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Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today, through the eyes of the Search Engine Roundtable and other search forums on the web….

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Daily Search Forum Recap: March 9, 2010

Jay Yarow / Silicon Alley Insider : February Search Results Are In: Bing Is Up Again, Yahoo Is Down Again (MSFT, YHOO)

Paul Bonanos / GigaOM : Apple’s iTunes LP 6 Months Later: LP What?

“… “Show options” toggle and noticed a whole slew of geographic options that were new to me, including “nearby” and others, too. Apparently it all depends on what “default location” Google has recorded for your computer.”

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Geographic Refinements added to Google Search Options

Has it ever occurred to you that you may have keywords on your site that are misleading to search engines? Or that you need to take a look at all of the keywords you are trying to rank for, and think about the different meanings and contexts that those could be taken in that are unrelated to your actual product, and then eliminate other seemingly unrelated words that to a search engine could be misconstrued as an indication of one of those other contexts? At SMX West last week, WebProNews sat down with Bruce Clay of Internet Marketing firm Bruce Clay, Inc . who made some interesting points about understanding searcher behavior, intent-based search, and how that should affect keyword research. Note: We talked to Bruce about quite a few search-related topics, but this subject is focused on more toward the end of the video (about 20 minutes in). Clay talks about Google delivering more personalization in search results, taking into consideration things like how prior queries influence future queries. “Ranking is going to be less of a measurement,” he says. “We’re going to be focused on more the traffic.” “When I decide I’m selling a hammer, I have to actively go out of my way not to have certain things appear in my site, because the search engines could be confused about what I’m talking about….I don’t mean the Armand Hammer Art Museum at UCLA. I don’t mean a bowling ball…you know, the things that show up for hammer are all over the board,” says Clay. “One of the things that I think is important, and that we’ve been working on is how do we actually do keyword research without knowing the behavioral aspects our personas that are actually going for our product? You have to understand personas now a little bit better - what kinds of things are they likely to search on, in sequence - before they type in hammer…so if they’re on an arts and crafts site, and then they type in hammer, I ought to understand that behavior in sequence, so that I can better do my keyword research and determine how I’m gonna put the words on my page. I don’t see a lot of people even thinking that way.” Personalized search is nothing new. Google’s been personalizing search results for some time, based on various indicators, and it appears that Google is looking for more ways to deliver users a personalized experience ( whether they want that or not ). Between personalized search and other sources of information infiltrating search results pages, traditional SEO is becoming harder to accomplish, and Bruce says, even ineffective. That’s why it may become increasingly important to focus on relevant elements of the SERP for queries you hope to be found for.

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Examine Your Site’s Text, Reduce Chances of Search Engine Confusion

According to comScore Video Metrix , nearly 173 million U.S. Internet users watched 32.4 billion videos in January 2010. Do the math and you’ll discover that viewers watched an average of 187 videos per viewer during the month. Click to read the rest of this post…

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173 million U.S. Internet users watched 32.4 billion videos in January

Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today, through the eyes of the Search Engine Roundtable and other search forums on the web….

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Daily Search Forum Recap: March 8, 2010

Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today, through the eyes of the Search Engine Roundtable and other search forums on the web….

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Daily Search Forum Recap: March 5, 2010

Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today, through the eyes of the Search Engine Roundtable and other search forums on the web….

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Daily Search Forum Recap: March 4, 2010

Moderator: Misty Locke , President, Range Online Media & Chief Strategy Officer, iProspect, Range Online Media / iProspect Speakers: Nadir Hussain , COO, Media Flint, Inc. Leigh McMillan , SVP, Marchex Voicestar, Marchex Wister Walcott , co-founder and VP of Products, Marin Software Vivian Yang , Senior Manager, Global Direct to Consumer Marketing, Electronic Arts, Inc. The room is pretty sparse because Ask the Search Engines is happening in the large hall. I know there’s great coverage of that happening so I decided to give readers an alternative with the Analytics & Conversion Track. Misty explains that Yahoo! did a study in 2007 called ROBO (research online, buy offline) that attempted to quantify “the impact of search marketing and display advertising on consumer shopping behavior and the in-store sales of major retailers.” Misty: Why aren’t we looking at direct ROI from online efforts toward offline sales? Wister: It’s complicated and not everyone’s in a position to observe that interaction. Direct response marketers aren’t going to want to spend when they don’t see the direct ROI. And the person that hired that person is trusting them to make the decisions because they don’t know search. The marketer is on the one hand being held to their results, and on the other hand may know there’s something more there. Vivian: The biggest question the ROBO study is trying to solve is, search engines are always asking for a big share of a marketer’s budget, but even though 87 percent of people are spending time online, e-commerce only is a single digit of sales. If I only generate a single-digit of sales, then I’ll only get a single digit piece of the budget pie. There’s a question of why people spend so much time online and contribute to a small portion of sales. We need to understand the consumer’s behavior. From awareness to excitement to eventually closing the deal, it’s a long process and each touch point has a different measurement associated with it. Misty: Where should I start? Nadir: Start with search and add in display as well. They point to be able to track

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Measuring How Search Ads Drive Offline Conversions