2007 search trends will impact 2008

The search world is marked by continuous change. Even though the changes may not be huge, even small upsets to the system can fling an SEO program into a tailspin. And regardless of how small an update Google makes to its algorithm, what happened yesterday undoubtedly impacts tomorrow.

Every Internet savvy is doing social media nowadays. They are on MySpace, Facebook, Digg, Del.icio.us, Twitter, Flickr, and the like. And not only are they doing it, they are leveraging it for their search programs.

It was started with corporate blogs. These were launched on the theory that if you’re creating fresh, good content, people will link to it, and search engines will think it’s important stuff. Most also chuck an RSS feed in there to up inbound link potential.

However there are additional ways social media has been leveraged for search. Savvy organizations have realized the benefit on search rankings for an article that’s dugg by others on Digg. Other organizations have started viral campaigns to get their site bookmarked in del.icio.us.

Although many search marketers have experimented in social media marketing (SMM), campaigns do not seem to be very tactical and fully synchronized campaigns. Not yet, anyway.

Search Engine Market Share

Lately there has been a lot of speculation regarding how much of the search market share Google and Yahoo really hold. How does one measure this? By the amount of traffic each website has? By the number of searches each website entertains?

Well thanks to Alexa.com we can look at what people actually do on google.com and what people actually do on yahoo.com

Where do people go on Yahoo.com?

Where do people go on Google.com?


Most agree that by the end of 2007 the amount of traffic hitting each site is roughly the same so it is easy to draw a few conclusions . . .

1. Google is entertaining many more searches than Yahoo because more people are visiting google.com than search.yahoo.com (people setting their homepages to google.com does skew the data but not enough for a seven fold difference)
2. Half of the people who are on yahoo.com are just checking their email.

It is remarkable that without Yahoo's email system they would lose half of their traffic and half of the eyeballs viewing their ads. Luckily for Yahoo changing your email is a huge hassle. Google is working hard to take a chunk out of Yahoo's email market share with Google Apps for Your Domain. Google is essentially licensing out their email system to anyone. They also teamed with Godaddy so that GAFYD comes installed on new websites registered through GoDaddy.

Search Engine Share

See the graph comparing traffic to the three major players in search: Google, Yahoo, and MSN.

Notice the shape of the google traffic curve has humps that correspond with the weekly cycle. It seems that google sees more traffic on the weekdays than on the weekends. A logical conclusion is that people visit google on work days at work more than they do on weekend days home. This means that they either have their work homepages set to google and register a visit every time they open their browser and are opening their brwoser more often on work days or they are simply using google more for searches during the week. But why don't Yahoo or MSN show the same humps? If it were a matter of homepage then MSN and Yahoo would show similar trends. It is likely the case that search is sensitive to the weekly cycle and that google's traffic is for actual searches as it is also sensitive to the weekly cycle. I smell a graduate thesis here somewhere

Will Newspapers Compete with SEOs and SEMs?

The Kelsey Group analysts get Search. Today their analyst team published 2008 Local Search trends and developments. Breaking news you can use in your search engine strategies all year long. Highlights:

Rise of Vertical Sellers : vertical sales will saturate big ad spend categories.

What does that mean for SEOs and SEMs?

Newspaper groups will offer SEO/SEM solutions.

That's right. Imagine competing with The New York Times for search marketing clients. Internet and vertical resellers will target auto and real estate via SEO/SEM. Lots of new start-ups will announce plans to enter these categories.

In the real estate vertical: MLS listings will start creeping into non-Realtor.com sites.

Expect rapid dev in real estate and auto verticals online, expansion of local search inventory. The move toward search on specialized devices grows. UGC (user-generated content) will make an evolutionary leap in consumer decision-making Matt Booth, Kelsey's SVP of Interactive Local Media, had a stellar track record for 2007 predictions -- perhaps an even better batting average than Battelle. And that's saying alot.

Booth and his Interactive Local Media analyst team (including SEW Expert Mike Boland) also predict:

1. print Yellow Pages advertising products will feature call-tracking numbers
2. call tracking numbers will enable variable pricing
3. merchants and call tracking online and offline to increase call volume

That's news CEOs will love: proven ROI online and offline.

Top 10 Environmental Searches

The year 2007 may plunge as the year people stopped talking about the climate calamity and actually did something about it. According to Yahoo! Searches report, people searched for ways to help out the environment, on a universal and individual height. Al Gore's, “An Inconvenient Truth”, won an Academy Award and brought global warming to the forefront. Also, “Freecycle.org”, a social networking approach to local recycling, emerged as a hit to consumers that wanted to switch over used goods in their neighborhood. The year 2007 saw searches about global warming and energy saving cars at their highest levels ever.

1. Recycling
2. Global Warming
3. Freecycle
4. Earth
5. Pollution
6. Al Gore
7. Environmental Protection Agency
8. Live Earth
9. Hybrid Cars
10. Solar Energy

News Stories - Yahoo Top 10 News Stories

This year, the accessibility of Saddam Hussein's final moment’s footage made the late Iraqi leader the most searched figure in the news of 2007. Additionally, the continuing conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan propelled murmur all through the year. With the unending political condition with Iran and visit from the Iranian president, Yahoo! users searched for further information on Iran than Iraq this year. Amongst the Presidential hopefuls, who embraced the Web in larger numbers this year, Democratic contenders Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton again drummed up a large number of searches.

1. Saddam Hussein
2. Iran
3. Iraq
4. President George W. Bush
5. Oil and Gas prices
6. Barack Obama
7. Hillary Rodham Clinton
8. San Diego Fires
9. Afghanistan
10. Virginia Tech

Mobile Search Trends of 2006

MobilePeople - the global leader in local mobile search and advertising solutions for directory publishers and DQ providers recently published a Mobile Search Trends of 2006. The data has been gathered in European markets during the period from 23 December to 27 December, 2006 to present the usage pattern of mobile search and habits.

According to a report, search volumes have been increased ten times over the same period last year.

According to a study, most well-liked mobile search categories in order of popularity were:

1. Taxis
2. Takeaways
3. Restaurants
4. Supermarkets
5. Consumer electronics

In addition, according to a recent eMarketer report, there will be a predictable 844.9 million worldwide mobile search users in 2011, up from 219.2 million in 2006. Mobile ad revenue worldwide is expected to grow up to $2.4 billion in 2011, from $6.8 million in 2006.

This evidently shows that mobile search is still used on first place for basic necessities much more than mere browsing or information gathering.

Internet Marketing Challenges

Marketing is the key to the success of mid-size and small-scale businesses. Internet Marketing is a one boulevard of marketing that may offer noteworthy rewards. However, Internet Marketing is not for everyone. It has its challenges and pitfalls so it may not be the marketing strategy for you.

• It is rigid work
• Requires essential understanding of computers and the online world
• Requirement of a computer, software and an internet connection is must
• Be cautious that you are not spreading out wrong message about your service or product
• The online market has many small subsets of niche markets, so you have to classify and reach the ones who are looking for your product or service
• Requires well-written copy, a helpful approach, and consistent service in order to engage customers
• Require a secure method of payments to facilitate online transactions facility
• Response monitoring and speedy results, because people expect speedy results
• Internet marketing may generate an unexpected amount of email and response. You must be equipped to deal with it.

Regardless of these challenges, internet marketing can sensible and there are many helpful resources.

PPC Costs Rising and PPC Frustration

PPC (Pay Per Click) price will continue to rise, as many big companies with big budgets continuing to jump into the Pay Per Click (PPC) arena. A study reveals that PPC cost have been increased to 37% from year 2005 to 2006. These well funded companies are using PPC as a branding tool as often as a sales tool, due to this trend many of the current smaller advertisers with small budget squeezed out. In fact, many of them throwing ROI (Return On Investment) out of the window and bidding higher prices for most optimum keywords and keyphrase for the sake of branding. This means that many small to mid-size companies will turn to organic SEO to achieve results, when they no longer can afford PPC.

Below are the top 5 big players in PPC advertising, based upon the number of PPC impressions:

• eBay
• NextTag
• Vonage
• Time Warner
• Orbitz

Podcasting Trends Of 2006

A study has been published by the PodZinger, revealing the top search queries and trends on its site for the year 2006. According the statistics sports, personalities talk and world news are being the top rated audio search, while current events and pop culture accounted for the majority of online video searches.

So, it safe to say that year 2006 was the year of the podcast.

Compiling all the data from last year's searches, most watched video podcasts of 2006 are as follows:

• ABC World News
• Keith and The Girl
• X-Play
• CNN The Grist
• Rumor Girls
• ESApod
• ICONS
• Democracy Now!
• Diggnation
• TED Talks