Research company comScore says Canadians use search engines more than those in the US. They also found that Canadians, who performed 575 million searches in the month of April, prefer using Google to other search engines.

Yahoo’s Overture, provider of paid search listings, is hoping to gain more Canadian advertisers. To help with the cause they have partnered with NetWorldMedia, a Canadian pay-per-click network. NetWorldMedia will sell Overture listings alongside its paid listings service which delivers advertising in Canada via Telus, Sympatico, Yellowpages.ca and more.

It’s anticipated that Overture will also launch a “Overture Canada” division later this year. All good news for the Canadian search marketing industry which has been slow to expand.

Reps from both Google and Overture attended a recent Catalog coneference and they had plenty of tips to offer advertisers looking to get better paid search results.

The most emphasis was placed on the importance of combining effective keywords with strong creative messages.

- try improving the creative message tied to the keyword or changing its web site landing page.
- modify creative messages to highlight seasonal consumer needs as well as featured services.
(Diane Rinaldo, Overture)

They say what makes a company great is the little things. Well…. I think Google is a great example of that. Take their new Gmail service for example. First they rock the boat by announcing the service comes with 1000 megabytes of free storage. Heaps more than most of their competitors combined.

That isn’t little I admit - but the day they chose to announce it would probably seem like a little detail to most. Google chose to announce the service on April 1 - April Fools day. Well, this small detail garnered them loads more press coverage then they would have gotten on any other day of the week because no one knew if it was true. The suspense was killing writers around the globe!

That’s an example of how a little thing goes a long way.

More little things…

If you have a Gmail account and you have no mail you may see the following:

“No new mail! There’s always Google News if you’re looking for something to read.”

I am not a betting man, but if I was I would put my money on the fact that those two short sentences will be enough to convince a heck of alot of users to visit Google News. A simple (little) thing that is sure to go a long way.

Or maybe you’ll see this:

“You don’t have any mail! Our servers are feeling unloved.”

Isn’t that much more fun than reading “No new messages”? Of course it is. With just a couple words Google has helped create trust with their customer. And that isn’t little.

[Thanks to Evgenia from International Development for sending over the Gmail bits]