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My 2 featured articles for the week ending Dec. 9, 2005:

Archived blogs for the week of December 5, 2005

1061 - December 8, 2005 - 9.52 AM EST

Search engine use up a strong 55 percent in the US

"Increasingly, search engines have become an important part of the Internet experience of Americans", reveals a new Pew Internet and American Life Project.

On any given day, nearly 60 million people in the United States use search engines. In 2004, there's been a sharp increase in search activity. From June of last year to September 2005, the use of search engines on a typical day increased from 30 to 41 percent of the Internet-using population, which itself has grown in the past year.

At the same time, the total number of people using search engines on an average day jumped from roughly 38 million to about 59 million — an increase of roughly 55 percent.

comScore Media Metrix data, derived from a different methodology, show that from September 2004 to September 2005 the average daily use of search engines jumped from 49.3 million users to 60.7 million — an increase of 23 percent.

Posted on Businessblog™

1060 - December 7, 2005 - 11.59 AM EST

Cost of keywords going up!

DoubleClick's report confirms everything I've been saying for the past year: the average cost of PPC keywords is going up, and rapidly!

According to DoubleClick's latest Search Trend Report, the cost of the average keyword was up 47 percent from September 2004 to September 2005.

What's more, Internet marketers and online advertisers are starting to discover new CPK (cost-per-keyword) metric terminology. Since search engine marketing has now become such an increasingly important and critical part of most ad budgets, CPK is now as ubiquitous with media planning executives as CPMs and CTRs are.

DoubleClick's "Search Trend Report for Q3 2005" found that the average CPK as well as the average CPC (cost per click) showed steady increases throughout the third quarter.

This could be due to a number of reasons, but the report stated that the most likely factors were "competition and a greater emphasis on higher-priced, higher-trafficked keywords that give advertisers the potential for greater visibility and brand awareness."

After a precipitous rise and fall in late '04 and early '05, CPK has been rising steadily throughout the year.

Posted on Businessblog™

1059 - December 6, 2005 - 6.27 PM EST

AOL to cooperate with Microsoft in a joint project

According to various news reports this week, America Online is expected to develop with Microsoft a PPC advertising and Internet search project. An announcement of some kind could come by the third week of December, the reports say. In one scenario, AOL and Microsoft would create a Web ad service that would compete with Google's service.

In light of the new reports, many industry watchers no longer expect Time Warner to unload a big piece of America Online.

Despite the troubles of AOL, which gets most of its sales from outdated dial-up Internet access, the Internet service may be too valuable to sell off, they say.

"It would be strange if Time Warner let go of AOL," said media consultant Joseph Jaffe.

AOL gives its parent company a huge beachhead in the online world, he notes. That's something that Disney (DIS) and other rivals still don't have.

Even so, rumors had circulated since September that Time Warner wanted to sell a stake in AOL or create a joint venture with Microsoft, Google or Yahoo. (YHOO) Yahoo is believed to have dropped out of talks with Time Warner earlier this year.

If Time Warner Chief Executive Richard Parsons did indeed want to sell off a chunk of AOL, his plans may have been spoiled by financier Carl Icahn.

Icahn, who's been accumulating shares of Time Warner, launched a dissident shareholder group in August.

The group believes the media giant is mismanaged, and it wants to sell off Time Warner's assets to boost the stock price. Icahn's also pushing the idea of a stock buyback.

Icahn may launch a proxy fight against Time Warner's board to change the company's leadership.

In the midst of this turmoil, Parsons may be hesitant to sell off a piece of AOL, says Jefferies & Co. analyst Youssef Squali. Parsons may fear that AOL won't get fetch a good price while Icahn is making waves.

Posted on Businessblog™

1058 - December 6, 2005 - 4.12 PM EST

Efficient marketing on the Internet

Heavy hitters have impressive track records in the areas of profits, the number of recruits they can bring into in a program or downline, and the size of their e-mail contact list and circle of influence. Blankenship has been known to recruit up to 100 people in one day, has a list with contact information on more than 5,000,000 people and has joined the ranks of the very wealthy.

Passionate, intense, and humorous by turns, Blankenship attributes his achievements to his "determination to succeed no matter what; to persistence and consistent effort."

He also gives a lot of credit for his success to mentors whom he aggressively sought out, "even when it meant going over the heads of my sponsors." Meet Kona Sam Blankenship, a successful Internet Marketer.

Posted on Businessblog™

1057 - December 5, 2005 - 4.23 PM EST

Inform search engine to offer RSS search

News aggregator and search engine Inform is to offer video, audio and RSS search. Inform Project Manager Julian Steinberg said the company included video because of popular demand from users.

"People really wanted video," he said. "In the future, reading news online--especially with the explosion of broadband, etc.--people are really going to want to be able to access video as well."

In addition to video and audio files--two hot commodities in online news and media--Inform's new release also includes RSS support, which allows users to export searches and categories to any third-party RSS reader, be it Web-based or software.

Posted on Businessblog™

1056 - December 5, 2005 - 1.11 PM EST

Firms scrambling to recruit search professionals

Overall, the rapidly growing importance of search advertising in companies' marketing plans is pressing SEM and SEO agencies to recruit search professionals in the traditional advertising sector.

Mike Taylor, London-based director of JobsinSearch.com said "I believe we will see a growing number of people transfer their account management skills from other industries".

Taylor then added "these could be from a direct marketing background or the IT industry itself."

Some estimate that demand for professionals in search marketing exceeds supply by 20 percent. Account representatives and account managers are particularly sought after, as well as business development executives, copywriters and technical experts to execute campaigns.

"We look for smart people with either great client-facing experience with an understanding of advertising and marketing, or, for our analytics department, smart people with an understanding of how statistics are applied to advertising and marketing," said Kevin Lee, chairman of search marketing firm Did-it.com, New York.

"These people do exist in both direct marketing and traditional agencies, and we can teach them search marketing."

High-profile hiring coups of executives from traditional advertising backgrounds include Ron Belanger, former vice president of search and affiliate marketing at Carat Interactive (now Carat Fusion), who was hired by Yahoo Search Marketing in late September, and Toby Gabriner, former president of Carat Fusion, who was hired as CEO of predictive marketing company Poindexter Systems Inc. in November.

Also, Stephen Tortorici, formerly creative director of interactive for Y&R, New York, recently was hired as executive creative director at search marketing agency iCrossing, New York.

Executives with traditional advertising experience are valuable to search firms because of their ability to view marketing and media plans across all media and their experience in working with large brands and accounts.

"We're focused on search, but we also look for candidates that have a diverse group of interactive and online as well as offline marketing experience ... to be able to integrate those in a way they can really look at the client's industry in a holistic way," said Noah Elkin, director of industry relations at iCrossing.

Andy Beal, president/CEO of search marketing firm Fortune Interactive, Durham, NC, said he likes to hire employees from traditional public relations and marketing agencies because they "know how to handle large accounts. They know what to say, what the client is used to hearing, and they bring fresh ideas."

Posted on Businessblog™

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