End Searcher Optimisation? Are we being Short Changed by Search Engines?

A recent post on clickz by a gent named Bryan Eisenberg wrote an article call End Searcher Optimization (ESO).

Its focus, in my opinion, is simply on the thought that we are going to have different kinds of results from search engines and therefore will have to start marketing to different segments in different ways, rather than "just" optimimising the text content. I find that somewhat suprising as I would hope anyone spending a moderate amount on search ppc are already considering how they target the keywords.

Bryan goes on to comment about how one part of the population might prefer an executive summary whereas another might prefer more detailed analysis. Not only that, but it we consider in advance the different kinds of content they might like we can arrange our marketing strategy accordingly.

I dont think thats really very shocking is it?

Also, note how Bryan approaches the thorny problem of what segments / personas actually exist for a company, in his own words
"we went through all the content we'd planned for each of the personas and decided which piece of content had to be delivered as an article, a blog post, an image, a video"

For a man professing analytics, "went through" doesnt sound very "analytic" does it?

However, aside from drawing attention to Bryan's weakness in segment creation - and I appreciate customer segmentation is still an area very much driven by the fluffier side of marketing - I think we have been getting a rough deal from search in this area for ages, and I think only now that keywords are really beginning to rocket in prices will we begin to question their real value.

Think about it. When was the last time you went to your advertising agency and placed your various banners randomly across the web and then had to monitor the results yourself to work out whats best and what segments you might have?

Dont you normally highlight to your agency "we'd like to target 3 particular groups with the following three campaigns of content, please place them on suitable sites". Regardless of whether the ad agency does a good job or not, they offer the hope of targeting the content for you, they take their expertise of the network they possess and hope to apply those things to give you a good quality customer. The key point there being that you pay them for their expertise in their domain.

What do search engines do for you? They let you try individual keywords and then let you do the hard work of determining how well they perform. If they provide more ways your content can reach the customer through pictures and video then great but you've still got the overhead of trying to figure out what works and what doesnt.

Now, let see what the search engines do know that they dont tell you.

• When a customer comes to you they dont tell you what the person has previously searched for either in the same visit/day/month etc.
• They dont tell you what type of site they've previously delivered that customer to

Think about those two.

Knowing the first will give you an idea of what are the current intentions of the customer.
How important could that be? Are they shopping around? Are they refining their search? are they ready to buy?

Knowing the second will give you an idea of what kind of customer segment they belong to.
Imagine that, a web equivalent to a Mosaic segment. Imagine if you had Mosaic-like segments that you could apply to the keywords and indicate what kinds of people used what kind of words, giving you an immediate feel for the value of the traffic.

Then, if you imagine that rather than PPC, the search engines move to a Pay-Per-Purchase model that records whether customers buy after purchasing.

Add that to the previous points and you have a picture of a customer, you have intentions, customer segment and even likelihood to buy. You find yourself looking at keyword value with some depth of customer value behind them.

So many web analysts are beginning to try and do this with there own site, i.e. what multiple media are the customers seeing, what purchases have they already made, what keywords have worked for them but they are limited as they only know what happens on their site.

So, my call is for search engines to start releasing more information about the customers that they serve and delivery to their paying customers - currently they (google mainly of course) have it too easy as we dont question the value they bring or have high expectations of service.