Tel Aviv----May 22...... Search engine Internet marketing (search engine optimization - SEO) will grow by 33 percent in 2005, reaching $11.6 billion by 2010. According to a new forecast from Forrester Research.

The report, "US Online Marketing Forecast: 2005 To 2010", finds that 84% of marketers plan to increase US online Internet marketing ad budgets in 2005. The report, that includes data from an online survey of 99 leading marketers, concluded that new advertising channels will draw interest and spending from marketers.

Sixty-four percent of respondents are interested in advertising on blogs, 57% through RSS, and 52% on mobile devices, including phones and PDAs. Survey finds that marketers are quickly losing confidence in the effectiveness of traditional advertising channels and feel that online channels will become more effective over the next three years. 78% of survey respondents said that they think search engine marketing will be more effective, compared with 53% of respondents who said TV advertising would become less effective. Total US online advertising and marketing spending will reach $14.7 billion in 2005, a 23% increase over 2004. Online marketing and advertising will represent 8 percent of total advertising spending in 2010, rivaling ad spending on cable, satellite TV and radio.

"Despite significant changes in consumer behavior, there is a large disparity between the amount of time consumers are spending online and the money marketers are spending trying to reach them online," says Forrester Research Principal Analyst Charlene Li. "When at-work Internet use is taken into consideration, online consumers spend more than one-third of their time online — roughly the same amount of time they spend watching TV. Yet marketers spend only four percent of ad budgets online versus 25 percent on TV."

A new and highly potent global public relations, public affairs Internet news placement service for commercial, non-profit and governmental organizations has been launched. Joel Leyden, president of Leyden Communications Israel and the publisher of the Israel News Agency announced the new PR news Internet SEO placement service today.

"Ten years after having created the first Internet news source out of Israel in 1995 - the Israel News Agency - I have decided to integrate my 25 years of editorial, public relations and Internet programming SEO skills for the placement of Israel news on the Internet," said Leyden. "I was one of the founders of the Internet in Israel, having created hundreds of Web sites, including the Israel Defense Forces, the first site for an Israel Prime Minister and the first commercial Website named NetKing. Now it's time for Internet journalism and public relations to integrate and reach a higher level."

For decades the international public relations agencies in New York, Chicago, Los Angles, London, China Paris and Tokyo have relied upon one or two specialized business news placements services to secure headlines for their clients in industry, government, non-profit, IR, entertainment and hi-tech. These news placement services faxed news releases to thousands of newspapers, trade magazines, TV and radio stations for decades. But where they failed their business and government clients today in the US, Europe and Asia is by not having adapted to the Internet.

"You can't write the same business public relations news release for a print paper as you would for the Internet," says Leyden. "They are totally different mediums. The Internet is based on news searches that one makes using Google or Yahoo. When performing searches either on Google Web or Google News one must write as both an knowledgeable editor who also has the skills of an Internet marketing professional. Very few news business editors have the experience of Internet marketing and almost no Internet marketing professionals have any kind of background and experience in print or broadcast journalism."

Leyden, who operated his own public relations and advertising agency in New York's World Trade Center for several years, moved to Israel in 1987. Today he serves in many roles in Israel as an international media consultant, journalist, Internet marketing professional, SEO, Web site designer and programmer, media coach and cross cultural expert. "Both governments and businesses need to get their news out to the general public and to specialized trades, from apples and defense to food, hardware, software, health, bio tech, special events, trade shows, press conferences, casinos, clothes fashion, sports, crisis communications and cars. Whether its hi tech security systems or dating services, the end user at the keyboard is seeking products and services by inserting just a few words into an Internet search box. If the Internet search engines do not find those keywords, then you may as well be invisible."

If you are managing PR for tech companies or public relations for web companies, you may be asking: "How can I increase website traffic by learning and using the secrets to getting great search engine placement?" While others might want to keep their discoveries secret, Leyden Internet public relations placement services wants to shatter the stereotypes in public relations and search engine optimization by offering this free Internet advice to increase site traffic.

First, Leyden believes that you will benefit from learning and using them. As David Ogilvy wrote in his book, Ogilvy on Advertising: "In 18th-century England, a family of obstetricians built a huge practice by delivering babies with a lower rate of infant and maternal mortality than their competitors. They had a secret – and guarded it jealously, until an inquisitive medical student climbed onto the roof of their delivering room, looked through the skylight and saw the forceps they had invented. The secret was out, to the benefit of all obstetricians and their patients."

Second, we believe that sharing our Internet public relations news placement services will help us overcome the entrenched stereotype created by a few unprincipled flaks and spin doctors who take credit when the sun comes up in the morning, but say it’s not their fault when the sun goes down at night. At the same tie, we also have to overcome the emerging stereotype created by a few unethical search engine optimizers and website promoters.

As Google warns on its web site: "Be careful if a company is secretive or won't clearly explain what they intend to do." Why? Because "attempts to unfairly manipulate search engine results…will only improve your chances of being dropped from search engine results altogether."

Leyden's guide to increase Web site traffic and secrets to getting great search engine placement includes the following. Jeffrey Tarter, the editor of Softletter, wrote in the April 30, 2002 issue, "By now, it’s no secret that that search engines can lead huge numbers of sales prospects to a company’s Web site. In fact, the latest tally is that Web users now conduct 325 million searches every day – and the number is rising. For many companies, getting ranked near the top of a Google or Yahoo keyword search is now a top priority in their lead generation process."

As this guide will show you, optimizing your news Internet press releases, marketing white papers, and ezine-newsletter content – and posting these pages on your site – can help your site get high-ranking search results and better public relations news release placement. These, in turn, can generate: Hits on designated/unique URLs, Leads, and Sales. Sales, leads, and hits on designated/unique URLs also happen to be the three most effective metrics that website operators use to measure the success of their online media initiatives, according to a survey by the Direct Marketing Association in April 2002.

Optimizing the documents created by your PR department or agency – and posting these pages on your site – can also generate more publicity. As Barry Golson, editor in chief of Yahoo! Internet Life, wrote in the March 2002 issue of the magazine, "We read about online journalism – whether it’s better than the offline kind, which news sites are best, which are failing – but we don’t as often hear how the Net has changed the way traditional beat reporters and researchers gather information." Increasingly, they are using search engines. As Golson’s Editor’s Note, entitled "A Reporting Revolution", pointed out: Robert Scheer, who writes a syndicated column for the Los Angeles Times, was among the very first reporters to expose the connections between the Enron bankruptcy and the Bush administration. When a media reporter for The Washington Post inquired of Scheer, "How did you get onto it so early?" Scheer replied, "Google."

There was plenty of evidence at Search Engine Strategies 2004 that search engine marketing has gone mainstream. Even the issues addressed by both keynote speakers reflected the classic "separation of church and state" concerns that mainstream media have been discussing for almost 100 years. Despite the snowy weather, rocky economy and likely war, turnout for Danny Sullivan’s Boston conference more than doubled from 600 in 2002 to 1,300 this year.

The number of exhibitors also came close to doubling, from 15 a year ago to 29 in 2004. In the past, most panelists dressed in business casual "shirts" that are typically worn by webmasters and search engine optimizers (SEOs).

"This year, panels were packed with well-suited attendees, investment bankers and Fortune 500 advertisers," reported Stephanie Olsen, staff writer for CNET’s News.com. Among the well-suited attendees were research analysts from U.S. Bancorp Piper Jaffray, which has just published a 90-page report, The Golden Search. The report says the search industry is already a $1.5 billion business and estimates it will hit $7 billion in revenues by 2007.

In addition, the keynote sessions by Paul Ryan, chief technology officer for Overture, and Tim Cadogan, vice president of search at Yahoo, provided more evidence that search engines are no longer a niche market. Both speakers represent publicly-traded companies. Overture (Nasdaq: OVER) had revenues of $667.7 million in 2002, a 132% increase from $288.1 million for 2001. Yahoo (Nasdaq: YHOO) had net revenues of $953.1 million for 2002, a 33% increase over $717.4 million in 2001. Because of financial disclosure restrictions, both speakers avoided discussing the short-term implications of their companies’ recent buying sprees. Overture has announced it will acquire AltaVista’s business for $140 million as well as the Web search unit of Fast Search & Transfer in a deal worth up to $100 million.

Meanwhile, Yahoo has completed the acquisition of Inktomi in a deal worth $235 million. Instead, both speakers addressed the long-term implications of keeping the "state" side of search, the paid listings, from unduly influencing future development of the "church" side of search, which are often called the "editorial' listings. For example, while his company pioneered the market for paid search listings, Overture’s Ryan outlined his vision for coming improvements to the science of indexing billions of Web documents to produce relevant, non-commercial results. "There’s a lot of work to be done in Web search," said Ryan. "All of the search engines have fundamental problems with relevance." Ryan then gave a short illustration of how to improve search engine technology with intelligence on the context of keyword queries and knowledge of a web surfer’s intent while searching.

For his part, Yahoo’s Cadogan acknowledged, "There has been a tension between the user experience and the economics of search. Our challenge is to strike the right balance." He then discussed what Yahoo was doing to better understand user needs, which requires a better feedback loop than the average two-word query provides; identify the right content, which can be difficult when the meaning and intent of a one-word query like "windows" could return pages for Microsoft or Anderson; optimize search presentation, which can get cluttered when offering choices of local content, images, and commercial matches; get performance feedback, which is critical to giving users what they want when they want it; and improve simplicity and ease of use, which is critical to user satisfaction and retention.

Cadogan concedes that balancing economics and user satisfaction will take work, and told Colin C. Haley of InternetNews.com at the conference that "the gray area is understanding if the customer needs (a product or service) or is interested in pure research." While both Ryan and Cadogan handled church / state issues in an even-handed way, neither spent much time talking about the growing number of users who are posing increasingly specific queries.

According to U.S. Bancorp Piper Jaffray, less-frequently searched terms, the so-called "tail" of a search, now number in the millions daily. In addition, conversion rates on these "tail" searches are much higher than the low, single-digit, conversion rates for more common searches. For example, queries for "cheap airfares to London" will produce a higher percentage of qualified leads than queries for "travel". This is the trend that most search engine marketers (the ones in "shirts") are already harnessing, while most mainstream marketers (the ones in "suits") are still learning the differences between paid and editorial listings.

Leyden Communications is based in Israel but is now providing an Internet SEO PR service to global public relations organization. Leyden already has several orders from public relations firms in the US, Europe, Israel, Japan and China.

"In Israel, we are very concerned with our branding image and take great sales efforts to market our services and products to the US, Europe and Asia," says Leyden. "Israelis have learned to localize - to establish offices in New York, Los Angles, London, Rome, Paris, Tokyo and throughout China, but they have still failed to market themselves properly on the Net. Government agencies, industry and trade organizations spend thousands of dollars on creating highly attractive and professional Web sites only to realize that they cannot be found on the Internet."

"What the Israel News Agency will be providing is a means to ensure that their news is read and placed in real time news Websites by editors, reporters and decisions makers from Washington and Jerusalem to London and Beijing." Leyden continues: "The PR news releases must find their way to the editors and consumers, news placements are essential to the life and growth of an organization. If you don't optimize your business news releases for the Internet search engines, then you may as well go out to a movie, play golf or just take a walk on a beach - in Israel.

News release placement services are a public relations agency's safety net, for when your news release is not picked up by an editor or a news reporter, then you rely on a paid secured placement. The Israel News Agency and it's professional staff of news editors and Internet programmers (SEO) in Israel have the experience and the knowledge to get any business, investor or public affairs news release placed and seen on the Net's major search engines within minutes.

The very fact that you are now reading this story illustrates our Internet marketing point."

To contact the editors of the Israel News Agency, please click here.

ISRAEL NEWS AGENCY

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