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Experian Hitwise and comScore have released their July 2010 Search Engine Market Share reports.  Since it’s been a while since we’ve checked in on these stats on the blog, we thought it was an opportune time to comment on the trends we’ve seen since the last post on search engine market share in mid-January this year.

As can be seen from comparing the numbers above, both reports show similar relative levels of search traffic with Google #1, followed by Yahoo, Bing and Ask in that order.  What can’t be seen in the above tables is how these levels have fluctuated over time.  On comScore, search engine market share has fluctuated as follows since November 2009:

1. Google went from 65.5% in November 2009 to 65.8% in July 2010
2. Yahoo went from 17.5% in November 2009 to 17.1% in July 2010
3. Microsoft went from 10.3% in November 2009 to 11.0% in July 2010
4. Ask remained level at 3.8% (after falling below that benchmark)

According to Experian Hitwise, search engine market share has fluctuated as follows since November 2009:

1. Google went from 71.57% in November 2009 to 71.43% in July 2010
2. Yahoo went from 15.39% in November 2009 to 14.43% in July 2010
3. Microsoft went from 9.34% in November 2009 to 9.86% in July 2010
4. Ask went from 2.65% in November 2009 to 2.32% in July 2010

In general the trends from each source are very similar, with the only significant differences being Experian Hitwise reporting a decline in market share for Google and the Ask Search network, whereas comScore reports a gain in market share for Google and a level market share for Ask.  However, overall, Google and Ask remained about level, while Microsoft increased market share and Yahoo lost market share.  Yahoo can be observed gaining back market share in the last two months, while Microsoft has been holding level.

It is interesting to compare these trends in relation to offline marketing.  Google demonstrates a far more steady position than any of the other search engines, yet advertises with the least reach through offline means.  Yahoo and Bing have demonstrated much larger swings in market share while also advertising with much more prominence offline as demonstrated by Yahoo’s current ongoing TV & radio campaign and Bing’s recent launch advertising and re-branding efforts.  While these facts may seem contradictory, with closer examination these are very predictable trends based on the historical positioning of each search engine.

Google’s position as the market leader has been entrenched over many years now.  In the late 90′s Google’s search engine proved superior to competitors and quickly picked up market share based on a quality product.  In Yahoo’s early days, Yahoo positioned itself much differently, operating more like a paid/edited directory than a true search engine scouring all pages on the internet (Yahoo was originally called “Jerry and David’s Guide to the World Wide Web”).  The search business to MSN in these days was more of an afterthought.  Google’s superior search results were driven by the fact that Google was the only search engine to look beyond on-page factors and use off-page factors (incoming links, the copy of the incoming links, etc) to rank websites against each other.

In the coming weeks Yahoo and Bing’s search engines will be combined to be driven by Bing’s search algorithm.  This represents a major challenge to Google’s position as market leader, but ultimately this battle can only be won through the perception of which product is of higher quality.  Despite offline advertising, which can move the needle but only temporarily, Google’s position has been earned through high quality as opposed to marketing.  Bing and Yahoo’s extraordinary marketing spends must be accompanied by real improvements to the search experience or else market share gains will prove temporary as they have based on the results of their advertising campaign earlier this year.

Posted in Industry News, Search Marketing Today | 1 Comment »

Working with SiteLab Interactive, Wolfgang Puck Companies launched a new interactive website in April of 2009. Wolfgang Puck has always been a culinary innovator and a leader in the industry as such, he is always looking to staying on top of new and relevant ways to promote the Wolfgang Puck brand and engage with his customers. Chef Puck places a high value on conversation, storytelling, and the exchange of intellectual ideas. Social media, then, was a natural marketing tool for a culinary pioneer like Wolfgang Puck.

Posted in Industry News, SiteLab Clients, SiteLab News & Events, Uncategorized | No Comments »

It’s been a very quick two weeks since I walked in through the door for my first day at SiteLab Interactive as the new Director of Business Development. My role here is to lead the team to new customer acquisition and account growth.  In these first two weeks I have seen the excellence that this company produces which assures me that I have joined a company committed to growth through delivering best of breed solutions with integrity and superior execution.

My career in technology started nearly 15 years ago writing code for the early wave of e-commerce websites for companies like Kingston Technology and Sony corp. As the infrastructure of the Internet was being expanded in the late 90’s my focus switched to hardware. Building storage networks for first wave of internet companies gave me a unique perspective on the requirements of running large systems serving millions of visitors per day.

In early 2002 I shifted focus from direct servicing of customers to leading and training teams to provide custom solutions. My teams created solutions from document capture and storage systems for the Church of Scientology to high performance post production video processing solutions for Technicolor. After building successful solution focused sales teams I had the unique opportunity for extended travel in 2006-07, visiting 32 countries on 5 continents. Upon returning I accepted a position as the Director of sales for the #1 OpenSource collaboration platform company, MindTouch, INC. During my time at MindTouch I led the company to two years of constant growth.

My specialties are:

• Building online communities – make your brand the destination
• Online Demand and Lead generation – real ROI for your web site
• Social CRM – engagement and automation throughout the sales cycle
• Marketing automation – communication tools and strategies to lower costs and increase conversions
• Social Media Strategy – engage, monitor and manage the conversations about your brand

Outside of all things Web related my personal passions are in food and travel. I cook, can, pickle, shop at farmers markets and eat at interesting restaurants as often as possible. I am always looking for new recommendations and am happy to share my favorites.

Feel free to connect with me on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Posted in Industry News, SiteLab News & Events | 1 Comment »

SiteLab.com will be launching anew in a few short weeks. This is the first in a series of posts aimed to educate and inform you of what we are doing and why. As you may know, choosing to redesign your Web site is no trivial affair, but represents a significant undertaking for any organization—a decision that can radically affect one’s online presence and their direct relationship with one’s online audience.  Potential risks of a redesign include introducing a different experience to users (who have inherent resistance to change), compromising one’s hard-earned search equity, and the very perception of your brand itself.

In fact, SiteLab has often advised our own clients not to engage in a full site redesign, but rather to consistently evolve and enhance key sections and user experiences over time  done so within the same basic graphical and navigational framework of their site.  Such an approach can prove to be less disruptive to users, and possibly more cost effective to accomplish.  However, there are situations when a full redesign is the right strategy, as was the case for SiteLab’s own Web site this year. There were several growing factors that pressed us to finally take action on a full redesign.

It began almost 2 ½ years ago when we launched an “interim” site.  As such, the content was very light, which didn’t adequately communicate our wealth of online services and history of client successes.   Unfortunately, just as the successful cobbler’s children often go without shoes, we constantly directed our attention to our clients’ sites and needs, sadly neglecting interim site month after month. Last year SiteLab acquired the full client list and numerous staff from Interactivate,  another local agency, bolstering our talent level and service offerings. We are immensely proud of both our staff and services but we realize neither was reflected on our existing site. With this and other internal factors we committed ourselves to tackle the full redesign.

To start, we soon assembled several strategic goals that have since guided our redesign efforts:

• Communicate effectively about the SiteLab brand to break the outdated perception of SiteLab.
• Educate visitors on our full line of services with highlights on emerging offerings such as mobile marketing and social media.
• Showcase our talent and “soul” of our organization by offering visitors a personal connection to our staff and the SiteLab brand.
• Be creative, you will find some flair and unexpected surprises to highlight our creativity and enrich the user experience.

We also practice what we preach to our clients. We have created a fresh, appealing design while still adhering to established Web conventions for the navigational framework maximizing the instant “comfort level” of arriving users. As search marketing professionals we’ve taken great care to retain and expand upon the SEO foundation of the existing site, avoiding the dangerous pitfalls that often threaten a company’s years of search equity when embarking on a site redesign.

After many long hours and fantastic work by our whole team, we’re nearing the finish line, only a few weeks from launching the new site live.  We’re terribly excited to share it with the world, and sincerely hope you will enjoy our new and improved site. We will be announcing the launch with Twitter and Facebook, please join us by friending and following to stay up to date.

Posted in Industry News, SiteLab Creative, SiteLab News & Events, Uncategorized | No Comments »

On Wednesday, June 16th Sitelabbers Rion Morgenstern (@rionSD), Matt Parisi and Jenn Barber (@jennichols) attended the 6th annual Interactive Day at San Diego’s Hilton Bayfront. The San Diego Ad Club set a new record for attendees (420) by nearly doubling last year’s attendance. The Ad Club’s outstanding planning and organization brought us thought leaders from Facebook and Google, marketing agencies, and media providers who led us though sessions and panel discussions workshops.

The sessions were very informative and tactical but it was in the main sessions that the strategic thinkers were heard from. The keynotes started off in the morning with Jack Myers of the M.E.D.I.Advisory Group and a call to innovate. The lunch time keynote was given by Paul Ollinger of Facebook who believes the future of the internet is defined by authenticity and relationships (provided Facebook can get the privacy thing figured out). In the wrap-up panel discussion, Brian Lynch, an Account Director from Yahoo! summed up the day by saying the future was Social, Mobile, Video; we think he is right on target. SiteLab has seen a strong uptick in new business and client requests for this kind of content. Most recently we launched a mobile site for Hass Avocado Board (Mobile Site) to help you select an avocado and our Social Strategy practice has had great success with Sunkist (Facebook).

Here are some highlights from our team:

Rion Morgenstern (Director of Business Development)

Highlight of the Day?

For me personally the highlight of the day was listening to Paul Ollinger, Regional VP of Sales at Facebook speak during the Luncheon Keynote “The Identity Web”. I believe in a strong community strategy and his vision fits right into that idea. Recap on the Interactive Day Facebook Page.

What did you learn?

According to Google, paid search (PPC) gets 14% of clicks on a result page with the balance (86%) going to the organic search results yet the allocated budget numbers are skewed. Last year $20 Billion was spent on PPC yet only $2 Billion was spent on SEO. This teaches us that customers wanting to get the most value from their online marketing budget need to look to an Organic strategy before blowing the bank on PPC.

Matt Parisi (Search Marketing Specialist)

Highlight of the day?

Rand Fishkin from seomoz.com was right on during his Advanced SEO session. He drove home the fact many people believe SEO to be about playing games and tricking search engines, when in reality it’s more about creating valuable content and ensuring it’s in position to be found. This is a belief that we have long held and used to benefit our clients.

What did you learn?

The session Google Analytics: “Must Know” Features (Google’s Joshua Knox) reaffirmed how important it is to stay on top of the new developments like the new Google Adwords Search Funnel Reporting. It is clear Google is working on ways to break down the “last click” mentality that exists in online marketing, where only the last click gets credit for a conversion/sale; also, measure and monitor the whole visitor/customer experience.

Jenn Barber (Interactive Media Strategist)

Highlight of the day?

I loved how Jack Myers, Founder of M.E.D.I.Advisory Group, started the day with a vision for 2020: It’s hard to motivate a crowd to think “innovation” at 8:30AM, but Jack did a great job by defining the issues that face each of us today as agencies, marketers, and media companies. Today, companies spend somewhere between 0 and 30% of their operating budget on innovation with most woefully falling below 5%. When asked why not more, companies answer that it’s all we can afford. Jack answers that to be around in the future, you can’t afford not to.

What did you learn?

How to answer a popular question from our clients: “How do we decide which marketing channels to invest in?” thanks to the Marketing Convergence-Are You Ready? session with Warren Raisch of Digitaria. Answer: Start with the most measurable medium first to more easily see and report early successes.

So what do you measure? You measure 3 things – your Brand (image and reputation), Direct (Lead generation and sales conversions), and Social Activity (Customer Engagement). Most importantly, measure from a holistic point of view and don’t just jump to conclusions.

The team came back from Interactive Day San Diego energized and informed. Moreover, we brought some great information to help our clients and new customers succeed online. If you are a Facebook member you can check out the recaps and notes from the day  on the Facebook event page. You can check out the twitter stream from the day by searching for #IDSD. In addition, SiteLab has put together a one pager that has key resources from the day as well. If you would like a copy, use the contact me form and put #IDSD in the address section and we will send it to you in an email.

Posted in Industry News, Mobile Marketing, Search Marketing Today, SiteLab News & Events | No Comments »