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In fact,
Internet boom all started with search during initial public offerings of Yahoo!, Excite, Infoseek, and Lycos in 1996 and 1997. Since then, search has “reinvented’ itself several times - from search engine, to portal, to traditional media partner, to struggling .com’s, to re-emerging survivors. Ironically, four years of “progress” reached this tipping point: search is now a business, not just a feature.
A Web search is like a three act play: it starts with consumer who would like to make search, who then uses software and other technology in Act Two which makes search possible, and ends with protagonist’s arrival at web page that was searched for. Value is added to this interplay when consumers are able to easily find information they are looking for. Consumers gain value from arriving at sites that fulfill their needs or suit their interests; destination sites derive value from an inbound flow of visitors who are interested in what they have to offer; and search hosts and intermediaries extract value from making introduction and link between two.
It is estimated that approximately 60 million households, or 90% of online audience, use Web search services each month. Internet users typically conduct about 6 billion Web searches with over 10 million different search terms employed regularly. The most popular search sites today are Google.com, Yahoo!.com, Microsoft’s MSN, and AOL. The most-used search technologies are offered by Google, Inktomi, FAST, and AltaVista, which are cannibalizing each other at an alarming rate.
Paid Listing Phenomena Many online advertisers are finding that performance of Web banners, pop-ups and other forms of Internet advertising including e-mail is declining. Customers are starting to ignore anything on a page that looks like an advertisement. Because of decreasing effectiveness of these forms of advertising, paid search engine placement has emerged as an effective, important but controversial, alternative because they are not necessarily perceived as ads.
These paid listings allow you to truly buy your way to top of major search engines. All you have to do is bid on search terms related to your product or service, and then provide a listing for search results. The amount of traffic you bring to your site is limited primarily by how much you bid.
Here is a summary of many unique advantages of paid listings:
• They generate large volumes of site traffic easily. • They let you avoid complexities of web pages search engine optimization. • They give you immediate, measurable results. • You only pay for listings that get clicked on, so it’s a cost- effective way to do targeted marketing. Overture, Findwhat, Kanoodle, Espotting and Sprinks, are top-rated companies handling paid listings. You’ll find their listings showing up on most of major search engines, portals and directories except for Google.Google has a proprietary paid listing program that’s highly rated as well.
How can you capitalize on a paid- listing program? • Choose web site pages and offers you want to promote with paid listings • Calculate your average profit-per-purchase for items or services on these pages • Find keywords and phrases consumers are most likely to use to find your listings • Write paid-listings results that include your search phrase • Place listings using a link to your landing pages that can be easily tracked • Figure ROI by monitoring cost of your listings against sales • Re-write your ads and adjust your placement bids on a continuing basis to keep them in optimal position in marketplace
And good luck!
By Yatin Patel Published in http://www.siliconindia.com June 2003
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