Content is King for Search Marketers

What has more information that a search ad and a click through rate 300 to 600 percent higher than a typical banner? An Answers.com Content Sponsorship unit. At least that’s the news from the company’s recent press release and an article in Media Post that delves deeper into the success of this new advertising model.

Media Contacts was one of the first agencies to test Content Sponsorship ads for one of their travel clients. According to Rob Griffin, senior vice president, U.S. director of search for Media Contacts, the ad model was a nice fit because it enhances the search strategy for a client’s media buy by putting marketer content in front of users that are looking specifically for that information.

"There's the battle for visibility on the search engine results page with both natural and sponsored search. If you look at the way the [Answers.com] pages are structured, there's a lot of text-heavy content from encyclopedias, Wikipedia and other local resources that's cross-referenced and hyperlinked--so it's very friendly to search engine spiders," Griffin told MediaPost.

He added: "The click-through rates and engagement metrics were significantly higher than other ad models--but you expect them to be higher because the ad was linked contextually to information users were searching for," said Griffin. “The Answers.com module allows for more flexibility — you can add pictures and more content. That’s what helps provide the additional lift.”

On the Road with the College Campus Tour

Answers.com recently completed its first ever College Campus Tour. Staff members hung out in the student centers of five colleges — Columbia University, Pace, Hofstra, Brown University and URI — telling students how Answers.com helps with homework, research and papers, giving them time for what’s really important (napping, socializing, etc.). Fliers, stickers and bottle openers (for those late-night sodas) helped reinforce the message.

Answers.com t-shirts like the ones pictured on staff above were awarded to students who won the Quikie WikiAnswer Trivia Challenge. Check out some students going for the win below:





Would you have been a winner? Here’s a sample of some questions posed to students:

· What is a baby kangaroo called?
· How many teeth are in the human mouth?
· Which president is in on the nickel?
· What do you call a group of dolphins?
· What album is considered the best selling album of all time?

Super Summer Stats From WikiAnswers

Traffic on WikiAnswers really heated up this summer. Today Answers.com announced that key metrics for WikiAnswers, its UGC site, improved by approximately 50 percent since the end of June 2007.

• Questions increased by 50 percent since June 26, from approximately 500,000 to over 760,000 today; registered users have increased to over 280,000 in the same period, up from approximately 200,000.
  
• According to comScore, unique monthly visitors in the U.S. increased by approximately 50 percent as well, from 2.22 million for June to 3.36 million for August.
  
• Daily page views have increased by 50 percent as well.

"To have more than tripled it in only ten months demonstrates a real excitement about what we call 'Q&A the wiki way'. This most recent increase of 50 percent, over the summer months when Internet usage generally drops, is further confirmation,” explained Bob Rosenschein, Chairman and CEO of Answers Corporation. "The community …has really crystallized."

Over the coming months, WikiAnswers will become integrated as a central component of Answers.com. You can read the full release here.

Answers.com Named “Search Engine of the Month”

Answers.com is proud to be September’s Search Engine of the Month, as named by AltSearchEngine. Answers.com helps over 1 million people daily get relevant content from reliable resources with no links.

Charles Knight, editor of AltSearchEngines, compares results from Answers.com to other search engines saying, “When I search “Absinthe” on Google, I get the usual 10 disjointed web pages. When I search the same query on Answers.com, I get, in a matter of seconds, a beautiful 14 page report, with: Dictionary; Etymology, Production, Preparation (The Absinthe Ritual), Czech Absinth, History, Controversy, Effects, Regulations, References (40 citations), External Links, Articles, and the Best of the Web. All perfectly organized and beautifully displayed. It looked like an A+ term paper!”

Knight also gave trumpeted praise for 1-Click Answers, the company’s free download that provides instant access to definitions and reference material from any website. Of the feature, Knight says, “1-Click Answers is a very impressive feature ... Everyone should have it.”

While Answers.com is not a “pure” search engine, Knight said he named Answers.com to the winner’s circle because “one of the main qualifications is that those on the list do one thing better than the major search engines.”

For more information, you can read the whole article here.

Answers.com named Best of Facebook

Everyone likes to be popular. That’s why Answers.com is just tickled that it was chosen this August as the BestofFacebook.

Answers.com’s application is for both trivia lovers and those who want to impress their friends with their knowledge. Facebook users choose fresh information from the Answers.com site such as Word of the Day, Today in History and WikiAnswers, which enables anyone to ask a question on any topic and get a cooperatively-written human answer.

The winners for the BestofFacebook are selected from applications that receive the most number of votes in the month it was submitted.

Content and Contest News

Two announcements were released from corporate this week. First, Answers.com announced that its popular product, AnswerTips, will be featured on the financial site WallStreet Direct. In addition, Answers.com and WikiAnswers have recently added to their content. Here’s a quick recap of some new offerings:

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Handbooks for professional research, hobbies and general interest, such as architecture & construction, boating and genealogy

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Guides covering classical, French, German and Irish literature, as well as a general literary dictionary

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Religious reference, including a dictionary of saints, as well as works on Celtic, African and Asian mythology

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Recent major U.S. Supreme Court decisions

Since our last installment, Director of Marketing, Jay Bailey, had not just one, but two, articles appear under his byline. “Questioning the Answers,” which appeared in Upgrade magazine, is a snappy piece that lays out the challenges of online search — and how Answers.com is positioning itself as the ultimate solution. The piece can be accessed at the SIIA website or you can check it out in the public marketing folder.

Jay also wrote an opinion piece that appeared in MediaPost mid-May. In the article, he lays out an alternative to the IAB’s initiative to create standards on web metrics.

VP of Strategic Development, Bruce Smith, didn’t have his own byline, but he garnered some press for his appearance on the panel “Tapping into User Generated Content.” ClickZ did a recap of the main points, but you can also watch a video of the panel here.

An article with no affiliation Answers.com came out touting AnswerTips this month. Website Magazine named the download one of “Seven Sizzling Site Tools for Every Webmaster.” That article, unfortunately, is only available in the dead-tree version, but can be accessed in the public folder for marketing.

Want to make sure Answers.com makes another list, too? Surf over to CNETs Webware 100 Awards. Answers.com is a finalist in the reference category. Voting is open until June 11^th, but why not just click here now and vote, before you forget.

Product Praise

When Kyle Monson wrote a PC Magazine story on 11 Ways to Search Without Google, he had no way of knowing that it would trigger a maelstrom of e-mail. In response, he wrote a separate blog post including four more search engines and services that he failed to include in the original. Of Answers.com, he says:

“While not technically a search engine, Answers.com is a good way to find what you're looking for. Punch in your search query and you'll get information back instead of links. It's a great site for reference purposes when you don't feel like wading through a ton of links.”

Many Answers.com products received praise over the past couple of weeks. Take for instance, AnswerTips. Wilf from Wilf’s Wine Press raised a glass of merlot to Director of Marketing, Jay Bailey, for helping him straighten out an issue with his beloved program. ContentBlogger, which just won a CODiE award for Best Media Blog, also mentions Answertips in his post about his site redesign. And The Hindu made a survey of the widget landscape, featuring AnswerTips among them.

Note in The Hindu article that the author writes: “the famous online answer service, Answers.com.” Even more breathless praise is found at the AZ Daily Sun who calls Answers.com an “Internet-based phenomenon.”

Talking about breathless praise, it seems that mobile is making just about everyone pant over the potential… even librarians. “Email is for old people,” said Megan Fox, a keynote presenter at the CIL conference in Arlington. Mobile devices, she continued, will be what people rely on more often for everything from email to information searches. Demonstrations of a few, select sites were shown to the audience during the packed presentation — among them was MobileAnswers. You can read some reviews at Libraryola, Infotodayblog and CIL blog, written by two attendees.

MobileAnswers was also mentioned by Be Connected, which says, “It will have you looking like the goto person you want to be.”

Finally, WikiAnswers. According to Alex Pham’s article “Go ahead, just ask a question” in The LA Times, interviewees say that Q&A sites are addictive. It’s kind of just a matter of people wanting to be recognized, says Tuesday Creative, who comments on Pham’s story and even features a great picture of the redesigned WikiAnswers at the top of his post.