Enterprise Search Engine Marketing Blog

by Brad Cohen, Twitter:supnah

Google Blog (The Official Google Blog) released a new article today on Eye-tracking studies that reveals new information (though not many details) about the inclusion of thumbnail images in search results.  And also has a trippy video of real time eye scan locations superimposed over real search results from a real participant in the study.  Super cool:

The crux of the post is that inserting thumbnail images for Image and Video results does “not strongly affect the order of scanning the results and seemed to make it easier for the participants to find the result they wanted.”  Furthermore, Google claims that the thumbnails make it easier for searchers to skip over results with thumbnails **when those results were not relevant to their search**.

Google Eye-track comparison (right = with thumbnail)

There are two implications here:
1) Although the order of scanning by the searcher is not affected, the attention given to the different results in that order is absolutely redistributed.  It seems from their provided images that the thumbnails distribute more attention further down the results list, not necessarily in an equitable fashion – there are still favorites that get disproportional attention from the searcher – but with a seemingly better spread than in the page without thumbnails.

2) Selection of a thumbnail that does not effectively represent the target page to the searcher can be disastrous because users are faster to decide they **are not** interested in a result when a thumbnail is included.  In short, a picture is worth a thousand words, and if you provide the wrong thumbnail image then you have just given the searcher a 1,000 word essay explaining why not to click on your page.  And all of that in an instant.

Optimizing YouTube videos is nothing new.  Here’s a great guest post by Dan Ackerman on TechCrunch about making videos go viral.  Pay particular attention to tip # 5 about selecting the right midpoint image/thumbnail image for your YouTube video.

Here’s a results page for “intel pentium video” (Intel is one of our clients). It certainly seems like, in this case, the thumbnail draws your eye to the video and through those first two results.  The searcher still scans through the first results, but in a more cursory manner in order to arrive at the thumbnail faster.

As integrated search results and Universal Search are incorporated more and more, thumbnail optimization is going to be a battle not just to gain clicks, but also not to lose them.  At GSI we are helping clients understand the importance of optimizing their page code, their page content, and their social media assets , not only from the consumer intent modeling point of view, but also with regard to how the consumer inteacts with legacy browsers, Google Chrome’s Onmibox and search results from mobile applications.  The current state of search has a long way to go, but it is evolving as we speak.  We encourage your comments on this post.

By: Brad Cohen (Twitter: supnah)

NFL commissioner Roger Goodell called the Pittsburgh Steelers’ 27-23 win Sunday night over the Arizona Cardinals a “game for the ages.”  I enjoyed James Harrison interception and 100-yard return for a touchdown — on the last play of the first half — and the winning TD pass from Ben Roethlisberger to Santonio Holmes with 35 seconds left in the game. But the play I will remember from Super Bowl XLIII is Denny’s Free Grand Slam Breakfast SEO and Social Media million dollar fumble.

Denny’s first ever Super Bowl ads  –– developed and produced by San Francisco based, Goodby, Silverstein & Partners –– were compelling and produced buzz as soon as millions of viewers saw them. The spots ask the question “isn’t it time for a serious breakfast?” and promise a free Grand Slam Breakfast on Tuesday Feb. 3 between 6 am and 2 pm.

Google Trends shows the clear spike in searches for “Denny’s Locations”.  Hotness = Volcanic. Google News found over 70 different stories on about the Free Grand Slam promotion.

Update: Wall Street also liked the campaign with DENN shares up all day (maybe it was the voice-overs provided by Burt Reynolds).

THE PLAY:

People are hungry. According to a company press release, the campaign is a “multi-media effort and will extend into print, radio, outdoor billboards, Internet, and in-store merchandising.”

Tuesday morning is coming soon, and people want to know where to go for their Free Grand Slams. Denny’s scores in so far as they’ve got the public clamoring for more information and lighting up Google with Denny’s searches:

Denny’s might talk about a multi-media effort but this campaign fell into the laziness of the old advertising paradigm: a one-way message to the consumer. Their lost opportunity was in not spending equal time and effort working on how the consumer is going to reach them.

WHERE DENNY’S FUMBLED

Denny’s has a barely satisfactory Restaurant Locator on their site which is still using an unbearable MapQuest user interface, but at $3 million per 30 second buy, the limited additional funding necessary for appropriate SEO support is invaluable, and dropping that opportunity is an SEO penalty.

WHAT DENNY’S SHOULD HAVE DONE

1.  Instead of a national PPC text campaign, Denny’s should have done a simple geo-targeted campaign (even by State) with links to a micro-site where users would find the Denny’s location near them, and for Pete’s sake, get onto Google Maps from MapQuest and make it as easy as possible for the user to interact with your information.

Having geo-targeted ads would provide invaluable data to Denny’s, and a satisfactory user experience as many users complained via Twitter about outages to Dennys.com all night long.

2.  Social media listening via Twitter to all of the tweets about looking for Denny’s locations.  Have some employees replying to questions and distributing the links to the restaurant finder. If Denny’s had done step one, they would have a bunch of resources to embrace the people that wanted to talk about Denny’s.

3.  Plan ahead to leverage their existing online communities (two different Facebook pages with 5,000 and 3,000 fans respectively).

Why did it take Denny’s over 12 hours to get a link of the Super Bowl ad to their Facebook community pages? A proper rollout should post the videos at the same time they hit NBC with links to the restaurant finder and invite the fans to find their closest location (though these fans likely know their favorite Denny’s location already, eh?).  Even better, turn the micro-site into a Facebook app that encourages Denny’s fans to invite their Facebook friends to a free breakfast on Tuesday morning, helps them locate where to take advantage, and then allows them to send out invites of their own.

4.  Leverage common social tools.
At every point of this social media blitz, allow the user to email or invite friends to visit whatever application, widget, video or Web site they are using.  Advertise the locator Web site (or some Web site) on the 30-second spots to extend the reach and longevity of their advertising buys.

I’m glad I saw the “game for the ages” and the entrepreneurial spirit making it’s way back into even the most expensive advertising buys of the year, but the execs behind these ventures need to realize that investing in the SEO and social media is:
•    the best way to extend the reach and impact of their budgets
•    an excellent way to attract social media communities to their brand in a way that can be leveraged repeatedly at reduced costs in the future
•    the only way to capture real data about the impact of the ad campaign as they track activity through the social graphs of these communities

Add your comments below, I need to get ready for my Cincinnati Bengals winning Super Bowl XLIV, in Miami, Feb. 7, 2010. No doubt.