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October 28th, 2011
Posted by Robert Kurtz

From the very start, Click Here has always been involved in “social media”; however, in this case that means participating in local education and networking organizations within the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex. Local organizations, such as DFWIMA, offer a vast amount of resources and educational opportunities of which Click Here takes full advantage to continually better itself as a premier digital agency. Just as Click Here pushes the envelope when it comes to digital projects, its employees push themselves to always be on top of the latest trends, digital education and strategies. Networking forums also offer exciting opportunities for Click Here to stay on top of both the online and offline advertising world as they continue to meld as we advance through “the twenty-tens.”

Click Here employees participate in a variety of networking and digital organizations throughout North Texas, and a few of the main organizations are outlined below via excerpts from their websites. While each of these organizations has a specific target and message, Click Here feels that constant presence and participation within these organizations is key to continue as a premier agency.

DFW Interactive Marketing Association

The DFW Interactive Marketing Association is a forum for interactive professionals, businesses and educators in the Metroplex dedicated to sharing ideas, information and best practices that will help define and develop the growing interactive marketing industry and its disciplines.

Dallas/Fort Worth Chapter of the American Marketing Association

The mission of the Dallas/Fort Worth Chapter of the American Marketing Association is to educate, support and enhance the performance of its members and marketing professionals in the DFW Metroplex. Members come first; we strive to support them. We exist to serve their needs by delivering an interactive environment built on top-notch educational content, professional development and networking opportunities.

DFWAMA is committed to leading the long-term development and growth of the Dallas/Fort Worth marketing community through improving the effectiveness and efficiency of the chapter, resulting in a positive impact on the bottom line. We do our utmost to improve the member experience and continually increase awareness of the DFW AMA.

Dallas Ad League

Founded in 1908, the Dallas Ad League, rebranded AAF Dallas, is more than 900 members strong and is affiliated with the Tenth District of the American Advertising Federation, part of AAF’s national network of more than 200 ad clubs and 40,000 professionals.

AAF Dallas strives to elevate the success of the advertising community through innovation, creative excellence, collaboration, professional development, education and philanthropic endeavors.

Digital Dallas

Digital Dallas was created to bring together the digital minds of Dallas and the greater DFW area to network, showcase local talent, educate and facilitate idea exchange. Brought to you by the creators of Digital DUMBO, the professional digital hub of New York City.

The DFW Metroplex has the second-largest concentration of brand headquarters in the nation behind New York. We have a gold mine of digital talent here that those brands and the nation need to know about.

Refresh Dallas

Refresh Dallas is a community of designers and developers working to refresh the creative, technical and professional aspects of new media endeavors in the Dallas area. Do you feel like the Web needs a new look? Interested in the latest web technologies? Care about design, but feel it must be usable? Then you’ve come to the right place.

Summary

While the above list contains some of the premier organizations in the DFW area, it is not a complete list in terms of what the employees of Click Here involve themselves with on a weekly basis. Click Here knows the education process never stops in order to produce best-in-class work day in and day out.

October 26th, 2010
Posted by Robert Kurtz

Over the past few weeks, search has undergone a major facelift, sending search engine marketers into a tizzy. From the shift in search engine market share, the launch of Google Instant, the Bing/Yahoo! transition and the continuing significance of mobile search, marketers have a lot to soak up for their next search campaign.

Current Search Engine Market Share
According to The Nielsen Company, Google continues its dominance within the U.S. search space with a commanding 65.1% of search engine market share. However, the attention-grabbing fact about August’s results is that Nielsen is reporting that Bing (formally MSN Live) has surpassed Yahoo! in terms of market share, 13.9% to 13.1%, respectively. The rise of Bing can be attributed to the rebranding it went through this past year, updating its image from MSN Live to Bing in addition to the $100 million marketing campaign to promote the update.

Google Instant
Google launched Google Instant on September 8, 2010. Google Instant is a new search improvement that displays search results instantly as a user types. Google has created a brief video introducing Google Instant as well as giving some examples of how they feel it will impact the search community.

In addition to faster searches, smarter predictions and instant results, Google Instant is the next progression in search. Concerning search impressions, an impression is still counted when a user hits “enter” once completing a search. New to the foray is that when a user remains on the updated search results for over three seconds, they are then counted as an impression. Google Instant has no impact on the current search engine rankings, so sites that ranked highly for certain keywords before September 8 will continue to rank highly for the same terms. Also, the use of longtail keywords within paid search campaigns and search engine optimization updates will continue to be utilized if not expanded based upon Google Instant and the new predictive search methodology that pushes users to make a more specific search query to identify the most relevant search results. Currently, Google Instant is not supported in mobile search; however, it’s a feature that should be forthcoming in 2011. With the combination of instant results and predictive searches, campaign clicks may become more relevant as users are finding the most appropriate information based upon their search.

Bing + Yahoo! Transition

In July 2009, Microsoft and Yahoo! entered into an agreement in which Bing would power Yahoo!’s search results for the next 10 years. Well, it appears the transition is finally under way. As of October 18, 2010, Bing is powering 100% of Yahoo!’s natural search results and between 30%-40% of Yahoo!’s paid search results. The deal grants Bing an estimated 27% of search engine market share, albeit on two search engines. Search engine marketers now will have to monitor and likely utilize Bing to achieve the extended reach necessary for most large-scale search campaigns. By November 1, 2010, Bing is expected to power 100% of Yahoo!’s organic and paid search engine results.

Mobile Search Market Share
Mobile search is currently dominated by Google. Google commands a reported 98% of search engine market share within the mobile search space. Bing will power Yahoo!’s mobile search results, but together Bing and Yahoo! make up around 2% of the mobile search engine market share. While it’s projected that Bing will eat away at a portion of Google’s mobile market share, it’s currently all Google all the time right now. Campaigns utilizing mobile search would be wise to utilize Google and its dominating market share.

Evolving Search
Overall, the search space is ever evolving to ease users into a more specific, clear-cut habit of searching to allow the engines to serve up the most relevant results. Search remains one of the most relevant and efficient conduits to reach users, via both paid and natural search engine results. While initial results from the Google Instant implementation and the Bing/Yahoo! transition are still forthcoming, the updates signal a shift in the way users will view search going forward. Watch out for more updates from the search engines to continue pushing searchers toward more relevant search queries.