Search. Click. Find.

The Internet has changed a lot over the last ten years and, as a search marketer, I'd have to be blind not to notice how that has influenced searcher behavior. But what does that mean, exactly?

Well.. I'm a searcher, aren't I? So I got to thinking about my own search behavior and what direction I plan on taking my two eyeballs in 2012. Thus, the inspiration for my 2012 checklist.

Top 10 Things I Plan on searching for in 2012 (and where)

1. Stuff. I'm going to need stuff in 2012. I mean, I ALWAYS need stuff - shoes, clothes, new curtains for the living room because the ones I own are totally shot. Where will I start this search? Not Google! I'll start at Overstock.com where they have a nice selection of curtains and I can even customize my search results by length (I prefer 63" curtains because they look better on low windows than the more common 84" ones).
2. Stuff for my kids. I'm going to be honest here. I am an Amazon Prime member and I always start toy, video game and electronic related searches on Amazon. I don't always end there because hot toys (of the variety that make parents beat up other parents at Christmas time) tend to be triple the price on Amazon as, say, Toys R Us or Target - but the free 2-day shipping for Prime members is always a huge motivator for me to start there.
3. Music. And..speaking of Amazon - whenever I hear a song I like, or my kids beg me for a song they like - I start (and usually end) my search there. Why? Because I'm a dedicated Android head and LOVE the cloud player, plus I refuse to let my kids buy music on iTunes (they have ipods) because Apple's stranglehold on digital media annoys me.
4. News, and lots of it. Okay, here's where Google comes in. I've become addicted to popping by Google's News page a few times a day, browsing the headlines and occasionally even reading an article. But Google isn't where my news addiction stops. When I want highly sensationalized, sound-byte type stories, I have to say it's Yahoo News all the way! Oops, did I just admit that? Yes, yes I did. I've also been using an App called Pulse which is basically a very pretty news aggregator that works on all my (many) Android devices.
5. Crisis Information. That is, information on some sort of outage/crisis/real-time event that is effecting me. An example of this is the Earthquake that hit New York in August. About five minutes after my house stopped shaking I was on Facebook and Twitter searching for news about the earthquake. First, I wanted to see if anyone else experienced it (was it an explosion?) then, I wanted to find news about it. Facebook was a HUGE help here. The same goes for Hurricane Irene which devestated my area of New York - I turned to Facebook for information about what areas were getting power back, who needed the most help and where I could go for things like dry ice and batteries.
6. Work. At some point in 2012, I expect I'll be reaching out to my network and putting feelers out to see who needs me. I'm a freelancer, after all, I don't get paid unless I have active projects. Where will I go to find work? LinkedIn, Indeed.com and industry sites like Sempo.org and MediaPost. Where won't I look for work? Google.
7. Video. I don't subscribe to cable anymore. I have become such an uber geek that I get all my video content (I don't call it "TV" anymore) from Netflix (both streaming and DVDs), Hulu and YouTube. When I'm searching for something to watch, I generally start with Netflix and follow it up with Hulu. I have a Roku box and can watch anything from either of these sites on my TV. I can also rent movies from Amazon and watch it on TV using my Roku. When I want to watch short clips or I'm looking for something viral, then I generally start my video search on YouTube. [NOTE: I am fascinated with YouTube and have begun some test video campaigns which are getting really great results. YouTube gets 800 million visits per month! Per MONTH! And Google recently integrated YouTube video advertising with the Adwords interface so it's super easy to get up and running. I plan to do a separate post about this very soon.]
8. Directions. I have no sense of direction. I mean, zero. If it weren't for Google Maps and, to a lesser extent, Bing - I'd probably be a migrant cyclist living somewhere in Canada at the moment, weeping and trying to find my way home. But I digress. If you are running a local campaign, think about this - 97% of consumers search for local businesses online [juicy stat courtesy of Google.] And they're not just searching on their desktops - they're relying heavily on smartphones and tablets. Adwords offers several extensions that enhance your ads in the search results Maps sections - if you're not using them to help you stand out, you should be.
9. Phone numbers. I never look inside a phone book anymore. I search for phone numbers almost exclusively online or on my smartphone. A study by Harris Interactive, conducted in 2010, reported that nearly 70% of U.S. adults "rarely or never" use the phone book. Instead, the majority of them (60%) use the Internet to find contact information. More and more people are using their cell phones and computers to look up phone numbers too - think about this the next time a big honking Yellow Pages directory arrives at your door, only to be immediately thrown out.
10. Apps. I love apps. My kids love apps. I won an Android Tablet last year (thanks Google!) and it's become the go-to entertainment device for my family - we watch video on it, play lots of games and I occasionally even do some work. Thus, I am always searching for new apps. I also have an Android phone, so I do a lot of app searches directly in the Android market. My kids each have iPod touches, so they are forever searching for apps in the App Store. I think app development can be a great way to extend your reach beyond Google's search results page. Here's a great example - a couple of years ago I wanted an app to help me track calories eaten and burned, so I typed in "calorie counting" in the Android App store and found the perfect app called "Calorie Counter." I downloaded it and the app kept pushing me to a site called FatSecret which I had never heard of. I eventually checked out the site and registered so I could log my calories on both site and through my phone via the app. FatSecret had successfully used the App to promote their web site.
11. Information and Images. Here's where Google still rules. I still start my searches at Google when I'm hunting for information - whether it's to research a product I want to buy, or help my 10-year-old learn five facts about Ancient Egypt, I start with Google, then migrate onto Yahoo or Bing. I also use Google image search a lot - probably too much. I'm hoping that Google rolls out some sort of "promoted image" ad format soon because I suspect I'm not the only one doing lots of image searches here.

I have to run - lots to search for! Oh and Happy New Year!

What do you get when you marry search statistics with really cool graphics? THIS:

Here's a summary of what I find most interesting:

• 46% of searchers fall into the "give me exactly what I asked for category" - this speaks volumes for ensuring that your content is supremely relevant to the keywords you're bidding on. I also found it very interesting that one of the top categories for this is Entertainment. Does this mean people are looking for information about TV, music and other media? I really expected retail to be included here.
• A much larger percentage of the "give me exactly what I asked for" folks are higher income earners. What does this mean? They are all bossy and impatient?
• 86% of respondents like when brands stop overtly selling and instead try to teach something instead. Again, what does this mean specifically? Don't be so OBVIOUS! I'm talking to YOU 37 retail sites that have sent me nonstop holiday emails since October.
• Infographics that look cool can sometimes be confusing.

Thanks to Certified Knowledge for providing this very cool Infographic to lonely bloggers like me. I totally took the bait.

Words of advice. Words of experience. Heed them, or you will strangle your lovely PPC flower before it ever has a chance to bloom.

Your campaign is doomed from the start if...

1. Your daily budget is carved up into too many $8/day or $10/day campaigns. For the love of all that is holy, allocate more funds to fewer campaigns
2. You've loaded your geographically and budget-constrained campaign with hundreds of broad match negatives.
3. Your daily budget is too low relative to your daily bids. Are you in a competitive space where minimum bids are as high as $4, $5 or $6 even for your high quality terms? Then $25/day budgets are not high enough. Bid up, raise your budgets and prepare to spend more - or get out of the game because you're going nowhere.
4. You turn away from display targeting because "it hasn't worked in the past." It's true that display doesn't work for ALL advertisers, but it works for most. This isn't 2008 anymore - there is no "content" network - it's called DISPLAY these days. That means you can use banners and everything! Welcome to 2012.
5. You limit your geographic targeting to the extent that you are invisible to 99.9% of the people that exist in any given country. You know who you are. Live a little and widen your reach.
6. You have one landing page that looks like everyone else's in your space, and doesn't clearly compete with any of those people in any intelligible way. Spend time differentiating yourself. Stop using stock photos. Humanize your landing page and make it look like actual PEOPLE exist behind the curtain or your conversion rate will suck. It isn't Google's fault that you've bored, confused or otherwise not inspired people, it's yours. Fix it.
7. You avoid mobile because it frightens you. Get over it. Mobile is here to stay. Create a mobile-friendly landing page experience. Embrace phone numbers and call tracking. Separate your campaigns into cell phone and tablet only campaigns. There's so much you can do to at least TRY to make it work. Ignoring it, however, will ensure it doesn't.
8. You think there's a magic formula that all of us experts are keeping to ourselves. I have news for you - YOU are the expert in YOUR industry. I am the expert in mine. If you don't try the things I recommend, then don't be surprised if search fails you. Take ownership, it's not hard.

Okay, people, LET'S TALK TACTICS. Learn With Google happened nearly two weeks ago (and I'm still loving my Android tablet), and it's high time I recapped some of the great thing things I learned for the benefit of my ones of readers.

Ah Ha Moment #1: Test Conversion Optimizer On Display

Briefly, in case you don't know, Google's Conversion Optimizer is a setting that can be applied at the campaign level for any campaign that is eligible (any campaign that has hit 15 conversions within the last 30 days is eligible). Conversion optimizer switches off automatic or manual bidding and instead prompts to you to specify a maximum CPA for the campaign. Adwords will then automatically optimize the way Google shows your ads so that you are more likely to get conversions. So this Ah Ha moment is pretty simple - if you're not testing conversion optimizer on your display ad campaigns then you should be.

Oh, and if you haven't separated display from search, well then you need to do that first. We'll call that Ah Ha moment #1a.

Moving on...lots to discuss...

Ah-Ha Moment #2: Video is Hot

Google waxed poetic about video. We even got a few hot stats (source: Google):

• More Video is Uploaded to YouTube every 60 days than the top three broadcasters have produced in 60 years
• 85% of the US Online population has watched a YouTube video.
• 65% watch one video per week
• Online video ads received 18.3% more viewer attention than TV commercials (source: IPG Media Lab)

At one point the presenter actually said, "we're constantly blown away by the power of images." And I thought to myself, well, that's kind of an ironic statement because the rest of the world has known about the power of images since, I don't know, THE INVENTION OF CINEMA. However, as a search marketer (and writer of lots of words), I'm the first to admit that sometimes I forget there is an entire WORLD of advertising that extends beyond 90 character text ads. So what if you could marry Google's keyword targeting capabilities with kick-ass pictures that move? Turns out you can, it's called YouTube.

There are a few different ways you can promote yourself on YouTube. YouTube's Promoted Videos page explains how it works.

In a nutshell, you create an ad for YouTube which features a thumbnail of your video and tie that ad to keywords or categories, much like you do with regular search ads for Google.com. You then set your bid price and only pay when someone clicks to view the video. Google recommends creating a YouTube branded channel where you can drive visitors (or you can drive them directly to a specific video with or without a channel). Of course, you're going to need at least one video on YouTube, so if you don't have any video, get cracking!

Ah-Ha Moment #3: Mobile is Hotter

Google was really, REALLY excited about mobile. We got some more stats on this channel, as follows:

• 77% of smartphone users call or visit a business after looking for local info on their phones
• 71% of smartphone users search because they saw an ad
• 33% of smartphone users use their phone while watching TV (ahem: GUILTY)
• 53% of smartphone users on average made a purchase as a result of a mobile search
• 70% of smartphone users, use their phone while shopping in-store

So, what does Google recommend in order to capitalize on the explosive growth in mobile usage? A few things, as follows...

• Break out mobile into separate campaigns and this includes separating tablet targeting from mobile phone targeting. This could give you an advantage over ad visibility and CPC, since not a lot of people are doing that at the moment (I think it was something like 5% of all Adwords advertisers). This gives you more flexibility with writing ad copy as well as where you send people.
• Use call extensions in your ads, particularly if you are a local business that gets a lot of leads over the phone. Call extensions enable you to add your business phone and address to your ads, and Google will include the info based on the device a searcher is using. Here's more info from Google on how to set up call extensions including the ability to utilize a Google Voice number for call tracking.

  Lightening Round
  And here, in no particular order, are some more things to try and/or consider.

  • Since mobile usage is growing so much, it's important to check out your web site on various mobile devices. Look at it on your phone, your tablet, your child's ipod touch...whatever. Are you providing mobile users a good experience? If not, it may be time to invest in a mobile site.
  • While mobile is on your mind, take a look at your web analytics to see what percentage of traffic is coming from mobile devices. This could be particularly eye opening if a mobile strategy isn't on the radar.
  • Take some time to look around and see what other people are doing via Google's ThinkInsights tool. Get some coffee first.
  • Build a mobile landing page for your local business via Google Sites.
  • Add the Google +1 button to your landing page

  And there you have it. I guess it doesn't seem like a lot of stuff, unless you consider you now need to run off and build yourself a mobile site, a YouTube Brand Channel and film a bunch of videos.

  Key takeaway: search marketing is more than just text ads!

Yesterday I attended a "Learn with Google" event in Miami and boy howdy did I come away with a lot of ideas to implement and test. I also learned how the other half lives. You know, the half with dedicated reps who love them and pay attention to them.

ASIDE: I'm beginning to feel a bit like a Google stalker here. PAY ATTENTION TO ME. Love Me. LOVE MEEEE!

So, as it happens, one of my clients was (mysteriously) assigned a Google team on his account which is actually what prompted my rant about all clients needing better customer service. When you have a dedicated Google team (this goes beyond just a rep - it's an actual TEAM of Googlers who shower attention and love onto your account), you get invited to events like Learn with Google in Miami - which was essentially a four hour training seminar followed by dedicated 20 minute sessions with Google optimizers. It was extremely informative and I can honestly say that I came away with a TON of really good advice from a lot of really smart Google employees. Oh, and did I mention that I won a brand new Android Tablet? Well, I did and awesome doesn't begin to describe how awesome it is. NEW TOY, NEW TOY, I GOT A NEW TOY!!

But I digress, now onto the good stuff...

Payton Dobbs, the Manager of Online Sales at Google opened the sessions with a reminder to focus on five key components of marketing, all starting with the letter C. Competitors, Consumers, Company, Collaborators, Context. I got the order all mixed up here because I was taking notes using very outdated technology - namely, a pen and a notebook. What that means, in a nutshell, is that it's important to look at the entire ecosystem of your online presence when building and/or optimizing your PPC campaign and not just the campaign itself. I think this is a really important point. We often get really focused on managing quality score and keywords and bids or we obsess about certain metrics like CTR or impression share or ad position. Yes, all of these things are important, but if you're trying to move the needle on conversions (and, really, that should be your key focus) then you HAVE to know what's going on around you, and figure out how you fit into the picture yourself.

Luckily Google provides a whole host of (free) tools to help with that. Some of them I knew about and already use, but some were new to me and I can't wait to start playing with them:

Insights for Search Is a great tool for identifying keyword trends and tracking search behavior. It enables you to track volume trends on keywords you input over various regions and time periods. You can also compare keywords against each other. It's very handy for predicting how to allocate your budget if your business is event-driven or has volume shifts based on the season (e.g., holiday shopping, vacation planning). You may be surprised at what you learn.

Google's Ad Planner is in the category of tools that I haven't really spent any time with, but really, really want to. The tool used to be owned by Doubleclick and helps to identify web sites where your target audience is most likely to visit. It's a great way to uncover sites that you can then test ads on within Google's display network, but I imagine it could also give you lots of good keyword ideas when building out your keyword targeting strategy since it shows what kind of content your target audience is interested in reading.

The Keyword Tool is my favorite toy to play with during the keyword discovery phase of planning. If you've never tried it, then you really should. It gives you estimated keyword volumes for the terms you input, as the level of competition (this is pretty nonspecific, e.g., low, medium or high). The best thing about this tool is that it lists all the long-tail or "stemmed" terms that people actually search on which are related to your term. There really is no substitute for this tool when it comes to keyword discovery and expansion. You can also enter a URL to find out keywords related to the content on your site - but I've found this can be inaccurate and generally unhelpful.

YouTube Insights - If you run video campaigns or have videos that get some decent traffic on YouTube, you can take a deep dive into the behavior of your viewers with data that includes where they came from, what parts of the video are most interesting to them and even demographic info. These stats are available for all videos - just log into your YouTube account and select the "Insight" drop down beside your video. Since I don't have any clients who are doing video promotion right now, I'm not ready for this tool - although experimenting more with video is on my list of "we've really got to test this tactic now" recommendations thanks to yesterday's seminar.

The YouTube Trends Dashboard is completely new to me. It shows video trends based on demographics you input into the tool. So, for example, if I'm interested in seeing what women aged 25-34 in Dallas are watching on YouTube, well, I can do that. This could be kind of interesting, but I wonder if the promoted videos end up being the most popular not because they ARE the most popular, but because they are promoted.

Wow, so this is way longer than I intended it to be and I haven't even gotten to the sessions yet - this was just the intro portion of the day. I'll try to summarize the key learnings from yesterday's seminar in a more concise post on Monday. Until then, I'm off to play with my new Android tablet. Ta!