Posted by: Kerry Houchin, Project Manager

Last month both Google and Bing announced they had reached deals with Twitter allowing them to display public Tweets as search results. Currently, Bing is showing live Twitter results only in the Bing Twitter search interface and Google will be integrating Tweets into search results over the next few months.

As Tweets and other real-time results, possibly Facebook postings, are rolled into search results, SEO tactics will need to evolve to keep up with search trends. Having a listing on the first page of search results will become increasingly difficult since pieces of the limited page real estate will be taken by Tweets.  Also, having a presence in Twitter and other forms of social media will continue to be more and more important.

You may be thinking, “Great, it can’t be that hard to set up a Twitter account.” That won’t cut it. Bing states that they won’t index Tweets for longer than seven days. This means that having a steady stream of updated Twitter content is crucial for maintaining Twitter search listings. Also, in the case where two Tweets have very similar content, the higher search ranking will go to the person with the most Twitter followers, indicating the importance of building a Twitter community.

Real-time search is still in its infancy and tactics will continue to evolve as more real-time search features are rolled out. To stay on top of the latest real-time search news, check out the Bing Search Blog and the Official Google Blog.

Posted by: Sean Voorhies, Project Manager

Increasing response is the goal of any lead nurturing program, but it’s easy to get locked into a campaign that isn’t flexible once it launches. Here are three quick insights to use before you go live:

Leverage Learnings from Existing Site Analytics
If you have existing site data that speaks to your user’s behavior, whether it’s product offer preferences, patterns of site navigation or usability or communication frequency, make sure those are leveraged in building out a nurturing campaign. There can be a strong correlation between how users respond to similar offerings or information on your site and how they will initially respond during a lead nurturing campaign.

Use Prospect Profiling
Identifying prospect profiles and tailoring your lead nurturing program to specific user characteristics not only gives your campaign more flexibility from the get go, but it also allows you to provide a better experience for the prospects because it meets their unique needs. An easy starting point could be an existing product user profile and a new user profile.

Consider Progressive Registration
If your offers solicit a clear difference in user desire and intent then consider using progressive registration. By beginning the registration with standard fields and then progressively asking more detailed questions as the offer involvement grows, you’re able to capture a larger amount of leads up front and qualify your prospects further down the funnel with more detailed criteria.

Posted by: Nikki Burmaster, Marketing Coordinator

While it may seem like super-targeted and high-profile ad placements are the primary drivers of online advertising today, a recent study from ad research group Dynamic Logic suggests that poor creative is a large part of what makes online ads ineffective. While placement and targeting of online ads are very important, they are the distribution system of the ad, whereas the creative is what people actually react to. This is sometimes forgotten in the online space, where real-time reporting and analytics make media extremely complex.

Keeping this in mind, what can you do to best optimize your creative? Here at 90octane we know that creative factors such as persistent branding, strong calls to action and even human faces make for better ad recall, brand awareness, and purchase intent. Here are a few more tips to help maximize the performance of your creative:

• Highlight the brand prominently throughout the ad: Omnipresent logos have the highest brand and online ad awareness
• Make each second count: The ad should support the message at all times, whether it’s brand awareness or a call to action
• “Reveal” ads don’t work: Get right to the point. Users are unlikely to wait around and watch an ad in its entirety
• Stay Simple: Try and avoid using more than two messages per execution

Posted by: Meg Archer, Marketing Coordinator

There is so much buzz around social media and how helpful and even necessary it is for companies to have a strong social presence. Here at 90octane we already understand the importance of social media and have created strategies and manage programs for some clients.

One important element of a strong social strategy is the ability to measure the impact social efforts have on ROI.  comScore, GroupM and M80 released a report showing the positive impact search and social media have on one another. The data indicates searchers are more likely to remember a brand if they have seen a combination of paid search ads and social media. There is a 19% lift in searches on branded terms among users who saw some form of social media and a paid search ad relating to the brand, compared to users who where only exposed to a search advertisement.  Furthermore the researchers found a 13% lift among users exposed to direct branded social media.

Another interesting finding is that users who search for product terms are three times more likely to have been exposed to social media combined with paid search, compared to paid search alone.

These findings show that social media and key performance numbers are friends, good friends.

(Source for Graphs:  eMarketer.com )

Posted by: Erin Wilson, Marketing Coordinator

Over the past month, Yahoo has been bombarded with questions about their statements regarding how they use the meta keyword tag as a ranking factor. When Yahoo first stated that they were no longer supporting the meta keyword tag, many were hesitant to believe it and curious how it would affect their search engine optimization. Other big search engines such as Google and Bing have long since confirmed that they do not use the tag for ranking, but this was Yahoo’s first statement surrounding the subject.

Unfortunately for Yahoo, many a company and individual have proven them wrong, performing tests to see if words they place only in keyword tags and not anywhere else on their sites are getting ranked, and indeed they are. This pressure has forced Yahoo to clarify their statements.

According to Yahoo, the meta keyword tags are given the lowest ranking signal compared to words that appear in the body, title, description, etc. Essentially, if you have the same keywords in your meta tag and on your website (body, anchor text, etc.) then the meta keyword tag is ignored. But, if there is a keyword only in your meta keyword tag and cannot be found elsewhere on your site it will be used to rank your site.

So how does this affect your search engine optimization? For right now keep your focus on having a site rich with keyword content and continue to place your most relevant keywords within site copy and within your title, description and keyword portions of the meta-tag.

Posted by: Meg Archer, Marketing Coordinator

Internet users are spending more time on contextual sites. Actually 45% of a user’s time on the web is spent on contextual sites, according to eMarketer. What does that mean for us here at 90octane? It means that we create a strategy for our clients that incorporates contextual advertising with the right mix of techniques to generate the most conversions possible. Here are four key techniques to keep in mind to produce successful contextual campaigns.

1. The Right Mix – You can’t use the same keywords and ads that you use for a PPC campaign and think they will convert on the content network. Your aim should be to grow and leverage the level of interest the content your ads are appearing next to, and then shift the reader’s focus to buying.
2. Keyword Planning – It is critical to have a well thought out keyword strategy. There is a difference when planning your keywords for PPC and contextual campaigns. Remember to put keywords in your strategy that are related to your product. Long tail keywords won’t generate much traffic, so generic, broad terms gain more importance at cheaper prices.
3. Bidding Techniques – Because ad space in contextual sites is limited, bidding to reach the top slots is key.
4. Optimize – The content on sites is always changing, so make sure you are regularly optimizing to ensure that traffic, clicks and conversions remain high.

Contextual advertising and PPC are very different. You are reaching out to prospects through destinations where they spend a majority of their time, but they aren’t specifically looking for your ad. Keep asking yourself what will grab the attention of users and draw them away from the content on the site to click on your ads.

Posted by: Leslie Norgren, Project Manager

Yahoo’s Vice President and General Manager of search marketing, David Pann, recently discussed shifts that the company is making to lower costs for paid search campaigns.  Some companies may be seeing PPC clicks discounted as much as 15% depending on the industry.  Pann said that Yahoo has been evaluating cost-per-acquisition numbers for advertisers and that they are now working to change the marketplace so that CPCs are priced “accordingly with the value they deliver to the advertisers.”

Although Yahoo is making swift innovations in search marketing, it may be too soon to determine the importance of their changing pricing structure for paid search.  StatCounter reports that Yahoo’s market share continued to decline in October falling to 8.91%, down from 9.4% in September and 10.5% in August.  With falling market share shifting paid search campaign budgets to Yahoo, to save a few pennies on the dollar may not currently be a wise marketing decision.  Only time will show if Yahoo’s PPC advancements will make a lasting impression on the industry as well as impact the pricing structure for Bing paid search campaigns.