www.lijit.com
“Uh, I had an adrenaline rush. It’s very common. You can Google it.”- Edward Cullen, Twilight
Google has become a household (or office) term for “search”. Even conversations in the big screen can be quoted using such a term. Meeting someone who doesn’t know Google would be a once in a blue moon event. Think of “search” and without a glance I’m sure you would think of that six-letter word on white background with a textfield and two buttons below it.
But, as some bloggers may have noticed, Google is quite flawed. When doing a search, the tool would pick up all related links to sites related to those keywords entered. This is not what you want so you set it up to search only your site’s content and some other site that you entered away on the configuration. Still this is not enough.
This is where Lijit fills in the gap. This innovative search engine gives publishers the Lijit Wijit, a FREE plug-in component, to put on your site and give your readers a way to not only search your blog and your other sites but also search your photos in Flickr, your videos on YouTube, your bookmarks in StumbleUpon, or your content on Facebook.
These are some the benefits of Lijit as quoted from their site:
• Increase searches by 2.5 – 5x
• Engage readers and raise pageviews 5% or more
• Grab the 30% of your audience that you’re missing
• Use search stats to improve content targeting and uncover reader intent
FOR YOUR READERS
Lijit allows your readers to use your customized search engine that searches your blog, bookmarks, photos, blogroll, and more giving you the control over your readers and the opportunity to know the “how, who and what” of your site readers.
FOR PUBLISHERS
Lijit made sure that they are providing value back to their blog publishers. This is visible through the form of statistics that you can view on your Lijit account. You can see how many times you’ve been searched, about what, which of your results have been clicked, and much more.
As of December 10, 2008, they have released the latest version of their ad network. The theme of this release is to offer greater value and control for their publishers by offering transparent, flexible, and manageable search ad offering. This is by letting the publishers set their own prices and sell their own search ads.
FOR ADVERTISERS
Lijit gives you the ability to target the right people at the right time. You can build text ads using Lijit’s easy-to-use interface. Choose as many keywords as you want to target your ads and have your ads appear next to search results next to a site or set of sites that you have picked.
For an interview from Lijit’s CEO and co-founder Todd Vernon, you can watch this YouTube video:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ekxt5gnrwTA&hl=en&fs=1]
