I recently had a conversation with two programmers from Microsoft. We began discussing their search division and how far behind they were to rivals Google and Yahoo. Instead of playing catch up to Google and Yahoo’s search they should be focusing their efforts and leading the way in Blog Search.

With traditional media missing consumers entirely, more and more advertisers look online to distribute their content. Unfortunately, a big percentage of company’s out there still have the CMO in charge who still believes that consumers are sitting by the TV, and or radio eagerly awaiting advertisements. You can place Google in with traditionally media here since many search results on Google return garbage.

Consumers are beginning to take control and the blogosphere is allowing them to do so.

Today, consumers have the control over what information they decide to put in front of them. Google and Yahoo’s organic search results are continuing to become less relevant to consumers searches. Most Retail Searches on Google will yield results for companies like Bizrate.com, shopping.Yahoo.com, nextag.com etc. in it’s organic results. If consumers want to shop at those websites there they will. They don’t choose Google to find retail aggregators. Consumers have already begun to turn their backs on traditional search engines due to their lack of relevant results. If Microsoft is smart, they will see this to their advantage and beef up their Blog Search division.
Consumers have created their own information-gated community called the blogosphere. At the present time, there is an open market for a really good Blog Search Engine. One that will enable advertisers and consumers to reach each other without so many middle men taking advantage of both sides.

U.S. Online Ad revenues for the first half of 2006 surpassed 7.9 billion dollars, 37% higher from the same period last year.  According to Pricewaterhousecoopers, Q2 revenues surpassed the 4 Billion Dollar mark a 36% increase from last year.  Video Ads will continue to emerge for advertising, “While search advertising remains the largest format in terms of revenues, we expect to see new formats like video ads to continue to emerge as advertisers seek to leverage the branding opportunities afforded by the growing installed base of broadband users,” David Silverman, Partner, Entertainment & Media Practice, PricewaterhouseCoopers. More….

Facebook is planning to roll out it’s expansion. Facebook primarily focuses on College students and is looking to grow their network space. Facebook was once offered 750+ million and turned it down. It seems they are focused on more members and more $$$. They believe that the web is evolving and that evolution can only mean their company is worth much more than 750 Million.  Article……

Online Ad spend was up 49% in the first half of 06 compared to the first half of 05.  The Spanish market increased 21.8% during the same period.  It’s apparent that radio and cable tv are not the markets they were once before.  It’s becoming increasingly important to advertising online and grow your business.

Read More: Online Ad Spend 

There is a tendancy when formulating your retail marketing plan to focus on short rather than long term goals. If you use paid search you will certainly get immediate traffic. You give Google $1,000 today and you get traffic. The unfortunate thing about this form of advertising is that once you stop paying Yahoo or Google, your traffic is gone. It is just not a good recipe for long term success.

The strategy we recommend is to use paid sesarch advertising today, and build up natural search traffic for tomorrow. It’s not a new concept, but blogs help to narrow the gap. Our blog marketing campaigns work extremely quickly, enabling companies to back off their spend a lot sooner than expected. So not only does our company ensure your long term success, we also save your marketing budget for more useful and productive initiatives than pay per click.

It was just a matter of time and You Tube has focus on yet another stream of Revenue by allowing advertisers to promote their brands via customized channels on the site.  The first try is with Paris Hilton and her music album.  They have created the “Paris Hilton Channel” to promote her debute album “Paris”.  This online “stuff” keeps gettig better and better every day.

Consider you have a well branded site amongst the “powerhouse” search engines, do you have a brand in the Blogosphere? Now is your chance to compete with your powerhouse rivals and grow your business online. Having a Retail Blog is extremely important because it connects you with people you never had a chance to connect with. If I’m searching for a cheap shirt online, I may visit overstock. Do you know how many people blog about “buying a shirt online” in the blogosphere? Now is your chance to get in the online game and grow your business. You must have a good Blog Marketing gameplan to succeed. It’s up to you. It’s now or never.

The majority of clients I speak with see retail blog marketing as a means of gaining natural search traffic. We have seen that this is indeed the case, and our clients are doing extraordinarily well, but another side effect of retail blogging is that of you can use the blog to deliver commercial and marketing messages to your customers and/or prospects.

If you have a newsletter or email blast that your curently send out to potential customers, you simply invite those people to subscribe to your blog. Then when you write, or more importantly when you post a podcast or a commercial, they will receive notification and view the message. Blogging and retail podcasting helps you open up a whole new marketing channel that was not previously available. Let us show you how podcasting can help you increase your business.

One of the frustrating things about natural search results is the randomness in the way individual product pages are displayed. Retail Marketing professionals all know that if a visitor looks for a specific product on a search engine, then they will convert at a high rate into sales if you can bring them into the page within your website that deals with that specific product. With Paid search you can target a specific url relating to a specific product or product category. Not so with natural search. The search engines will often rank your home page or an unrelated category page, which hurts conversions.

It’s different with blogs. If you write about a specific product with your retail blog marketing efforts, you can target and rank individual product pages, leading to higher conversions. Just another side benefit of having a blog.

Online Retail Websites have a many, many things to write about. Each and every product is a blog post waiting to help their retail website, waiting to increase the visibility of their site in both the search engines and the blogosphere.Waiting to draw in high quality buying traffic to thier site. How many retail sites out there have a shopping cart that buries content within a technical structure that actually inhibits their very customers from finding them….the technology used to create many shopping websites actually makes it hard to find them… enter the retail corporate blog.

In a retail blog marketing campaign expect the following:

• The content posted actually will positively impact your visibility
• Retail Blog Marketing Campaigns provide valuable information that increases conversion to sale rate of your traffic
• Your Retail Blog if set up correctly and written well is viewed as a source of information about your products
• As a result of the above You gain credibility in the eyes of your customers,who may even link you and promote your products to others also knows as Word of Mouth Advertising

Who knows your industry and your products better than you? Your competitors think they do.

Prove them Wrong.