Online Marketing Blog

TopRank ran a survey of journalists, reporters and editors on their use of search and social media in 2008. We found 91% use search engines like Google to do their job. 64% use social networks.  Published in Jan 2010, a George Washington University and Cision survey of journalists reports 89% use blogs and 65% use social networks to research stories.

As prep for a presentation I’m giving Thursday at Online Marketing Summit on the intersection of SEO, Social Media and PR, I reached out to a few local journalists and industry news contacts and asked for examples of how they used search engines or social media to do story research.

Different regions of the country have very different ways of saying the same thing. Maybe it’s because our country is spread across such a large land mass, because we’re a melting pot or maybe it’s because we all love creating new words and coining new phrases.

Whatever the reason, there are various ways to say the same thing and most often the word chosen is dictated by the region, creating an opportunity for every website to capture more visitors, if they are indeed optimized for the variations.

For example, here are all the different ways one might search for a ‘cabin’ in which to spend some vacation time:
Cottage
Chalet
Retreat
Country house
Camp
Cabana
Shed
Villa
Lodge
Log house

From the conference session handbook: The Future of Search Engine Innovation – As search engines evolve, so must the methods of the marketers. We’re seeing the emergence of smart mashups, of visual search engines and personalized search. What does the future hold for search marketers and advertisers as they struggle to match speed of improvement being set by the engines themselves?

This session was moderated by David Berkowitz of 360i and included: Ron Belanger of Yahoo!, Paul Martino of Aggregate Knowledge, Chase Norlin of Pixsy filling in for Dr. Barney Pell of Powerset, and Ravi Raj from Kosmix.

First up is Ron Belanger who basically sums up three areas of focus for Yahoo in terms of search engine innovation. They include:
1. Getting search to mobile

One interesting service that I learned about today was a site search service called Collarity. They offer a site based search service that can display community-clustered search results based on previous users actions. The service can also deliver optimized ads with the search results allowing publishers another way to monetize content.

An example of an implementation can be found at the My Fox LA site. I think there are multiple stories to tell about this service, both from a user perspective and the site monetization angle. The results are different enough that I think it may take users some getting used to, but it certainly invokes interest as an alternative to the ineffective site search that exists on most web sites.

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Matt asks for your favorite Web 2.0 companies. Here’s a huge list from Seth Godin and another from SEOMoz.

Blogs have gone missing from Yahoo News reports TW. Steve Rubel notices too and suggests that Yahoo is building a dedicated blog and feed search tool. Maybe something like: reader.yrank.feeds.yahoo.com.
Update: Greg Jarboe offers some interesting insight suggesting that perhaps Yahoo is not permanently taking blogs out of news search results.

Are you into marketing via Wikipedia? Then you’ll be interested in the most popular Wikipedia pages. via Google Blogscoped.

Yahoo issues another Weather Report.

Google is updating backlinks reports Barry.

Cool Web 2.0 sort of shopping recommendation, tagging, and more site. ThisNext.com. Hat tip to Eric.

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Aaron Wall has posted an excellent article on search engine relevancy over at SEOBook.com explaining his perception of the different relevancy criteria used by Google, Yahoo and MSN. Aaron offers both a short version and long version. Yahoo is great, but can still be manipulated. Google is best at determining relevancy. MSN is still new and currently easiest to manipulate. Ask is good, but their small market share does not necessarily warrant specific attention from a SEO perspective.

This is a great resource offering some very useful tips and insights for those that are grappling with understanding how search engines determine what’s relevant. This article is not just for newbies though. Aaron pays attention to concepts like the importance of site age, editorial and social factors that you don’t see in other articles of this sort and that are increasingly important.

A new V7n Search Marketing News blog launched recently adding another source of news on everything to do with the search engine industry. The blog is edited by Mr. Search Engine Blog himself, Peter Da Vanzo.

Expect nothing but good things from this blog as Peter and the upcoming line up of contributors will be sure to provide another perspective on the goings on in search marketing. A blog like this can be a real time-saver if you don’t have time to ready all the email newsletters and articles on search marketing.

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