Christine Pepin
Media Coordinator

Since the opening ceremony of the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, fans around the world have tuned in to cheer on the world’s finest athletes.  Just four years ago at the Olympics in Athens, NBC recorded only seven million page views on its Olympic site.  Although the Internet was surely a go-to medium for real-time information back then, its global impact has continued to increase.  This year, web traffic for the Beijing games has been record setting, with NBC’s and Yahoo’s Olympic-related content sites leading among the top 10 most visited.  These sites have been providing users with real-time news, athlete profiles, polls and exclusive interviews. NBC’s Olympic site even has had over 2,200 hours of live competition coverage so far.  In addition, nearly 45% of US and 31% of UK mobile users have been following the games via their cell phones, according to Nielsen Mobile.  During the opening ceremony alone, NBC's Olympic Site recorded a staggering 70 million page visits, up 10 fold from the 2004 games. What is even more impressive is the number of unique audience members who are visiting the top Beijing Olympic content sites, as seen in the chart below.

In addition to site traffic records, Nielsen Online has also been tracking the buzz among message boards and blogs in the last week.  The active web community has perhaps aided the increase in page views, where the most talked about content relates to the record setting athletes and medal winning teams.  As the momentum picks up for other sports, that haven't received a lot of coverage, there may be a shift in buzzed content from the following:

Stefanie Berliant
Media Coordinator

In today’s day and age, most companies engage in some form of online marketing. Search engine optimization (SEO),Pay Per Click (PPC) campaigns  and media buys are the more established solutions of interactive marketing. However, newer mediums such as viral and social marketing are becoming more prevalent online marketing tactics among companies of all sizes.

Some viral and social marketing practices include blogging and creating profiles on social networks such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.  There are 90 million active users on Facebook, 25 million users on LinkedIn and over 1 million users on Twitter, and over 112.8 million blogs (according to the blog search engine Technorati).  Of these millions of users, individual companies have blogs and a presence on social networking sites as well.

The goal is for companies to use these mediums to increase brand awareness, network, find new business and get better qualified leads. Though these tools companies can spread information about their organization through “word of mouth” and allow a company to interact with its audience on a more personal level. However, while using these tools may be less expensive than other interactive strategies, maintaining these outlets usually requires more time and effort. Below are a few key takeaways from MarketingSherpa to help utilize these new marketing tools. To see more tips, click on the link below.

1. Be selective with online networks. Pick networks that are relevant to you and your company, where you will be able to contribute to the online space.

2. Link to all of your social platforms. If you do choose to have multiple networking sites, make sure you link them to each other. This helps find new clients and contacts, teach them about the business and keep in touch with them over time.

3. Create a backlog to plan ahead. You need to continually maintain the dialogue between your company and your audience to keep them engaged and attract new business. This takes time and if in a rush, the quality of your conversations and blog posts will show.

Christine Pepin
Media Coordinator

A follow-up eyetracking study was released by MarketingSherpa in concurrence with last year’s Email Benchmark Research, capturing how users view successive email newsletters. (See Image Below)  This information is very valuable for advertisers as they face the ongoing challenge of maintaining the effectiveness of their online ads every time a user views one of their messages.  According to the study, the audience’s attention to the content remains steady; however, there is great dissimilarity in the manner in which the ad space is viewed. 

Among users viewing the first newsletter, almost 80% scan some of the ad in the left-hand column.  Then, by the second issue, this percentage is cut in half, and then halved again in the third viewing.  This trend clearly demonstrates “banner blindness,” where users either consciously or unconsciously fail to identify information located in banners.  With the help of this eyetracking research, advertisers can combat banner blindness by implementing several tactics, a few of which are listed below.

1.      Vary the page’s template to encourage the user to make a full-page scan

2.      Change ad size or design so the audience’s eye is drawn to the modification

3.      Rotate ads frequently to eliminate the same position for long periods of time

Stefanie Berliant
Media Coordinator

According to ComScore, an online measurement company, in May 2008 Google held a 62% share of the U.S. search market followed by Yahoo at 21% and Microsoft at 8.5%. This month, another search engine, Cuil, joined the list of Google competitors which also includes Teoma (whose technology is used by Ask.com), Vivisimo, Snap, Mahalo and, most recently, Powerset, which was acquired by Microsoft this month. What gives Cuil an edge over all the other competition is that it was created by Anna Patterson, Russell Power and Louis Monier, all former Google engineers.  

Patterson built and sold a search index that probed old websites for the internet archive to Google in 2004. Patterson and Power worked together on the same team at Google. Monier was the former chief technology officer of AltaVista, the best search engine before Google launched in 1998. Monier also helped build the search engine on eBay's online auction site. This group is also teaming up with Tom Costello, who built a once-promising search engine called Xift in the late 1990s. Costello later joined IBM where he worked on an "analytic engine" called WebFountain.  It is clear that this team has extensive knowledge in this space and also of, Google, the industry leader. Because of this, the possibility of creating a more comprehensive and efficient search engine seems more realistic.

Patterson emphasizes that there will be many differences between Cuil and Google.  For example Cuil’s search index is 120 billion web pages. Google has an index of 8.2 billion web pages as of three years ago (when Google stopped publicly announcing its index count).  Cuil’s results are gathered by the actual content of a page, not by ranking the quality and quantity of links as Google does.  The results on Cuil are displayed with photos, and the layout resembles that of articles in a magazine. The results page on Cuil also includes additional categories related to your initial search, conveniently displayed in a drop down menu.  Additionally Cuil will not track the users search histories, as Google does. 

Cuil faces several challenges such as building a better search engine and winning over the public who are loyal to the Google brand.  However, the bigger question is, if Cuil raises the bar for search engines, how will this change the world of online marketing?

George Assimakopoulos
Principal Manager

We have been involved with several enterprise level site redesign efforts where we arrive to discover that the new site plans have been built with no consideration for effective SEO.  The irony is that on many occasions when we try to guide our clients towards a righteous SEO path - their creative teams complain about "compromising the design or usability".

Brandt Dainow, an independent web analytics consultant and the CEO of ThinkMetrics explains it best in his posting at iMedia Connection: "Many companies fail to give SEO its due consideration during a website's design phase. In fact, many companies don't give it any thought at all until after a site's design has been finalized. However, it is during the planning and design processes that SEO considerations are most important and will provide the greatest advantage. The fact is that many companies don't give SEO any thought at all until after a site's design has been finalized. However, it is during the planning and design processes that SEO considerations are most important and will provide the greatest advantage."

The reality is that search engines are not required to list every site on the Web. In fact, all a search engine has to do is provide people with a list of 10 reasonably valid results from which to choose. Nevertheless, since we need search engines, it is important to understand that timely SEO planning and implementaion is essential.  As Brandt states, "bringing an SEO expert in after a site is finished is like deciding to do the electrical wiring on a house after you have moved in." By incorporating SEO early into the site design process, you can save time and money later. In addition, your site is likely to achieve listings that it could never achieve if SEO were undertaken after the site was already finished. Design a site for the search engines, and the viewers will follow. Design a site the search engines can't read, and nobody will ever know it exists.

Christine Pepin
Media Coordinator

After six months in beta, Google announced earlier this week that Knol, a user-generated encyclopedia, would be open to the public for use.  Many are anticipating that Knol will rival Wikipedia in the near future, although the two sites are quite different. Entries made on this site, called knols, are posted by a variety of approved subject-expert authors about specific topics.  With their name and reputation connected to the material posted, authors have a power that Google calls, “moderation collaboration.”  Using this authority, these authors have the right to accept, reject or modify suggested edits by the readers before they become publically visible.  Comments, ratings or reviews submitted of the knolls, however, cannot be modified by Google.

Knol is sponsored through Google's internal ad program, AdSense, at the discretion of the authors, who receive a cut of these profits.  On the other-hand, Wikipedia is funded purely on private donors and some grants and is therefore visibly at risk of being unseated by Google’s revenue-generating system. 

The value available for students, professors, researchers and other intellectuals trying to build a reputation exists on Knol, as their selectivity of content shows the sites credibility. Wikipedia, who struggles to assure themselves as reliable source, may now loose readers as well as authors who now have a monetary and career-driven incentive on Knol.

With Google securing 61.5% of searches in June, according to MarketingVox, conflict of interest issues are evident, as these highly updated and information-abundant sites typically rank high in the search engines.  For years, Wikipedia has dominated for this reason with high organic positions.  Now, however, they will begin competing with Google, the powerhouse controlling the algorithms behind those calculated rankings. 

Stefanie Berliant
Media Coordinator

A recent report from MarketingSherpa shows that conversions or key performance indicators (KPIs) are the most underused metrics in search marketing.  KPIs define a set of values used to measure a specific goal.  KPIs differ depending on industry verticals and the goals set by individual organizations.

Online marketing initiatives should supplement traditional marketing programs and share the same goals.  An organization’s website is an extension of its' brand, products and services online. An organization’s online audience should interact with its website as if they were in the actual store or office. The best way to achieve this is by setting up KPIs. Examples of KPIs include:

- Sign Up for a Newsletter/Email List
- Purchase Items Online
- Download Brochures/PDFs
- Contact/Request Additional Information
- Complete Online Application/Form

Without using KPIs, there is no way to measure the true success of online marketing programs.  These conversions can be tracked and measured to see if goals are being met. Additionally, online analytics are easier to track and are more accurate than measuring the value of traditional marketing programs.

Surprisingly, statistics from this report show that most search marketers are not using KPIs to measure the success of web marketing initiatives. KPIs are used to close the marketing loop from offline to online, and unify the goals of the overall marketing program.  With a disjointed marketing program, search marketers are not maximizing and balancing their spending.  KPIs should ultimately be the most used metric in search marketing.  If online marketing programs are held to the same standards as offline marketing programs, then the goals set by organizations will be achieved more efficiently and effectively.

To view the complete report from MarketingSherpa, click on the link below.