example
I speak about www.NarutoWallpaper.biz a lot and I will speak about it again in this article, each day NarutoWallpaper gets over 1000 visitors from search engines from roughly 200 unique keywords but the best keyword brings almost 50% of those visitors, following is a list of the top 12 keywords. Notice that the first keyword brings 45%, the second keyword brings 20% and the remaining 198 keywords account for the remaining 35% of the searches.
Keywords List
This distribution seems very similar to the graph I displayed earlier, the top few keywords account for a lot of the searches but there is many, many more specific searches which cumulatively total a significant figure. Let me display the keywords in graph form.
NarutoWallpaper Long Tail
You can see that the top two keywords bring in lots of traffic and the remaining keywords each bring minute amounts of traffic that cumulatively totals a significant amount, but separately are not significant.
Benefiting from the long tail
You may be wondering why anybody would want to target hundreds or thousands of keywords which bring only small traffic. Well the answer is simply that there is less competition so you can rank on the first page of Google for long tail keywords far easier than ranking for short tail keywords. Yes, they don’t bring a lot of traffic separately but if you target lots of long tail keywords you can get lots of easy traffic. Not everybody is capable of ranking highly for highly competitive keywords but anybody(!) can rank for long tail keywords.
Another benefit of long tail keywords is that the visitors convert amazingly well to sales and ad clicks. The visitors searching for long tail keywords know exactly what they want, be it ‘Small Business Web Design’ or ‘Half Price Armani Suits’, they know exactly what they want and hopefully you can provide it to them.
To put this into numbers, in general my websites might make $5 per 1000 impressions but from long tail visitors I can earn $100 per 1000 impressions, that’s 20 times the revenue if the traffic is equal. Although admittedly the traffic is not equal, my best keywords bring in more visitors than the long tail keywords combined, but the long tail keywords still bring in nice revenue.
On this website I have two pages providing free business resources: Free Business Card Templates and Sample Marketing Plan and Marketing Plan Template. Both are targeting long tail keywords such as ‘DJ Business Cards’ and ‘Massage Business Cards’. Those two pages make a lot of revenue per 1000 impressions but currently have low traffic. The keywords I am targeting are very specific and the visitors are getting what they came for so they convert well.
Conclusion
Whether you can achieve high rankings for competitive keywords or not, long tail keywords could be highly beneficial for you. If you have a website selling ‘Armani Suits’ but can’t pull any search engine traffic, rather than targeting the keyword ‘Armani’ or ‘Armani Suits’ try targeting more specific keywords such as ‘Armani Mens Suits’. Hopefully you will see an increase in conversions and sales.
Popularity: 43% [?]
When you compare the two keywords, ‘Web Design’ has about 30 times as many competitors as ‘Small Business Web Design’ but ‘Web Design’ also gets far more searches each month. A small number of broad terms such as ‘Web Design’ and ‘Marketing’ account for a large proportion of searches but an equally large proportion of the searches are made up of millions of more specific search queries such as ‘Small Business Web Design’. This search distribution can be understood through the following graph.
Long Tail
A real life example
I speak about www.NarutoWallpaper.biz a lot and I will speak about it again in this article, each day NarutoWallpaper gets over 1000 visitors from search engines from roughly 200 unique keywords but the best keyword brings almost 50% of those visitors, following is a list of the top 12 keywords. Notice that the first keyword brings 45%, the second keyword brings 20% and the remaining 198 keywords account for the remaining 35% of the searches.
Keywords List
This distribution seems very similar to the graph I displayed earlier, the top few keywords account for a lot of the searches but there is many, many more specific searches which cumulatively total a significant figure. Let me display the keywords in graph form.
NarutoWallpaper Long Tail
You can see that the top two keywords bring in lots of traffic and the remaining keywords each bring minute amounts of traffic that cumulatively totals a significant amount, but separately are not significant.
Benefiting from the long tail
You may be wondering why anybody would want to target hundreds or thousands of keywords which bring only small traffic. Well the answer is simply that there is less competition so you can rank on the first page of Google for long tail keywords far easier than ranking for short tail keywords. Yes, they don’t bring a lot of traffic separately but if you target lots of long tail keywords you can get lots of easy traffic. Not everybody is capable of ranking highly for highly competitive keywords but anybody(!) can rank for long tail keywords.
Another benefit of long tail keywords is that the visitors convert amazingly well to sales and ad clicks. The visitors searching for long tail keywords know exactly what they want, be it ‘Small Business Web Design’ or ‘Half Price Armani Suits’, they know exactly what they want and hopefully you can provide it to them.
To put this into numbers, in general my websites might make $5 per 1000 impressions but from long tail visitors I can earn $100 per 1000 impressions, that’s 20 times the revenue if the traffic is equal. Although admittedly the traffic is not equal, my best keywords bring in more visitors than the long tail keywords combined, but the long tail keywords still bring in nice revenue.
On this website I have two pages providing free business resources: Free Business Card Templates and Sample Marketing Plan and Marketing Plan Template. Both are targeting long tail keywords such as ‘DJ Business Cards’ and ‘Massage Business Cards’. Those two pages make a lot of revenue per 1000 impressions but currently have low traffic. The keywords I am targeting are very specific and the visitors are getting what they came for so they convert well.
Conclusion
Whether you can achieve high rankings for competitive keywords or not, long tail keywords could be highly beneficial for you. If you have a website selling ‘Armani Suits’ but can’t pull any search engine traffic, rather than targeting the keyword ‘Armani’ or ‘Armani Suits’ try targeting more specific keywords such as ‘Armani Mens Suits’. Hopefully you will see an increase in conversions and sales.
Popularity: 43% [?]
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Gasta Search Network:New Report Documents Insanely Long Tail Of Search
New Report Documents Insanely Long Tail Of Search
When something seemingly insignificant is able to control a more powerful entity, talk of the tail wagging the dog occasionally comes into play. But according to a new report from Hitwise, the long tail of search is capable of something more akin to launching the dog into orbit.
Dustin Woodward, a Seattle-based SEO and Web analytics expert, tried to look at the top 10000 search terms recorded by Hitwise during a three-month period. What he got was a very strange-looking graph, with data displayed in almost invisible amounts along great stretches of both axes.
"Top 10,000 Search Terms by Percentage of All Search Traffic" (Source: Hitwise)
So Woodard then examined just the top 100 terms, and this sample generated a graph more normal in appearance. He writes, "However, this is just 100 search terms out of the more than 14 million."
It turns out that, at least in this particular three-month data set, the top 100 terms accounted for just 5.7 percent of all search traffic. Expand to the top 500, 1000, and 10000 terms, and just 8.9 percent, 10.6 percent, and 18.5 percent of all search traffic is involved, respectively.
"Top 100 Search Terms by Percentage of All Search Traffic" (Source: Hitwise)
Woodard concludes, "This means if you had a monopoly over the top 1,000 search terms across all search engines (which is impossible), you'd still be missing out on 89.4% of all search traffic. There's so much traffic in the tail it is hard to even comprehend. To illustrate, if search were represented by a tiny lizard with a one-inch head, the tail of that lizard would stretch for 221 miles."
Lone bloggers, SEO professionals, and small businesses (among all other sorts of things) should be able to take comfort in this discovery. Woodard's analysis makes it look like there's plenty of traffic for everyone, without a need for cutthroat behavior and the spending of huge sums of money over the top few search terms.
A better approach might be to optimize for a lot of truly niche terms and see what happens. Be careful not to confuse increased holiday traffic for success - and also not to put your holiday income at risk in the event of failure - but some small-scale testing seems appropriate, at least.
Anyone wanting even more reasons to experiment should know that the Hitwise sample only included 10 million U.S. Internet users, adult search terms were removed by filters, and the three spotlighted months were relatively slow ones.
By Doug Caverly
When something seemingly insignificant is able to control a more powerful entity, talk of the tail wagging the dog occasionally comes into play. But according to a new report from Hitwise, the long tail of search is capable of something more akin to launching the dog into orbit.
Dustin Woodward, a Seattle-based SEO and Web analytics expert, tried to look at the top 10000 search terms recorded by Hitwise during a three-month period. What he got was a very strange-looking graph, with data displayed in almost invisible amounts along great stretches of both axes.
"Top 10,000 Search Terms by Percentage of All Search Traffic" (Source: Hitwise)
So Woodard then examined just the top 100 terms, and this sample generated a graph more normal in appearance. He writes, "However, this is just 100 search terms out of the more than 14 million."
It turns out that, at least in this particular three-month data set, the top 100 terms accounted for just 5.7 percent of all search traffic. Expand to the top 500, 1000, and 10000 terms, and just 8.9 percent, 10.6 percent, and 18.5 percent of all search traffic is involved, respectively.
"Top 100 Search Terms by Percentage of All Search Traffic" (Source: Hitwise)
Woodard concludes, "This means if you had a monopoly over the top 1,000 search terms across all search engines (which is impossible), you'd still be missing out on 89.4% of all search traffic. There's so much traffic in the tail it is hard to even comprehend. To illustrate, if search were represented by a tiny lizard with a one-inch head, the tail of that lizard would stretch for 221 miles."
Lone bloggers, SEO professionals, and small businesses (among all other sorts of things) should be able to take comfort in this discovery. Woodard's analysis makes it look like there's plenty of traffic for everyone, without a need for cutthroat behavior and the spending of huge sums of money over the top few search terms.
A better approach might be to optimize for a lot of truly niche terms and see what happens. Be careful not to confuse increased holiday traffic for success - and also not to put your holiday income at risk in the event of failure - but some small-scale testing seems appropriate, at least.
Anyone wanting even more reasons to experiment should know that the Hitwise sample only included 10 million U.S. Internet users, adult search terms were removed by filters, and the three spotlighted months were relatively slow ones.
By Doug Caverly
Monday, November 10, 2008
Google Researcher Looks at Search Habits
Google respects simplicity. That's clear based on the design of their home page (assuming you don't use iGoogle). It's changed very little since the beginning. It's simple, clean, and familiar. A field study from Google into the search habits of users has made it even more clear that simplicity reigns supreme when it comes to search.
We who are to any degree, professionally involved with the search engine and technology industries often take things for granted. We know what certain words and phrases mean, and often expect others to, when the reality is that they don't. I'm not saying I'm the smartest guy out there either. I am constantly looking up words and phrases myself (just one of the many useful yet simple features Google offers).
Google has acknowledged this though by making its advanced search tool simpler. Search Quality Researcher Daniel Russell says at the Official Google Blog:
Armed with this insight from field studies, we redesigned the page, simplifying it by removing terms that were unclear to the average user (the word "occurrences," for example, just didn't mean anything to many of the Advanced Search page users), moving rarely used features (numeric range searches, date searches, etc.) into a part of the page that was expandable with a single click. That made them easy to get to for people who knew they wanted to search with those restrictions, but out of the way in a non-threatening way.
One of the other things we noted in the field study was that people often didn't understand how the Advanced Search page worked. So we added a "visible query builder" region at the top of the page. As you fill in the blanks, the box at the top of the page fills in with the query that you could type into Google. It was our way of making visible the effects of advanced search operators.
The product of redesigning the page looks like this(you can see the old version here). That wasn't what the whole field study was about though. In Google's ongoing quest to improve search quality, they observed people's search habits, and found that in the end, while some of the information retrieved was useful, much of it was unreliable. In other words, when people are being watched by researchers, they act differently than they would otherwise.
Eye tracking was an additional component of the field study. They provided an interesting look at this with the following video. The red dot in the video represents the movement of eyes on the page for three different users.
I suggest reading Russell's post in its entirety to get a better feel for the kind of research he has been doing. In fact, his post is really only the latest in a series on search quality from the Google Blog. The series itself is definitely worth checking out for gaining insight into Google's search quality quest.
Gasta: Personalised Search
Gasta Personalised Search for your company website.
You can reap the benefits of having your own personal search engine for you and your collegues to share in the revenues, and benefit from Search per acquisition affiliations.
Google leads in personalised search.
1. You can no longer assume that rankings as you see them are global. Anyone logged in while they search is potentially seeing a different set of results for the same keyword. You can log out of your Google account to search or turn off personalized results, but it won't do much good since every other user is potentially searching with personalization.
2. If Google is incorporating usage data from other sources such as the Google Toolbar, Google Chrome and Google Analytics, it means that the user experience is going to play a heavier role in SEO. Keep this in mind: for Google, the user experience is everything. Doesn't it then make sense for them to incorporate available usage data when ranking websites?
3. With these new data sources, Google could potentially be scaling back the emphasis on inbound links in their ranking algorithm. Links to this point have been central for Google rankings. With their market share continually improving and the unparalleled usage data that affords them we can reasonably expect that they'll be putting more emphasis on these metrics in the future.
4. Expected traffic estimates based on rankings just became difficult if not impossible to achieve. In the past, traffic could be reasonably estimated by multiplying the available search usage for a given keyword by the known traffic percentage of a given position. The 1st position, for example, receíved some 48% of traffic for a keyword according to leaked AOL data from a few years back. For a keyword receiving 100 searches per month, you could reasonably estimate 48 visits per month based on a #1 ranking for that keyword. SEO companies used that data to take some of the guesswork out of their campaigns. With personalized search these estimates are going to become far less accurate if not completely unreliable.
5. Overall, this means you need to keep your eyes OFF the search engine rankings to a large degree. Does a #1 position for your Google account mean you could be somewhere back on page 5 for someone else? Probably not. But the point is, from here on out we can't be sure without extensive testing. Rankings have haven't ever meant much - they've always been a means to an end, the end being quality traffic and ultimately more sales, attention or whatever your website goal may be. Now, more than ever, high-quality traffic should be your focus.
Personalized search isn't exactly a new concept - it's been discussed for at least a couple of years now. But we're seeing it receive heavier emphasis lately, and the buzz is on that Google is going to change the game again soon. Like it or not, we're likely going to have to let go of rankings as a metric for success.
You can reap the benefits of having your own personal search engine for you and your collegues to share in the revenues, and benefit from Search per acquisition affiliations.
Google leads in personalised search.
1. You can no longer assume that rankings as you see them are global. Anyone logged in while they search is potentially seeing a different set of results for the same keyword. You can log out of your Google account to search or turn off personalized results, but it won't do much good since every other user is potentially searching with personalization.
2. If Google is incorporating usage data from other sources such as the Google Toolbar, Google Chrome and Google Analytics, it means that the user experience is going to play a heavier role in SEO. Keep this in mind: for Google, the user experience is everything. Doesn't it then make sense for them to incorporate available usage data when ranking websites?
3. With these new data sources, Google could potentially be scaling back the emphasis on inbound links in their ranking algorithm. Links to this point have been central for Google rankings. With their market share continually improving and the unparalleled usage data that affords them we can reasonably expect that they'll be putting more emphasis on these metrics in the future.
4. Expected traffic estimates based on rankings just became difficult if not impossible to achieve. In the past, traffic could be reasonably estimated by multiplying the available search usage for a given keyword by the known traffic percentage of a given position. The 1st position, for example, receíved some 48% of traffic for a keyword according to leaked AOL data from a few years back. For a keyword receiving 100 searches per month, you could reasonably estimate 48 visits per month based on a #1 ranking for that keyword. SEO companies used that data to take some of the guesswork out of their campaigns. With personalized search these estimates are going to become far less accurate if not completely unreliable.
5. Overall, this means you need to keep your eyes OFF the search engine rankings to a large degree. Does a #1 position for your Google account mean you could be somewhere back on page 5 for someone else? Probably not. But the point is, from here on out we can't be sure without extensive testing. Rankings have haven't ever meant much - they've always been a means to an end, the end being quality traffic and ultimately more sales, attention or whatever your website goal may be. Now, more than ever, high-quality traffic should be your focus.
Personalized search isn't exactly a new concept - it's been discussed for at least a couple of years now. But we're seeing it receive heavier emphasis lately, and the buzz is on that Google is going to change the game again soon. Like it or not, we're likely going to have to let go of rankings as a metric for success.
Friday, November 07, 2008
Gasta News: PAID SEARCH: How the paid search industry is killing itself
PAID SEARCH:
How the paid search industry is killing itself
It may not be as bad as the banking industry, but SEM could use some help. Here's how paid search can get itself back on track before things get worse.
As the financial markets continue to turn out bleak news, I've begun to think about the many parallels existing between Wall Street and the SEM industry.
Mergers, acquisitions and shotgun marriages
To start with, we're now in the middle of a wave of consolidations that are reminiscent of the successive mergers and takeovers now taking place in the banking sector.
Range Online is the latest independent SEM agency to pack up its tent, as it was folded into iProspect, which was itself acquired by U.K.-based Aegis some time ago. Range follows Outrider (bought by ad holding company WPP, which also owns 24/7 Real Media), Reprise Media (snapped up by Interpublic) and Inceptor (purchased by Verizon).
It's clear that many SEM agencies are having a tough time going it alone, and the shotgun marriage M&A trend will accelerate if the macroeconomic environment continues to deteriorate and the SEM industry -- like the financial markets -- continues to suffer from ills that are largely of its own making.
Search engines enabled this mess
The SEM industry has no direct equivalent to sub-prime mortgages, collateralized debt obligations or over-leverage, but it suffers from structural issues that are largely a product of its ostensibly self-serve nature. Google and the other engines have stoked the fever of irrational optimism by encouraging everyone to believe that all it takes to succeed at search is a credit card and a couple of hours studying the AdWords help file.
The result is a world in which marketers behave like self-medicating patients who believe that watching a webinar on urinary tract infections is equivalent to getting a consultation with an experienced urologist. The fact that a number of people believe they are more qualified to run search than the experts reflects a dismal lack of confidence in SEM agencies. So it's no surprise when expert companies feel that getting swallowed up by a larger conglomerate is preferable to going it alone.
Killing the golden goose
But the search engines aren't the only ones to blame. Like Wall Street's "shadow market," in which trillions of dollars worth of complicated instruments are traded without any oversight, the SEM industry has its own shadow industry -- the conference and trade show business. This business depends on a simple proposition: if you go to enough shows, attend the right panels and rub elbows with the right people, you'll walk away knowing enough to run a competent search campaign. This is as absurd as saying that you can become a qualified mechanic by attending an auto show.
The only reason conferences and trade shows are so profitable for the people who run them is that exhibitors remain willing to buy very expensive booth space. Heaven help the trade show people, however, if exhibitors ever actually read the shows' agendas, which are chocked with seminars on how to succeed without an SEM agency!
Greed may destroy us all
And now let's talk about greed, which is as rampant in SEM as it is on Wall Street. Too many SEM agencies seem to have taken their sales approach directly from Moe's Mortgage Shop. These agencies are commission-driven -- not service-driven -- organizations that don't realize that overselling their services actually hurts long-term revenue goals by disappointing clients, creating client churn and destroying reputations.
Unfortunately, even good SEM agencies get tarnished by the continued operation of the fly-by-nighters. The SEM industry has failed to purge itself of these people and I have zero confidence it will do so at any time in the future. If it turned out that Macy's was filled with pickpockets, don't you think people would stop shopping there? So yes, the SEM industry needs to choose responsible conduct over unrivalled greed, or we're all headed over a cliff.
How to bail ourselves out
I don't think the SEM industry needs a billion-dollar bailout, but I do think it needs to clean up its act. Cancerous companies, much like toxic CDOs, need to be cleansed from the SEM books before confidence can be restored. Paid search practitioners need to be meaningfully accredited, not merely rubber-stamped, before they can run search campaigns. The search engines and the shadowy SEM conferencing business need to stop pushing the ridiculously destructive notion that neophytes can become as qualified as those with years of experience after only a few quick lessons.
Finally, SEM agencies should start thinking seriously about sharing risks with their clients. Hopefully the seasoned, expert agencies will launch programs to limit clients' downside risks and help stabilize the SEM industry once again. After all, the world has more than its share of uncertainty to navigate through on a day-to-day basis, and all the "black boxes" in our industry can be mind-boggling. The least we can do for our clients is present the clarity they deserve when we engage with them.
Mark Simon is vice president, industry relations, Didit.
How the paid search industry is killing itself
It may not be as bad as the banking industry, but SEM could use some help. Here's how paid search can get itself back on track before things get worse.
As the financial markets continue to turn out bleak news, I've begun to think about the many parallels existing between Wall Street and the SEM industry.
Mergers, acquisitions and shotgun marriages
To start with, we're now in the middle of a wave of consolidations that are reminiscent of the successive mergers and takeovers now taking place in the banking sector.
Range Online is the latest independent SEM agency to pack up its tent, as it was folded into iProspect, which was itself acquired by U.K.-based Aegis some time ago. Range follows Outrider (bought by ad holding company WPP, which also owns 24/7 Real Media), Reprise Media (snapped up by Interpublic) and Inceptor (purchased by Verizon).
It's clear that many SEM agencies are having a tough time going it alone, and the shotgun marriage M&A trend will accelerate if the macroeconomic environment continues to deteriorate and the SEM industry -- like the financial markets -- continues to suffer from ills that are largely of its own making.
Search engines enabled this mess
The SEM industry has no direct equivalent to sub-prime mortgages, collateralized debt obligations or over-leverage, but it suffers from structural issues that are largely a product of its ostensibly self-serve nature. Google and the other engines have stoked the fever of irrational optimism by encouraging everyone to believe that all it takes to succeed at search is a credit card and a couple of hours studying the AdWords help file.
The result is a world in which marketers behave like self-medicating patients who believe that watching a webinar on urinary tract infections is equivalent to getting a consultation with an experienced urologist. The fact that a number of people believe they are more qualified to run search than the experts reflects a dismal lack of confidence in SEM agencies. So it's no surprise when expert companies feel that getting swallowed up by a larger conglomerate is preferable to going it alone.
Killing the golden goose
But the search engines aren't the only ones to blame. Like Wall Street's "shadow market," in which trillions of dollars worth of complicated instruments are traded without any oversight, the SEM industry has its own shadow industry -- the conference and trade show business. This business depends on a simple proposition: if you go to enough shows, attend the right panels and rub elbows with the right people, you'll walk away knowing enough to run a competent search campaign. This is as absurd as saying that you can become a qualified mechanic by attending an auto show.
The only reason conferences and trade shows are so profitable for the people who run them is that exhibitors remain willing to buy very expensive booth space. Heaven help the trade show people, however, if exhibitors ever actually read the shows' agendas, which are chocked with seminars on how to succeed without an SEM agency!
Greed may destroy us all
And now let's talk about greed, which is as rampant in SEM as it is on Wall Street. Too many SEM agencies seem to have taken their sales approach directly from Moe's Mortgage Shop. These agencies are commission-driven -- not service-driven -- organizations that don't realize that overselling their services actually hurts long-term revenue goals by disappointing clients, creating client churn and destroying reputations.
Unfortunately, even good SEM agencies get tarnished by the continued operation of the fly-by-nighters. The SEM industry has failed to purge itself of these people and I have zero confidence it will do so at any time in the future. If it turned out that Macy's was filled with pickpockets, don't you think people would stop shopping there? So yes, the SEM industry needs to choose responsible conduct over unrivalled greed, or we're all headed over a cliff.
How to bail ourselves out
I don't think the SEM industry needs a billion-dollar bailout, but I do think it needs to clean up its act. Cancerous companies, much like toxic CDOs, need to be cleansed from the SEM books before confidence can be restored. Paid search practitioners need to be meaningfully accredited, not merely rubber-stamped, before they can run search campaigns. The search engines and the shadowy SEM conferencing business need to stop pushing the ridiculously destructive notion that neophytes can become as qualified as those with years of experience after only a few quick lessons.
Finally, SEM agencies should start thinking seriously about sharing risks with their clients. Hopefully the seasoned, expert agencies will launch programs to limit clients' downside risks and help stabilize the SEM industry once again. After all, the world has more than its share of uncertainty to navigate through on a day-to-day basis, and all the "black boxes" in our industry can be mind-boggling. The least we can do for our clients is present the clarity they deserve when we engage with them.
Mark Simon is vice president, industry relations, Didit.
Thursday, November 06, 2008
New Cotract Gains for Gasta.com
Gasta wins two web advertising contracts, Gasta.com has won the Global advertising contract for Taca, the UK and Ireland Irish Language promotion body with a mission to promote the Irish language worlwide through the sponsorship of the TACA Lottery fund. Gasta has also won the contract to deliver PPC campiagn management for VFI overseas Property. An Irish Italian joint venture with extensive beach front properties in Tunisia, one of the fastest growing emerging holiday destinations with expected growth of 35% on property by next year.
Friday, October 31, 2008
Gasta News:Baidu news Ecommerce platform
Baidu news Ecommerce platform
Baidu has launched “Youa”, its own consumer to consumer e-commerce platform, which has up until now only been available to 50,000 people in a closed beta. The current market leader, Alibaba’s Taobao has a 57% market share and is reportedly investing around $700 million over the next five years to strengthen its position. However estimates suggest that Baidu’s offering will do well – and form 3-5% of its revenues in 2009.
Baidu has launched “Youa”, its own consumer to consumer e-commerce platform, which has up until now only been available to 50,000 people in a closed beta. The current market leader, Alibaba’s Taobao has a 57% market share and is reportedly investing around $700 million over the next five years to strengthen its position. However estimates suggest that Baidu’s offering will do well – and form 3-5% of its revenues in 2009.
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Gasta Organic Search Marketing
Organic Search Engine
Marketing - It Really Works! by Brooks Donner
While helping traditional ecommerce companies boost their organic search engine marketing, I realized that the services and techniques we apply to those traditional ecommerce clients can be utilized by Internet marketers anywhere and everywhere, including affiliate marketers!
My realization led me to write this article. My goal here is to outline the general process and techniques we employ for organic search engine marketing.I'm going to construct the body of this article with the following sections:
1. Organic search engine marketing v. paid search engine marketing (PPC)
2. Blogs v. static web pages
3. Long tail keywords v. short head keywords
4. Unique content and Web 3.0
5. Internet marketing and Web 2.0
1. Organic Search Engine Marketing v. Paid Search Engine Marketing (PPC)
Organic search engine marketing is marketing a website to improve the ranking for its web pages in the organic, or natural, search engine results pages (SERPs).
Paid search engine marketing is incorporating paid advertising strategies such as Google's Adwords or Yahoo's Search Marketing in order to be listed in the "sponsored" or "advertisement" sections of the search engine results pages (SERPs).
With the increasing costs of paid search engine marketing, advertisers have been suffering from a downward trend in return on investment (ROI). On the other hand, with more sophisticated and proven strategies for organic search engine marketing, the return on investment (ROI) for those who market to rank higher naturally in the SERPs is increasing. Therefore, we advise ecommerce companies, affiliates and super-affiliates alike to shift their resources from paid search engine marketing to organic search engine marketing.
2. Blogs v. Static Web Pages
Blogs have an inherent and distinct advantage over static web pages. Search engines like blogs better. Everything being equal (design, content, page layout, H tags, Alt tags, age, etc.), a blog page will outrank a static web page more often than not. However, all things are not equal! Blogs take advantage of plug-ins, or features, to be very search engine friendly. We create and customize "Power Blogs" for our clients. A "Power Blog" is a search engine friendly WordPress blog with tons of SEO plug-ins. Once we install a Power Blog we use it as a platform for Web 2.0 marketing, a.k.a. social marketing.
The benefits of our Power Blog include:
(A) Multi-Channel Visitor Strategy - Instead of having Google be responsible for 95% of your visitors, now you can also get visitors from all of the Blog Search Engines. Because blogs use RSS (really simple syndication), you will find that other websites are syndicating your content on their websites, bringing you more visitors and links. By having multiple streams of visitors you protect yourself in case one of your traffic streams starts to underperform.
(B) Free Links To Your Site - The amount of links that you have to your site plays a huge role in how highly you rank on Google. By utilizing the Trackback feature in Wordpress, you can automatically get other websites to link to you for free.
3. Long Tail Keywords v. Short Head Keywords
Remember, this is called "Organic Search Engine Marketing".....it's marketing, and marketing needs a focus. In order to focus in on what to market for, you need to have a solid foundation of the main keywords that describe your business and/or products that you are selling. These main keywords are one to three phrase keywords (or keyword phrases) generally speaking and are more than likely highly competitive. These types of keywords are known as "Short Head" keywords. For example, "car insurance."
Once you know your short head keywords, you will want to market directly to more specific, longer keywords related to the main short head keywords. These longer, more specific keywords are known as "Long Tail" keywords. For example, "car insurance discounts in Georgia."
Although the traffic for each long tail keyword is usually much less than its short tail relative, if you add up all the long tail keywords, they will usually add up to much more traffíc and most importantly, targeted traffíc, than the short tail keywords alone.
4. Unique Content and Web 3.0
Once you have targeted the long tail keywords for your business or niche, then you can start marketing for them.
The cornerstone for organic search engine marketing is unique content creation. Whether it's 500-word articles, blog posts, blog comments, forum posts, social snippets, or videos, you are going to want to be able to create unique content based on your long tail keywords.
Web 3.0 is a term that refers to the future of the World Wide Web. In our opinion, that future includes the "Semantic Web" or web use affected by artificial intelligence. Sounds kind of like Star Wars, Alien and E.T. all wrapped into one big and scary WWW...doesn't it?! Well, not really of course. Semantic Web in this case just means that search engines will be able to figure out what a web page is all about in a different, more intelligent way. The major idea here is that search engines will take a more encompassing view at a page and understand its meaning rather making a determination based on figuring out which keywords pop up most often. In this new Web 3.0 scenario, a search engine might find a web page on "sun tanning in Florida" to also be quite relevant to "sun tan oil application" and therefore líst this example page in the search engine results pages under both keywords.
What does Web 3.0 mean to you? Basically, when creating your unique content, keep the semantic web concept in mind and use synonyms for your target keyword wherever it's natural. Don't stuff keywords in your content, i.e. use a keyword just to use it and not when it should be used naturally...and don't stuff keyword synonyms either!
5. Internet Marketing and Web 2.0
Web 2.0 is the "Social Web," so naturally, the concept of social marketing should apply to today's Internet Marketing strategies.
Social marketing includes posting on social networking, social news and social bookmarking websites.
You can also think of blogging as part of Web 2.0, and of course you're covered because you have read Section 2 above.
In conclusion, whether you own your ecommerce business and sell your products, or if you are an affiliate or super-affiliate, organic search engine marketing must be on your "actions líst." In the long run, outranking your competitors in the search engine results pages proves to bring a higher return on investment (ROI) than trying to out-advertise your competitors in paid search engine marketing.
You now have the basic know-how to create your organic search engine marketing strategy.
Brooks Donner
About The Author
Want more visitors to your website? We can help you! Contact TopLine Media Group today to start driving unlímited & free targeted traffíc using our Organic Search Engine Marketing service. Plus, get a no-obligation Free Internet Marketing Consultation at http://www.TopLineMediaGroup.com .
Marketing - It Really Works! by Brooks Donner
While helping traditional ecommerce companies boost their organic search engine marketing, I realized that the services and techniques we apply to those traditional ecommerce clients can be utilized by Internet marketers anywhere and everywhere, including affiliate marketers!
My realization led me to write this article. My goal here is to outline the general process and techniques we employ for organic search engine marketing.I'm going to construct the body of this article with the following sections:
1. Organic search engine marketing v. paid search engine marketing (PPC)
2. Blogs v. static web pages
3. Long tail keywords v. short head keywords
4. Unique content and Web 3.0
5. Internet marketing and Web 2.0
1. Organic Search Engine Marketing v. Paid Search Engine Marketing (PPC)
Organic search engine marketing is marketing a website to improve the ranking for its web pages in the organic, or natural, search engine results pages (SERPs).
Paid search engine marketing is incorporating paid advertising strategies such as Google's Adwords or Yahoo's Search Marketing in order to be listed in the "sponsored" or "advertisement" sections of the search engine results pages (SERPs).
With the increasing costs of paid search engine marketing, advertisers have been suffering from a downward trend in return on investment (ROI). On the other hand, with more sophisticated and proven strategies for organic search engine marketing, the return on investment (ROI) for those who market to rank higher naturally in the SERPs is increasing. Therefore, we advise ecommerce companies, affiliates and super-affiliates alike to shift their resources from paid search engine marketing to organic search engine marketing.
2. Blogs v. Static Web Pages
Blogs have an inherent and distinct advantage over static web pages. Search engines like blogs better. Everything being equal (design, content, page layout, H tags, Alt tags, age, etc.), a blog page will outrank a static web page more often than not. However, all things are not equal! Blogs take advantage of plug-ins, or features, to be very search engine friendly. We create and customize "Power Blogs" for our clients. A "Power Blog" is a search engine friendly WordPress blog with tons of SEO plug-ins. Once we install a Power Blog we use it as a platform for Web 2.0 marketing, a.k.a. social marketing.
The benefits of our Power Blog include:
(A) Multi-Channel Visitor Strategy - Instead of having Google be responsible for 95% of your visitors, now you can also get visitors from all of the Blog Search Engines. Because blogs use RSS (really simple syndication), you will find that other websites are syndicating your content on their websites, bringing you more visitors and links. By having multiple streams of visitors you protect yourself in case one of your traffic streams starts to underperform.
(B) Free Links To Your Site - The amount of links that you have to your site plays a huge role in how highly you rank on Google. By utilizing the Trackback feature in Wordpress, you can automatically get other websites to link to you for free.
3. Long Tail Keywords v. Short Head Keywords
Remember, this is called "Organic Search Engine Marketing".....it's marketing, and marketing needs a focus. In order to focus in on what to market for, you need to have a solid foundation of the main keywords that describe your business and/or products that you are selling. These main keywords are one to three phrase keywords (or keyword phrases) generally speaking and are more than likely highly competitive. These types of keywords are known as "Short Head" keywords. For example, "car insurance."
Once you know your short head keywords, you will want to market directly to more specific, longer keywords related to the main short head keywords. These longer, more specific keywords are known as "Long Tail" keywords. For example, "car insurance discounts in Georgia."
Although the traffic for each long tail keyword is usually much less than its short tail relative, if you add up all the long tail keywords, they will usually add up to much more traffíc and most importantly, targeted traffíc, than the short tail keywords alone.
4. Unique Content and Web 3.0
Once you have targeted the long tail keywords for your business or niche, then you can start marketing for them.
The cornerstone for organic search engine marketing is unique content creation. Whether it's 500-word articles, blog posts, blog comments, forum posts, social snippets, or videos, you are going to want to be able to create unique content based on your long tail keywords.
Web 3.0 is a term that refers to the future of the World Wide Web. In our opinion, that future includes the "Semantic Web" or web use affected by artificial intelligence. Sounds kind of like Star Wars, Alien and E.T. all wrapped into one big and scary WWW...doesn't it?! Well, not really of course. Semantic Web in this case just means that search engines will be able to figure out what a web page is all about in a different, more intelligent way. The major idea here is that search engines will take a more encompassing view at a page and understand its meaning rather making a determination based on figuring out which keywords pop up most often. In this new Web 3.0 scenario, a search engine might find a web page on "sun tanning in Florida" to also be quite relevant to "sun tan oil application" and therefore líst this example page in the search engine results pages under both keywords.
What does Web 3.0 mean to you? Basically, when creating your unique content, keep the semantic web concept in mind and use synonyms for your target keyword wherever it's natural. Don't stuff keywords in your content, i.e. use a keyword just to use it and not when it should be used naturally...and don't stuff keyword synonyms either!
5. Internet Marketing and Web 2.0
Web 2.0 is the "Social Web," so naturally, the concept of social marketing should apply to today's Internet Marketing strategies.
Social marketing includes posting on social networking, social news and social bookmarking websites.
You can also think of blogging as part of Web 2.0, and of course you're covered because you have read Section 2 above.
In conclusion, whether you own your ecommerce business and sell your products, or if you are an affiliate or super-affiliate, organic search engine marketing must be on your "actions líst." In the long run, outranking your competitors in the search engine results pages proves to bring a higher return on investment (ROI) than trying to out-advertise your competitors in paid search engine marketing.
You now have the basic know-how to create your organic search engine marketing strategy.
Brooks Donner
About The Author
Want more visitors to your website? We can help you! Contact TopLine Media Group today to start driving unlímited & free targeted traffíc using our Organic Search Engine Marketing service. Plus, get a no-obligation Free Internet Marketing Consultation at http://www.TopLineMediaGroup.com .
Gasta News :socialmedian election widget
Help us test the socialmedian election widget
By Jason Goldberg on October 28, 2008 10:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
socialmedian blog readers: I wanted to provide you with a first look at http://election.socialmedian.com, a site we are launching with the Washington Post and other partners like The Guardian to help people track and participate in election 2008 coverage.
We will formally announce the new site tomorrow (Wednesday)...you can use it now but it is still a work in progress.
The http://election.socialmedian.com site aggregates news and user-feeds related to the election and enables users to join in the election coverage and discussion. We created this site with The Washington Post to enable people to track all the election news from thousands of news sources as well as from Twitter feeds, Flickr photos, YouTube videos, and more all in one place, and (importantly) to join-in and add their own feeds from their favorite sites to provide user reports leading up to and on election day.
You can sign up for the page immediately and add your feeds. Add your Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, blog site etc. and we'll automatically add your relevant contributions on those sites to this page.
Starting Wednesday users will also be able to eaisly grab a widget of this page to put on your own websites and blogs. The WashingtonPost and The Guardian are just two of the first websites that have signed up to use this widget. The widget will highlight user submitted news and reports --> so this is a great way to get your election day coverage on these and other leading sites.
By Jason Goldberg on October 28, 2008 10:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
socialmedian blog readers: I wanted to provide you with a first look at http://election.socialmedian.com, a site we are launching with the Washington Post and other partners like The Guardian to help people track and participate in election 2008 coverage.
We will formally announce the new site tomorrow (Wednesday)...you can use it now but it is still a work in progress.
The http://election.socialmedian.com site aggregates news and user-feeds related to the election and enables users to join in the election coverage and discussion. We created this site with The Washington Post to enable people to track all the election news from thousands of news sources as well as from Twitter feeds, Flickr photos, YouTube videos, and more all in one place, and (importantly) to join-in and add their own feeds from their favorite sites to provide user reports leading up to and on election day.
You can sign up for the page immediately and add your feeds. Add your Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, blog site etc. and we'll automatically add your relevant contributions on those sites to this page.
Starting Wednesday users will also be able to eaisly grab a widget of this page to put on your own websites and blogs. The WashingtonPost and The Guardian are just two of the first websites that have signed up to use this widget. The widget will highlight user submitted news and reports --> so this is a great way to get your election day coverage on these and other leading sites.
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Gasta News:Microsoft, Google and Yahoo
Microsoft, Google and Yahoo have signed a global code of conduct promising to offer better protection for online free speech and against official intrusion.
The Global Network Initiative follows criticism that companies were assisting governments in countries like China to censor the Internet.
The guidelines seek to limit what data should be shared with authorities, in cases where free speech is an issue.
"This is an important first step," said Mike Posner of Human Rights First.
He told the BBC "What this is is a recognition by all these tech companies, the human rights groups and social investors that there has to be a collective response to this growing problem.
"Companies need to step up to the plate and be more aggressive in challenging unwarranted government interference," he said.
The initiative states that privacy is "a human right and guarantor of human dignity," and the agreement commits the companies to try to resist overly broad demands for restrictions on freedom of speech and the privacy of users.
They will also assess the human rights climate in a country before concluding business deals and make sure their employees and partners follow suit.
"These principles are not going to be a silver bullet, but the most important point for me is to provide transparency," said Danny O'Brien of the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
"We have joined this initiative because we know that a wide range of groups working together can achieve much more than the company acting alone," said Andrew McLaughlin, Google's director of global public policy.
'Valuable roadmap'
The impetus for such an agreement follows years of criticism that a number of businesses, including Google, Yahoo and Microsoft have complicity built what has been dubbed the "Great Firewall of China".
Google has been accused of complying with Chinese government demands to filter internet searches to eliminate query results regarding topics such as democracy or Tiananmen Square.
Microsoft has come under attack for blocking the blog of a prominent Chinese Media researcher who posted articles critical of a management purge at the Beijing News Daily.
Canadian researchers uncovered that a Skype joint venture in China monitored users' communications.
And a Chinese reporter Shi Tao was jailed for 10 years after Yahoo China provided his personal information to the Chinese government.
Today Yahoo co-founder and CEO Jerry Yang welcomed the new code of conduct.
"These principles provide a valuable roadmap for companies like Yahoo operating in markets where freedom of expression and privacy are unfairly restricted.
"Yahoo was founded on the belief that promoting access to information can enrich people's lives and the principles we unveiled today reflect our determination that our actions match our values around the world," said Mr Yang.
While China has been painted as the worst abuser, Colin Maclay of the Berkman Centre for Internet and Society at Harvard University said there are other countries and governments all over the world at fault.
"The number of states actively seeking to censor online content and access personal information is growing.
"And the means employed - technical, social, legal, political - are increasingly sophisticated, often placing internet and telecommunications companies in difficult positions."
'Business case'
The Global Network Initiative was drawn up by the internet companies along with human rights groups, academics and investors.
Adam Kanzer who is the managing director and general counsel at Domini Social Investments said as well as being the right thing to do, it also makes good business sense.
He told BBC News "When you see the industry being caught up in the tactics of various regimes around the world, the business case is very clear. Freedom of expression and privacy is core to their business.
"They depend on a wide open, freely accessible and secure internet. That's what they are about. If people don't trust the internet and believe they are secure, then that is counterproductive to their business."
The effort is already being seen by some as not going far enough.
"After two years of effort, they have ended up with so little," said Morton Sklar executive director for the World Organisation for Human Rights USA.
"It is very little more than a broad statement of support for a general principle without any concrete backup mechanism to ensure that the guidelines will be followed."
Mr Posner of Human Rights First disputes that and said this agreement has not been set up as a "gotcha system" but as a way "to work with companies to get them to improve what they are doing, credit them when they do it and call them out if they fail."
While it is hoped many more companies will sign up, two European telecommunications firms, France Telecom and Vodafone, are already said to be considering adding their names.
The Global Network Initiative follows criticism that companies were assisting governments in countries like China to censor the Internet.
The guidelines seek to limit what data should be shared with authorities, in cases where free speech is an issue.
"This is an important first step," said Mike Posner of Human Rights First.
He told the BBC "What this is is a recognition by all these tech companies, the human rights groups and social investors that there has to be a collective response to this growing problem.
"Companies need to step up to the plate and be more aggressive in challenging unwarranted government interference," he said.
The initiative states that privacy is "a human right and guarantor of human dignity," and the agreement commits the companies to try to resist overly broad demands for restrictions on freedom of speech and the privacy of users.
They will also assess the human rights climate in a country before concluding business deals and make sure their employees and partners follow suit.
"These principles are not going to be a silver bullet, but the most important point for me is to provide transparency," said Danny O'Brien of the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
"We have joined this initiative because we know that a wide range of groups working together can achieve much more than the company acting alone," said Andrew McLaughlin, Google's director of global public policy.
'Valuable roadmap'
The impetus for such an agreement follows years of criticism that a number of businesses, including Google, Yahoo and Microsoft have complicity built what has been dubbed the "Great Firewall of China".
Google has been accused of complying with Chinese government demands to filter internet searches to eliminate query results regarding topics such as democracy or Tiananmen Square.
Microsoft has come under attack for blocking the blog of a prominent Chinese Media researcher who posted articles critical of a management purge at the Beijing News Daily.
Canadian researchers uncovered that a Skype joint venture in China monitored users' communications.
And a Chinese reporter Shi Tao was jailed for 10 years after Yahoo China provided his personal information to the Chinese government.
Today Yahoo co-founder and CEO Jerry Yang welcomed the new code of conduct.
"These principles provide a valuable roadmap for companies like Yahoo operating in markets where freedom of expression and privacy are unfairly restricted.
"Yahoo was founded on the belief that promoting access to information can enrich people's lives and the principles we unveiled today reflect our determination that our actions match our values around the world," said Mr Yang.
While China has been painted as the worst abuser, Colin Maclay of the Berkman Centre for Internet and Society at Harvard University said there are other countries and governments all over the world at fault.
"The number of states actively seeking to censor online content and access personal information is growing.
"And the means employed - technical, social, legal, political - are increasingly sophisticated, often placing internet and telecommunications companies in difficult positions."
'Business case'
The Global Network Initiative was drawn up by the internet companies along with human rights groups, academics and investors.
Adam Kanzer who is the managing director and general counsel at Domini Social Investments said as well as being the right thing to do, it also makes good business sense.
He told BBC News "When you see the industry being caught up in the tactics of various regimes around the world, the business case is very clear. Freedom of expression and privacy is core to their business.
"They depend on a wide open, freely accessible and secure internet. That's what they are about. If people don't trust the internet and believe they are secure, then that is counterproductive to their business."
The effort is already being seen by some as not going far enough.
"After two years of effort, they have ended up with so little," said Morton Sklar executive director for the World Organisation for Human Rights USA.
"It is very little more than a broad statement of support for a general principle without any concrete backup mechanism to ensure that the guidelines will be followed."
Mr Posner of Human Rights First disputes that and said this agreement has not been set up as a "gotcha system" but as a way "to work with companies to get them to improve what they are doing, credit them when they do it and call them out if they fail."
While it is hoped many more companies will sign up, two European telecommunications firms, France Telecom and Vodafone, are already said to be considering adding their names.
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Gasta Gleaning i-information from Search.
Gasta.com important to some, Small regional search networks with strong on the ground support and investment can reach into the factories, the offices and the families of the communities they function in. Google of course is the 'universal' search. In fact to some, Google is the 'universe' and their latest branding does not try to dispel that myth. but, small tributary search networks are the arteries that serve Google and Livesearch. The IP search information gleaned from Gasta allows advertisers to focus campaigns with laser like targeting, this is a valuable resource to any Global / European company and should be considered when acquisition is discussed.In fact this is information is a vital commodity in the information age, but why buy information of others when you can resource your own?
Monday, October 13, 2008
10 Great reasons to merge/acquire Gasta.com
Gasta is a Great internet Brand
Great distribution platform
Great geographical reach
Great and Deep Internet traction
Great digital footprint
Great Blended search functions
Great Global eyeballs
Great and Simple to use advertising platform
Great shared revenues
Great potential for growth and expansion
Great local search
comaparitive deals in Gasta.com region.
Myhome.ie sold to Irish Times for €45million
Great distribution platform
Great geographical reach
Great and Deep Internet traction
Great digital footprint
Great Blended search functions
Great Global eyeballs
Great and Simple to use advertising platform
Great shared revenues
Great potential for growth and expansion
Great local search
comaparitive deals in Gasta.com region.
Myhome.ie sold to Irish Times for €45million
UK-Based Gasta Search Engine Network Enters Into Sales / Merger Talks
UK-Based Gasta Search Engine Network Enters Into Sales / Merger Talks
The Gasta search network is a blended search that will deliver web results, news, videos, and images with one single keyword search, then lets users social bookmark search results in their own library. The Gasta search network extends its reach into Europe and USA, has search engines launched in South Africa, China, and Japan.
Gasta is a European trademark and the Gasta search engine was last year’s winner of the PWC award for innovation, it also holds one of the UK most valuable property domain holdings.
Belfast, Ireland - October 09, 2008 – It was announced here today that the Belfast-based web 2.0 Search Engine Network Gasta is in talks with several companies for a possible sale or merger. A well established player in European, US, and Asian search, The Gasta.com search engine network currently consists of 450+ Domains, is translated into six languages, offers a contextualised ad system, powerful SEO options, keyword management tools, and full service administration to create, launch, and quickly deploy new search engines in emerging markets and geographical regions as needed.
Gasta has created a very easy to use back-end admin system that is designed for non technical use, within the admin you can add new keywords, manage ad campaigns, replicate advertising codes, and launch new search index’s and directories in minutes, Gasta has developed its own text based contextualised ad system, InstantAds™ and the keyword direct hit service SearchMatch™ allowing users to buy targeted keywords for the geographic region they do business in. As well as this there are many seo options including InstantLinks™ the free link exchange system that publishes the main directory.” We can launch new search engines in emerging regions very easily, with the rapid deployment platform we have developed” said Higgins. “We can launch in Poland and Malaysia very quickly and have been looking out for possible local partners on the ground in these regions”.
While Gasta.com is well-established in the Search Industry, it has chosen to maintain a low profile and provided state of the art services to its visitors and advertisers. Christian Nielsen, owner of Nielsentech.com, an Internet consulting firm located in the US said he has used Gasta for many years. “Yes, I was submitting client sites to Gasta’s system back as early as 1999 when we started doing SEO and web promotion. They have evolved over the years, and we have keep in contact due to their attitude of service and ethics. Most other firms in the US don’t seem to know about them and that’s been a competitive edge for us.”
Gasta.com owner Francis Higgins believes that now is a 'good time' to transition the search engines network due to the convergence of web 2.0 technologies. Higgins said “We believe that we have created great distribution platform to easily explore and rapidly develop new and emerging regions. We have looked into the possibility of partnering with a mobile carrier to deliver local mobile search in which great opportunities are coming in the future, Gasta works well now on mobiles but we would need the expertise of the big carriers to make an impact and monetise the service.
We have worked hard over the past 12 years to improve the reach and the depth of the Gasta network. With the rapid deployment and white label solution we have developed we can quickly launch blended search engines that will bring up web results, videos, news, and images with one keyword. Our brand commands a high level of respect by those that are familiar with us and those that do some research will see our extensive digital footprint built up over the years that shows our quality and consistency and has established our brand’s value in the search marketing industry."
Contacts
Francis Higgins
Comm Director Gasta Search Networks
bizz@amiwired.com
+44(0)2890333748
Mob:+44(0)7816447363
The Gasta search network is a blended search that will deliver web results, news, videos, and images with one single keyword search, then lets users social bookmark search results in their own library. The Gasta search network extends its reach into Europe and USA, has search engines launched in South Africa, China, and Japan.
Gasta is a European trademark and the Gasta search engine was last year’s winner of the PWC award for innovation, it also holds one of the UK most valuable property domain holdings.
Belfast, Ireland - October 09, 2008 – It was announced here today that the Belfast-based web 2.0 Search Engine Network Gasta is in talks with several companies for a possible sale or merger. A well established player in European, US, and Asian search, The Gasta.com search engine network currently consists of 450+ Domains, is translated into six languages, offers a contextualised ad system, powerful SEO options, keyword management tools, and full service administration to create, launch, and quickly deploy new search engines in emerging markets and geographical regions as needed.
Gasta has created a very easy to use back-end admin system that is designed for non technical use, within the admin you can add new keywords, manage ad campaigns, replicate advertising codes, and launch new search index’s and directories in minutes, Gasta has developed its own text based contextualised ad system, InstantAds™ and the keyword direct hit service SearchMatch™ allowing users to buy targeted keywords for the geographic region they do business in. As well as this there are many seo options including InstantLinks™ the free link exchange system that publishes the main directory.” We can launch new search engines in emerging regions very easily, with the rapid deployment platform we have developed” said Higgins. “We can launch in Poland and Malaysia very quickly and have been looking out for possible local partners on the ground in these regions”.
While Gasta.com is well-established in the Search Industry, it has chosen to maintain a low profile and provided state of the art services to its visitors and advertisers. Christian Nielsen, owner of Nielsentech.com, an Internet consulting firm located in the US said he has used Gasta for many years. “Yes, I was submitting client sites to Gasta’s system back as early as 1999 when we started doing SEO and web promotion. They have evolved over the years, and we have keep in contact due to their attitude of service and ethics. Most other firms in the US don’t seem to know about them and that’s been a competitive edge for us.”
Gasta.com owner Francis Higgins believes that now is a 'good time' to transition the search engines network due to the convergence of web 2.0 technologies. Higgins said “We believe that we have created great distribution platform to easily explore and rapidly develop new and emerging regions. We have looked into the possibility of partnering with a mobile carrier to deliver local mobile search in which great opportunities are coming in the future, Gasta works well now on mobiles but we would need the expertise of the big carriers to make an impact and monetise the service.
We have worked hard over the past 12 years to improve the reach and the depth of the Gasta network. With the rapid deployment and white label solution we have developed we can quickly launch blended search engines that will bring up web results, videos, news, and images with one keyword. Our brand commands a high level of respect by those that are familiar with us and those that do some research will see our extensive digital footprint built up over the years that shows our quality and consistency and has established our brand’s value in the search marketing industry."
Contacts
Francis Higgins
Comm Director Gasta Search Networks
bizz@amiwired.com
+44(0)2890333748
Mob:+44(0)7816447363
Sunday, October 12, 2008
Sale Of Search Engine Network
Sale Of Search Engine Network Generates Traffic
We've been getting a lot of emails looking for more information about the European Search Engine Network that I posted about the other day. To eliminate some of the questions, I am posting some more information about this 12 year old network of sites that is built upon their search technology. The more I learn about what they have, the more potential I see for someone with additional skills, capital, and other resources to tie into what they already have and expand on or into the European market.
Here is some more information:
- Monthly traffic of 3,000,000+ per month across the network.
- 3,500 current /past advertisers
- Registered as a European distribution partner for Microsoft Adwords.
- A partner with Google Doubleclick and Adsense.
- Has the ability to deploy new local search engines quickly.
- Currently targeting markets in Europe, US, and several other countries as well as several topics, such as travel.
- Owns at least 4 trademarks
- Currently has 450+ Domains launched on their servers.
Domains:
· International
· US
· UK
· Ireland
· Europe
· Austria
· France
· Germany
· Italy
· Spain
· India
· China
· Japan
· South Africa
· Money
· Travel
· and several others
If you are interested or require more information please let me know and I will put you in touch with the company. I've been friends with the owner for some time now and agreed to help them find a buyer if I can.
I would have thought the current economic situation would have made it difficult to generate interest in a search network such as this, but I was clearly wrong. There are many that would like to expand their current holdings and sites like social networks, consumer shopping sites, auction sites, and sites that are based on UGC (User Generated Content) seem to be super interested in adding mature search to the current offerings. Building is always an option, but why build and re-invent the wheel when you can buy.
And I just learned today that one of my old favorite UK search engines, www.Burf.com was sold and now has a new owner.
If you need to reach me, just Google "NielsenTech" and you should be able to contact me.
Gasta European Search
Easy Access To European Search: Make Your Competitors Pay You
I guess it's small by some standards, but there seems to be increasing interest in the European Search Engine Network we have posted about before that is well established in several countries over the past 12 years. With over 3.5 million unique visitors a month it's not small, but it should be clear to almost anyone that there is substantial room for growth.
We've been asked to not disclose the name of the company or the main search engine at this time, but when I get the ok I will post again. I think this will be pretty big news when the full story comes out.
Short list of potential buyers:
AOL
Yandex
Rediff
Ask
Baidu
Cuil
Rambler
Amazon
Wikia
Alccoona
There are others but I am less certain about them.
There is talk about some companies with no connection to search currently jumping in with an acquisition such as this. It only makes sense, since the cost to run a large advertising campaign can be considerable and what better way to save money on advertising then to buy all of the search and eyeballs you need for one set price? Then you can charge your COMPETITORS to run their ads on your network of search sites.
Once you do that, you no longer "lose" any business to your competition, since they pay you if they get the customer...!!!Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Gasta Seo: Milind Mody, CEO of eBrandz Inc
Milind Mody, CEO of eBrandz Inc has stated that Local search engines have most to benefit from the downturn.
Search engine marketing might have to scale down branding campaigns in favor of tactics which yield great 'short as well as long term Return on Investment'."
Specifically Mody said that local search is an important part of the overall mix. "Client reviews and customer ratings form an important aspect of local search SEO. These reviews also helps in branding and reputation management. So I would also highly recommend working with clients on getting their customer ratings and reviews on local search engines."
He said he believes that online advertising is more recession proof than other forms of advertising and that research indicates that any decline in online advertising is because clients are slashing their overall budgets.
"In many cases, clients are reducing print and other offline marketing budgets and spending more online," said Mody.
Search engine marketing might have to scale down branding campaigns in favor of tactics which yield great 'short as well as long term Return on Investment'."
Specifically Mody said that local search is an important part of the overall mix. "Client reviews and customer ratings form an important aspect of local search SEO. These reviews also helps in branding and reputation management. So I would also highly recommend working with clients on getting their customer ratings and reviews on local search engines."
He said he believes that online advertising is more recession proof than other forms of advertising and that research indicates that any decline in online advertising is because clients are slashing their overall budgets.
"In many cases, clients are reducing print and other offline marketing budgets and spending more online," said Mody.
Gasta News: Gasta welcomes UK Council for Child Internet Safety
The Department for Children, Schools and Families officially launched the UK Council for Child Internet Safety today.
The council will work to bring in the recommendations made by Dr Tanya Byron in her report 'Safer Children in a Digital World', released earlier this year.
Issues such as cyber bullying, inappropriate content online and advertising will be at the top of the agenda.
The council will establish a voluntary code of practice for user-generated content sites.
The council, which is made up of over 100 private and public companies, will report into the Prime Minister.
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Gasta Video: Noah Elkin from Steak Digital
Optimizing video and images for search is no longer optional. It's a must-have for brands that want to continue connecting with their customers.
Historically, successful advertisements have depended on two main ingredients: compelling words and captivating imagery. The ascendancy of search engine marketing has put a new premium on the value of words, for if search tells us anything, it's that marketers should take their cues from the terms people plug into search engines.
In effect, marketers who want to capture their customers' attention need to "listen" to the different ways they are expressing their wants and desires through search. Consequently, advertising success today depends on a slightly different set of criteria. Marketers must harness insights into customers' thought processes and the vernacular they use to seek out brands and products. You must synchronize that language across a campaign to ensure that customers not only look for your brand but also find it once they've gone to the web.
In-house and agency search practitioners, as well as experts around the industry, have been sounding this drumbeat for a long time now, but search still faces an uphill battle in relation to sexier on- and offline media. What it really boils down to is an image problem.
The fact that a highly -- if not the most -- effective advertising medium (by some measures, anyway) continues to have an image problem speaks volumes about the culture of advertising. We live in an age when John Wanamaker's old adage -- "Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half" -- rings truer than ever for brand managers caught in the transition from offline to online media.
It's not that brand advertisers aren't interested in results and ROI, as tempting as that might be to conclude at times for some search practitioners. Rather, it's that TV and even print are far more emotive than the comparatively austere text ad. TV and print also have the luxury of employing visuals, which provide richer options for conveying a brand's tone, image and message, as well as ultimately creating the kinds of brand associations that lead to loyalty and advocacy. In an industry that evolved on the back of images -- still, moving or otherwise -- there is some truth in the notion that search is as unsexy a medium as you can find. That is, unless your idea of "sexy" is the cold hard dollars that come from conversions -- not that there's anything wrong with that.
How do we go about making search sexier without compromising its effectiveness? Ironically, it may come down to using words to deliver the power of images. Provocative findings from comScore have been making the rounds of all the major conferences this year, and they point strongly in this direction. On the one hand, comScore has shown that interest in multimedia content among searchers is both widespread and not yet matched by placements in blended search results (as first revealed at the Orion panel at SES NY), particularly where video is concerned. On the other, recent studies have demonstrated that over-emphasis on last-click conversions and under-emphasis on latent on- and offline effects result in the loss of a shockingly high percentage of search's overall value.
Combined, the following three trends shed light on the relationship of keywords to images:
- The call to better monetize the 95 percent of paid search ads that do not lead to a click
- The implication that search can and should function as more of a branding vehicle
- Increased searcher interest in video, news and images
As blended search results become the norm across the industry, optimizing video and images is no longer a nice-to-have -- it's a must-have for brands that want to continue connecting with their customers.
I've always said that search will give TV new relevancy to the extent that commercials drive viewers to search engines to find more information about a product they've seen advertised. Now it's becoming increasingly evident that TV -- and news clips and movies and music videos and images -- will do their part to provide new relevancy to search as well.
Noah Elkin is vice president of corporate strategy for international search-inspired digital agency Steak.Monday, September 22, 2008
Gasta News: Music goes portable again.
In a week that will see heavy coverage of MySpace Music when it launches, SanDisk (NSDQ: SNDK) has announced an ambitious venture to sell its microSD memory cards pre-loaded with DRM-fr*ee MP3 music from all the four majors EMI Music, Sony BMG, Universal Music Group, and Warner Music Group. The service, dubbed “slotMusic”, will launch this coming holiday season in U.S., at Best Buy and Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT), among others, and then will be launched in Europe, though no specific timeline was given.
The MicroSD format, a SanDisk invention, is used mainly in mobile phones, and also in some MP3 players. When slotMusic goes on dale, these cards will be packaged with a tiny USB sleeve so that they can be compatible with various PCs and laptops, and any other device with a USB connector, including say an in-car sound system. The MP3-based music tracks will be played back at up to 320 kbps, the company said. With 1GB of capacity, slotMusic cards can hold songs, as well as liner notes, album art, videos, and other content that an artist/labels may choose.
There have been previous attempts by SanDisk and others to sell music and content cards through retails, though with limited success.
SanDisk is also in the midst of a takeover attempt by Samsung, which made its $5.85 billion public bid for the company last week, but the company rejected it as too low.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Gasta Paid search
Paid search is a proven winner, yet some marketers don't take advantage of its full potential. Here's why you need to put SEM at the heart of your marketing strategy.
Search engine marketing isn't a perfect marketing medium. But compared to every "innovative" marketing methodology that's come along in the past five years, search is a hands-down winner. This is why Google has become a multi-billion dollar powerhouse and why hundreds of marketers are reaping ROI, increased market share and branding benefits from being active participants in search.
The reasons SEM has taken off are both elementary and revolutionary. As a marketing channel, it offers the following strengths:
- Paid search campaigns happen in real-time, making it possible for marketers to obtain almost instantaneous marketing ROI. Search's real-time nature provides for the ongoing fine-tuning of all variables in the campaign in a continuous process of optimization, which means that marketers can learn and improve their campaigns over time.
- Paid search advertising is by its very nature the most unobtrusive way of getting the word out about one's product, service or brand. Instead of pushing a messages in the face of an uninterested and possibly unwilling audience, SEM is a low-key "pull medium," responsive to the user's intention to engage. Therefore, calls to action are more likely to be heeded because users perceive them to be relevant to their intent.
- The data generated by paid search campaigns can have enormous value to marketers, in terms of providing business intelligence, extending CRM efforts and scouting out audience segments that may have been neglected by existing marketing plans. Given that search behavior is highly responsive to non-search marketing efforts (both on- and offline), such data can provide a reliable indication of the effectiveness of all other marketing efforts.
- Paid search is still a relatively inexpensive medium and search campaigns can be dynamically scaled up or down to accommodate varying needs. Applying targeting and segmentation technologies can dramatically reduce (although not completely eliminate) the problem of non-converting clicks.
Unfortunately, each one of these strengths comes with major caveats. The fact that search happens in real-time provides both opportunity and risk. Minor campaign errors can quickly result in significant financial losses unless they are quickly corrected, so the onus is on the marketer to continually monitor search campaigns to ensure peak performance.
The mere fact that search provides the ability to systematically test campaign elements doesn't ensure that such steps will be taken. Nor do many marketers actually use the rich data from search to inform their non-search marketing efforts. Teams can be overloaded with data, and many function in departmental isolation where they are insulated from high-level marketing strategy conversations.
Finally, while paid search is inexpensive relative to other media, media management costs are proportionally higher. Unlike other channels where the media is expensive (such as television) but media management costs are low (because the media is easy to buy), search presents the exact converse. The media (keywords) are cheap but the costs of managing campaigns may be significant -- especially for sophisticated search campaigns.
Given these difficult issues, many marketers choose to simply outsource some or all of the search campaign process to an outside agency, either one that already handles their online media buying or a specialized search shop that does nothing else but search. In my view, there are definite risks with going the big agency route, because big agencies rarely have access to the sophisticated technology required to deliver top-performing search campaigns. Nor does their economic model (which depends on marking up media bought in big chunks such as radio/TV buys) favor intensive work on search. You can't really blame big agencies for regarding search this way, because it's only natural for agencies to focus their efforts on media buying opportunities where the profit potential is greatest.
Specialized SEM agencies provide an alternative to the big agency route, but once again, marketers need to exercise care before committing their search budgets to such organizations. Many SEM agencies are new and don't have more than a few years of operating experience behind them. While many promise to deliver unparalleled campaign results using "proprietary" technology, the fact is that many of them license the same off-the-shelf campaign management tools used by the big agencies, limiting their ability to provide truly customized solutions.
As there are no industry benchmarks for evaluating such agencies, a good selection rule is to look at the agency's client list, seek out positive, unbiased testimonials from those who have used them in the past and, perhaps most importantly, examine how much their existing clients have grown since the agency took over their accounts.
However the work gets done, marketers need to understand that search isn't just another marketing channel, but a fundamental organizing method by which users and marketers can find each other in the terabytes of data constituting the digital world. While it's attractive to think that search can just be bolted onto existing media plans, it is far better to regard search as an integral element at the heart of the marketing strategy, because the demand that you drive through your media efforts is all harvested in the search process.
David Pasternack is president of Didit,
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