If I said peanut butter would you think of jelly? If I said Fred would you think of Ethel? If I said Batman would you think of Robin? What if I said search ads? What do you think of now? How about display ads. Display ads are a great compliment to search ads. Effectively using search and display ads together can improve click through rates and onsite interaction.

When most people think of internet advertising they think of just search ads. However, pairing search and display ads is highly underrated. Display ads add an extra boost to search ads. According to an article on Search Engine Land “display ads can have a major impact on search and consumer engagement.” The internet has many articles that support this fact. It goes back to a simple fact of traditional advertising; frequency. The more people see a product or service advertised, the more aware they become, and we all know a picture is worth a thousand words. By combining search and display ads, a consumer is being exposed to a product or service and therefore becoming more aware of it.

One important note when setting up display and search ads is to make sure they are consistent. If you’re advertising one message in search and another in display, you’re working against yourself. When your messages are cohesive, whether a consumer sees your search ads, display ads or both, the message is being reinforced. Even if a consumer doesn’t click on your display ad, they’re seeing the visual and if they are interested, they will come looking for you in the future. There have been many times, I’ve been reading an article and stopped to view a display ad. I didn’t click on it, but later on when I had free time I did a search for it. Don’t just go by my experience; let’s look at a client example.

We have a client that sells unique office chairs online. Their search campaigns were bringing in traffic but no conversions. I added a campaign for display ads and within a few days they received a conversion. Here’s the catch, they received a conversion from their paid search efforts. One might think the search ads paid off by themselves, however here’s where it get’s interesting. The next month their display ads were paused and the client only ran paid search ads. They didn’t get any conversions. At the beginning of the next month, the display ads were resumed and like clockwork the client received conversions for their paid search ads. The display ads haven’t received any conversions on their own yet, but whenever they are running, the paid search campaign receives conversions.

Search ads and display ads are the perfect combination, especially when they reinforce each other’s message. Display ads can help improve the results of paid search campaigns.
If you want a consumer to be more aware of your product or service, consider running display ads that are complimentary to your search ads. The results may be a nice surprise.

Everything you know about internet url’s is about to change. Well, not everything.
According to a recent article in PC World, ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers has given the green light for a change called IDN, also known as internationalized domain names.

IDN will allow non Latin characters to be used in the entire web address of websites. Prior to the change, domains could only use a few non Latin characters, but now their whole website name can be in non Latin characters. Some people are excited about the change because it will encourage more people around the world to use the internet. According to an article on CNET, “IDNs will let people who write in Chinese, Korean, or Arabic use their own languages to surf the Web, and is expected to jump-start Internet use in many regions across the globe.”  For many around the world, especially in China the change is more than welcome.

However, some believe it’s opening the door for mishap. Since, the IDN will allow users to create websites in their native tongue, this means some companies will have to do more policing of their site names across the web, in order to protect them. Imagine, Walmart.com having to make sure there isn’t an imposter using their name in another language. Plus homoglyphs (defined by Wikipedia as one of two or more characters, or glyphs, with shapes that either appear identical or cannot be differentiated by quick visual inspection) may become an even bigger issue. It may be a little harder to tell real sites from fake ones. Do you see the difference between these two websites at first glance- google.com and goógle.com?
 
It should be interesting to see the difference this change will make on internet users as well as companies. It may not be as easy to find the bargain site on the internet when the url changes to non Latin letters. On the other hand, it will allow more people to interact with different cultures. Whether you’re for or against it, the change is taking place.

It should come as no surprise that MSN’s new search engine, Bing has created a rivalry with Google.  On July 29, 2009, MSN declared that they will be merging with Yahoo; this merger will give Bing a much larger share of the search engine market.

Since MSN’s rebranding as Bing, it has reportedly spent $100 million in advertising across multiple platforms including, television networks promotions, television commercials, online entertainment mediums and many more.  According to eWeek.com, this additional exposure helped Bing boost its search engine share to 9.6 percent in August; however September’s search engine volume share fell sharply to 8.5 percent.

Bing continues to brand itself as a ‘decision engine,’ not just another search provider; its goal is to prevent searchers from ‘search overload’ as with other engines.  Bing’s new interface is equipped with tools and a new layout to differentiate itself from the old MSN Live interface.  Whether these new features alone are enough to give Google a run for its money remains to be seen.  However, with the merger, Yahoo will give Bing a larger portion of the search market; making it second only to Google.

According to PC World, the battle between Bing and Google is starting to heat up on Facebook and Twitter.  Google recently announced it plans to launch its social search platform as well as the ability for searchers to stream live music within their search engine.  Google’s new music feature will allow users to eventually purchase songs from large music moguls such as Apple’s iTunes with just a few clicks.  Only a short while later, Bing fired back saying that they will be working with Facebook to incorporate profile status updates within Bing search results.  Although, Facebook claims that ‘no money has changed hands’ concerning the deal.

Even though the Yahoo/Bing merger has not yet been completed, it is apparent that Bing is making strides to capture and retain internet searchers.  The battle is on.  Who will win?  Only time will tell.