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Use Verticals To Increase Reach

In the last post, we looked at how SEO has always been changing, but one thing remains constant – the quest for information.

Given people will always be on a quest for information, and given there is no shortage of information, but there is limited time, then there will always be a marketing imperative to get your information seen either ahead of the competition, or in places where the competition haven’t yet targeted.

Channels

My take on SEO is broad because I’m concerned with the marketing potential of the search process, rather than just the behaviour of the Google search engine. We know the term SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. It’s never been particularly accurate, and less so now, because what most people are really talking about is not SEO, but GO.

Google Optimization.

Still, the term SEO has stuck. The search channel used to have many faces, including Alta Vista, Inktomi, Ask, Looksmart, MSN, Yahoo, Google and the rest, hence the label SEO. Now, it’s pretty much reduced down to one. Google. Okay, there’s BingHoo, but really, it’s Google, 24/7.

We used to optimize for multiple search engines because we had to be everywhere the visitor was, and the search engines had different demographics. There was a time when Google was the choice of the tech savvy web user. These days, “search” means “Google”. You and your grandmother use it.

But people don’t spend most of their time on Google.

Search Beyond Google

The techniques for SEO are widely discussed, dissected, debated, ridiculed, encouraged and we’ve heard all of them, many times over. And that’s just GO.

The audience we are trying to connect with, meanwhile, is on a quest for information. On their quest for information, they will use many channels.

So, who is Google’s biggest search competitor? Bing? Yahoo?

Eric Schmidt thinks it’s Amazon:

Many people think our main competition is Bing or Yahoo,” he said during a visit to a Native Instruments, software and hardware company in Berlin. “But, really, our biggest search competitor is Amazon. People don’t think of Amazon as search, but if you are looking for something to buy, you are more often than not looking for it on Amazon….Schmidt noted that people are looking for a different kind of answers on Amazon’s site through the slew of reviews and product pages, but it’s still about getting information

An important point. For the user, it’s all about “getting information”. In SEO, verticals are often overlooked.

Client Selection & Getting Seen In The Right Places

I’m going to digress a little….how do you select clients, or areas to target?

I like to start from the audience side of the equation. Who are the intended audience, what does that audience really need, and where, on the web, are they? I then determine if it’s possible/plausible to position well for this intended audience within a given budget.

There is much debate amongst SEOs about what happens inside the Google black box, but we all have access to Google’s actual output in the form of search results. To determine the level of competition, examine the search results. Go through the top ten or twenty results for a few relevant keywords and see which sites Google favors, and try to work out why.

Once you look through the results and analyze the competition, you’ll get a good feel for what Google likes to see in that specific sector. Are the search results heavy on long-form information? Mostly commercial entities? Are sites large and established? New and up and coming? Do the top sites promote visitor engagement? Who links to them and why? Is there a lot news mixed in? Does it favor recency? Are Google pulling results from industry verticals?

It’s important to do this analysis for each project, rather than rely on prescriptive methods. Why? Because Google treats sectors differently. What works for “travel” SEO may not work for “casino” SEO because Google may be running different algorithms.

Once you weed out the wild speculation about algorithms, SEO discussion can contain much truth. People convey their direct experience and will sometimes outline the steps they took to achieve a result. However, often specific techniques aren’t universally applicable due to Google treating topic areas differently. So spend a fair bit of time on competitive analysis. Look closely at the specific results set you’re targeting to discover what is really working for that sector, out in the wild.

It’s at this point where you’ll start to see cross-overs between search and content placement.

The Role Of Verticals

You could try and rank for term X, and you could feature on a site that is already ranked for X. Perhaps Google is showing a directory page or some industry publication. Can you appear on that directory page or write an article for this industry publication? What does it take to get linked to by any of these top ten or twenty sites?

Once search visitors find that industry vertical, what is their likely next step? Do they sign up for a regular email? Can you get placement on those emails? Can you get an article well placed in some evergreen section on their site? Can you advertise on their site? Figure out how visitors would engage with that site and try to insert yourself, with grace and dignity, into that conversation.

Users may by-pass Google altogether and go straight to verticals. If they like video then YouTube is the obvious answer. A few years ago when Google was pushing advertisers to run video ads they pitched YouTube as the #2 global search engine. What does it take to rank in YouTube in your chosen vertical? Create videos that will be found in YouTube search results, which may also appear on Google’s main search results.

With 200,000 videos uploaded per day, more than 600 years required to view all those videos, more than 100 million videos watched daily, and more than 300 million existing accounts, if you think YouTube might not be an effective distribution channel to reach prospective customers, think again.

There’s a branding parallel here too. If the field of SEO is too crowded, you can brand yourself as the expert in video SEO.

There’s also the ubiquitous Facebook.

Facebook, unlike the super-secret Google, has shared their algorithm for ranking content on Facebook and filtering what appears in the news feed. The algorithm consists of three components…..

If you’re selling stuff, then are you on Amazon? Many people go directly to Amazon to begin product searches, information gathering and comparisons. Are you well placed on Amazon? What does it take to be placed well on Amazon? What are people saying? What are their complaints? What do they like? What language do they use?

In 2009, nearly a quarter of shoppers started research for an online purchase on a search engine like Google and 18 percent started on Amazon, according to a Forrester Research study. By last year, almost a third started on Amazon and just 13 percent on a search engine. Product searches on Amazon have grown 73 percent over the last year while searches on Google Shopping have been flat, according to comScore

All fairly obvious, but may help you think about channels and verticals more, rather than just Google. The appropriate verticals and channels will be different for each market sector, of course. And they change over time as consumer tastes & behaviors change. At some point each of these were new: blogging, Friendster, MySpace, Digg, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinterest, Snapchat, etc.

This approach will also help us gain a deeper understanding of the audience and their needs – particularly the language people use, the questions they ask, and the types of things that interest them most – which can then be fed back into your search strategy. Emulate whatever works in these verticals. Look to create a unique, deep collection of insights about your chosen keyword area. This will in turn lead to strategic advantage, as your competition is unlikely to find such specific information pre-packaged.

This could also be characterised as “content marketing”, which it is, although I like to think of it all as “getting in front of the visitors quest for information”. Wherever the visitors are, that’s where you go, and then figure out how to position well in that space.

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Mozilla Firefox Dumps Google in Favor of Yahoo! Search

Firefox users conduct over 100 billion searches per year & starting in December Yahoo! will be the default search choice in the US, under a new 5 year agreement.

Google has been the Firefox global search default since 2004. Our agreement came up for renewal this year, and we took this as an opportunity to review our competitive strategy and explore our options.

In evaluating our search partnerships, our primary consideration was to ensure our strategy aligned with our values of choice and independence, and positions us to innovate and advance our mission in ways that best serve our users and the Web. In the end, each of the partnership options available to us had strong, improved economic terms reflecting the significant value that Firefox brings to the ecosystem. But one strategy stood out from the rest.

In Russia they’ll default to Yandex & in China they’ll default to Baidu.

One weird thing about that announcement is there is no mention of Europe & Google’s dominance is far greater in Europe. I wonder if there was a quiet deal with Google in Europe, if they still don’t have their Europe strategy in place, or what their strategy is.

Added: Danny Sullivan confirmed Google remain the default search engine in Firefox in Europe.

Google paid Firefox roughly $300 million per year for the default search placement. Yahoo!’s annual search revenue is on the order of $1.8 billion per year, so if they came close to paying $300 million a year, then Yahoo! has to presume they are going to get at least a few percentage points of search marketshare lift for this to pay for itself.

It also makes sense that Yahoo! would be a more natural partner fit for Mozilla than Bing would. If Mozilla partnered with Bing they would risk developer blowback from pent up rage about anti-competitive Internet Explorer business practices from 10 or 15 years ago.

It is also worth mentioning our recent post about how Yahoo! boosts search RPM by doing about a half dozen different tricks to preference paid search results while blending in the organic results.

  Yahoo Ads Yahoo Organic Results
Placement top of the page below the ads
Background color none / totally blended none
Ad label small gray text to right of advertiser URL n/a
Sitelinks often 5 or 6 usually none, unless branded query
Extensions star ratings, etc. typically none
Keyword bolding on for title, description, URL & sitelinks off
Underlines ad title & sitelinks, URL on scroll over off
Click target entire background of ad area is clickable only the listing title is clickable

 

Though the revenue juicing stuff from above wasn’t present in the screenshot Mozilla shared about Yahoo!’s new clean search layout they will offer Firefox users.

It shows red ad labels to the left of the ads and bolding on both the ads & organics.

Here is Marissa Mayer’s take:

At Yahoo, we believe deeply in search – it’s an area of investment and opportunity for us. It’s also a key growth area for us – we’ve now seen 11 consecutive quarters of growth in our search revenue on an ex-TAC basis. This partnership helps to expand our reach in search and gives us an opportunity to work even more closely with Mozilla to find ways to innovate in search, communications, and digital content. I’m also excited about the long-term framework we developed with Mozilla for future product integrations and expansion into international markets.

Our teams worked closely with Mozilla to build a clean, modern, and immersive search experience that will launch first to Firefox’s U.S. users in December and then to all Yahoo users in early 2015.

Even if Microsoft is only getting a slice of the revenues, this makes the Bing organic & ad ecosystem stronger while hurting Google. (Unless of course this is a step 1 before Marissa finds a way to nix the Bing deal and partner back up with Google on search). Yahoo! already has a partnership to run Google contextual ads. A potential Yahoo! Google search partnership was blocked back in 2008. Yahoo! also syndicates Bing search ads in a contextual format to other sites through Media.net and has their Gemini Stream Ads product which powers some of their search ads on mobile devices and on content sites is a native ad alternative to Outbrain and Taboola. When they syndicate the native ads to other sites, the ads are called Yahoo! Recommends.

Both Amazon and eBay have recently defected (at least partially) from the Google ad ecosystem. Amazon has also been pushing to extend their ad network out to other sites.

Greg Sterling worries this might be a revenue risk for Firefox: “there may be some monetary risk for Firefox in leaving Google.” Missing from that perspective:

  • How much less Google paid Mozilla before the most recent contract lifted by a competitive bid from Microsoft
  • If Bing goes away, Google will drastically claw down on the revenue share offered to other search partners.
    • Google takes 45% from YouTube publishers
    • Google took over a half-decade (and a lawsuit) to even share what their AdSense revenue share was
    • look at eHow’s stock performance
    • While Google’s search ad revenue has grown about 20% per year their partner ad network revenues have stagnated as their traffic acquisition costs as a percent of revenue have dropped

The good thing about all the Google defections is the more networks there are the more opportunities there are to find one which works well / is a good fit for whatever you are selling, particularly as Google adds various force purchased junk to their ad network – be it mobile “Enhanced” campaigns or destroying exact match keyword targeting.

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