March 26, 2008 | Wednesday

Marketing Digital Report: Search - Keep your eye on the prize

If you have ever seen a search marketing presentation, the chances are it included the famous ‘heat map’, which shows where eyeballs typically focus when looking at a search results page.

You probably know the one - the red cloud at the top left of the screen showing where you’re getting the most attention from and, if you get the content right, it will show that the majority of clicks will be on the first three or so listings; mainly natural, some paid. Well, the landscape is now changing. A new Enquiro Research heat map illustrates how life just got a lot more complicated. Now with blended search - most pertinently Google Universal, where images, videos, news, blogs, maps and so on appear in the listings - the eyeballs are attracted to other areas of the screen on all search engines. Simply put, an image used on position number four, for example, grabs more attention than the top three listings. It may seem minor, but it has far-reaching effects.

You can’t afford just to optimise your site; you need to distribute your content across the web. Go social with video optimisation, local listings and product placement (such as on Google base) as well as a good blog and news coverage.

What’s more, with the results changing far more rapidly, and the risks of negative customer and media sentiment rising, the need to have a reputation-management strategy aligned to search is critical.

The potential for even bigger returns from integrating blended results with paid search is clear. Before blended search, Hitwise reported a 51% improvement in clicks with paid and natural search working together. Could that rise still further?

The same applies to the 22% improvement in conversions when search and online display are aligned, as reported by Atlas. The effectiveness of paid search is also being boosted by the increased ability to target demographically and geographically.

At the heart of all this is the increasing relevance of analytics. The days of ‘last click gets all the return on investment’ are numbered. Improved understanding of user journeys and better multivariate testing
of landing pages are all contributing to the expectation that online advertising spend, spearheaded by search, will overtake TV ad revenues this year or next.

Whether it does or not, one thing is clear - the enduring need to keep your (tracked) eye on what’s happening in search.

Matt Brocklehurst, Head of Marketing, Latitude Group, Marketing, 26th March 2008