search marketing blog: ambergreen

We got a sneaky peel at Google’s Knol today. If you are unfamiliar with Knol let me give you the 2 minute overview in non geek terms.

Knol is the word coined by the big brains at Google to describe their own rival to Wikipedia or Yahoo! answers etc. It it’s also the term for pages held within the site and will be used to describe one unit of knowledge within Knol itself.

Google vice president of engineering, Udi Manber is heading up the Knol project and he reckons it will help searchers by creating information on subjects that aren’t particularly well covered on the internet already. Unlike Wikipedia Google Knol users and authors would require to log in to edit content. Indeed Manber believes that:

“Knol is all about the authors. We believe that knowing who wrote a knol will significantly help users make better use of web content.”

Google will give no preferential; treatment to Knol pages; if they rank well in SERP’s then they rank well because they compete algorithmically. There will be no leg ups.

Knol authors can link to other sites and as it stands links might not be nofollow tagged, thus allowing lovely page rank and authority to flow from Knol pages to other web pages. Obviously SEO’s will love the link popularity that comes with this!

As ever with Google money plays its part. Knol pages will display (sometimes!) relevant adverts from Google’s adsense network. The revenues attributed to these pages are shared with the Knol author. This could be more than a little difficult to manage as others can edit content if given permission by the author.

In the past services in a similar vein have found themselves full of spam, has Google opened themselves up to a whole raft of content that they won’t particularly want?

Mmmmmmm?? It’s a big step from Google, moving from being a tool to find information too being a content host has many potential pitfalls and I’m sure we’ll all watch to see how this one plays out.

PS. I reckon I’m not alone in thinking that there will be a whole lot of Knol authors who are experts on Insurance, Loans, Mortgages, Credit Cards, Mobile Phones, Flights, Holidays, IPod’s, and maybe even shock horror Viagra and Porn!!

So Google shouts that a pan-European research project into branded search which it commissioned showed that brands that come top of organic rankings raised purchase consideration by 4%. It also mentioned that being exposed to a ranking in the top paid position, with no organic listing on the page, increased purchase consideration 20%.

Personally I would have thought that the organic figure might have been a little higher, however its good news for agencies that have been telling this to clients for years! Spending  PPC budget on branded terms makes sense as long as it is part of an overall strategic approach to marketing and it forms only one part of your marketing mix.

A key ambergreen natural search client kills brand PPC at certian times of the year when overall profitability is the KPI and not volume of sales. As a wise man* once said:

“Search doesn’t work in a vacuum”

PPC is only one part of the journey in competitive sectors you must be visible for every search. The research phase from the very generic search through more specific into even more specific still, eventually even the brand. You must understand the buyer behaviour. Go missing at any point in this user journey and so will your conversions…

*That wise man is Grant “Search Oracle” Whiteside!

Well I didn’t think it would be a week on from the show before I got a chance to give you all a rundown of Online Marketing and Media 2008, however with clients & prospects always going to take preference over writing blogs and the fact I couldn’t remember the log in and password to post from home, time has been at a premium lately!

A week on from Online Marketing and Media 2008 I have a few thoughts, grumbles and even some praise!The day began with a stupid o’clock (4.15am) alarm to catch a 6.25am flight into Stansted. After forcing myself to eat at such an ungodly hour we jumped on the Easyjet flight. Through years of experience I have gained a fantastic ability for sleeping as soon as I get comfortable on the seat.

There are a few tips to gaining an unbroken sleep on a plane, the most obvious is always ensure that your seatbelt is visible as there is nothing worse than getting woken up before you even start to get into a decent slumber.

“It was a cold and wet December (well June) day, when we touched the ground at JFK” (Well Stansted) but it brightened up quickly. We headed into town on the express, changing onto the underground and took the tube to Angel. I’ve always liked this area of London; it genuinely has a town/village feel to it and somehow doesn’t feel as busy as central London. For somebody from way out in the sticks this is a rather lovely thing.

Onto the venue to size up the show and it seemed that a good few competitors had taken a stand. We wandered round talking to a few familiar faces from the usual suspects and complemented the guys at Steak media for their rather funky farmers market style stand. We also bumped into a few clients who had taken advantage of the day out of the office to try and pick up some industry news and updates.

After that it was time for the seminars. I won’t go into too much detail however we attended:

• Mash-ups (Case Study) - Miles Lewis, SVP, European Sales, Last.fm
• Widgets/Web Apps (Case Study) - Sally Cowdry, marketing director, O2
• The new tools for marketers (Workshop) - Adriana Lukas, founder of VRM Hub
• Social gaffes (Panel) - Adriana Lukas, Al Tepper, James Cherkoff

Needless to say there was some good, some maybe not so good. The highlight for me was Sally Cowdry’s case study of O2. She was an excellent speaker, and really knows her brand inside out, O2 seem like they have really engaged with their customers through a mix of online and offline and her session was well received on the day.

Gold star for Sally!

I have attended a variety of shows over the years from SES to Internet World, to Digital Cream and Ad Tech however the biggest gripe I would have about this show was the level of individual some of the speakers had pitched their presentations at. Anybody who was at the event knows what a blog is and are perfectly aware of what social media is. These individuals are in attendance because most of them work in online or search marketing. So please next year, guys; don’t treat attendees like people who have never worked in the online sphere and you’ll get a far better response to your seminars.

Overall though the show was we presented, well run, busy and certainly the level of attendee was about right. I think ambergreen will look to take a stand there next year.

Taking all this into account Online Marketing and Media 2008 scores 3 ½ stars out of 5.

From now on I will do my upmost to try and not leave it a week until the next exciting instalment of the ambergreen blog!

Davor

PS. If you are at the Business Design Centre in Angel, you could do a lot worse than lunch at The Hamburger Union, I have eaten there around 5 or 6 times and it is truly a great burger, it has changed a bit in that the burgers aren’t as thick as they once were but a good lunch all the same.

PPS. While we’re on the subject of burgers, should you be in Edinburgh and are stuck for lunch try The Cambridge Bar, their kitchen does burgers and nothing else. They are unsurpassable in my humble opinion.