Yesterday I was fortunate enough to be in a meeting with some “offline” marketing bods and we started talking about which search engines to focus on when planning a client’s campaign strategy. I started to make some recommendations on how to make the most of tight PPC budgets by apportioning spend based on market share and demographic usage of search engines (the usual statistics) when I noticed their eyes slowly beginning to close and blackberrys starting to appear from trouser pockets.
Fearing an impending snooze fest I began to compare search engines to cars, football teams, and fast food chains which got their attention back to the point long enough for them to make a decision on how to steer their client, and slowly the discussion moved back to the wondrous “in-print” marketing strategy, at which point I then began to dose off.
Once I was sequestered back in the sanitized womb of my budget hotel room I kept comparing search engines to elements of pop culture (what else is there to do without digital television) and settled on a recurring theme which I am about to share with you, music.
Here for your reading (and listening) pleasure are the top five search engines of our time charted and accompanied by their very own soundtrack recommendation.
Ten years ago you might have been on here daily searching for everything from “books” to “chat rooms”, however since being bought and sold more times than anyone cares to remember this engine has definitely seen better days and sadly graces our number five slot in the search engine chart, its soundtrack….
Originally named after a P.G Woodehouse character this engine has wavered in and out of popularity since its inception in 1994, a recent rebrand and the much lauded return of our old friend Jeeves has seen a resurgence in users. Still not hitting hard enough to knock the heavy weights out of the top three but definitely showing promise, Ask Jeeves graces our number four slot in the search engine chart, its soundtrack….
One of the largest companies to survive the Dot-Com bust Yahoo has struggled to gain market share since 2004 and has focused on ancillary proucts specialising in travel and hotels etc. to maintain revenue, the recent merger with Microsoft search engine “Bing” will ensure longevity and expansion of their platform. My very first email address was on a Yahoo account so it is with a warm fuzzy feeling that I welcome Yahoo to the number three slot in the search engine chart, its soundtrack is….
Having had more names than Jordan, AKA “Katie Price”, AKA “Katie Andre-Price”, AKA….. oh you get the point, the recent relaunch of the Microsoft search platform has seen them claw back a decent chunk of market share and upon using the engine I can safely say that they are heaing in the right direction. This twinned with the recent Yahoo merger could see us “binging”…meh (it just doesn’t sound right) alot more in the future. It gives me pleasure to announce that Bing is our number two selection in the search engine chart, its soundtrack….
The undisputed champion of search engines since 2002, it is no surprise that Google is at our number one spot in the search engine chart, with recent releases such as CPA ads in search results and their debut of Google Wave, there just seems to be no stopping them. Lords, Ladies and Gentleman it is my pleasure to present you with the soundtrack for our number one search engine in the search engine chart….
I hope you’ve all had a chuckle with this post, see, search can be fun sometimes ;o)
I recently dropped my Blackberry bold while rushing to a departure gate in Gatwick airport (I left my ipod at home and had to go back for it) which resulted in the rear casing becoming permentantly loose and falling off randomly while using the phone.
SEE:
So I called O2 (read un-human corporation) to see if there was anything they could do for me. As expected, even though I have been a loyal O2 customer for 8 years there was nothing they could do for me, except sell me a new phone at around £450 (awesome).
Now I’m not the kind of person that let’s things like this get in my way so I started looking online for a company that a friend introduced me to a little while back. They make very cool custom replacement parts for Blackerry, iphone, PSP etc. And seeing as how I needed a new back plate for my broken bold I thought that I’d slplash out on something a bit flash. The company I am talking about is called Colorware, but I didn’t know that when I started my search as it had been months since I checked out their site, so I began with quite a straight forward query:
http://tinyurl.com/lxyeoe – Clicking this will run the same Google query I ran “custom blackberry housing”. Now I can accept that Colorware might not be very “up” on SEO, so I tried again, and again and couldn’t get the Colorware recommendation from any site within the SERP.
This was the beginning of my frustration, so taking stock, I tried to think about where I’d first seen a post on Colorware and jumped areound a few tech sites that I read regularly like Gizmodo etc. entering Blackberry query strings into their search boxes, scrounging round old forum posts and still found nothing.
Did I give up?…. of course not ;o)
I changed my search tactics. I knew that they also customised iphone covers and thought that because the iphone and anything to do with it is juicy link bait, I would be sure to find something using the same query strings replacing the work “blackberry” with the word “iphone”, so I began my search:
http://tinyurl.com/l3vbnh- this is the first query replicated using the word iphone instead of blackberry.
If you have a great site and a great product, then please, market it:
Run a PPC campaign, several if you’re a geek like me.
Find out who is linking to you and ask for relevant anchor text.
Protect your brand early online: www.colourware.co.uk takes me to a completely unassociated site.
Follow those rules and I’ll be back for more, don’t follow them, and someone less stubborn than me will quite possibly never know who you are trying to appeal to as a company, or what product you are trying to sell>
Know how I am going to search for your product and put yourself in my path, optimize simply and often and you’ll definitely get results.
I have been managing search at bmi now since February (time flies when you’re having fun) and have had a fantastic time so far, I love working in the most competitive search sector (travel) and I love working with our fantastic emarketing team.
Previously I worked agency side for many different clients, actually, I should explain what I mean by that.
Agency side: This is when you work for a digital agency for many clients, you are employed by your agency (e.g. Reading Room – an agency that some of my friends work for) to manage PPC, SEO, or technical projects on behalf of clients (companies that like having agency expertise to maximise their online strategy).
Client side: This is when you work for a company (like me) as part of their online marketing team and only work on your employers online strategy.
So..
While I was working agency side I go to know many clients, lots of industry professionals and lots of sales managers at search engines and social media sites, all of whom were a pleasure to get to know might I add.
Sales managers are the lovely people who help you maximise ad spend/ROI and strategy and also encourage you to spend more money on advertising using the products they represent e.g. Google Adwords. Every sales manager I have met has been great and have definitely been valuable assets to both myself and clients I used to work with.
But.. none of them ever gave me a lamp, until now that is.
In the very recent past I was taken to be introduced to the travel sector team at Google by my boss here at bmi. During our meeting she mentioned that in her five years of working with the travel team at Google she has never had a chance to get her hands on any of that lovely Google branded merchandise, and that she has always wanted a Google lava lamp (personally I’d prefer a peek at their algorithm) to have a constant reminder of her favourite search engine.
The meeting ended and we all went back to work trying to figure out the mysteries of online travel, weeks past as they tend to do and it was time again for us to pop over to the Google offices to catch up on developments and drink some of their wonderful Google coffee (organic of course). We walked into the meeting room and were presented with two lovely Google lava lamps, one blue, one green. After getting back to the bmi offices and being told, “Callum I better not see that on ebay”, we chose our favourite colours and plugged them in.
As you can see from the picture on the right, it’s a lovely addition to my desk and a constant reminder of just how thoughtful Google are.
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In the very recent past I was taken to be introduced to the travel sector team at Google by my boss here at bmi. During our meeting she mentioned that in her five years of working with the travel team at Google she has never had a chance to get her hands on any of that lovely Google branded merchandise, and that she has always wanted a Google lava lamp (personally I’d prefer a peek at their algorithm) to have a constant reminder of her favourite search engine.