SEMPO Introduces the new SEMPO Institute

The Search Engine Marketing Professionals Organization (SEMPO) (of which I am a member) opened its cyber doors to the SEMPO Institute yesterday with an online course on search engine fundamentals.

Just about anyone is eligible to enroll which can be done at the SEMPO Web site right HERE. There are currently two course - SEM Fundamentals which is ready to accept students now and SEM Advanced. The advanced course will be released in the spring.

I’m proud to say that I wrote a module for this course (check me out in the list of SEMPO Institute Authors, Executive Team & Contributors) here. My Lesson is on Search Branding and Campaign Integration, but authors are not being listed with the actual courses they wrote because the entire project is a collaborative effort. Still, couldn’t resist plugging my module on my own blog now could I??

Danny Sullivan’s Blog, Search Engine Land, has a nice concise list of what’s included in the Fundamentals Course. Good stuff.

Add comment January 24th, 2007

Search Industry Predictions for 2007

I’m not one to make big sweeping predictions, mostly because I’m often buried to the eyeballs with work and just trying to muddle through it all. However, in the name of refreshing my blog’s content (one of my 2007 New Year’s Resolutions) and in light of the fact that 2006 was a great year for the search marketing industry, I’ve decided to make an exception.

Full disclosure: My predictions for search marketing in 2007 will be highly influenced by my own involvement with search. Thus, I do not deny that there is more than a little bit of ego involved in the following list. Can I help it? I can’t resist the self-fulfilling prophecy style of annual predictions, particularly when I stand to benefit by being fully in the thick of things.

So, without further ado, here are my search marketing predictions for 2007.

1. Relevancy makes a comeback. Okay, so maybe relevancy with regards to great search marketing never went away, but I’ll tell you this, I’ve seen many advertisers spending scads of money on SEO and paid search without spending any time ensuring their web site is relevant to the keywords they’re bidding on.  I’m not talking about adding articles and product information to your web site, though that is important of course. I’m talking about customizing your landing pages so that they are relevant to your ad copy and the keywords you’re bidding on. I’m talking about bidding on keywords that actually make you money and deleting keywords that don’t, even if you really love them. Even if your CEO wants to see his company come up for “blue widgets” when all you sell on the Web site are the green ones. I’m talking about actually reviewing the ads you created for Google three years ago and see which ones work (if any) and which ones are sabatoging your campaign.  2007 is going to be the year of relevant and great and (did I say?) relevant content. 
2. Search is used as a branding tool. Okay, well so much for relevancy. I do believe that relevancy in the form of campaign optimization will be a huge trend throughout 2007, but I also believe search will be leveraged for branding purposes more than ever this year. I’m not so sure that’s a good thing. I do so love relevancy.
3. Searchers Look Beyond Google. The most exciting prediction for 2007 (in my opinion) are the sites, old and new, that encroach on Google’s current domination of search. I’m not just talking about Yahoo, MSN and AOL. I’m talking about sites like eBay, Amazon, Shopping.com, Business.com, Craig’s List, CitySearch, Realtor.com, Rentals.com, Expedia, CheapTickets, RottenTomatoes (movie reviews), and just about any web site that focuses on one specific industry sector or topic AND that people use as a starting point for search (as opposed to always starting at Google or another popular search engine). I think this is a sign that use of the Web is maturing because they now realize they have more than one resource to find information. It’s also an aspect of Web 2.0 - that is, new and emerging companies, business models and technologies are springing up every day to meet the needs of searchers.
4. Keyword costs will skyrocket. Without even quoting any statistics, I can tell you this will be an ongoing and escalating issue in 2007. The very nature of Google’s Quality Score index, plus Yahoo’s new platform which supposedly  mimics the Quality Score concept will cause the price of keywords to go up notwithstanding increasing competition as more and more advertisers move their media dollars into paid search.
5. Search Marketing will kick all other tactics’ ass. Not exactly demure of me to word it like this, but the point is not that search marketing is, will be and always was one of the most effective forms of reaching consumers and driving sales – EVER – but that marketing managers, CEO’s, COO’s and grizzled old ad execs will finally, finally, FINALLY  realize the truth of this and (for heaven’s sake) start integrating search into their overall media mix in a way that doesn’t force them to defer to the one computer geek in the company who always gets stuck redoing the web site and figuring out how to retrieve someone’s deleted in box.

There’s so much more to say, but I’ll end here or I’ll never get this posted.

Add comment January 12th, 2007