We knew they were coming, and today, they arrived: The changes Google has been talking about for months. As with most overhauls, it is reasonable to expect good and bad effects.

First, ad rank will be determined at the moment of query instead of based on historical data and performance of the individual ad. By doing this, Google will now be able to take into account certain characteristics of the searcher such as, where they are searching from and what sites they came from. As you can imagine, this means that advertisers can expect varying positions based on the geographic market.

In addition, the competitiveness of certain keywords will fluctuate where advertisers are only displaying their ads at certain times in a day. For example, a B2B company can assume that their ads will now become more expensive during peak business hours.

The second change is definitely the best news for those with little, to no historical data in Google Adwords. Google will no longer mark keywords “inactive for search,” which appeared on many campaigns that hadn’t yet earned a good quality score.

Finally, the third change will provide advertisers with an estimated bid for each keyword to garner the first page of their search results. Now this could be good in a way, giving us more insight into the marketplace and making our ads more visible. However, on the flip side, if everyone started to raise their bids to try to get to that coveted first page, the necessary bid will continue to increase.

All in all, Google claims they are making these changes in an attempt to be more impartial and make it easier for all advertisers, but in the end, many experts and critics are raising good points of how this will continue to drive up our marketing spends.

Recently, I took a trip to Las Vegas and flew Southwest Airlines. Knowing my apprehension toward flying, my friends allowed me to have the window seat. As the 7 hour flight got under way and I found myself watching the clouds outside, I noticed the pronounced branding going on right outside my window. Here I was flying Southwest Airlines and right there on the wing, flipped up so I can easily view it, was Southwest.com staring me in the face. If that isn’t obvious branding then I don’t know what is. It’s like they just really didn’t want you to forget to use Southwest Airlines for your next trip and here I was already on the flight.

So what does all of this mean? Simply this: branding is very important at every stage of the marketing cycle. Hopefully you are having a great experience, as I was with my flight, and this was just a friendly reminder of who I was flying with, so I would remember to use them again. According to toptenlinks.com, Southwest Airlines was rated number 5 in the rankings among the top airlines. While it’s great that they are in the top 10…they still aren’t number 1, which is where Delta stands. This really isn’t all that surprising considering how long Delta has been in business compared to Southwest, but Southwest is on the rise and if they continue with marketing strategies such as their  brand awareness efforts, they are well on their way to that number one position.

One of the top goals that a business should have is for their name to become well known. If you think about it, Coca-Cola and Pepsi would not be where they are today if it weren’t for brand awareness. How often do you hear someone say they are thirsty and want a coke when really they are possibly talking about Sprite or even a Pepsi? Coke has just become a household name. Although that might not be a realistic goal for a smaller business, it should still be something to work towards. Becoming well known doesn’t have to mean everyone knows your name (insert Cheers theme song here) but it is important to become well known among your clientele and your competitors.

How can you build brand awareness? There are many ways to go about this for your business or product. To start with you can do a pay per click campaign. Bid on your name. Put your name in your ads so that it’s one of the first things searchers see when they do a keyword search and see your ad appear. Next, realize that your website is your brand. In using the Coca-Cola brand name again, their brand wouldn’t be as strong if their website was www.softdrink.com right? So remember to put your business name or brand in your website.

In conclusion, while branding is not the holy grail for your marketing campaign, it is important to remember that it is a vital dimension to success.

I posted an entry on June 18 that discussed the battle for #2 in the PPC world, and wanted to provide the latest on the search engine landscape.

There is no question that MSN has been more aggressive than Yahoo in terms of increasing their market share, and trying to become a serious rival to Google. In recent months MSN has made the following moves - Microsoft attempted to acquire Yahoo, their latest version of Internet Explorer attempts to direct searchers away from using Google search, and they recently launched a promotion to pay searchers a cash rebate for making purchases while using Live Search. All these attempts haven’t given MSN the lift they most likely were hoping for with the overall search engine market share, but MSN continues to stay aggressive with recent acquisitions of Powerset (search engine), and Greenfield Online (online shopping). In addition, MSN has a new Adcenter management tool in beta that is similar to the Google Editor, which helps to make daily account management for advertisers more user-friendly (Yahoo lags behind both Google & MSN with management tools for their PPC advertisers).

The numbers don’t lie when it comes to US search engine market share over the last 3 months. According to comScore’s 3 month numbers (May, June, July 2008), MSN is still struggling to gain traction:

Google
May 2008 – 61.8%
June 2008 – 61.5%
July 2008 – 61.9%

Yahoo
May 2008 – 20.6%
June 2008 – 20.9%
July 2008 – 20.5%

MSN
May 2008 – 8.5%
June 2008 – 9.2%
July 2008 – 8.9%