Today in History... After 118 Years, Google Inc. Closed Its Doors.

Today in History... After 118 Years, Google Inc. Closed Its Doors.

What started as a a unique approach to solving one of computing's biggest challenges (retrieving relevant information from a massive set of data) and and grew to become the "five-and-dime" of pay-per-click search engines, pulled the plug on the last server on this date in Mountain View, California. It's a story of a future time that could be soon, or beyond our horizon.

If anyone back in the late 1800's or early 1900's had been thinking ahead to the future of Woolworth Corp., it's unlikely they would have ever predicted that the famous five-and-dime would be a line item on a "Today in History" script published to millions of readers across this thing we call the internet.

Yet today, has I opened my RSS News Reader, there it was. I can recall shopping at the five-and-dime as a kid. It was the "best" store in town. Just like Google; the best. Now, its history. Perhaps the best is not good enough?

Larry Page has an interesting vision on being the best... "The perfect search engine, would understand exactly what you mean and give back exactly what you want, never settle for the best."

What a day (historically speaking)...

By 1997, only a little over 400 Woolworth stores remained in the U. S. (and a few hundred more overseas). It was announced that the stores would be closed and the remaining 9,200 employees terminated. That was on this day.

Could this happen to Google? Well, yes. Simply put, Google has become a new kind of foe, and that has Bill Gates riled. Google has combined software innovation with a brand-new Internet business model and it wounds Gates' pride that he didn't get there first. It's an eye opening article from Fortune magazine: GATES VS. GOOGLE. For now however, it's all fantasy thinking as the titans of search (Google, Yahoo, & Microsoft) battle it out in cyberspace.

Research shows global Web search advertising revenue, which is big business for the Internet giants, will be almost $8 billion in 2005 -- more than 20 times what it was four years ago. (Source: Reuters 2005)

Good news for the AdvoCare independent distributor

The Cost Per Lead using Pay-per-click is Cheap Compared To Other Ads

In a news story from Reuters (2005) there were some interesting stats comparing search to other forms of advertising using a cost per lead comparison. Citing Piper Jaffray, he says the cost to acquire a lead is $8.50 for search, $20 for yellow pages, $50 for online display ads, $60 for e-mail and $70 for direct mail. Cost for television leads were not covered. There's little wonder why search is gaining so much attention from advertisers.

"The market is growing fast, primarily because the ads are trackable and target people who are already interested. The medium is also inexpensive compared with television, radio, direct mail and Web banner ads. Paid-search advertising has become a do-or-die proposition," says Jeff Saville, a consumer direct marketing manager at Deckers Outdoor Corp. (Nasdaq:DECK - news)

Are there dangers or flaws in search advertising?

• An estimated 5 percent to 20 percent of clicks are believed to be fraudulent -- the result of people clicking on ads to drive up advertiser costs or to make a profit for Web site publishers who get a cut of revenue.
• At times, advertisers and their online business affiliates find they are competing with each other in auction-style bidding for key words and pushing up their own costs.
• Some worry that new advertisers are rushing blindly into paid search and inflating key word prices -- a concern underscored by WebTrends data.

Adding all this up, we come to two conclusions: 1) It pays to get good at pay-per-click advertising if you plan to do business online and 2) we may only have 118 years left with Google :-)

PPC Tips list continued from previous weeks:

• If your product or service is something that can be related to a locale, like a city, state or region you may be able to find some ripe tomatoes in phrases like: 'retirement homes in Florida', 'Mississippi flat rate phone service', 'herbal sunscreen for southwestern sun', 'indoor air filters for Los Angeles'.
• Discover more keywords by narrowing down to extreme specifics. People can be VERY specific when they search. Use names of months and years like '2004 tax savings', 'May flowers', 'Christmas of 2005' or 'September back to school supplies'.
  
  Let's say you are marketing a broad line of herbal products... why not get a list of all herbs (there may be thousands) and use that list as a keyword list. Maybe your product doesn't contain every herb on the list, but people searching for any ONE herb specifically may be interested in others. Try specific model numbers, makes and designs if your products are sometimes referred to this way: 'Epson stylus CX6400', 'Apple G5', etc.
• Add adjectives to your keywords like: big, purple, new, cheap, affordable, soft, aromatic, healthy, etc.

Last week I posted the another round of search engine marketing tips and yet more in the weeks before that. Check there for more ideas.


To make certain you don't miss this series of PPC tips, you might consider subscribing to my RSS feed.


Technorati:
AdvoCare | PPC | pay per click | Google | marketing tips | search | Woolworth | Today in history | online advertising