Is Pay Per Click Right For You?

Addressing Common Concerns

At Yield Software, we have the luxury of seeing a multitude of businesses across a wide range of industries, geographies, business models, etc. This give us a unique perspective on internet marketing effectiveness for different types of businesses. A question I hear often is: “For my type of business, is search engine marketing relevant?” While it’s not safe to over-generalize, I’ve put some thoughts together that can help you decide how relevant pay-per-click is for your business.

The benefits are well known and documented–search marketing has grown into a multi-billion dollar industry because it is effective and measurable. Combining the fact that a disproportionate share of marketing budgets are targeted to the Internet relative to the amount of time users spend on the it, together with the ability to assess exactly how valuable each…

Google Social Search is Live

Social Graph Content in Search Results

Moving quickly to capitalize on its growing relationship with Twitter, Google is now publicly testing a new search feature called Social Search.  Available now via Google Labs, Social Search triangulates your contacts in your Gmail chat buddies, your Gmail contacts friends, family and co-worker groups, and people you’re publicly connected to on other social sites (such as Twitter and FriendFeed), which Google calls your Social Circle, to find social media those folks may have produced that relates to your search query.

In a blog post at Google Labs, Google’s Matt Cutts says you should login and do a search:

If there’s relevant web content written by people in your social circle, it will automatically show up at the bottom of your search results under a section called “Results from people in your…

Facebook, Google to Add Music

Naming that Tune Gets a Lot Easier

The New York Times Bits blog (see our blog roll on the right) said it has inside scoop that Google will announce a new music service next week in L.A.  They report:

Several reports today indicate that Google is set to introduce a music service at an event at the iconic Capitol Records building in Hollywood on Oct. 28. The service, we’ve confirmed from three people briefed on the details, will offer searchers a better way to find and sample music on Google — much in the same way people can get detailed financial information about a company from Google Finance.

According to this and other reports, Google is teaming up with iLike (which is owned by MySpace, which, in turn, is owned by Fox/News Corp.), Lala and Imeem.  For folks who search…

Bing, Google Add Tweets to Results

UPDATE (8:43 a.m. PDT): Microsoft has struck a deal with Facebook to include its news feed updates in Bing’s searches.  Bing powers search on Facebook.

Tweets from users on Twitter have hit the big-time: they’re now going to be featured in search results on Bing and Google.

For those geeks among you who follow news from places like Twitter, Google and Microsoft (maker of Bing) like I do (it’s not a particularly scintillating life I lead…), you were no doubt enthralled with yesterday’s unfolding events.

First there was this blog post by Biz Stone, Twitter’s chief:

…there are already tens of thousands of Twitter apps and more to come because people want the choice to consume and create tweets wherever and whenever they prefer. The folks over at Bing took a keen interest in Twitter and worked fast to establish…

For Agencies, Add Value to Client SEM

Break Down SEM Silos

Search engine marketing (SEM) agencies typically fall into two camps: specializing in search engine optimization (SEO) to the exclusion of all else or focusing exclusively on pay-per-click (PPC) while shunning SEO altogether.

Hence, entrenched SEM silos have become the norm and businesses end up working a the traditional ad agency for “outbound” marketing activities (print and radio/TV advertising, direct mail), an SEO agency, and/or a PPC agency.

The problem with this scenario is three-fold:

First, companies end up overlapping their efforts.

Second, little integration exists between traditional marketing and SEM (and online versus offline).

Third, the ability to see a comprehensive view of the marketing “big picture” is often severely compromised.

The SEM silo within companies occurred naturally, according to search marketing specialist Marta Turek. In an objective and insightful essay, “Breaking the Search Marketing Silo,” on her…