online shoe brands spend more than 114 million on search ads,with a ctr of 3.5%

Online Shop Brands spend a whopping 114 million spends on online shoe search ads which generated 3.6billion impressions and 126 million clicks for which 25,000 advertisers competed in the first half of 2016

  The online Shoes category saw significant decreases in  search ad spend (-17%), impressions (-29%) and clicks (-23%) from Q1 to Q2, while experiencing less dramatic increases in the average cost per click (7%) and the average clickthrough rate (10%).

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for 260 million clicks apparel advertisers spent $267 million on paid search

For 550 million clicks Apparel Advertiser spend over $500 million on paid search ads  in the first 6 months of 2016 ( Kantar Media Paid Searh data)

Apparel Retail advertising saw  53,000 online advertisers competing for  a higher than average CTR which stood at 4.20%( a 20% rise in CTR as compared to Q1). Total paid search clicks in q2 decreased to  260 million as compared to 306 million clicks in q1,2016 . Cost per click in q2 rose to $1.03 as compared to 0.$97 in q1.(kantar Media)

However, total spend by apparel adverertisers was down 10%, dropping from $295 million in Q1 to $267 million in Q2, based on a 24% drop in impressions and a 15% drop in clicks quarter over quarter. The number of advertisers competing in the Apparel category decreased as well, down 13% in Q2.

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retail industry cost per click stabilizes at $1.3, with CTR increasing to 3.46%

According to the latest Kantar media 2016  paid search data for the retail industry, 134,000 retail advertisers competed for approx 16 billion ad impressions and 625 million clicks with a ctr of 3.46%.Retail advertisers spent over $820 million in Q2,as compared to $881 million in Q1,2016

 

The 2016 paid search report by Kantar Media  for retail industry  saw  134,000 retail advertisers spending over $820 million on search ads. In Q2,2016 online retail advertisers targeted  their paid search ads  across 15.5 billion impressions.The chart reflects clickthroughs  and  paid clicks and how they have changed over the last 12 months.

Kantar's AdGooroo's Paid Search Advertising Index report, tracks and measures quarter over quarter activity for 6 key metrics--ad spend, impressions, clicks, CTR ,cost per click and number of advertisers--in 14 different industry including Retail, Jewelry, consumer electronics,home , Flowers and Gifts .The above category shows " the state of paid advertising across  the Retail  industry 

On average, retailers paid more for site visitors originating from paid search in the second quarter, as the average cost per click increased by 7% from Q1 to Q2. However, the total number of clicks and impressions both decreased quarter over quarter, as did total spend, which dropped by 7%, from $881 million in Q1 to $820 million in Q2. The average clickthrough rate remained steady while total number of advertisers dropped by 11%.

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deciding on when to add no follow links vs follow links

How do you decide  when to use  rel=nofollow  and when to not . While this has been explain in depth in my earlier post on  the importance of rel=no follow and follow links ,one of the best ways to decide this  is to understand  and analyse which kinds of sites or  links influence your posts . In short  comparing which is relevant  to  the website and which one is not.. Assuming you read an article about new seo strategies for 2016 compared to a blog template which you like and want to add that as your template .. which one would you choose for as rel= no_follow links..

In 2005 all 3 search engines,Yahoo, Bing an google agreed to support an initiative to reduce the effectiveness of automated spam Unlike the meta robots version of NoFollow, a new directive was employed as an attribute with within an or link tag to indicate the fact that the linking site " does not vouch for the quality of the linked pag
Read the follow post below

You an read more about rel=nofollow links and rel=follow links here

If you are running a seo blog , obviously the first one is of relevance, as it gives you information which is topical , relevant and contextual to what your site is about, while the blog template is not.. The analogy is similar. Follow links are used for something that you liked and wish to pass the link juice to the site. It means you are voting for that site and telling the search spiders that the site is trustworthy . Use no=follow for the second one..or your telling the spiders that " you dont wish to pass on the link juice to the site .

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how google hummingbird was the precursor to semantic search revolution

HOW GOOGLE HUMMINGBIRD UPDATE STARTED THE SEMANTIC SEARCH REVOLUTION 

September 16th, 2013  was a  a watershed day in the history of search marketing, as Google dropped its Google Hummingbird Bombshell on  its knowledge graph as it announced that Google hummingbird was live and its search algorithm  undergone a dramatic makeover.

When hummingbird flew in, the old way of just matching up strings of characters in a search query  just went out of window. With its Hummingbird update Google changed  its core prowess from strings  to things and in the process it changed google from a search engine to a knowledge engine

The Need For Semantic Search:All  search engines compete among themselves to keep their search keywords more relevant  and in tune with users  actual intent. While a users input device might increase 10 times or 20 times, their intent does not change.. For any search engine its true test starts and begins with user intent  as it tries to understand the query itself and not only just the keywords and in the query. Once a semantic search  engine understands the context  and relevance..it will throw up the same results and meanings of their words as humans do

For example a search query "what is the height of Barrack Obama",  a conventional search engines will try to bring up pages which may have " stories on Obama, height of something, which might or might  not have any connection to Obama, news on American Presidents". This 

is a typical machine to machine learning in progress

However by  bringing on the human element ..where one user asks the other .. whats the height of Barrack Obama..Its being made amply clear  that we are interested  to know the height of the American President. This conversation is now aided by semantics

In terms of semantic search, The Hummingbird update takes the small but a significant step towards bridging the gap between machine led learning to human  based  learning. The best example of how Hummingbird update finally manages to bridge the semantic gap is this example shown below

A search for “pizza hut calories per slice” used to list an answer like this, Google said, but not one from Pizza Hut. However Now,  after the Google Hummingbird update it lists this answer directly from Pizza Hut itself, Google says. 

Google Hummingbird has been the precursor  to  start the  first Semantic search revolution. Semantic search technology seeks to extract entities from its databases as answers and displays personalised results based on the individuals personal  browsing habits

Hummingbird and Voice Search: Hummingbird paved the way for voice search by ability to search by speaking your query into search engine using a smartphone . The ability of the the search engine to understand spoken search queries by users intent and contextual meaning which are today used  in spoken conversation is an perfect application of using semantic technology across  search engines . 

Imagine being able to talk  to your computer the same way  you talk to your friend. 

"Hey I saw this awesome Oscar nominated bridge of spies.movie.. Why dont you watch it too? do you want me to find out wheres it playing at NJ "?

Semantic search is revolutionizing how people search because they can not merely  interact  by keywords but in conversational line . With mobile penetration burning up all records.. Voice based search is set to grow in numbers that will defy all expectations 

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Google's biggest search advertisers and money making machines : Top 10 Brands

According to  Ad Age, Amazon alone spent almost $158 million on Google search advertising in the U.S.   making the online retailer the biggest spender on Google search ads by far. The second biggest advertiser is Priceline which spends $82million on search advertising on Google, followed by AT and T with $81million

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Chinese Search Giant " Sogou " plans a $3billion IPO this year

Chinese  search marketshare via )

Sogou Inc., the Chinese search engine controlled by Sohu.com Inc., is planning a U.S. initial public offering at a valuation of more than $3 billion,Sogou, Inc. is a subsidiary of Sohu.com, Inc. founded on 9 August 2010. It is the owner and developer of Sogou

The Beijing- Search based  company  sogou whose name means “Search Dog” in Chines in Chinese, could  have an IPO  as early as the second half of this

 Sogou has been in the radar screen of many investors and companies,earlier and   has seen an investment of over US$448 million in 2013 by Tencent  who acquired a 36.5% stake in Sogou. 

Spinning off China’s third-largest search site would provide a boost to majority owner Sohu, the Internet portal operator whose shares have lost more than half their value since an April 2011 peak. It would also provide funds for Sogou to gain ground against industry leader Baidu Inc. with the country’s 649 million Internet users.

 Currently the search marketshare in China is squarely led by Baidu with 74%, 

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Why 2014 Will be The Year of the Mobile Web

Mobile Web Use Has More Than Doubled Since 2009
A study from Pew Internet & American Life Project, recently revealed that mobile web usage has more than doubled since 2009.

The report also outlined:

1.      Specifically, two-thirds of cell-phone owning Americans use their phones to go online. (Versus only 31% of people who said they went online on their phones, back in 2009.)

2.      91% of all American adults now have cell phones.

3.      56% of all American adults now have a smartphone

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Twitter Acquires "AdGrok"Moving Towards Monetizing Tweets

It seems Twitter is finally moving to get its Revenue Model in Place .In their quest  for e generating ad revenue one of its priorities, it  has acquired AdGrok, a company whose software is designed to simplify the creation and management of campaigns using Google's AdWords search advertising service. While AdGrok aims to simplify search engine marketing campaigns, the platform could be adapted and used by Twitter to help monetize promoted and trending tweets

AdGrok, which came out of beta just two months ago, makes a tool that simplifies the process of setting up Google AdWords campaigns. It’s “Grokbar” lets customers look at any page on their websites and see data about the Google AdWords campaigns that point to it — including the cost of each campaign and how well it is working.Customers can see exactly how much they’re paying for each campaign and how well it’s performing.

Another cool feature involves integration with Shopify, a service that powers online stores. Sites that use Shopify can upload all of their inventory into AdGrok, create ad campaigns around each product, and then immediately end the campaign once they’ve sold out of a specific item. By  Integrating Adgrok, Twitter is looking to create a much more involved advertising platform for clients wishing to promote their messages through Twitter.

Buying AdGrok  is an indication  that Twitter is ready to start providing statistics and relevant data to its users, which has traditionally been handled by third-party services. The company has  earlier clearly spoke out against "Third party" providers, by apparently developing its own photo sharing feature and improving notification suppor

Starting today, the AdGrok team will start working full-time on Twitter’s “revenue engineering team.” Most likely they’ll be working on the microblogging platform’s self-service advertising program, which is currently in its beta phase and has many similarities to Google AdWords. The program allows small advertisers to buy their own promoted tweets, promoted accounts and promoted trends.

AdGrok offers free and paid services — the “standard” package is $20 per month. It was incubated at Y Combinator and has raised $470,000 from Chris Sacca, Russ Siegelman, Ben Narasin, and TriplePoint Capital. Customers include Eventbrite and Kiva.

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PPC ( Pay Per Click) Advertising Numbers : Infographic

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