The stage on which we operate today
The quantity of information and delivery devices is exploding, but the hours in the day to process information (and determine what is useful) stay the same. This has been becoming increasingly evident in the tools we use and in working with our clients, who are mostly owners of small to medium sized businesses. Also, I began to pay more attention when I am in public. I’ve started to notice people staring at PDAs, driving distracted and one-handed while talking on their cell phone, and so on. Even when face to face with another human being, a surprising number of individuals will disengage to read their email or text messages, or look at FB. Not only if they are expecting something time sensitive — which we all sometimes have to do. Nope, just to check in. So, they check out in person so they can check in online, all the while being amazed that their device or program gets more intuitive.

Finding what you need can still be more difficult than it should
How happy are you with the results you find when you search online? Two recent but unrelated experiences I had prompted this post. They were: a- looking for an online collaboration tool to use with remote colleagues and clients; and b- finding a local auto shop to install a specific type of shock absorbers on my car. The collaboration tool was inherently not local in nature, and the auto repair was just the opposite. Without going into excruciating detail on these, I’ll summarize by saying: a- even with a deep understanding of search queries and search results pages, both tasks took way more time than they should have; b- neither solution was eventually found in the way I expected; and c- in both cases, I found the solution by talking to experts — one on the phone and another in person. If this topic proves to have legs, I’ll write a follow up on these two examples and what didn’t / did work. But for now, I’ll go out on the limb of predictions that resulted from these experiences.

TopSide’s 5 observations or predictions for online products or services
1 – Website meta data will eventually include a new section for SEO: negative keywords — just like search engine advertising platforms do now. These will filter out natural results that are related, but not relevant for the site. All parties – searchers and publishers — would /will be better served.
2 – Search engines will eventually enhance results with what I’ll call “intent category” options. These will help you clarify what you need when your query will likely trigger mixed or poor results. (Example: your query for “Bilstein shocks” will prompt the question: Do you want to do research / compare features and benefits, get shocks installed locally, or buy them online? A better example: your query for “AC repair Austin” would prompt the question: “do you need AC repair for your car or dwelling?”
3 – Increasing overload in info and choices (and more competition for the all-important first page) will decrease the adoption rate of, and increase the cost of launching new products and services to a more significant degree. Like in an economic downturn, weaker or undercapitalized players will not get traction and drop out.
4 – Web related products and services will require increasing amounts of face-to-face or other real-time human interactions to get noticed or increased traction.
5 – Due to being manipulated or noisy, previously relied upon types of online rants, recommendations and posts will become decreasingly useful. Possible exceptions: a- topics that are inherently social in nature (pubs, restaurants, clubs, yoga classes, group activities, team sports, music, movies, etc.); b –topics that have very large amounts of input from users somehow proven to have actually purchased or used them.

One last prediction: computer users will increasingly opt out of services or settings that annoy or distract them.

We hope you find this post thought provoking, and welcome your comments.

A quick definition of negative or excluded keywords is as follows: a filter that prevents ads from showing. They are used to exclude aspects in your business category that you don’t want to trigger an ad for your particular business. Negatives (or NKWs as we call them around the office) increase overall efficiency of online ads. Proper use of negative keywords increases the CTR clickthrough rate, and this an important indicator of efficiency and relevance. The search engine ad programs reward efficiency with a lower CPC cost per click. More relevant ads usually produce a higher conversion rate and lower cost per conversion also.

Although in many ways they are opposite, like “positive” keywords that are used to trigger PPC ads, negative keywords can be single words or phrases. In some PPC ad programs, such as Google AdWords, negative keywords have broad , phrase, and exact matching options. Once an account is built and launched, we use a report called a Search Query report to look for additional negative keywords and topics for additional refinement.

The example we referred to is a Business-to-Business advertiser. B-to-B companies, particularly those in technology, tend to need more advanced negative keywords and tactics. The reason: many enterprise technology products and services have consumer level counterparts. Some of these (a couple of examples would be anti-virus and data backup /storage) are even free. In addition to negative keywords, filtering text in the ads can help filter out individuals who are not good prospects for a specialized or more costly product or service.

In summary, to make the most of your search marketing budget, a significant number of refinements are necessary to the default settings in PPC ad programs. Some of these are done up front, and more need to be done as search and click data comes in.

Keywords, Negative Keywords and Ad Text Filtering

In their selection of keywords for their query, online searchers tell us in varying degrees what type of information, product or service he or she is seeking. Generally, in goods or services, more detailed or precise searches indicate that the searcher is closer to the act of purchasing.

Search engine ads have a unique feature for keywords called “matching options”. Google AdWords has the most robust options and the other engines have similar ones. In Google AdWords there are four matching options: broad, phrase, exact and negative. We use these to set both what we are looking to match with and filter with negative keywords to exclude parts of similar searches that are not related to our topic. For further filtering, the words in the text ads, called “ad text”, can be used to either attract a certain type of customer as in the example of an ad that includes the words: “Get More Info” or to filter out customers whom you are not interested in by including the words such as “Wholesale to Dealers Only” in the ad.

When Do KeyWords Trigger Search Engine Ads? Just In Time!

Search engine ads that are triggered by keywords deliver a highly targeted message to your potential customer at the moment they are searching online. We sometimes refer to search engine ads as “just in time advertising”. Rather than broadcasting a message to huge numbers of people, as in the mass media, when set up correctly, search ads appear at the moment they are relevant to the searcher. For local services and products, this includes ads only being shown to computer users in the appropriate geographic area.