Microsoft and Yahoo partnered in a search alliance 2 years ago in an effort to better compete with Google. However, neither company has shown a tremendous amount of improvement.

Ballard told us that he was pulling for Bing but that it needed to make some changes to better meet advertisers needs.

“It lets you take advantage of another 10-20-30 percent click volume that you wouldn’t have,” he said.

Interestingly, paid search is a lot more than just advertising. It also involves landing page optimization. For example, Geddes pointed out that if a page has several thousand clicks but no conversions, there is a problem with the landing page. He goes on to say that one of the most important elements of landing pages that is often missed, is when people neglect to put their call to action above-the-fold.

“80 percent of the time, 76 percent of clicks occur in that above-the-fold section,” he said.

Geddes also discussed some recent changes to bg Theory and the impact they had on the site. The site has 3 major goals for getting conversions. Its blog, although it received a significant amount of traffic, had really bad conversion rates. As a result, Geddes moved the conversions to the blog. When this happened, the site’s overall conversion rate decreased considerably, but its revenue increased greatly.

From these changes, Geddes found that they were bringing more customers into the funnel. He said, “Traffic gets someone to your site; the page then has to pick up the traffic in order to convert it.”

In other words, while the tools are helpful, marketers should not rely on them alone. A successful PPC campaign actually requires a lot of work on top of the tools. For example, tools such as Kenshoo allow marketers to measure how much they are spending and whether or not they are making money based upon their bids.

According to Enge, the tools will return a figure very close to the ROI that you requested, but several other factors will be inaccurate. To avoid this, he suggests using human input. One way to do this is through negative keywords. He said that, although it seems obvious, a lot of people neglect to do it. Negative keywords allow for marketers to see which queries are generating clicks and much more. Enge recommends Epiar’s negative keyword tool for anyone needing the service.

Another area that marketers often leave out is ad optimization. It is extremely important for marketers to test before they push out an ad. He referenced a case study in which one company had a 473 percent gain on an ad campaign simply because it tested. They were able to come up with this aggregate number by taking the click-through-rate and multiplying it by the conversion rate.

With an enterprise PPC campaign, there is a lot of money to be made, if it is done right; but there is also a lot of money to be lost, if it is done wrong. Enge also advises marketers to utilize the adCenter from the joint efforts of Yahoo and Microsoft.

“If people weren’t playing in that territory before, they absolutely should be now,” he said.

She goes on to say that marketers also need to utilize the recently combined Yahoo and Microsoft adCenter. Operating as one, “Binghoo,” as Churchill calls it, has approximately 30 percent of the paid search market share. Although Google AdWords is established and has great tools, there is still value in “Binghoo.”

“Keep advertising on Google, but don’t give up on adCenter. I think that it will prove in the long-term to be a beneficial thing because it gives us another opportunity to get in front of potential customers,” she said.

For those marketers who still need to embrace adCenter, Churchill offers an easy tip. She suggests that marketers download their Google accounts into the AdWords Editor tool, which is free. Marketers can then export the information into an Excel spreadsheet. Although marketers will need to do some tweaking especially regarding negative keywords and geo-targeting, this step saves a lot of time when beginning an adCenter campaign.

In this interview with WebProNews, Churchill also discusses several basic, older tools that are still relevant today. For instance, Xenu’s Link Sleuth is still very effective for checking links.

In addition, she talks about recent changes to Google’s keyword tool. The search engine changed the data source from Google.com and its partner sites to just Google.com. Google is also looking at commercial words as opposed to informational words. Churchill personally believes this was a bad move on Google’s part since 80 percent of searches on the Web are informational.

“I think Google is doing a real disservice to users by doing that,” she adds.

What are your thoughts on adCenter and Google’s recent changes to its keyword tool?

He has recently conducted a lot of research pertaining to local. From it, he has found that 30 percent of all retailers show some type of local aspect in search results. He has also noticed that the search results vary when the location is changed even when the query is not location-specific.

“Clearly, Google is using the geolocation of the searcher to bias the search results,” he said.

Although these factors are important in this shift toward local, money seems to be the biggest motivator. For example, there are only so many people who can bid on a national term such shoes. However, every local region can bid on the term. If users geotarget, their ROI will increase. As people make more money following this principle, they will be more apt to spend further money on their PPC campaign, which, of course, means Google would make more money.

For all these reasons, Clay emphasizes the importance of getting involved in local.

“You either play in the local space… or you’re not going to get clicks even if you’re #1,” he points out.

As this shift occurs, he believes that there will be a massive influx of sites. In addition, he thinks that people will try to deceive SEOs, create new forms of spam, and more. In terms of brands, Clay said that people that have had a large brand presence would now realize that their brand would not be very effective with all the new local sites competing for the same generic brand.

He also adds, “The only way Google can maintain relevancy and allow those sites on the Web is to emphasize local even more.”

Do you agree with Bruce Clay’s prediction about Google turning into a local search engine?

To learn more about Bruce Clay’s predictions, watch the full interview.

Specifically, she talks to WebProNews about Google AdWords for mobile. She says that if you’re not in the top 4 positions, you’re not going to show up at all. Typically, users do not get past the first page in mobile search results.

For advertisers doing a WAP ad, she points out that they have fewer characters to work with. Android phones, iPhones, and some other smartphones have the same number of characters, but they can include phone numbers that are clickable. This is important because it means that people do not have to have website or mobile site in order to do mobile PPC.

In other words, mobile PPC can send phone traffic just as easily as it can send website traffic. Mobile PPC can also send traffic to app stores to help promote applications. Since many app developers do not realize that app stores are essentially search engines, they do not optimize their app for search. By doing mobile PPC, these app developers can overcome some of the problems of how their app is listed and can still drive traffic.

Are you taking advantage of mobile PPC?

Earlier this week, the companies also gave advertisers the go ahead to start transitioning from Yahoo search ads to Microsoft Bing search ads. As this transition begins to unfold, we can start to see what some of the changes will be and how they might impact the future of search.

From a visual perspective, Yahoo Search still looks the same but has a small “Powered by Bing” at the bottom of the results page. Another aspect worth noting is that the two companies combined own approximately 28 percent of the search market, according to comScore’s July search report.

Long time search marketing expert Bruce Clay has also noticed some interesting findings regarding SEO and the new Yahoo search. He tells WebProNews that, based upon information from Yahoo’s API team, the company intends to use Bing’s index but apply a slightly different algorithm to it. In other words, the search engines will still produce different search results. From this information, Clay believes that users will still see value in Yahoo search.

The paid search transition, on the other hand, could have a more dramatic impact. Bing has been very effective in pay per click, and as a result, Clays says it offers a high click through rate.

“I would have a tendency to think that Bing advertising will see many, many more people using it,” he points out.

Although the companies would like to have the paid search transition completed by October, they have said it could be delayed if they see a potential interference with this year’s holiday season.

Regardless of what other changes will come as this transition is fully rolled out, there is no doubt that it will be marked as a turning point in the search and advertising industry. Interestingly, Clay calls these latest developments a “resurrection” of the second and third search engines. Do you agree?

Because Google cannot tell every advertiser all the factors that go into quality score, it often results in confusion. However, if Google did reveal this information, advertisers would get an unfair advantage. As he explains to WebProNews, there are so many other elements that are involved with quality score that the aforementioned factors play a minor role.

Google uses quality score as a rewards system since it wants to provide relevant answers to search queries. The advertisers that are able to help it do this not only receive a better quality score, but also receive a lower price for their ad position.

“Basically, Google rewards advertisers with better quality score and a lower price to do what they should be doing anyway,” says Szetela.

He goes on to say that good quality score has two parts: great ads and acceptable landing pages. People think that by improving their landing page, their quality score will improve as well. Szetela points out that this is not the case. Instead, he says the landing page component of quality score can only hurt, not help.

Overall, having great ads are the key to having good quality score. Szetela recommends including the following elements in an ad:

1.    Keyword in text (preferably in headline)
2.    Reader addressed in first person
3.    Features/Benefits
4.    Call to action

Are you using this information to help improve your quality score?

First of all, although social is growing in popularity and value, Clay says it is still hard to determine the extent of its impact on search. Both people and businesses are still learning how to use it. He believes there are two different camps on social. The first is similar to PPC since users can leverage ads in their social networks. This way can be thought of as an ad network, and it allows users to drive traffic and raise awareness.

He classifies the second camp as being closer to SEO since it can be used to encourage people to link to you. In addition, it can be used for reputation management. Just as SEO and PPC are more effective together, using both camps of social media are equally important. He says marketers will miss out on valuable opportunities if they do not utilize social media.

Linking is another area that has changed. As Clay discusses, there are several ways to do links such as stimulating people socially, begging for links, and being a link magnet. Social media is tied to the aforementioned stimulating people for links and also to link begging, since it could provide a target through a social relationship. As he points out, link magnets are the best method because marketers create great content that people want to link to.

Although link networks are also included in linking practices, Clay believes they could become a serious problem. These networks allow one user or company to have some level of control over a group of different sites. Although he has no direct inclination from Google, he believes the search giant will crack down on this practice. He thinks Google has no choice but to either lighten up on its standards, which he believes is wrong, or enforce stronger regulation. If link networks were eliminated, he says there would be a “massive change in the linking structure and rankings.”

In regards to changes in search results, Clay recalls that Google offers more options, maps, and more in the SERPs. He predicts that searchers will be able to selectively turn on live feeds and engagements objects (video, images, etc.). Google has also made efforts pertaining to search intent and behavior. With linking practices changing as well, he believes we will see many new developments in search results. Additionally, he says these changes will continue and traditional SEO will lose its effectiveness.

Are you accommodating these changes?

As Andrew Goodman of Page Zero Media tells WebProNews, those on the organic side argue that 80 percent of clicks come from organic. Those on the paid side, contend that more business revenue comes from paid as opposed to organic. For example, Microsoft conducted a study in which it found that 60 percent of revenue across thousands of sites was driven by paid and 40 percent of the revenue was driven by organic. However, Goodman says all these reports are misleading.

He does point out that specific verticals indicate a trend in favor of paid over organic. For instance, if you do a search for “San Diego tours,” the top 3 results are paid, there are paid listings on the right side, and there are also local results that could have a paid element. In addition, these practically take up all the room above the fold.

As a result, Goodman says, “To not do paid just basically means your competitors are there and you’re not.”

He went on to say how he believes that organic will begin to lose its meaning over time. Taking it even further, he says it’s getting difficult to clearly define the “10 blue links” as either paid or organic, since results include news, YouTube, and more.

Because the search environment is being flooded with personalization, localization, and other new factors, Goodman says people need to realize that the “fixed 10 blue links” do not exist anymore. That said, he thinks paid search is more reliable moving forward.

As the search dynamic continues to evolve, what do you see happening to paid and organic search?

As she discusses, there are many dangers with jumping into search. For starters, the technicalities can quickly overwhelm people. Search efforts are also often isolated to one division, such as PPC. As a result, businesses could end up missing out on a lot of benefits they could be receiving from search. Another danger is that many marketers think they know what their searchers want, when they actually do not.

“Don’t stand in judgment of your own search, let your searchers tell you what they want,” says Lutze.

She goes on to point out that marketers need to focus on all 3 areas of search. These areas are PPC, SEO, and Social Media. She says if a business really wants to be findable, it needs to be where users expect it to be. Since it’s difficult to know where the users are, she advises being present in all 3 areas.

By utilizing these 3 components, businesses can develop a consistent message across all its channels, which will increase their chances of being findable.

Are you getting the maximum findability out of search?

As she tells WebProNews, there were many new faces at the show anxious to learn about SEO. Incidentally, she says that the majority of these people were small businesses.

Based upon the many questions posed to Bruce Clay Inc., among the most popular were questions regarding mobile and PPC. Poole says people do not truly grasp how much SEO can help them.

They found that these companies are spending a lot of money on paid search. Interestingly enough, they are not investing in natural search despite the many opportunities there.

In the report, Conductor looked at 6.7 million keywords and found that only 2 percent of the companies involved showed a significant percentage of keywords in the top 30 results. In other words, these companies are spending millions of dollars daily on PPC and yet only 2 percent showed up in the top 30 results.

The report also found that more than 50 percent of the companies were not showing up at all. In reality, Dotterer says that these keywords would be found if these companies ranked in organic search. In addition, the companies would not have to spend as much for natural search.

“As people started to get more and more specific about what they were searching for, Fortune 500 tanked even further,” adds Dotterer.

In the end, natural search has many opportunities that PPC does not. In addition, companies could save a lot of wasted money by investing some of their time on the organic side of search.

Are you utilizing the opportunities natural search provides?

Mike McDonald of WebProNews pointed out that this new view of search could raise problems for businesses. He said if businesses pay money for ads that prompt searches, they could be driving traffic to their competitors if they are not number one in the search engines.

To do it the right way, Clay suggests planning a strategy. First of all, decide what you want to promote. Secondly, optimize your website so that you are number one, at least with PPC. Thirdly, decide to dominate and succeed. Lastly, get a billboard with a catch phrase or write an article with a catch phrase in it. These steps will prompt people to search based on the action phrase.

As you do this, make sure that you have fully optimized. The last thing you want to do is not be number one after you have taken the time to promote a product. Clay says the SEO needs to be ready to respond to the promotion. He also issues a warning in regards to the media promotions: “If you don’t do the offline right, nobody knows to go search for you.”

In summary, think about how the user would search and tie it into an action phrase to brand with your business.

What are your thoughts regarding search as an extension of marketing?

Up to this point, Google has used keywords as a proxy for relevance. In the future, however, the search engine hopes to allow advertisers to state their desired outcome and then, use its machine-based learning to produce that desired result. In other words, Google would essentially take the necessary information and put the ad in front of the most relevant audience.

Why is all this important? According to Elesseily, it’s important because query length is increasing, new and unique search terms are increasing, and searcher sophistication is increasing. All these elements make it hard for advertisers to keep their keyword lists fresh.

Incidentally, not all of the advertising community supports this new development. Elesseily said that some advertisers believe it’s too broad of an approach and don’t like the idea of putting that much trust in Google.

Although Elesseily doesn’t believe keywords will go away, she does believe the future of paid search is changing.

What are your thoughts regarding paid search without keywords?