Yahoo/MSN

[pinbrook]

I'd be interested in other peoples ideas as how to generate more visitors from Yahoo and MSN visitors.

I have a site which gets 85% of its visitors from Google. (not using Adwords!) I am sure this is too top heavy, there ought to be a better showing from Yahoo and MSN.

[chris ashdown]

We advertise with both Adwords and Overture and get the following results

November 1-29

Google = 56%
Yahoo/ MSN/ AOL = 39%

if anything Yahoo seams to be growing over the last few months

[altfocmed]

Get into MSN and do a search for your site's product.

At the bottom of the results there should be a link "send us feedback" click this and enter your URL and MSN will visit you frequently over the days to follow ;-)

[pinbrook]

for many of my chosen keywords I am on page 1 of MSNs search results, I just don't get anyone clicking through!!

[altfocmed]

What's the site and the keywords - just a few e.g.'s please and I'll take a lookie

[pinbrook]

Hi

I appreciate your comments....

the site is www.surf-wax.co.uk

some keywords
footbags
aerobie
aerobies
astrojax
kitesurfing dvds

I'm searching in MSN UK

[chris ashdown]

Being a bit of a fuddy duddy I am out of touch with your site followers, but are you being to specific with your key words.

If you follow these sports or are a beginer what key words would you use to look for your site

To me I would be looking at things like surfing, surfing dvd's, Cornwall surfing etc.

Its no good being no 1 on the page if nobody looks at it, thats why its hard to beat the oposition and get to the top on the most popular keywords

I imagine that Kitesurfing dvd's is the keyword that gets the best results out of the samples given and Kite Surfing would get even more hits

[pinbrook]

astrojax are our biggest seller at present

we also sell loads of aerobies and kitesurfing DVDs

it just that all our visitors come from Google

we probably get visitors who search on surfing cornwall, and kitesurfing, the site has lots of content on these aspects, and whilst it is great to hoave these visitors, a search on surfing cornwall is less likely to result in a purchase as a search on astrojax.

I puzzle as to why when we have good listings on the keywords I've highlighted, and well sell these items through Google, how come we fail so miserably with MSN and Yahoo

[chris ashdown]

It could be as simple as your target people are more inclined to use Google than the others

Are your stats from the web page hits or the results of Actinic question "where did you hear of us from"

[altfocmed]

I puzzle as to why when we have good listings on the keywords I've highlighted, and well sell these items through Google, how come we fail so miserably with MSN and Yahoo

Well for sure your MSN and Yahoo rankings are not an issue, the words I tested ranked very highly indeed.

A couple of things to check / consider:

What server stats do you use ? I install two types for clients Wusage as standard and Urchin for a 1 off fee - what is interesting is that urchin does count msn, yahoo, ask jeeves and other non google hits considerably better than wusage. Your post made me curious so I checked a couple of client domains and sure enough using wusage I get pretty much the same splits as you, but when I log on to the more detailed urchin stats it's a very different and 300% more interesting picture all together.

Snippett : Did you know that Europe buck the trend (UK / Sweden in particular) for search engine usage and we actually click more "sponsored links" than the US or Japan - in fact a recent study showed that 77% of UK searchers wee more likely to use a "sponsored link" than an "organic link"

Do you ever check the "misc" tab of your customer orders ? Often customers will tell you what engine they originated from there, it might be interesting to see the numbers from a conversion point of view - i.e. how many yahoo, how many google etc.

Tip - reduce the number of words in your title tags and you should find your 3 or 4 ranked pages can get to 1 and 2

[altfocmed]

It could be as simple as your target people are more inclined to use Google than the others

Are your stats from the web page hits or the results of Actinic question "where did you hear of us from"

Sorry I didn't see this when I posted above.

Nice to see you implemented some of my suggestions from a while back Chris, you still need to look at the title tag fro your catalogue pages though " Internet Workwear Ltd Ladies & Gentlemens Alexandra workwear Suits" - reverse the phrases [i.e. product then company name] for better results methinks !

[pinbrook]

I use awstats for my breakdown, however I could implement urchin also as a comparison.

I also ask in the checkout "how did you find us" and apart from the people who answer "very good" the majority are google, followed by ask jeeves and kelkoo.

I was very interested in the comment about the Uk users using sponsored links. I may well try that for Yahoo/MSN. I had always stuck to the thought that if you were on page one then it wasn't necessary to use sponsored links. However when reflecting on my own search habits, if I'm not finding what i want from Se results, I use google adwords, on the basis if people are paying then it must be relevant. (except when it is a directory etc).

I'll look at those titles...

[altfocmed]

I was very interested in the comment about the Uk users using sponsored links. I may well try that for Yahoo/MSN. I had always stuck to the thought that if you were on page one then it wasn't necessary to use sponsored links. However when reflecting on my own search habits, if I'm not finding what i want from Se results, I use google adwords, on the basis if people are paying then it must be relevant. (except when it is a directory etc).

Yep always a good idea to base your "search engine strategy" on your own search engine behaviour, you should find Overture less expensive than Google and get better conversion to boot. If you really want to go for gold I can highly reccommned Mirago PPC - low traffic / HIGH relavancy & HIGH conversion and for a lot less than the major engines.

[OldWelshGuy]

There are a couple of things that came to mind when I checked the astrojaz thingy <can't be doing with going back to check the proper name>

Google displays the following snippet:-

--------------------------------------------------------------------
What do you get when you cross a yo-yo with juggling balls, the free-dimensional orbiter from astrojax. ... ASTROJAX - THE FREE-DIMENSIONAL ORBITER
--------------------------------------------------------------------

Yahoo & MSN this:-
--------------------------------------------------------------------
What do you get when you cross a yo-yo with juggling balls, the free-dimensional orbiter from astrojax
--------------------------------------------------------------------



First thing I would say is improve the title tag, although that has nothing to do with CTR on the SE's as it displays the same in all. The only obvious difference is the snippet displayed, so I would tend to lean towards that. The Capitalisation of the important text in Google SERp's is far more attractive.

As pointed out, it could be that the demographics favour Google, although it sohould even itself out a bit more.

[altfocmed]

The capitlization isn't something Google has done by way of a highlight etc. - it has simply read the first part of the web site; since Google ignores the "keywords" meta tag it tries to find something within the web site "body" which is relevant to the phrase searched and includes as a "snippett" after the first few words of whatever is in the page "description" tag