2008 May

The New York Times yesterday reported how contextual search advertising is beating out more expensive display advertising on the web, a reality that’s yet more bad news for traditional media sources that are aggressively selling display inventory to try and replace lost revenue from flagging subscription sales.

While cautioning about losses and mixed-results among major web portals such as AOL, Yahoo, and the NYT themselves, the good news is that overall the market looks promising as agencies move budget from traditional media to online media in general. Even more promising is the outlook for Google, who continues to see revenue from search ads skyrocket.

Why do pay per click ads beat out display ads?

It’s all about relevance. Typically, display ads on sites are only generally related to the content on the page, and often can be really off base (in the case of many newspapers which sell inventory based on demographic rather than content of the area of the site). This practice may be profitable for the site in question, but misses a fundamental truth of the internet — people tend to already know what they’re looking for when they go to the web.

True, there are plenty of straight-up web surfers out there, but even they tend to surf based on topics or themes, on sites they are already familiar with, and only check out ads when they seem laser-targeted with their interests in mind.

There’s big money in getting to know what’s in that searchers mind (as the Facebook deal is testament to). But until display advertising gets there, expect to see more lackluster statistics and growing skepticism.

Long live organic search, eh?

We can’t claim we’re jet-lagged, but we are chock-full of ideas and ready to tackle some more SEO topics now that Sage Software Insights ‘08 has wrapped up. Listen to Fred and Chrystie share their perspectives on the show and chart the court for future episodes of the podcast.

SEO Audio Episode 32

For the last hours of the Sage Software Insights 2008 tradeshow we of course talked to some more business partners, as well as some of other Preferred Vendors at the show. See some of our final observations before we wrap up for a very successful week!

We’ve spoken to lots, and lots of people at the tradeshow here at Insights, but one of the greatest pleasures of the show is being able to touch base with our customers and see how their sites are working out for them. And people are very happy!

Thanks to Mike Renner of Computer Accounting Systems for taking the time to chat with us — Mike provides accounting software including Sage MAS 90 and 200 in Washington State.

Thanks also to our many other wonderful customers and other Sage Software business partners who’ve talked to us about the web. It’s been a great show, and we look forward to another great day during exclusive tradeshow hours this morning and the reception/wrap-up this evening.