If there weren’t enough search engines to try and keep up with, there is now one more to try out- BLEKKO. Digitaltrends.com is reporting that this new search engine is certainly unique compared to the others out there. Do you ever search for something on Google and a bunch of unrelated/unimportant websites appear in your search results? I know I have and now this new search engine is promising that this sort of thing is not going to happen when you perform your searches. Using “slashtags” is what is being said will differentiate Blekko from the other search engine’s search results. These slashtags will help to improve results in the initial search categories: health, colleges, autos, personal finance, lyrics, recipes and hotels. For example, you should be able to search amongst the millions of websites and be able to pull up sites that are not spam or unrelated websites. Blekko is currently in beta mode, but try it out. Looks like something totally different than Google!

We all turn to the search engines to help us locate information, however did you know that the most popular search is one-word searches? Hitwise is reporting that 24.13% of the searches in November were people only using one word. Interesting enough, eight-word keyword searches had the biggest increase last month, however it only made up a little less than 4% of the searches. This sort of data is something that SEO/SEM experts should pay attention to for their campaigns.
This information is also really important to study if you want to optimize your website. Leadpile publishers should pay attention to articles such as this one if they are trying to understand what consumers are doing when searching the internet.

Two of the most popular search engines have both released a new and innovative way to look at your search results . Bing.com and Google.com just introduced “visual search”. Visual search is going to allow the users to select search images rather then typing in key words.
The visual search lets users sort through popular search categories by using pictures. Yet Google’s new Fast Flip will show thumbnails of pages when searching for news stories, instead of the short descriptions and headlines the company usually provides.
With this new and unique way of searching topics and articles it is sure to bring more web traffic to both of these sites. People are always looking to check out new ideas, and this is definitely a fun new way to utilize both Bing and Google!

Keeping up with the fast pace of the Internet advertising world is a challenge for anyone let alone a huge conglomerate such as Google. Google, which is constantly under a close eye by many in the online-marketplace for changing trends and new directions to follow is once again advancing in ways to attract consumers.
According to MediaPostNEWS Google has been advancing the advertising opportunities offered in many ways such as upgrades to its search engine, mobile, Adwords and AdSense platforms. Google has recently also re-vamped the placement of text ads making the over all look of the search page cleaner with less gaps improving the search experience.
Good news for Google investors is the hope that improvement in analytics and the Web site optimizer will prove to increase consumer spend by tracking traffic patterns and pin-pointing sites that attract high volumes of visitors. I mean really does this mean anything to the internet world, or is this something that they SHOULD be doing to stay in competition with the other search engines? Hopefully this sets the precedence that you have to continue to improve what you have and not take advantage of the fact that you are #1. Really Google could just sit in the first place of search engine use, and not look internally to improve, but instead they are being proactive to always look at ways to enhance what they have.

Google announced today that they have been working on a faster search engine.  Never a company to stand pat, this latest effort is hoping to improve results for developers and power searchers.  You can try the new search engine here. The project is called “Caffeine” and is hoping to improve speed, accuracy, and comprehensiveness.  It may also be an effort to search parts of the Web that have not normally been accessed.  As with many things Google, stay tuned…

Several years ago, how many of you were like me wondering what a “blog” was?? It is almost funny now for me to hear someone say…. What is a “blog”???? At this point in time, it is hard to understand how people can not at least recognize the word “blog”, with as much press that a lot of these celebrity bloggers get. Blogs have now become something for all of us to express ideas, and specifically for Leadpile the blog helps us to convey information going on in the lead generation industry. No matter what your purpose is for blogging, understand it is a great thing that evolved into something that is key to any company’s web presence.
Time.com states that blogs have been around for 15 years, however for many of us this is something that just came around. In the early stages of blogging there were a lot of at home moms that had taken up blogging as a way to supplement their income. Working with various companies and their products or services, at home moms were able to write influential information promoting these products for others to try them out. This was, and still is, a win win situation for both the at home mom who wants to be around their children, and the company that is getting their product talked about on the internet. So what could be next for blogs?
Leadpile Lead Exchange likes what can be conveyed through our blog to our readers. If your company is not utilizing a blog, then I would suggest incorporating one immediately. Besides being able to convey industry news to our advertisers and publishers, the blog allows us to have “fresh” content on our website on a regular basis. This is something that is very important to the search engines and generating that much desired traffic we are all looking for. So it seems there is really a lot of benefits with blogging, besides just a great place to say what you did last weekend. There are all levels of blogging, and it is certainly fit for just about anyone that wants to express any ideas- small or BIG! If you are lucky, you could even be a recipient of an award for having the best blog (Time Magazine has yearly awards). Got BLOG???????

Effective June 3rd, Microsoft’s Live Search will be replaced by Bing.

Microsoft describes Bing as the new “decision engine”. Being that Google dominates about 3/4 of the search engine world, Microsoft is hoping to get a bigger piece of the pie with Bing. Bing will emphasize categorization and depth in search results in an attempt to compete with Google for market share in addition to ad dollars. Looking at Bing it looks a lot like Google, but when searching it tends to bring up a little more in depth information. Will the Leadpile publishers and affiliate marketers utilize this new search engine to generate traffic/leads?

The longer the internet has been around, the more people become “internet savvy” with finding exactly what it is they are looking for.  According to DMNews, generally consumers would conduct searches with one, two or three words. However, queries with four to eight words are becoming more and more popular. Consumers are getting smarter on knowing they would want a more specific search result, therefore entering in more words is providing them more specific results to choose from. In previous years, consumers would enter in a brand they were looking for and then have to navigate through the site for the information they were looking for. Because of this, experts state that brands need to have some sort of way to extract that traffic by having things such as a frequently asked questions (FAQ) page and blogs. This would allow that brand’s site still to come up in the consumer’s search results. Leadpile Lead Exchange also understands this, therefore we are always looking for ways to optimize the traffic of those that are looking to purchase or sell internet leads. How is your site? Are you optimizing it effectively to get the most out of the search engines traffic?

I know it is tough going for many people and companies right now.  So, I am writing about the major search engines.  Let’s take roll call… Yahoo are you here?  Good.  How about you Ask.com?  Ok…maybe a little louder next time.  Google, I’m sure you are here… of course you are, you are everywhere.  Lastly, MSN are you out there?  Ok, everyone is accounted for. 

Now, let’s have everyone who increased their market share during this tough year take one step forward.  Ok, anybody else?   If anyone lost market share, please sit down.  Well, as you may have guessed there is only one search engine standing.  Times are tough, but there is only one company weathering the storm, and their dominance is growing.

In February, over 72% of all search queries were done on Google.  An 8% increase from a year ago.  The other three major players (can we call them major anymore?) accounted for over 26% of search activity.  Yahoo accounted for 17% of the search activity (down 17% from a year ago) and isn’t really trying anymore.  Ask.com is also shrinking (down 10%) with little effort to improve.  MSN (down 20%) is at least trying, and may still acquire Yahoo to a form a decent second option to Google.

When we assemble this same group a year from now, will Google have over 80% of the search market?  Don’t bet against it.

According to Hitwise.com, in the last month of 2008 Google accounted for 72.07% of US searches. I know, this is no surprise, but the part that caught my eye was what categories people were searching.

This article breaks down the subject matters that consumers searched for on Google, and I was a little surprised financial related searches were so far down on the list.

Of the people who searched on GOOGLE, here is what categories they searched:

Health and Medical   44.45%

Travel  36.24%

Shopping and Classifieds  25.81%

News and Media  20.54%

Entertainment  24.83%

Business and Finance  19.19%

Sports  13.33%

Online Video  33.69%

Social Networking 17.87%

Leadpile Lead Exchange deals a lot with financial lead types so this is a little surprising to me.  People searching for a payday loan, new car, debt help and other finanicial assistance I would have thought would have more people looking versus the “travel”?  Are people traveling these days and trying to find deals still?  Maybe it is time to promote our vacation offer.

DMNews offers some helpful suggestions on maintaining your pay per click campaign (PPC) on a strict budget.
1.  Distribute your efforts- Utilize all search engines for advertising, not just Google
2.  Use Negative keywords
4.  Choose when your ads are “live” wisely
5.  Geo target
6.  Analyze your reports regularly

When starting out not everyone has all the knowledge and money to do advertising effectively.  Therefore, researching and trying to listen to other expert’s advice is probably the best way to roll out a new PPC campaign.  Many publishers I deal with at Leadpile Lead Exchange have an ability to have a large ROI, but not if they are not running their PPC campaign effectively.  No matter what network you are doing lead generation in, utilize the search engines reporting AND your affiliate manager to help you fine turn the pay per click campaign.  REMEMBER:  A successfull PPC is also beneficial to the network you are doing lead generation with.  Therfore, it is in the best interest of both sides to make the PPC campaign work effectively.

Ever wonder what search engine terms are used the most? I know I do, and search terms also tell a little bit about what is going on in the world around us. According to dmconfidential, eBay gets the award for the top terms (eBay and eBay.com)in the month of August. People trying to find bargains, or sell items they have I would say is partially responsible for this. Home depot was the next highest term used, followed by mapquest. The shopping/office supplies category received 43.15% of all paid search traffic. The fortunate thing is that this is an 8% increase from July’s 39.81%. Maybe people are staying home and doing more of their shopping online to try and get the best deal, without driving store to store. Business telecommunications and pharmaceutical & medical traffic was slightly up. However, travel and business/legal traffic was down for the month of August.
Another interesting fact, yet not surprising, is that Google accounted for 71% of all US searches in the month of August. In a distant second place was Yahoo with 18.26% followed by MSN (5.32%) and Ask (3.45%).
To truly be effective with lead generation, knowing this kind of information and detailed information about the verticals you are promoting is key to being successful. For instance, someone who is doing PPC for payday loan will loose a lot of money if they are not first aware of everything there is to know about payday loans, and also if they do not understand search engines.
Here at Leadpile, I am going to do everything I can to help publishers know what buyers are maybe looking for in a particular lead type. This helps with how the traffic is driven to the website and ultimately helps with conversions and payouts. Communication with your affiliate manager or account manger is key to running a successful lead generation campaign.