Dragonfly Media Curacao

According to a new report from JupiterResearch many search marketers are satisfied with the return on investment from Search Engine Marketing (SEM). As a result they are willing to spend more on SEM this year.

Apparently 65 percent of advertisers expect to spend more this year, 7 percent want to spend less and the rest does not plan to do either. The two major concerns for marketers appear to be rising prices for keywords and measuring the offline impact of Search Engine Marketing.

For a more comprehensive article about this trend visit searchenginewatch or you can buy the report at JupiterResearch.

Our own expectation for Curacao is roughly the same as the conclusions in this US report. (more…)

By Andy Beal
Source: Businessweek.com

If you’ve watched any professional motor sport, you’ve likely witnessed the following scenario. The early leader loses ground to other racers as his car’s tires begin wearing out or the engine starts smoking. A pit stop will initially cause the driver to fall even further behind. But ultimately the time taken under the care of mechanics helps the driver pull back into the lead. If the Web’s search engine industry is the race track, Yahoo has just taken a timely pit stop to try and win back ground lost against the new leader, Google.

On Feb. 5, Yahoo! (YHOO) started moving all of its paid search advertisers over to a new ranking model, informally known as “Panama.” The aim: Gain some much-needed momentum on Google’s more widely used AdWords platform.

It took Yahoo many months to create the new model, effectively rebuilding the system it acquired with the $1.6 billion purchase of Overture Services. Although Panama is just getting off the ground, there’s reason to believe this time in the pit has done Yahoo good (more…)

Source: Yahoo!

There are more people using online search than ever before. In fact, most adults who buy online rely on search engines to research their purchases. Here’s a quick look at who’s searching and why:

• 60 million people use a search engine on an average day.
• 88% of adults who purchase items online conduct some sort of online research at least sometime prior to completing their purchase.
• 67% of U.S. adults who research online before making a purchase decision use search engines as a research tool.
• 40% of those conducting online research go to search engines first. Nearly equal percentages of respondents who use search engines to research products online use them to find a web site from which to buy (54%) or investigate where to purchase their desired product (53%).

Source: HSMAI

Search engine marketing this year is projected to grow by 39% - the fastest growth of any online segment - according to a report from Outsell Inc. The national study also found that Net marketing will rise by 18% this year, compared to a 5.8% growth rate for all U.S. advertising.

According to the second annual report on ad spending from Outsell, Inc., U.S. advertising is expected to grow 5.8 percent in 2007. The national study of advertisers, controlling about $6.5 billion of spending, shows that companies plan to increase their online spending by 18 percent this year, faster than for any other major media type. Advertisers also plan to raise their spending for advertising on search engines by 39 percent, the fastest of any online media method.
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When you work within an industry you tend to forget that not everybody knows what terms mean. For instance, when we have a meeting with the accountant I need to ask for an explanation every 10 sentences. The same goes, of course, for what we do and the terms and abbreviations we use. Therefore, for the benefit of our clients, we would like to explain what we mean when we use certain words. Below you will find the definitions we use at Dragonfly:

• Search Engine Optimization (on-site/off-site)
  The abbreviation for both forms of search engine optimization is SEO.
  On-site Search Engine Optimization is a process which uses a set of techniques for optimizing readability of your website by search engine robots (searchbots, spiders). Off-site Search Engine Optimization is a process which involves finding ways of making a website more popular in the ‘eyes’ of search engines without touching the website itself.
  The goal of SEO (on-site and off-site) is for the website to rank higher in the organic (free) search results for relevant search queries.
• Search Engine Marketing
  Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is a marketing technique utilizing the sponsored search results of search engines to advertise a website when relevant search queries are made.
• Internet Marketing
  Internet Marketing is the process of marketing a website (or products available from a website) on the internet. This can involve SEO & SEM, but also regular on-line advertising, strategically placed content, etcetera.