Yahoo is making some big announcements today. They are expanding the idea that search should not just be isolated to searching websites.
They have a project code named “Search Monkey”. (Cute name.) The basic idea is that developers can provide Yahoo content that is more specific to queries.
One example is LinkedIn. Imagine doing a search on a person’s name and getting some quality information specifically about the person, not just a list of pages that mention that person.
To see it in action, TechCrunch provided this image…
The other day I mentioned that Google was showing a new kind of ad. This was showing up above the sponsored listings and even included video from YouTube.
Now I just noticed that Yahoo is doing something similar. Type “Special K” into Yahoo (or click here) and you will see a new sponsored shortcut. It’s something they are experimenting with.
Interestingly, Yahoo’s ad is not necessarily identified as sponsored, which is against FTC rulings. However, they are mentioning that it may be sponsored on the page that explains shortcuts.
Interesting. All these search engines want money just like anyone else, I guess. I suppose they will always try to find ways to make more while still keeping their users relatively content.
My friend Ty has had some nice blog post on his experience Converting Google Campaigns to Yahoo Search Marketing. I didn’t even know this was possible. I recommend checking it out if you have a good Google AdWords campaign and want to start showing up on Yahoo Search Marketing without putting the work into creating a whole new campaign from scratch.
They will start ranking your ad based on both bid price and “Ad Quality” which involves (in their own words):
Its historical performance—the ad’s click-through rate relative to its position in search results
Its expected performance—determined by various relevance factors considered by Yahoo!’s ranking algorithms, relative to other ads displayed at the same time
So what can you do to take advantage of this?
To start, let’s take a look at the two points listed above.
1. Historical performance: Not much to say here. It will probably be determined primarily by your click through rate (relative to your position).
2. Expected performance: What does this mean? How can Yahoo “expect” how well your ad will perform? It will probably be primarily based on how well your ad text and landing page match up to the keyword you are bidding on.
Given this, how do we take advantage of the new ranking? Here are some ideas…
1. IMPROVE YOUR ADS – Similar to Google AdWords, you should try A/B testing your ads to see which perform better. The more your ad gets clicked on, the less you have to pay for better position.
2. LANDING PAGES – Try using the keyword phrase you are bidding on in your title tag and page headings of the landing page you send them to. This improves the user experience (continuity) and is likely what will drive up your “expected performance” with Yahoo.
3. FORGET BID MONITORING – If you have been using third-party software to monitor your bids and keep them one penny over your competitor or anything like that, forget it. They’ve never worked well for AdWords, and they won’t work well here.
4. BID HIGH EARLY – I also think that securing a top position for your best performing keywords right at or around February 5 will likely lead to locking down a good CTR and therefore enable you to lower your price and keep that good position. (This one is more of a theory. But we’ll be trying it.)
In conclusion…
Many of us have been taking advantage of Yahoo’s dumb way of ranking ads purely by bid price for quite some time now. Those days are over as of February 5. What will now win the war is more granular targeting.
In other words…
Choose good keyword phrases.
Write your search engine ad specifically for your keyword phrases.
Send them to a landing page specifically for that ad.
Convert them from that landing page.
Truthfully, this is the way good paid search engine marketing should work. It’s better for the user. Yahoo is now rewarding this way of working.
As you know, this is a lot of work. Therefore, the new challenge will be determining which keywords bring the results that truly make this work worth your time and energy.
Last week, Yahoo announced that the new method of ranking their paid advertising will begin as of February 5. According to their blog, the ranking will be determined by two factors…
1. Bid Price
2. “Ad Quality”
Sound familiar? At first glance, it looks like (more…)
