What surprised me most about Search Engine Advertising is that it requires significant ongoing investment in content marketing and as a result of intense competition, complexity and changes to ranking algorithm. Investment won’t necessarily guarantee returns and top three position in results needed for volume. Advertisers can place bids on keywords they would like to show their Ads for, bids can be set to a maximum. Bidding on high amounts won’t necessarily mean that you are likely to show up in googles top searches in their organic listings. They use an algorithm that is not disclosed to anyone else due to the fact that it could ruin and alter the current user experience. Companies are paying as high as $935.71 per click. Google uses a random algorithm which doesn’t necessarily mean that this company will come up in people’s organic listings. This shocked me because this is such a large amount of money to paid out for a random selection process to show up in someone’s search. 

Having only a minimal knowledge of the inner workings of SEA prior to this lecture, what surprised me was the alternative auction system that Google uses to bid on keywords. 

 

Having initially thought that Google used a simple highest bidder system for key words it interested me as to the reason why Google use this alternative bidding system. The reasoning for this system and the benefits associated with it differ for each stakeholder but in general create possible win-win scenarios for all involved. 

 

In Google’s opinion it improves the user experience and avoids spamming of the search ads fields. It also has the hidden benefit of keeping bidders honest and encouraging them to set their ‘actual’ max bid rather than a strategic bid to disrupt competitors. Google’s priority when it comes to algorithms is consistency and stability and with this 2^nd bid +1 cent system it creates a system where it would be unwise to bid more than you’re capable of, creating a highly stable market. 

 

In advertisers eyes their opinion differs whether you are a large or small user. This is due entirely to the quality score system which can create a sense of inertia based off historical spend. Large super advertisers can aid poor relevance scores with high historical spend, while small advertisers may be very relevant but struggle with their historical trend scores dragging on their quality scores. 

 

Overall I think what surprised me the most was the fact that some Google have created a bidding system that in theory can benefit each stakeholder and improve the user experience. However, in practice this system only guarantees the interest of Google completely by keeping both user experience and search revenues as the key goals. 

Something I was surprised about was the position of your online advertisement doesn’t primarily depend on the bidding. The quality of various aspects of what your advertisement such as the landing page is what I found out to be crucial for success online. Website maintenance must be maintained consistently so that your ads are seen to your target market. 

The thing that most surprised me about SEA is the need for constant upkeep of the advertisements. This surprised me as in traditional advertising once a campaign is launched it is monitored but not changed. In SEA you are constantly updating and changing your advertisement to optimise clicks and more importantly conversions. I feel that this is a much more beneficial way to advertise as you are more likely to be successful and achieve more conversions. I feel the constant monitoring of these campaigns (a couple of times a day in the first few days ) is a lot but will be a great benefit to the SEA campaign

What interested me most was the significant interest in bids based on misspellings. Adwords already implements systems to include close variations and misspellings to the keywords you submit but there still seems to be a substantial interest in bidding on misspellings for firms. Clearly more severe misspellings are very common and firms can benefit from misspellings of their targeted keywords. Could this be a indication of urgency, carelessness or knowledge from the user that means they know their search will still lead to relevant sources. Hurried typing is increasingly common as users want the information instantly and it is only natural to recognise typos as they affect your impressions and conversions.

Something I was surprised about was the position of your online advertisement doesn’t primarily depend on the bidding. The quality of various aspects of what your advertisement such as the landing page is what I found out to be crucial for success online. Website maintenance must be maintained consistently so that your ads are seen to your target market. 

Our discussion today allowed me to learn much more about SEA, as I did not realize the way google ads worked. I knew google made money from clicks but I did not realize companies made money with conversions. I was very surprised with Amazon and would never have thought of the company with searches and a high volume of searches or organic searches. Amazon is a company that I believe has taken over and become very successful, now with the high volume of searches Amazon will thrive with their ads now. 

What I was surprised most about with SEA was the cost per click (CPC) that businesses must pay. The quality score and bidding process was something I never considered when using google ads. Another aspect which surprised me was the keywords in search for example by using singular amounts in your promotion such as using ‘hotel in Dublin’ instead of ‘hotels in Dublin’. The statistics shocked me for this as there was double the amount of clicks on the singular search. 
Split testing was also another aspect which made me think such as using your most productive ad as the control and using an alternative ad to compete against that ad for clicks making your advertising more competitive

What surprised me most regarding SEA is basically when considering search as a marketplace for companies to sell their product. I am surprised at how unbelievably competitive and while there are many techniques to ensure that your product makes it to the desired target market, success regarding SEA ultimately comes down to one thing; capital. To be successful, it seems to me that paid for listings are necessary for success. While organic listings are cheap and are perceived as a mark of quality, it does not really matter if the consumer cannot find the site. 

 

What I found most interesting about Search Engine Advertisements is how different advertiser will use many different ways to try and get the most customers, this includes the use of keywords and how small things such as making a word plural can affect the number of visits your web page gets. 

The volume of different search engines and how the top can be different in other countries also surprised me and how not using the top search engine such as google, can still be a great way to get clicks per view, as it may be better value. 
Having less click but more sales is a key factor for most search engines.

 

I think that the combination of all of the Quality Score metrics (although it is up in the air about how the ultimately decide the QS) is good overall because it means that a poor site with deep pockets won’t clutter up the search engine homepage. 

It does give smaller sites a better chance if they are well designed and great looking and optimized for SEO. 

I wasn’t really surprised that google as default, optimizes for clicks as that’s how they make their money, but I was under the impression you can set your goal for the campaign as conversions. 

As SEA is constantly evolving, it is expected that what is true today is often not true tomorrow. However, there were a number of items during the lecture which were surprising. 

The biggest thing that surprised me about search engine advertising is that users are 80% less likely to click paid advertising links than organic content. This adds doubt to what seemed like an obvious investment in search engine advertising for businesses. 

 

Given its costliness, I would have assumed SEA was a more reliable form of advertising but today’s discussion has showed us how much work it really does require. However, reviewing my own search use now I do agree that I am more likely to click organic listings. In fact, in further review I have began to recognise that a lot of ads try to make themselves look like organic content to indeed avoid this off putting aspect. However, I believe in the next few years as Google decides to make more and more revenue from advertising, we may become more tolerant to SEA as the majority of businesses begin to optimise it.  

I found it interesting that when bidding for keywords, the cost ends up being lower than the price you are willing to pay for the word due to the way the bidding system is set up. I feel this is smart because this way bidding isn’t about the competition, like eBay, but more realistic and practical. I found it surprising that click rate is actually much more important for Google than for the company, what the company really cares about is the conversion rate i.e. how many people of those who clicked through ended up purchasing. I will also remember forever that you shouldn’t ever write “Click here” in your ads. 

Also the amount of money that is involved in this aspect of marketing is immense and could really make a difference to a company. I didn’t realise that most of Google’s revenue is surrounding SEO and SEA, billions of dollars is allocated to this type of marketing and the figure is a lot higher than I thought. 

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What surprised me about search engines?

Due to not knowing a whole lot about search engines many things surprised me at today’s lecture. 

One of the biggest things was the time lag in search optimisation. Given how fast google is I was extremely surprised that there is a time lag after optimising your website. 

I think that many difficulties can arise because of this and a lot of time needs to be invested into the ad campaign.  

More than that there is no guarantee that your optimisation works. I think that sometimes if the time lag is too long even though the  search optimization might have actually worked, people running the campaign had no knowledge of it. Therefore, changing the website again. Which can then lead to a fall in rankings. This can cause a lot of confusion during the campaign. 

Another surprising thing is that you can't just pay to be the first ad in the search results. I was surprised at the google algorithm and even though it's quite unpredictable I like that it is set up in a way to boost user experience instead of handing the first spot to the highest bidder.  

 

However when looking at quality of links, I would tell my client to be weary of link farms (set of web pages created with the sole aim of linking to a target page, to improve that pages search engine ranking) which are a negative impact of quality of links. 

Sean Lundberg (18434076)

 

To make sure you use the best long-tail search rankings they will need to find keywords that pay off for you, start by thinking about their business. That will help you reach searchers who need what you’re selling.

Identify Your Target Keywords

As the Internet is worldwide, anyone who has access to the internet can find sites from all around the world. Therefore, as a business, you want to attract visitors to your site rather than other websites around the world. In my opinion, identifying the right keywords will determine whether or not the search optimization efforts will succeed or not. The keywords need to rrlate directly to your business. Many businesses make the mistake of spending too much money on keywords that aren’t “buyer” keywords, which results in useless traffic to the site.

It is optimal to target keywords that your target customers are likely to use when searching for the product or service that you offer. For example, if you have an optician business based in Dublin, I would not recommend that you target general keywords such as “optician”. This is because it will be attract visitors from all over the world. Instead, you should target a more precise keywords such as “Dublin opticians” or “Opticians in Dublin”.