tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3176422803059634252024-03-13T08:36:13.426-07:00SEO Research DelhiAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16004045485581991251noreply@blogger.comBlogger57125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-317642280305963425.post-17629734707899644912018-05-25T03:39:00.003-07:002018-05-25T03:39:24.046-07:00How to build an in-house search marketing team<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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In part 1 of this two-part series, Contributor Simon Heseltine outlines various internal organizational structures and explains how each will help build, grow and maintain an in-house search marketing team.</h2>
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<img alt="" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-282258" height="450" sizes="(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px" src="https://searchengineland.com/figz/wp-content/seloads/2017/09/team-building-ss-1920-800x450.jpg" srcset="https://searchengineland.com/figz/wp-content/seloads/2017/09/team-building-ss-1920-800x450.jpg 800w, https://searchengineland.com/figz/wp-content/seloads/2017/09/team-building-ss-1920-600x338.jpg 600w, https://searchengineland.com/figz/wp-content/seloads/2017/09/team-building-ss-1920-768x432.jpg 768w" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; display: block; height: auto; margin-bottom: 10px !important; margin-left: auto !important; margin-right: auto !important; margin-top: 5px; max-width: 100%; padding: 0px; vertical-align: middle;" width="800" />Building, growing and maintaining an in-house search marketing team can be a challenge for any organization.</div>
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In Part 1 of this two-part series, “How to build an in-house search marketing team,” I will address each of those issues, as well as outline different organizational structures that will give an in-house team the best possible chance to succeed.</div>
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Getting the org structure right</h2>
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When you’ve decided you want to either bring search in-house or formalize a team from staff spread throughout the organization, the first step is to determine what the search marketing team will focus on. Once that is decided, the second step is to decide how the team will work with the rest of the organization.</div>
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Typical components should include search engine optimization (SEO), pay-per-click (PPC), content, social and email and may span business-to-consumer (B2C), business-to-business ( B2B) or both.</div>
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You may also decide the team should have dedicated resources, such as developers or project management, in order to ensure that projects the team works on are implemented.</div>
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Teams and structure</h2>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">The embedded team</strong></div>
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If you have existing search functions within the organization, this is more than likely your starting point.</div>
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Product area A will have its own SEO and SEM specialists, product area B its own, and so on. There may be some cross-team collaboration and communication to share learnings, ideas and tools. While this means the teams are subject matter experts (SMEs) on the product areas they work on, it does mean that their growth opportunities, in terms of specialist knowledge and career path, may be limited.</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">The centralized team</strong></div>
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With a centralized team, they all report to the same in-house search team. This can be set up in several different ways.</div>
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Each team member may have primary responsibility for one or more websites or product areas, in which case they’d be SMEs in those areas.</div>
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Typically, if the team is small, they could operate on a trouble ticket system, working on the highest-priority issues regardless of the site or product.</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">The matrixed team</strong></div>
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A matrixed team is the “happy medium” between the embedded and centralized teams.</div>
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With a matrixed team, there is a central in-house search team structure, but the team members are still embedded within the various functional areas, as in the embedded structure. Typically, they are “dotted lined” into their product areas and will be treated as a member of that team but will have the structure of the in-house team to provide additional support.</div>
<img alt="" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-299027" height="450" sizes="(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px" src="https://searchengineland.com/figz/wp-content/seloads/2018/05/structure-corporate-organization-ss-800x450.jpg" srcset="https://searchengineland.com/figz/wp-content/seloads/2018/05/structure-corporate-organization-ss-800x450.jpg 800w, https://searchengineland.com/figz/wp-content/seloads/2018/05/structure-corporate-organization-ss-600x338.jpg 600w, https://searchengineland.com/figz/wp-content/seloads/2018/05/structure-corporate-organization-ss-768x432.jpg 768w" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; display: block; height: auto; margin-bottom: 10px !important; margin-left: auto !important; margin-right: auto !important; margin-top: 5px; max-width: 100%; padding: 0px; vertical-align: middle;" width="800" /><h2 style="box-sizing: border-box; color: black; font-family: Oswald; font-size: 36px; font-weight: 500; letter-spacing: -0.01em; line-height: 1.3em; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 0px;">
Where to put search marketing</h2>
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Once you’ve decided on the structure and the functional areas contained within the team, you then must decide where the team should exist in the organization. The appropriate decision here will depend on the rest of your organizational structure, the processes you have in place, the functions you place within the team and the leadership structure within the company.</div>
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There’s no sense placing the team in an area of the organization where they won’t be effectively supported.</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Marketing</strong></div>
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While this may seem like the ideal fit, given that search marketing has the word “marketing” in it, there may be reasons to keep traditional marketing and search marketing separate.</div>
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For example, keeping them separate might make sense if search marketing works only in the B2C area and traditional marketing only deals with the B2B sector. However, putting search and traditional marketing together can be beneficial and should make for greater consistency in messaging, especially if content creation is within the portfolio of the search team.</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Development & IT</strong></div>
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Given the crossover between the work that search does and technical changes or requirements from the search team via Google, Facebook and other online platforms, it may make sense to place the development and internet technology (IT) team directly within the tech organization. Keep in mind this may create a level of separation from the editorial and content side of search, so they will need to find a way to work together.</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Design</strong></div>
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If the organization has a design team, then it may make sense to involve the design team in projects from the beginning and involve the search marketing team at all stages of a project life cycle.</div>
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However, while design and the search marketing team should work together, that doesn’t mean that they should be bundled together in the organization.</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Search marketing</strong></div>
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Having a separate search marketing group within the organization means the search team can functionally work with other teams and have a voice in the organization dedicated to their wants and needs at an executive level.</div>
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The <span style="color: #428bca;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; box-sizing: border-box;">leader of this team</span></span> needs to be someone who understands search marketing and can work with the leaders of the other functional areas within the organization. They also need to keep up with search engine changes and social networks.</div>
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Now that you’ve determined the appropriate organizational structure and hierarchical location for your in-house search team, the next step is to staff the team, which I’ll cover in my next article.</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16004045485581991251noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-317642280305963425.post-4244127507138206702017-09-03T11:07:00.002-07:002017-09-03T11:07:24.740-07:00Content marketing & SEO: The scalable way to be in the right place at the right time<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Digital marketers agree about the importance of SEO and content marketing, but contributor Marcus Miller says they're too often kept in completely separate silos. Here's how to bring them together. </h2>
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Content marketing and search engine optimization (SEO) are both titans of modern marketing, yet they’re not spoken about in the same conversation often enough.<br />
In this article, I will take a quick look at content marketing and SEO and then detail how you can integrate these two approaches to supercharge your results from each approach.<br />
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What is content marketing?</h2>
The Content Marketing Institute defines content marketing as follows:<br />
<blockquote>
Content marketing is a marketing technique of creating and distributing valuable, relevant and consistent content to attract and acquire a clearly defined audience — with the objective of driving profitable customer action.</blockquote>
There are a few moving parts here. Typically, content created and promoted will help the reader in some way, and, in some instances, it will be purely for entertainment.<br />
Red Bull does a great job with entertaining content marketing by aligning themselves with lots of high-octane sports. A great example is Red Bull Stratos, where <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvbN-cWe0A0">Felix Baumgartner parachuted to earth from space</a>. This is pure entertainment, yet it is well aligned with the brand.<br />
For the average business, the content you publish is likely going to be a little more practical and related to the pains, gains and jobs that your target customer wrestles with.<br />
At Bowler Hat, we help businesses with SEO and digital marketing, so we tend to publish content that helps people improve their SEO. We are talking mainly to business owners and in-house SEOs.<br />
This exposure helps us demonstrate our expertise and build relationships with companies that we can help. It’s marketing, but, in a nice and non-sales-focused way. It’s marketing that feels good and not pushy.<br />
<h2>
What is SEO?</h2>
I am going to assume that most Search Engine Land readers will be satisfied with that, as they probably are quite familiar with SEO, but there is a more detailed definition <a href="http://searchengineland.com/guide/what-is-seo">here</a> if you’d like one.<br />
While the definition above works for our purposes, all too often we see <a href="http://searchengineland.com/small-business-seo-questions-answered-276500">small business SEOs</a> concerned only with ranking for the big and obvious commercial terms. This is inarguably important, but because everyone wants to rank for the big obvious terms, this can be super-competitive, both in the organic results and within the paid placements.<br />
Where content marketing on search engines can be most helpful is when it puts you in front of customers before they are comparing potential suppliers. Establishing contact with a potential customer at this point gives you a chance to illustrate your credibility and generate leads earlier in the buyer journey. This type of helpful thought-leadership content is also one of the easier types to promote, so it can help you <a href="http://searchengineland.com/organic-traffic-link-building-small-businesses-269353">build links that can naturally improve your rankings on those coveted commercial terms</a>.<br />
<h2>
Content marketing & SEO</h2>
Marketing is all about being in <a href="http://searchengineland.com/4-ps-seo-digital-marketing-279867">the right place at the right time</a>. And in 2017, when people have a question, they typically ask it on one of the major search engines (well, mostly Google).<br />
Yet many content marketing efforts rely on social media or email to get the message out there. These channels can be powerful. But they rely on the hope that your social post, ad or email gets in front of a prospective customer at just the time when they are looking for your products or services. Sure, targeting has gotten more sophisticated, but it doesn’t really compare to search engine marketing, which works so well because we know our listings are seen right when people are searching for that information.<br />
Having your content found by prospective customers on Google is the holy grail. It is your content at the right place and the right time. It is truly scalable, and when it comes organic listings, it doesn’t come with a cost per click.<br />
<h2>
How to get your content marketing found on Google</h2>
You have two basic options here:<br />
<ol>
<li>Publish on a highly authoritative site where the content will naturally rank well.</li>
<li>Build the authority of your own site and your published content.</li>
</ol>
Option #1 is fairly self-explanatory As an example, I recently published an article on <a href="http://searchengineland.com/kpis-seo-measuring-seo-success-254773">ways to measure the success of SEO</a> right here on Search Engine Land. I focused on keywords that were variations on “SEO KPIs” and “measuring SEO,” and the article naturally ranked from first to third for the majority of these terms.<br />
Now, it was an informative and well-researched article (blowing my own trumpet here) that I felt was better than anything else out there. It was also published on an authoritative and highly relevant site. No link building or anything else was needed. The content itself and the authority of the site it was placed on were enough for that article to rank well.<br />
Option #2 is a little harder, as your site is isn’t likely to be nearly as authoritative as an established site in its niche. So, you have a few jobs to do here before you can get content on your own site to rank.<br />
First, you absolutely, positively need to get the <a href="https://www.bowlerhat.co.uk/seo-tips-beginners/">SEO basics dialed in</a>. Then you need to build authority for your overall site (domain authority). And you will need to promote those articles individually (page authority).<br />
Both of these approaches have merit. Publishing on third-party sites is faster, easier, and lends you credibility. Driving people to your own site is powerful for brand awareness, and you have more control of the next steps (remarketing, lead generation, email, social and so forth).<br />
Both approaches require you to make an <a href="http://searchengineland.com/16-secrets-guerrilla-local-seo-227029">investment and to be consistent</a> — but what worthwhile marketing does not?<br />
<h2>
How SEO supercharges content marketing</h2>
This is fairly obvious. When your content ranks well organically, you get free exposure in the natural search results. This improves brand awareness, drives engagement with your business and helps set more people on the pathway to <i>profitable customer actions</i>.<br />
Your content appears in the right place at the right time with no associated cost per click. That’s some marketing gold right there.<br />
<h2>
How content marketing supercharges SEO</h2>
What kind of outbound links do you personally click? I am not talking about internal navigation, but rather the links that take you from one site to another.<br />
Typically, these are links within the body of an article. If I were talking about <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PageRank">Google PageRank</a>, I would likely link to the Wikipedia PageRank page to provide more detail. This link enriches and improves the linking page and provides a useful resource and direction for the reader. And sure enough, informational resources like Wikipedia have millions of links. All without doing any SEO.<br />
Now, most businesses are not Wikipedia, and this is not “Field of Dreams.” So, we can’t just build it and wait for the links to come. We must promote the content when it is created. Outreach, guest posts and digital PR are your allies here, and you can supplement these efforts with some paid promotion and content amplification.<br />
The best approach here is to identify well-linked content in your sector, and then create an improved version of that content. This way, if you keep a list of who linked to the original content, you have a great place to start for initial outreach. And you are also armed with the knowledge that what you are promoting is worthy of those links — which is central to this whole approach.<br />
In the simplest terms, content marketing supercharges your SEO by making link building easier.<br />
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SEO vs. content marketing</h2>
We see this antagonistic mentality all the time in digital marketing. <a href="http://searchengineland.com/seo-vs-ppc-pros-cons-integrated-approach-274643">SEO vs. PPC</a>. <a href="http://searchengineland.com/local-seo-not-island-least-shouldnt-228959">Local SEO vs. Organic</a>. SEO vs. Content Marketing. SEO vs. Social.<br />
Smart digital marketers don’t think like this. All channels have a part to play, and the best strategies are often those that <a href="http://searchengineland.com/planning-seo-success-2016-238896">strategically integrate channels in a way that they support each other</a>.<br />
This is certainly the case with SEO and content.<br />
<ul>
<li>SEO helps get your content and business in front of more people.</li>
<li>Content marketing helps you build authority and improves your SEO.</li>
</ul>
Think integration rather than silos, and all your marketing will thank you for it.<br />
<h2>
SEO & content marketing strategy</h2>
So, to quickly summarize here, we have the following strategy to help drive more traffic to the content on your own site.<br />
1. Create great content<br />
2. Promote that content with:<br />
<ul>
<li>outreach</li>
<li>digital PR</li>
<li>guest blogging</li>
</ul>
Strategically this is relatively simple. You need to be realistic and patient. If your content ranks well in organic search, it can be a huge win — but it won’t be quick or easy. This is marketing that shoots for the moon!<br />
<h2>
SEO & content marketing caveats</h2>
This approach will not be right for every business or every situation.<br />
If you are a small local plumber looking to pick up several new customers each week, then the effort to produce plumbing content that ranks highly in Google is likely not worth your time. You would be better served by doing some <a href="http://searchengineland.com/seo-vs-ppc-pros-cons-integrated-approach-274643">PPC, SEO</a> and <a href="http://searchengineland.com/local-seo-ranking-2016-beyond-251404">local SEO</a>. You may also be able to use a more targeted approach to content marketing using social media advertising.<br />
If you have a scalable business model and are not geographically bound, then nothing is going to be more scalable than a combined content marketing and SEO strategy. You will be able to drive more awareness and engagement — without rapidly scaling costs — as you reach a more diverse and geographically broad audience.<br />
Remember that <a href="http://searchengineland.com/seo-right-business-257915">SEO is not always the right approach</a> if the objectives, budget or time scales say otherwise. But if you don’t get started now, you will fall ever farther behind, and when SEO and content is a good fit, it is hard to beat.<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike></div>
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16004045485581991251noreply@blogger.com52tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-317642280305963425.post-20871647604967023902015-04-26T02:22:00.002-07:002015-04-26T02:22:40.351-07:00Bing Providing Detailed Answers From Third-Party Web Sites Like Google<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<img alt="bing-books-bookstore-ss-1920" class="alignnone size-large wp-image-212506" height="450" src="http://searchengineland.com/figz/wp-content/seloads/2015/01/bing-books-bookstore-ss-1920-800x450.jpg" width="800" /><br />
Bing seems to now be providing detailed answers to your queries at
the top of their search results, pulled/sourced from third-party web
sites, much like how Google does with their knowledge graph answers.
This step will likely anger publishers as much as when Google started
doing this.<br />
<a href="https://twitter.com/TheRomit/status/591655804039602176">@TheRomit</a> spotted that a search in Bing for [<a href="http://www.bing.com/search?q=rebuild%20spotlight%20index">rebuild spotlight index</a>] returns step by step instructions taken from Apple’s support web page on how to take the necessary steps to solve the problem.<br />
Here is a picture:<br />
<img alt="bing-answers-scrap" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-219728" height="526" src="http://searchengineland.com/figz/wp-content/seloads/2015/04/bing-answers-scrap.png" width="749" /><br />
Bing started doing these types of answers back in <a href="http://blogs.bing.com/search/2014/08/07/technical-searches-have-been-turbo-charged/">2014</a> but offering full form answers is taking this to the next level. A place Google went a while back, where <a href="http://searchengineland.com/google-publishers-concerned-knowledge-graph-searchers-still-need-content-186325">publishers are not happy</a>
about Google or any search engine taking a copy of their content and
displaying all of it on the search results page, leaving the searcher
with no need to click over to their web site.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16004045485581991251noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-317642280305963425.post-86509606644676408282015-04-21T07:51:00.001-07:002015-04-21T07:51:15.953-07:00Google’s Mobile-Friendly Update Is Rolling Out Right Now<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<img alt="mobilegeddon-smartphone-ss-1920" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-219339" height="450" src="http://searchengineland.com/figz/wp-content/seloads/2015/04/mobilegeddon-smartphone-ss-1920-800x450.jpg" width="800" /><br />
Google <a href="http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2015/04/rolling-out-mobile-friendly-update.html">confirmed in a blog post</a>
that the mobile-friendly algorithm update is rolling out now. The
company also reaffirmed that this update doesn’t equally apply to all
devices or results:<br />
<div>
<ul>
<li>Affects only search rankings on mobile devices</li>
<li>Affects search results in all languages globally</li>
<li>Applies to individual pages, not entire websites</li>
</ul>
Google has put together another <a href="http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2015/04/faqs-april-21st-mobile-friendly.html?m=1">FAQs document for webmasters</a>.
The company says that webmasters or publishers won’t necessarily see an
immediate impact and that it will “be a week or so before it makes its
way to all pages in the index.”<br />
Google recommends using its <a href="https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly/?">mobile-friendly URL testing tool</a> to determine whether Google will regard your site/pages as ready. There are many more <a href="http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2015/04/faqs-april-21st-mobile-friendly.html?m=1">helpful links on in the FAQs</a>.<br />
<img alt="Mobile friendly Google" class="aligncenter wp-image-219456" height="457" src="http://searchengineland.com/figz/wp-content/seloads/2015/04/Screen-Shot-2015-04-21-at-7.22.32-AM-787x600.png" width="600" /><br />
</div>
<div class="dmd row">
</div>
<br />
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16004045485581991251noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-317642280305963425.post-8837703456169969052015-04-08T01:42:00.001-07:002015-04-08T01:42:03.683-07:00Why You Must Account For Seasonality In SEO & SEM Projections<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; clear: both; font-family: Arial; font-size: 18px; line-height: 1.3em; margin-bottom: 20px;">
<img alt="analytics-data-ss-1920" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-201042" height="450" src="http://searchengineland.com/figz/wp-content/seloads/2014/08/analytics-data-ss-19201-800x450.jpg" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; display: block; height: auto; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-left: auto !important; margin-right: auto !important; margin-top: 5px; max-width: 100%; padding: 0px; vertical-align: middle;" width="800" /></div>
<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; clear: both; font-family: Arial; font-size: 18px; line-height: 1.3em; margin-bottom: 20px;">
Digital marketers must often make projections when creating strategies for search engine optimization, PPC, social media and even conversion rate optimization. This usually happens when a client or prospect asks for some idea of what can be achieved when signing up for the service. Or for an in-house SEO or SEM, it would occur at the beginning of a new project or campaign.</div>
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After years of doing online marketing for many large and sophisticated projects, we have developed a pretty good system for putting together client projections. While I will not reveal our model in detail today, I will provide the basics and discuss why skipping seasonality implications can become a major issue.</div>
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Let’s start by talking briefly about online traffic and seasonality. In certain industries, the traffic plummets some months and surges in others. Consider an eCard company or online floral retailer. What do you think their traffic looks like in the week leading up to Valentine’s Day, compared to the week after? I’ll give you a hint: It is <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">way</em> higher.</div>
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Due to this fact of operating a seasonal online business, marketing professionals have to account for the historical business numbers. The agency or in-house marketer can’t take credit for a surge in traffic when it is clearly seasonal, and they shouldn’t be looked down upon for a seasonal drop.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; clear: both; font-family: Arial; font-size: 18px; line-height: 1.3em; margin-bottom: 20px;">
Let’s now cover some background on reporting and SEO projections. Then we can get into seasonality.</div>
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Always Know The Average Baseline Of Traffic For The Previous Year</h2>
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It is nice to have baseline traffic numbers that you can reference any time. This is more of just an “FYI” number so that you know the mean of traffic. To get the mean, take your total annual traffic and divide it by 12. You now know your average traffic number each month.</div>
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Once you have this information, you can be aware of where your client is in comparison to this number in any given month. It’s a good number to have in your head for your own personal knowledge and the client’s.</div>
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Look At The Year-Over-Year Increase, Not The Traffic Number</h2>
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Of course, one of the most important things you need to consider is the percentage increase year-over-year. If your client is experiencing a 10% year-over-year traffic increase in month 1 <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">and</em> month 2, that means your traffic growth is flat. If you are at 12% year-over-year in month 3, you have grown 2% since the year started. It’s all about understanding these margins and if there is margin growth based on your baseline of growth that already exists.</div>
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Of course, you need to be careful how much weight you give to increases and decreases. SEO can be fickle, as we all know. Some months are up and others can be down — the main goal should be to see a clear upward trend over the course of the contract, with positive year-over-year numbers.</div>
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Have Go-To Third-Party Tracking Tools Installed</h2>
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One thing that is nice about third-party tracking tools is that they do not generally take seasonality into account. Instead, they look at monthly averages for keyword traffic numbers, and rankings simply are what they are. So, if you have these tools to rely on, you can get a gauge of how the account growth is looking without muddling it with seasonal fluctuations in an analytics account.</div>
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Be Careful With The Period-Over-Period Reports The Same Year</h2>
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A lot of big companies, especially those with investors, are really big on quarterly reports. (It is just what business-minded individuals are used to looking at.) These reports generally look at quarter-over-quarter growth numbers.</div>
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There is nothing wrong with this as long as everyone understands the industry and how the seasonal numbers relate to it. If the businesses biggest quarter is Q1, how do you think that Q2 report is going to look? It is going to look down. Now, if the investors don’t understand the seasonal implications, you could lose that client.</div>
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On the opposite side, it is the responsibility of the internet marketing company to be honest if it is the other way around. If Q2 is the biggest time of the year, the company should not be taking credit for seasonal growth in Q2 that seems too good to be true when looking at quarter-over-quarter.</div>
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Be honest and clear in this situation; it builds trust and is just the right way to do business. Also, make sure to note that the year-over-year numbers are always the main indicators of success.</div>
<h2 style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Oswald; font-size: 36px; font-weight: 500; letter-spacing: -0.01em; line-height: 1.3em; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 0px;">
How To Do The SEO Projections When Considering Seasonality</h2>
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Now that we have all of that out of the way, we can talk about how to do projections for SEO that take seasonality into account.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; clear: both; font-family: Arial; font-size: 18px; line-height: 1.3em; margin-bottom: 20px;">
First, determine how much you think you can grow the traffic each month based on the strategies you are going to implement. Do you see 1,000 pages in a template that you can unblock and optimize on a high domain authority site? Or perhaps you have a plan to add 10 new pages for highly targeted keywords a month?</div>
<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; clear: both; font-family: Arial; font-size: 18px; line-height: 1.3em; margin-bottom: 20px;">
Whatever your strategy, pick the projects you’ll be doing, figure out the potential traffic numbers, and then provide low, medium and high success metrics. This will allow you to see how much traffic you can feasibly add to the site.</div>
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Every SEO has their own way of approaching a project, so I will leave this part up to you. But generally, you should be looking at the number of keywords you are targeting, the rankings you think you can get for those keywords, the estimated CTR for that position, and the average conversion rate you expect for that traffic. Once you know these numbers, tie the estimated sales back to the average revenue per sale and the profit margin per sale. Add up all total profit and back out your fees — you now have your ROI number. Keep this model in mind for the next step.</div>
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Now we will talk about the seasonality part. Take these organic traffic growth numbers and add them to a monthly calendar that spans the length of the projections. Next, overlay the additional traffic you will be adding on to last year’s numbers, making sure to do this for low, high and medium. Now you will have 2 things:</div>
<ol style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 0px;">
<li style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 18px; margin-bottom: 10px;">Low, medium and high traffic growth numbers separate from the analytics account numbers.</li>
<li style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 18px; margin-bottom: 10px;">Low, medium and high traffic numbers added to monthly analytics. This will take into account seasonality.</li>
</ol>
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Make sure to follow the steps above to get all your numbers on the low medium and high scale such as increase in transactions/leads, revenue growth, profit growth and ROI.</div>
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A Few Important Things To Keep In Mind</h2>
<ol style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 0px;">
<li style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 18px; margin-bottom: 10px;">Traffic will not always increase when looking at period-over-period reports for the same year due to seasonality, as we discussed. Make sure you are clear about this with the client.</li>
<li style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 18px; margin-bottom: 10px;">Things happen to jeopardize data all the time. Did the website break? Was there a penalty? Did the analytics tracking code get deleted? Did someone block the site in the robots.txt file or slip a noindex nofollow into a page they were not supposed to? If you have any major errors or outliers in the analytics account from the previous year, that basically makes that baseline of traffic useless. You need to account for that. Also, it is very important to be clear about why the numbers are the way they are with the client. Make sure to note any anomalies in your reports.</li>
<li style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 18px; margin-bottom: 10px;">Make sure you also have a landing page include filter in analytics that reports on the projects you’re working on. I like to create shortcuts that provide insight on the pages we have actually targeted/touched. That way, if something happens to another section of the site, I can show growth to the sections we have worked on.</li>
<li style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 18px; margin-bottom: 10px;">Make sure you set up your tracking tools right. If you are using a third-party tool to track rankings over time and general estimated traffic growth, that can really come in handy if the analytics install is jeopardized for some reason. The more analytics programs you have to turn to, the better. Make sure you have a good combo of third-party and first-party tools. Here is a <a href="http://marketingland.com/80-hottest-seo-social-media-digital-analytics-tools-marketers-112446" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #428bca;" target="_blank">list of tracking tools</a> I worked really hard on.</li>
</ol>
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Be Honest, Know Your Data, Understand The Concepts, And You Will Win</h2>
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At the end of the day, you need to get things implemented on-site and off-site to see SEO traffic growth. Make sure you do great work, stay on top of the project, and have the right strategies in place. Track everything you do with the most detail possible and provide low, medium and high projections that are feasible, take into account return on investment and seasonality.</div>
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The reason this post is so important to me is that I know we have all been in a situation where numbers seem lower, but it is clearly due to seasonality. We all need to be aware of how seasonality plays into traffic, account for it and be clear with people on the project why numbers are what they are. Now if you can take that a step further and work the implications of seasonality into your SEO projections, you are a rockstar!</div>
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16004045485581991251noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-317642280305963425.post-75481811540798216232015-04-05T23:54:00.002-07:002015-04-05T23:54:22.648-07:00Everything You Need To Know About Google’s New Stance On Mobile<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<img alt="google-mobile-smartphones-blue-ss-1920" class="has-border aligncenter wp-image-211355 size-large" height="450" src="http://searchengineland.com/figz/wp-content/seloads/2014/12/google-mobile-smartphones-blue-ss-1920-800x450.jpg" width="800" /><br />
There’s no mistaking the fact that Google is driving the mobile revolution. Google is the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_operating_system#Android">world’s largest mobile platform provider</a> (Android). Google is <a href="http://searchenginewatch.com/sew/opinion/2353616/mobile-now-exceeds-pc-the-biggest-shift-since-the-internet-began">the world’s largest mobile search provider</a>. Google has t<a href="http://thenextweb.com/apps/2014/10/15/google-play-downloads-now-exceed-apples-app-store-60-percent-ios-apps-still-make-money/">he largest mobile app store</a>. In other words, Google gets to make the calls on mobile.<br />
But things are getting even bigger. Google isn’t satisfied with the biggest piece of the pie for devices, search, and apps. <a href="http://venturebeat.com/2015/03/05/googles-mobile-network-is-a-science-project-not-a-threat-to-big-telco/" target="_blank">They might eventually own the airwaves, too</a> (<a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2015/03/08/how-big-a-threat-is-google-wireless-to-att-verizon.aspx" target="_blank">maybe</a>).
The purpose of this article is to tell you what’s going down with
Google’s mobile stance, and what you need to do in response.<br />
<h2>
Google Will Revamp Their Search Algorithm To Favor Mobile-Friendly Sites</h2>
<a href="http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2015/02/finding-more-mobile-friendly-search.html">According to Google Webmaster Central</a>, Google will be rolling out the most significant mobile algorithm change to date:<br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<em>Starting April 21, we will be expanding our use of mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal.</em></div>
In just a few short days, you’re going to witness a huge algo upset. In fact, a Googler noted that this change will have <a href="http://searchengineland.com/how-large-is-googles-mobile-friendly-algorithm-larger-than-panda-or-penguin-217026">more of an impact than Penguin or Panda</a>.<br />
What is a mobile-friendly site? Thankfully, it’s pretty easy to find out. Just run your website through <a href="https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly/">Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test page.</a><br />
<img alt="image00" class="has-border aligncenter wp-image-216871 size-full" height="717" src="http://searchengineland.com/figz/wp-content/seloads/2015/03/image00.png" width="761" /><br />
Unfortunately, <a href="http://www.searchenginejournal.com/flawed-google-mobile-usability-test-results/127623/" target="_blank">the test is not without its flaws</a>. Google admits it with its prominent placement of a feedback form. (The issues have prompted some <a href="https://productforums.google.com/forum/#%21topic/webmasters/VWOZplQeXSo" target="_blank">robust discussion</a>
in the Google Product forums.) Nonetheless, the mobile friendly test is
generally a useful gauge of a site’s mobile performance.<br />
Another method of checking your site is to search for it on your mobile device. If the SERP entry bears <a href="http://searchengineland.com/google-officially-launches-mobile-friendly-labels-mobile-search-results-208949" target="_blank">the “mobile friendly” label</a>, then you’re in Google’s good graces.<br />
<img alt="image02" class="has-border aligncenter wp-image-216873 size-full" height="608" src="http://searchengineland.com/figz/wp-content/seloads/2015/03/image02.png" width="429" /><br />
Finally, you should run your site through Google’s Mobile Usability
Report (in Google Webmaster Tools) to discover any relevant
recommendations that will improve mobile use.<br />
<h2>
The Algorithm Change Will Be “Significant”</h2>
I’m trying not to read <em>too</em> much into the announcement, but I can’t help but notice that ominous word, “significant.”<br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<em>This change will affect mobile searches in all languages worldwide and will have a </em><strong><em>significant </em></strong><strong><em>impact</em></strong><em> in our search results.</em></div>
What will be the actual impact of an algo change that is
“significant”? It’s anyone’s guess. Out of curiosity, I searched the
Webmaster blog archives for all occurrences of the term “significant.”
What are some other things that Google called “significant”?<br />
<ul>
<li><a href="http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2012/03/crawl-errors-next-generation.html" target="_blank">Crawling – 2012</a></li>
<li><a href="http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2010/12/holiday-source-code-housekeeping.html" target="_blank">Markup – 2010</a></li>
<li><a href="http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2009/10/dealing-with-low-quality-backlinks.html" target="_blank">Linking – 2009</a></li>
<li><a href="http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2012/04/another-step-to-reward-high-quality.html" target="_blank">Panda 1.0 – 2012</a></li>
</ul>
A survey like mine is facile, of course, but I think we need to
assess and prepare for something that Google deems “significant.”<br />
Already, we know that this update will be bigger than Panda or
Penguin. We also know that Google considers mobile to be so significant
that they are working to dominate nearly all of its manifestations. With
this search update, we should brace ourselves for a tectonic adjustment
in the way that mobile search functions.<br />
My basic predictions are that non-optimized pages will virtually drop
from mobile rankings and possibly desktop rankings. I predict that any
page lacking mobile optimization will cease to rank for head terms. I
predict that SERP results on page 1 for longtail keywords above a
certain search frequency threshold will feature mobile-friendly only
pages.<br />
<h2>
The Algorithm Assesses Each Page Individually</h2>
A notable feature of the mobile algorithm is that it analyzes mobile
compatibility on a page-by-page basis, rather than a website-wide basis.
This announcement came from <a href="https://plus.google.com/+GaryIllyes/posts" target="_blank">Google’s Gary Illyes</a> during his SMX West presentation and was <a href="http://searchengineland.com/google-mobile-friendly-ranking-factor-runs-real-time-page-page-basis-216100">areported by Search Engine Land</a>.<br />
What does this mean practically? If your site has some
mobile-optimized pages, but some non-optimized pages, then Google will
look at them separately and promote the one that <em>is </em>optimized.
They won’t “penalize” (if that’s the right term) an entire site based on
the off chance that a few pages aren’t optimized.<br />
Realistically, though, if a site is responsive and well-designed,
then this shouldn’t be too much of an issue. I’m sure there are some
sites with a few optimized pages and a few that aren’t, but generally
speaking, an entire site is either mobile friendly or not.<br />
<h2>
The Algorithm Operates In Real-Time</h2>
Another of Gary’s remarks had to do with the real-time nature of the mobile algorithm. Here’s how Search Engine Land <a href="http://searchengineland.com/google-mobile-friendly-ranking-factor-runs-real-time-page-page-basis-216100">reported Gary’s announcement.</a><br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<em>On the Mobile SEO panel that I [Barry
Schwartz] moderated, we asked Gary when do webmasters need to get their
sites mobile-friendly for them not to be impacted by the April 21st
launch. Gary explained that the algorithm runs in real-time, so
technically, you can do it any day, and as soon as Google picks up on
the change, the site will start to benefit from the new mobile-friendly
algorithm change.</em></div>
Obviously, Google can only assess a site’s mobile friendliness when
it crawls the page and indexes it for search. At this point, your site
is scored. If the page is <em>not </em>mobile friendly on April 21, but
becomes mobile-friendly on April 25, then we can assume that Google’s
next crawl should be able to identify it as such.<br />
<h2>
What’s Good For Desktop Is Also Good For Mobile…Sort Of</h2>
An additional insight from Google’s John Mueller is that Google mixes
some of the desktop and mobile ranking signals. Page speed, for
example, is blended in its impact on both desktop and mobile search.
Additionally, it seems true that <a href="http://insidesearch.blogspot.com/2012/01/page-layout-algorithm-improvement.html" target="_blank">Google’s top heavy algorithm</a> also shares the desktop/mobile impact.<br />
We can safely assume that some of the features that are good for
desktop are equally good for mobile, assuming the page has a
mobile-friendly design. But keep in mind that the algorithm may begin to
differentiate the various factors that are currently bundled as one and
the same. Because of the vastly different platforms, load time, layout,
etc., between desktop and mobile, it would make sense for it to do so.<br />
<a href="http://searchengineland.com/google-mobile-friendly-algorithm-currently-doesnt-differentiate-desktop-ranking-signals-216255">Apparently</a>, Google is experimenting with different algorithm signals that are device-dependent.<br />
<h2>
App Indexing Is Now Factored Into Search Results</h2>
App indexing is a new feature of the algorithm that will be exclusive
to sites with associated Android apps. This feature is already in play,
according to Google Webmaster Central:<br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<em>Starting today, we will begin to use
information from indexed apps as a factor in ranking for signed-in users
who have the app installed. As a result, we may now surface content
from indexed apps more prominently in search.</em></div>
The purpose of this feature is probably to tighten the connection
between mobile search and mobile application. Eventually, there will
probably be little distinction between the two. Bridging the gap via
search is a logical choice. <a href="https://developers.google.com/app-indexing/webmasters/details" target="_blank">Google recommends the following steps</a> in order to facilitate app indexing:<br />
<ul>
<li><a href="https://developers.google.com/app-indexing/webmasters/app" target="_blank">Add deep link support</a> and specify how to reach specific content within your app.</li>
<li><a href="https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answer/6041489" target="_blank">Verify your app’s official website</a> on Google Play Console.</li>
<li><a href="https://developers.google.com/app-indexing/webmasters/server" target="_blank">Provide deep links</a> for each web page that has a corresponding deep link, either on each page of your website or in your sitemaps.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/home" target="_blank">Check for errors in Webmaster Tools</a> so you can fix them.</li>
</ul>
<h2>
Conclusion: What Should You Do About It?</h2>
Though it may be onerous to kowtow, you’re going to have to adapt in
the new mobile-centric digital marketing universe. Right now, Google
leads the way. They’ve given the command – we have to follow.<br />
<ol>
<li>As a first course of action, make your website mobile friendly. Responsive is best.</li>
<li>Second, address any mobile usability issues in Google Webmaster Tools.</li>
<li>Third, if you have an Android app associated with your site, get it deeplinked and indexed as soon as possible.</li>
<li>Fourth, monitor your metrics carefully up to and following the rollout of the April 21 algo change.</li>
</ol>
Finally, let’s keep learning, listening, and testing so that we can adapt to the changing face of search. <em>What do you plan to do to your websites prior to April 21?</em></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16004045485581991251noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-317642280305963425.post-50727248511686159372015-04-03T01:17:00.002-07:002015-04-03T01:17:28.096-07:00Google’s Steady Gains In Paid Search Location Tracking A Win-Win<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<img alt="google-adwords-store-small-business5-ss-1920" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-211215" height="450" src="http://searchengineland.com/figz/wp-content/seloads/2014/12/google-adwords-store-small-business5-ss-1920-800x450.jpg" width="800" /><br />
Geography-based bid adjustments are powerful tools that allow
advertisers to optimize bids based on a number of different factors
related to a user’s location. Whether using<br />
Whether using <a href="https://support.google.com/adwords/answer/1722043?hl=en" target="_blank">proximity bidding</a>, <a href="https://support.google.com/adwords/answer/1722043?hl=en" target="_blank">average household income (HHI) levers</a>,
or standard geographic location targets, advertisers now have more ways
than ever before to update bids for users that meet different
geographic criteria.<br />
However, it’s important to note that these tools are only as
effective as the location tracking capabilities of the search engines
allow for. This is because the share of total traffic that can be
properly attributed to a location becomes smaller as the type of
location becomes more granular.<br />
To this end, it appears that Google has been making big gains over
the past year in terms of how much traffic it can track at more granular
levels, which has implications for a number of its initiatives,
including mobile and in-store tracking.<br />
<h2>
Share Of AdWords Traffic Tracked To ZIP Code Climbing</h2>
One method of gauging Google’s ability to track user location is to
compare what share of U.S. traffic it can roll up to the ZIP code level
in the Most Specific Location column of its Geographic reports (found in
the Dimensions tab of the UI) to the share of traffic that is reported
at the city level in the City column of the same report. This data is
also available through the API.<br />
As a ZIP code is the most specific location that will currently
populate in the Most Specific Location column, the difference gives us
an idea of how many users would not be targeted if a campaign targeted,
say, all of the ZIP codes in a city compared to the city itself.<br />
Here’s how the share of U.S. traffic rolled up to these levels of
location granularity shake out across Merkle|RKG’s advertiser base:<br />
<img alt="Share of US Adwords Traffic Tracked to City" class="has-border aligncenter wp-image-217500 size-large" height="451" src="http://searchengineland.com/figz/wp-content/seloads/2015/03/Share-of-US-Adwords-Traffic-Tracked-to-City-800x451.png" width="800" /><br />
<br />
<img alt="Share of US Adwords Traffic Tracked to Zip" class="has-border aligncenter wp-image-217503 size-large" height="451" src="http://searchengineland.com/figz/wp-content/seloads/2015/03/Share-of-US-Adwords-Traffic-Tracked-to-Zip-800x451.png" width="800" /><br />
In Q1 of 2015, Google was able to track 71% of desktop and tablet
traffic and 67% of mobile traffic to a zip code, compared to tracking
97% of desktop and tablet traffic and 93% of mobile traffic to a city.
The remaining traffic gets rolled up to less granular location types
such as state or country.<br />
There are a few interesting things to note about this data:<br />
<ol>
<li>Phones have always lagged behind desktop and tablet devices in terms
of how well Google can track user location both at the city and ZIP
code levels, despite Google’s Android OS accounting for 38% of all paid
search phone traffic in Q1 of this year according to RKG’s data.</li>
<li>The share of phone traffic attributed to both ZIP code and city
levels took a dip in Q3 of last year. We’re not really sure what would
have caused this decrease, but the blip in the data exposes how
temporary issues with Google’s tracking can have an impact on
advertisers’ ability to target users based on location and the resulting
data.</li>
<li>Google is making BIG strides in tracking users at a more granular
level. This is particularly true of mobile users, who Google was 34%
more likely to be able to attribute to a ZIP code in Q1 of 2015 compared
to the same quarter last year. Google was 23% more likely to be able to
attribute desktop and tablet users to a ZIP code year-over-year.</li>
</ol>
Google’s ability to track users as granularly as possible is
important to advertisers and to the search engine giant itself for a few
reasons.<br />
<h2>
Better Tracking = Better Bidding for Advertisers</h2>
Advertisers using geographic location modifiers to adjust bids based
on location want to be able to influence bids for as much of their
traffic that matches to those different geographic locations as
possible.<br />
More granular location types are also tied to geographic attributes
more specific to the population of that area (ex. average income of a
ZIP code much more useful than the average income of a city), so
advertisers want to embrace the most granular targeting possibilities.<br />
However, they need to be confident that targeting a campaign to more
granular location types won’t result in large shares of the population
not getting targeted due to Google’s inability to track them to that
level of location granularity.<br />
To both of these ends, any improvement in search engines’ ability to
track user location is a good thing, and makes not only standard
geographic location targets more effective, but also makes tools like
Google’s HHI bidding levers (which rely on ZIP code level location) and
proximity bidding more valuable.<br />
Better bids based on location result in a more efficient allocation
of spend for advertisers, and should lead to an increase in spend
overall going to Google – a win-win.<br />
<h2>
Improved Local Ad Serving</h2>
For obvious reasons, both Google and advertisers want to serve the
most relevant ad copy possible to searchers with local intent.
Particularly with campaigns targeted to very small radiuses around
businesses or other physical locations, granular location tracking is
pivotal to providing users with the best experience possible.<br />
Particularly with campaigns targeted to very small radiuses around
businesses or other physical locations, granular location tracking is
pivotal to providing users with the best experience possible.<br />
As many searches with local intent take place on mobile devices, it’s
been especially promising to see Google’s advancements in tracking
traffic from these devices to granular locations.<br />
<h2>
Some In-Store Tracking is Geo-Reliant</h2>
Google rolled <a href="http://adwords.blogspot.com/2014/12/measure-more-improving-estimated-total.html">store visit tracking based on user proximity to advertiser locations</a>
out of Beta in December as part of Estimated Total Conversions.
Tracking those users which have Location History activated on their
smartphones to instances when they arrive at a storefront, Google then
extrapolates these tracked visits to provide estimates for the total
number of brick and mortar visitors with a paid search click.<br />
Tracking those users which have Location History activated on their
smartphones to instances when they arrive at a storefront, Google then
extrapolates these tracked visits to provide estimates for the total
number of brick and mortar visitors with a paid search click.<br />
These estimates are obviously heavily reliant on granular location
tracking, and will only become more reliable as Google is able to track
more users to brick and mortar locations. This is especially important
for mobile, which typically sees a bigger lift from accounting for
offline impact than desktop and tablet devices. For example, one RKG
advertiser tracking these in-store visits sees one in-store visit for
every three mobile conversions, compared to one visit for every ten
desktop conversions.<br />
This is especially important for mobile, which typically sees a
bigger lift from accounting for offline impact than desktop and tablet
devices. For example, one RKG advertiser tracking these in-store visits
sees one in-store visit for every three mobile conversions, compared to
one visit for every ten desktop conversions.<br />
<h2>
Conclusion</h2>
Hyper-segmentation and targeting is becoming increasingly important
for advertisers as we strive to take account optimizations to the next
level. However, these optimizations rely on the technology behind the
scenes being able to correctly identify and bucket user context at a
granular level.<br />
As such, advertisers need to be aware of just how good search engines
are at attributing not only geographic location, but also more
user-specific information like gender or age.<br />
When a campaign is set to target all of the 18- to 25-year-old males
in the zip code of a college town, those ads aren’t actually reaching
all of the 18- to 25-year-old males in that ZIP code. They’re only being
served to the users for which the platform can assign an age, gender,
and ZIP code level location to, and which meet the specified criteria.<br />
Thus, advertisers may want to consider adding in “safety nets” to
catch relevant searches that may not be tracked as granularly as the
level they are targeting. For example, adding a city level target to a
campaign targeting a radius around a store.<br />
As Google will respect the most granular location target to which it
can properly attribute the search, the most specific bid modifiers will
be used for those searches which are tracked to the radius around the
store, while the city target will allow the campaign to also garner
those clicks which take place nearby but which can’t be assigned a
location by Google as granular as the radius specified.<br />
The good (GREAT) news is that Google has been making steady progress
in terms of how well it can track user location, and is making
particularly strong gains in the area of mobile devices, which have been
harder to track than tablet and desktop devices in terms of granular
location attribution. This progress will only continue to make for a
better experience for users, more effective optimizations for
advertisers, and increased spend heading Google’s way.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16004045485581991251noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-317642280305963425.post-42446109605174114402015-04-02T01:06:00.000-07:002015-04-02T01:06:01.915-07:00April Fools’ 2015 For the Search World: From Super Smart Google Panda To Backwards Google<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<img alt="april-fools-day2-ss-1920" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-217778" height="450" src="http://searchengineland.com/figz/wp-content/seloads/2015/04/april-fools-day2-ss-1920-800x450.jpg" width="800" /> <br />
In case your grade schooler hasn’t warned you – it’s April Fools’ Day and the online shenanigans are wide spread.<br />
Matt Cutts and Google Maps were out of the gate early yesterday, with <a href="http://searchengineland.com/april-fools-googles-matt-cutts-starts-new-seo-spam-tool-autoseo-217774">Cutts announcing his very own AutoSEO tool</a> and <a href="http://searchengineland.com/googles-pac-maps-gets-april-fools-ball-rolling-early-turns-google-maps-into-pac-man-video-game-217755">Google Maps turning itself into one big Pac-Man video game</a>.<br />
Here are some search-related April Fools’ gags we have found so far:<br />
<h2>
Google Japan’s Panda Search Bear</h2>
No country is safe from Google’s April Fools’ jokes. This video from <a href="http://googlejapan.blogspot.com/2015/03/panda.html">Google Japan’s blog</a>
features the company’s vice president of engineering Chris Yerga
announcing Google Panda, a stuffed toy Panda bear that answers your
search questions.<br />
“Google Panda is so simple to use, that even people who don’t normally use devices won’t be able to stay away,” says Yerga.<br />
<h2>
Backwards Google</h2>
Google used its own <a href="https://plus.google.com/u/0/+google/posts/HiKWsist7S6">Google+ page</a> to roll out a backward Google search homepage.<br />
“We’re always thinking about what’s ahead, but sometimes it’s
important to look backwards,” claims Google. The post includes a link to
<a href="https://com.google/">https://com.google/</a> – a domain now made possible by new gTLDs – where everything is backwards from the logo to how search queries are entered.<br />
<img alt="backwards google" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-217820" height="423" src="http://searchengineland.com/figz/wp-content/seloads/2015/04/backwards-google-800x423.png" width="800" /><br />
<h2>
Google Webmasters Robot Dance reCAPTCHA</h2>
The <a href="https://plus.google.com/+GoogleWebmasters/posts/PrBeG7LN5cK">Google Webmasters Google+ profile added a new reCAPTCHA tool</a>, letting users confirm they’re not a robot, but can dance like one.<br />
<img alt="reCAPTCHA-AprilFools" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-217813" height="200" src="http://searchengineland.com/figz/wp-content/seloads/2015/04/reCAPTCHA-AprilFools.gif" width="400" /><br />
<h2>
SEO Expert Turns To Memes To Answer Google Webmaster Forum Questions</h2>
Webmaster trends analyst and SEO expert John Mueller is going full-on
meme for April Fools’ Day, using images to answer questions in the
Google Webmaster forum.<br />
<img alt="John Mueller google forum meme" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-217828" height="285" src="http://searchengineland.com/figz/wp-content/seloads/2015/04/John-Mueller-google-forum-meme-800x285.png" width="800" /><br />
<h2>
Bing Ads Goes Harry Potter</h2>
According to today’s <a href="http://advertise.bingads.microsoft.com/en-us/cl/29674/how-to-win-at-search-marketing-with-campaign-planner-and-other-enchanting-features">Bing Ads blog post</a>, search marketing is nothing more than a sport, played by “wizards” and “witches” of the SEM community.<br />
Much like the famed Harry Potter Quidditch game, search marketing
quidditch involves chasers, beaters, keepers and seekers, and includes a
number of fouls like blatching, bumphing, stooging and quaffle-pocking.<br />
“The game is played on, or rather over, the Bing Ads Quidditch pitch –
an oval-shaped clearly marked space, which when played globally
measures 13.7BN searches long and 577M unique users wide,” claims Bing.<br />
<h2>
#ImKenshooWhoAreYou</h2>
Software marketing provider Kenshoo may have topped Bing’s cuteness,
offering free Infinity Suite lifetime licenses to any new parents who
name their newborn “Kenshoo.”<br />
According to the company’s <a href="http://kenshoo.com/kenshoo-births-sponsored-baby-program/">April Fools’ news release</a>, parents of twins named “Ken” and “Shoo” will be entitled to free babysitting from the company’s CEO.<br />
“At Kenshoo we’re all about maximizing lifetime value so we figured
there’s no better time to establish our brand than at birth!” said
Kenshoo CEO Yoav Izhar-Prato.<br />
Entries must include a copy of the baby’s birth certificate, along
with a picture of the newborn wearing a Kenshoo branded onesie posted to
no less than ten social media accounts. Be sure to include the hashtag
#ImKenshooWhoAreYou.<br />
<img alt="Kenshoo" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-217832" height="600" src="http://searchengineland.com/figz/wp-content/seloads/2015/04/Kenshoo-693x600.png" width="693" /><br />
<h2>
Google’s New Head of Search Quality</h2>
Not to be left out of all the fun, Search Engine Land’s own <a href="https://www.seroundtable.com/google-search-quality-lead-april-fools-20084.html">Barry Schwartz has declared himself the new head of quality search</a> for Google.<br />
“Since I am already being blamed for the Google algorithmic updates,
why not really be in a position to make those decisions?” asks Schwartz.<br />
<h2>
Matt Cutts Launches AutoSEO</h2>
And now, since Barry Schwartz is heading up search quality at Google,
Matt Cutts can continue his sabbatical as Google’s head of spam to
focus on his <a href="http://searchengineland.com/april-fools-googles-matt-cutts-starts-new-seo-spam-tool-autoseo-217774">latest venture AutoSEO</a>. <br />
According to its website, AutoSEO can process your content and
present it “…in a beautiful format that’s compliant with all major
search engines and browsers.” <br />
And don’t worry – it handles mobile too!<br />
<img alt="autoseo" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-217775" height="335" src="http://searchengineland.com/figz/wp-content/seloads/2015/03/autoseo-800x335.png" width="800" /></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16004045485581991251noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-317642280305963425.post-89062555400120166192015-03-31T02:34:00.000-07:002015-03-31T02:34:18.873-07:0010 Practical Tips For Using Geo-Location To Reach Your Target Audience<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<img alt="local-city-with-pins-ss-1920" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-217308" height="466" src="http://searchengineland.com/figz/wp-content/seloads/2015/03/local-city-with-pins-ss-1920-800x466.gif" width="800" /><br />
Jeans company True Religion needed to promote events and new products
at its retail stores. Using geo-targeted emails focused on areas in
which the brand had a high concentration of stores, True Religion was
able to serve up dynamic emails unique to each audience to drive
in-store traffic.<br />
65,000 geo-targeted emails were opened with a 2.5% click through rate
and a 1% in-store conversion, a huge impact for one campaign with a
small data set, per <a href="http://resources.monetate.com/ios/images/profile/real_images/78301802book78301802.pdf?aliId=16108274" target="_blank">True Religion’s Director of Global e-Commerce</a>, Gary Penn.<br />
Examples like the above support metrics that find geotargeting
doubles the performance of all kinds of marketing methods, from email
campaigns to paid search. Per data from the Local Search Association’s <a href="http://www.lsainsights.com/" target="_blank">LSA Insights database</a>,
it also doesn’t matter what vertical your business is in. The
click-through rate for geotargeted mobile display ads was higher than
the industry benchmark for all verticals.<br />
<img alt="Insights chart" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-217305" height="503" src="http://searchengineland.com/figz/wp-content/seloads/2015/03/Insights-chart-800x503.jpg" width="800" /><br />
The effectiveness of geo-targeting is only going to further improve
as mobile use grows and location data becomes more accurate and
available. The Local Search Association (LSA) just released data that
found that, for the first time, <a href="http://localsa.org/Main/PressReleases/Mobile-Use-Now-Surpasses-PCs-When-Searching-For-Lo-3080.aspx" target="_blank">mobile devices surpassed PC use</a> in search for local businesses and services. As I <a href="http://searchengineland.com/10-trends-tips-to-consider-in-creating-a-winning-mobile-strategy-for-local-search-marketing-215335">reported last month</a>, the majority of searches (52%) for local information on mobile devices occur either in the car or away from home or work.<br />
Furthermore, 70% of consumers are willing to share their location
information if they believe they are getting something of value in
return like coupons or loyalty points, according to LSA’s <a href="http://searchengineland.com/mobile-growth-highlights-importance-of-comprehensive-local-strategy-153617">Local Mobile Search Study</a>.
This dynamically moving consumer base is only going to be more
receptive to search results and ads that are specific to their location.<br />
Geotargeting is the practice of delivering content to a consumer —
via mobile or web — using geographic location information about that
individual. At a basic level, a business can restrict its reach to
consumers only located in a defined geographic area such as a state or a
city. But location often provides much deeper, more meaningful and
identifiable traits that tell you what a person wants, needs or is
interested in.<br />
Here are 10 practical tips for using geo-location information to reach your target audience.<br />
<h2>
1. Find A Venue Where Your Target Audience Will Have Specific Wants Or Needs</h2>
Stadiums, airports, universities, and malls are examples of specific
venues that can be targeted in order to reach specific interest groups.
Stadiums provide a great opportunity to focus on specific short
engagement events with an audience defined by that event. They often
host fans from two specific cities or schools or fans of a specific
music genre that is heavy in one demographic. A band like One Direction,
for example, is likely to attract school-age female fans.<br />
Use these consumer characteristics to time and target your marketing.
For example, airports on weekdays are a great source of business
travelers looking for high-end restaurants, while weekends and Spring
Break bring more leisure visitors and families looking for more casual
dining options. Likewise, dance clubs and bars can benefit by promoting
18 and over events targeted at universities whose student bodies are
largely between the ages of 18-21. These are just a few examples of how
venues define audiences that can be effectively targeted.<br />
<h2>
2. Exclude Locations Where Your Target Audience Will Not Be</h2>
Not only can you define an area you wish to reach, you can carve out
an area you wish to exclude. Exclusion can be done by venue or one side
of the street or any area that could have been specifically targeted.<br />
For example, clubs and bars that might otherwise want to target
university students may exclude that same area during breaks or the
summer when most students are away.<br />
Excluding locations may also be a more cost-effective way to avoid
the higher ad rates of high demand target areas. Digital marketing
agency Mediative <a href="http://www.slideshare.net/SearchMarketingExpo/smx-advancedgoogleadwordsgeo-targetingoptoutbymartaturek?ref=http://conversionmax.com/the-zen-of-geotargeting-are-you-in-or-out/">explains in this SlideShare</a>
how lower-cost, broader area ad campaigns can accomplish the same
targeting goals by opting out of all areas but your desired target
location.<br />
<h2>
<img alt="LSA map" class="has-border aligncenter wp-image-217303 size-large" height="600" src="http://searchengineland.com/figz/wp-content/seloads/2015/03/LSA-map-750x600.jpg" width="750" />3. Define A Radius By Distance Or Time Around Your Store Or An Area Of Interest</h2>
Geo-fencing allows marketers to set a perimeter around a physical
location in which ads can be delivered. For geo-fencing ads, they may
include creative messages acknowledging the user’s location or may
include location-based features such as a store locator.<br />
For example, a coffee shop can set a 1-mile perimeter around its
store and reach any user within that radius. Or, it could set a 3-mile
perimeter around a nearby office complex to reach users that may be
looking for somewhere to grab coffee before going into work. You can
also try geo-conquesting, which targets customers around a competitor’s
location.<br />
Another way to define a perimeter is not by distance, but by time. A
company named iGeolise developed a platform they call TravelTime, an API
that allows mobile apps and sites to search by time rather than
distance. This could be useful for a condo unit near downtown looking to
attract workers with very long commutes, or a restaurant targeting
hotel patrons within a 10-minute walking distance.<br />
<div class="wp-caption aligncenter" id="attachment_217304" style="width: 810px;">
<img alt="igeloise" class="has-border wp-image-217304 size-large" height="368" src="http://searchengineland.com/figz/wp-content/seloads/2015/03/igeloise-800x368.jpg" width="800" /><div class="wp-caption-text">
Courtesy: iGeolise</div>
</div>
<h2>
4. Adjust Your Bid On Ads To Prioritize Better Locations</h2>
One concern with specific targeting is the loss in volume of
audience. Even if you have an otherworldly 10% click-through rate,
that’s just 10 click-throughs if only 100 people see your ad.<br />
In low performing locations, the business developed from those areas
may be outweighed by the campaign cost. By raising your bid for more
desirable target locations, you increase your exposure in that area,
while lowering your bid in other areas keeps your reach broad at a
justifiable cost. These adjustments are a way of optimizing ad
performance.<br />
An event planning company or marketer for a musician that is hosting a
concert in Chicago may use bid adjustments to prioritize Chicago, but
also reach, at a lower cost, Milwaukee, WI and Grand Rapids, MI, both of
which are driving distance<br />
<h2>
5. Use Location-Specific Keywords For Paid Search Ads</h2>
Geotargeting doesn’t always mean you have to capture where someone is
physically located. Consumer intent is conveyed all the time by search
queries, and location is a commonly included term. Consumers often
narrow their own searches by adding in the name of a city or district.<br />
For example, “Austin gyms” or “coffee shops near Dupont Circle” or
“uptown restaurants” provide location intent that you can target.
Include location terms such as area code, ZIP code, neighborhood,
community name, nearby landmarks, popular venues, tourist destinations,
well known street names, local jargon and other keywords that will help
you get found when a consumer is searching for businesses around you.<br />
<h2>
6. Predict Your Audience By Geography</h2>
Geography can also be used to predict desirable demographics and
information about users in that area. Neighborhoods can often be
delineated by residents’ income bracket, age, ethnicity, education, and
many other demographics or interests. Politicians often draw district
boundaries into areas of common political constituencies that also
predict demographics or common values.<br />
Knowing your business’ target audience and matching it up with where
they live or work helps you find those who might be most interested in
your product or service. For example, a ticket broker might want to
advertise NCAA basketball tickets in the state of Kentucky and might
think of using Kentucky basketball in its messaging. However,
Louisville basketball would be preferable for any advertising within 50
miles of the city on the Kentucky side of the border and 70 miles into
Indiana due to the strength of Louisville’s fan base in those areas.<br />
<h2>
7. Discover Location Intent By Search History</h2>
Targeting ads using search history allows marketers to deliver
location specific ads to consumers, even if the consumer’s tracked
location doesn’t match the physical location of where he or she was
searching.<br />
For example, a user searching for information on the Empire State
Building, Central Park, and Broadway tickets predicts a trip to New
York. A hotel in the area could use that search history data to deliver a
relevant and timely search related ad or message.<br />
<h2>
8. Analyze Consumer Behavior And Preference From Past Locations Visited</h2>
Location history of a consumer provides a lot of information specific
to that person: where they like to shop, what they like to buy, how
often they make the trip, and even how they get there. Obtaining this
information gives great insight to marketers that enhances the ability
to target consumers and deliver relevant, responsive location specific
ads and information, even if the consumer is not currently in that area.<br />
For example, a bagel shop might serve up a free coffee coupon to
anyone who’s visited a Starbucks location more than once within 10
blocks of its shop. The customers may be from anywhere in the city but
their location history allows the bagel shop to target those who are
likely to be in the area in the future.<br />
<h2>
9. Use Location-Specific Landing Pages To Provide Relevant Content</h2>
It’s important not only to target the right consumers, but to provide
the most relevant information to them. If you find the right user who
clicks on your ad, but the landing page for that ad isn’t customized,
that conversion could be lost. Offer different website landing pages for
each targeted ad that match the reason that user was targeted.<br />
Another way to get the right people to the right landing page is
through geo-aware targeting. Your site or landing page can detect where
the user is when they click on a banner or visit your website.<br />
For example, if a user from a high income neighborhood visits a car
dealer’s site or clicks on a paid search display ad, that consumer may
be directed to a landing page displaying a luxury vehicle, while
consumers located in a lower income area may be targeted with a deal on
an economy vehicle. The higher income consumers may be more interested
in deals such as cash off or lower interest rates whereas those in lower
income brackets may be more receptive to lower monthly payments.<br />
<h2>
10. Take Advantage Of Geographic Specific Events</h2>
Lastly, geographic specific events, such as the weather or
traditional local holiday celebrations, can be used to target consumers.
Some events are known in advance, like St. Patrick’s Day in Boston.
Others are unexpected, like snow storms in Dallas.<br />
Upon forecast of a blizzard, a hardware store may target consumers
with content promoting snow shovels or snow blowers. The week before St.
Patrick’s Day, a clothing store may promote its green colored or
festive attire. Either way, these events will spike demand for
particular items and are a great opportunity to boost sales.<br />
In summary, these are but a few of the examples of how geography
plays such an important part in creating customized and targeted
marketing campaigns. Consumers respond better to relevant marketing
which means that ROI of targeted campaigns will increase. Mobile
consumers make geography one of the best ways to target while technology
and data make doing so a real advantage to those who use it. Sometimes
it takes a little creativity, but it is worth the effort. Especially for
the business of local.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16004045485581991251noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-317642280305963425.post-59845508119493240522015-03-30T00:11:00.002-07:002015-03-30T00:11:14.234-07:00Goodbye Blekko: Search Engine Joins IBM’s Watson Team<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<img alt="blekko-ibm-800" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-217634" height="333" src="http://searchengineland.com/figz/wp-content/seloads/2015/03/blekko-ibm-800.jpg" width="800" /><br />
Add Blekko to the list of startup search engines that has come and now gone.<br />
A message on the <a href="https://blekko.com/">Blekko home page</a>, shown above, says that “The blekko technology and team have joined IBM Watson!” The page redirects to <a href="http://asmarterplanet.com/blog/2015/03/better-way-tap-big-data-gusher.html">a post on IBM’s Smarter Planet blog</a>,
where things get a bit confusing. Blekko’s home page message gives the
impression of a complete acquisition, but IBM’s post mentions the
acquisition of “certain technology.”<br />
<blockquote>
In our work to enhance the performance of cognitive
computing systems, we’re constantly exploring new ways to identify,
understand and make use of information from both public and private
sources. Toward this end, we are excited about the acquisition of
certain technology from Blekko, Inc, which closed this afternoon. This
will provide access to additional content that can be infused in
Watson-based products and services delivered by IBM and its partners.</blockquote>
We’ve reached out to Blekko CEO Rich Skrenta (who <a href="https://twitter.com/skrenta/status/581533999824171008">tweeted the news</a>) for clarification on what IBM is acquiring, and we’ll update this if we learn more.<br />
Blekko <a href="http://www.skrenta.com/2008/01/why_search.html">came out of stealth in 2008</a>
with Skrenta promising to create a search engine with “algorithmic
editorial differentiation” compared to Google. Its public search engine
finally <a href="http://searchengineland.com/blekko-the-slashtag-search-engine-goes-live-54447">opened in 2010</a>,
launching with what the site called “slashtags” — a personalization and
filtering tool that gave users control over the sites they saw in
Blekko’s search results. <br />
In 2011, Blekko went on the offensive against Google over spam,
launching a “spam clock” website at spamclock.com that counted up the
one million spammy web pages that Blekko claimed were being published
online every hour. This was just as the debate on content farms and
Google was really heating up, and in early 2011 Blekko even announced
that it was <a href="http://searchengineland.com/blekko-bans-content-farms-from-their-index-63134">banning content farms</a> from its index. About three weeks later, Google <a href="http://searchengineland.com/google-forecloses-on-content-farms-with-farmer-algorithm-update-66071">announced the Panda algorithm update</a>,
its own effort to combat spam in search results — by no means a
response to Blekko’s announcement, but certainly indirect validation
that Blekko, and others who had been complaining about the amount of
spam in Google’s search index, were on to something.<br />
Blekko has remained out of the news for almost two years, though, with some of its last mentions being a <a href="http://searchengineland.com/blekkos-izik-comes-becomes-iphone-android-search-app-163752">search app for tablets</a> and a joint <a href="http://searchengineland.com/blekko-lays-off-eight-raises-6-million-more-162122">funding round/layoffs</a>.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16004045485581991251noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-317642280305963425.post-19924608150835777882015-03-27T04:26:00.001-07:002015-03-27T04:26:08.391-07:005 PPC Testing Myths & Mistakes: How To Avoid Them!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; clear: both; font-family: Arial; font-size: 18px; line-height: 1.3em; margin-bottom: 20px;">
<img alt="ppc-puzzle-ss-1920" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-199481" height="450" src="http://searchengineland.com/figz/wp-content/seloads/2014/08/ppc-puzzle-ss-1920-800x450.jpg" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; display: block; height: auto; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-left: auto !important; margin-right: auto !important; margin-top: 5px; max-width: 100%; padding: 0px; vertical-align: middle;" width="800" /></div>
<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; clear: both; font-family: Arial; font-size: 18px; line-height: 1.3em; margin-bottom: 20px;">
Tons of new ads are created each year worldwide, so how do you know yours will make the grade? The answer is to test, measuring your ad copy/design against possible alternatives to determine which iteration produces the best results.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; clear: both; font-family: Arial; font-size: 18px; line-height: 1.3em; margin-bottom: 20px;">
But there are lots of myths and mistakes being made when it comes to testing PPC ad copy and design. This article will bust some of those PPC myths/mistakes and help you improve your overall PPC revenue. If you’re super smart, you’ll also incorporate winning test data into other aspects of your online marketing like SEO, website copy, Facebook advertising and more.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; clear: both; font-family: Arial; font-size: 18px; line-height: 1.3em; margin-bottom: 20px;">
You can be a winner at PPC advertising if you take heed and avoid the pitfalls of A/B testing below.</div>
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Myth #1: You Should Test Everything All The Time!</h2>
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It’s true that you should do lots of testing – but it’s very important to take your time and develop a testing plan!</div>
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Many folks feel the need to get a running start and to test every element they can come up with, and this is exacerbated by the availability of inexpensive testing tools. Their mantra is “Start testing right away!” or “Test everything all the time!”</div>
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My advice is slow down and plan out your testing. The goal is to really consider what you’re testing and why you’re running a test. Here are some examples of what I track for each test (I do this in an Excel spreadsheet):</div>
<ol style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 0px;">
<li style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 18px; margin-bottom: 10px;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Testing Goal.</strong> What is the goal of this particular test? An example might be to determine the most valuable free shipping threshold offer.</li>
<li style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 18px; margin-bottom: 10px;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Testing Execution.</strong> What elements am I going to test to achieve my testing goal? For the free shipping example, you might test alternative threshold values and the messaging of the free shipping offer.</li>
<li style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 18px; margin-bottom: 10px;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Technical Level Of Execution.</strong> How much technical work will this test require? The folks responsible for the landing page can directly make comments on this part of the spreadsheet.</li>
<li style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 18px; margin-bottom: 10px;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Creative Level Of Execution.</strong> How much creative work will this test require? The folks responsible for the creative could add suggestions here.</li>
<li style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 18px; margin-bottom: 10px;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Test Executed?</strong> This lets folks know the test was deployed.</li>
<li style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 18px; margin-bottom: 10px;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Test Evaluation.</strong> What were the results of the test? How did the test version fare against the baseline? Following our example above, you might note that there was an increase in conversion rate with no negative impact on shipping costs.</li>
<li style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 18px; margin-bottom: 10px;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Iterated Upon?</strong> We’ll talk more specifically about iteration later in this article.</li>
</ol>
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Without a plan, you may be able to periodically hit the “testing ball” out of the proverbial park, but your testing efforts will not be forward-moving and iterative. Another big mistake is that companies don’t keep track of their tests and often run the same tests. A solid testing protocol or system prevents this.</div>
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Myth #2: A Large Majority Of Tests Kill It!</h2>
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The sad reality is that most people spin their wheels when it comes to testing, and the deck is stacked against them from the get-go.</div>
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Based on my own research and experience, I would say that tests are more likely to fail — that is, have no meaningful impact at all, positive <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">or</em> negative. Furthermore, of the small minority of tests that do have a notable result, about half will negatively impact the bottom line!</div>
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To add more salt to the wound, very few tests with a positive impact really “knock it out of the park.” The deck is stacked against testers that don’t know what they’re doing!</div>
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Myth #3: Move Along From Loser Tests Fast!</h2>
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Given that many tests don’t yield positive results, it’s important to iterate these tests. You’ve probably learned <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">something</em> — it’s just a matter of uncovering <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">what</em>. Don’t completely disregard the info learned from the test and throw the baby out with the bathwater. Keep tweaking your tests and you’ll find a winner.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; clear: both; font-family: Arial; font-size: 18px; line-height: 1.3em; margin-bottom: 20px;">
Here are some suggestions on how to find gems in tests that don’t move the needle:</div>
<ul style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 0px;">
<li style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 18px; margin-bottom: 10px;">Run a focus group, and ask folks what they expect from a particular page, from your company, from your advertising. There’s huge insight in talking to folks. Not all info/insight is in the data that we collect.</li>
<li style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 18px; margin-bottom: 10px;">If working with clients (you are a consultant or work agency side), it’s a good idea to get their ideas related to products, as they know their goods and audience best. Then, work to put your marketing twist on it.</li>
</ul>
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Myth #4: Boring Pages Don’t Convert!</h2>
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Wrong! Boring pages actually convert better.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; clear: both; font-family: Arial; font-size: 18px; line-height: 1.3em; margin-bottom: 20px;">
Never, <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">never</em> include any “flash whiz-bang” elements on your page. It sounds obvious, but you’d be very surprised how often this happens.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; clear: both; font-family: Arial; font-size: 18px; line-height: 1.3em; margin-bottom: 20px;">
In the image below, I’ve highlighted some of the best elements to test on a page.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; clear: both; font-family: Arial; font-size: 18px; line-height: 1.3em; margin-bottom: 20px;">
<img alt="1Screen Shot 2015-02-27 at 1.26.36 PM" class="has-border aligncenter wp-image-215803 size-full" height="503" src="http://searchengineland.com/figz/wp-content/seloads/2015/03/1Screen-Shot-2015-02-27-at-1.26.36-PM.png" style="border: 1px solid black !important; box-sizing: border-box; display: block; height: auto; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-left: auto !important; margin-right: auto !important; margin-top: 5px; max-width: 100%; padding: 0px; vertical-align: middle;" width="708" /></div>
<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; clear: both; font-family: Arial; font-size: 18px; line-height: 1.3em; margin-bottom: 20px;">
These are some of the page elements I really like to include (and test) on landing pages:</div>
<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; clear: both; font-family: Arial; font-size: 18px; line-height: 1.3em; margin-bottom: 20px;">
<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Headline</strong>. This should tie into the keyword terms you’re targeting in the account. In this case, it’s “soundproof windows.”</div>
<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; clear: both; font-family: Arial; font-size: 18px; line-height: 1.3em; margin-bottom: 20px;">
<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Company Info</strong>. Tell folks who you are and why they should buy from you. In this example, the text says, over 20,000 windows installed in 5000 homes and businesses.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; clear: both; font-family: Arial; font-size: 18px; line-height: 1.3em; margin-bottom: 20px;">
<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Image.</strong> This relates to the product or service that you’re selling.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; clear: both; font-family: Arial; font-size: 18px; line-height: 1.3em; margin-bottom: 20px;">
<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Benefit Statements</strong>. These should be in bullet list form. People often don’t read pages, but rather scan them — so bullet points are more easily absorbed by your visitors.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; clear: both; font-family: Arial; font-size: 18px; line-height: 1.3em; margin-bottom: 20px;">
<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">CTA (in this case, a form). </strong>One call-to-action (CTA) per page. Don’t do this type of thing:</div>
<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; clear: both; font-family: Arial; font-size: 18px; line-height: 1.3em; margin-bottom: 20px;">
<img alt="2Screen Shot 2015-02-27 at 1.26.09 PM" class="has-border aligncenter wp-image-215804 size-full" height="463" src="http://searchengineland.com/figz/wp-content/seloads/2015/03/2Screen-Shot-2015-02-27-at-1.26.09-PM.png" style="border: 1px solid black !important; box-sizing: border-box; display: block; height: auto; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-left: auto !important; margin-right: auto !important; margin-top: 5px; max-width: 100%; padding: 0px; vertical-align: middle;" width="674" /></div>
<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; clear: both; font-family: Arial; font-size: 18px; line-height: 1.3em; margin-bottom: 20px;">
You’ll notice that the page above presents many options for visitors: download data sheet, visit our blog and subscribe to our newsletter. There’s even the option to see the page in French for gosh sakes!</div>
<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; clear: both; font-family: Arial; font-size: 18px; line-height: 1.3em; margin-bottom: 20px;">
Select a single conversion event and have the event relate a little more directly to the sale of your product. In this case, it would have been better if the advertiser had included a lead form on the page for interested folks to leave their contact details, and have a sales rep call them back.</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Testimonials.</strong> It’s great to show that you’ve had some satisfied customers and to reinforce your overall value propositions. In this example, the testimonials reinforce that the company’s custom window work (value prop) is bar none.</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Credibility Indicators.</strong> These provide “street cred.” In this case, the sources are NY Magazine and a very popular report written in the window industry.</div>
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Myth #5: But So-And-So Ran The Test And It Worked!</h2>
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This is the biggest sin of them all, and I hear it all the time when I’m speaking at conferences. Run fast if you hear things like this to justify testing:</div>
<ul style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 0px;">
<li style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 18px; margin-bottom: 10px;">I absolutely know this works as I’ve seen our major competitor do it!</li>
<li style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 18px; margin-bottom: 10px;">A credible blog and/or source wrote about it, so it must work!</li>
<li style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 18px; margin-bottom: 10px;">My friend who’s been in the industry for 5 years runs the test all the time!</li>
<li style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 18px; margin-bottom: 10px;">I’m the target market and I truly understand what people are looking for!</li>
<li style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 18px; margin-bottom: 10px;">My colleague tried it and it did super well!</li>
<li style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 18px; margin-bottom: 10px;">I went to Harvard and I know this is right test to run!</li>
</ul>
<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; clear: both; font-family: Arial; font-size: 18px; line-height: 1.3em; margin-bottom: 20px;">
Generally speaking, the above mentality leaves companies with a long list of testing ideas, but no idea if they’re focusing on the “right” tests. If they happen to have a “right” test, they don’t know it and are unable to prioritize it. To avoid this, use the pointers in this article.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; clear: both; font-family: Arial; font-size: 18px; line-height: 1.3em; margin-bottom: 20px;">
The big takeaway is to have a testing spreadsheet. This way, you’ll continue to move forward without leaving anything out, and you won’t waste time rerunning the old tests you’ve run before. And you won’t be as tempted to go down the “so-and-so ran the test” perilous path.</div>
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16004045485581991251noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-317642280305963425.post-57276210681351592562015-03-27T04:25:00.001-07:002015-03-27T04:25:08.924-07:00Google News Ranking Won’t Be Impacted By The New Mobile-Friendly Algorithm<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; clear: both; font-family: Arial; font-size: 18px; line-height: 1.3em; margin-bottom: 20px;">
<img alt="mobile-smartphone-algorithm-seo-ss-1920" class="alignnone size-large wp-image-217421" height="450" src="http://searchengineland.com/figz/wp-content/seloads/2015/03/mobile-smartphone-algorithm-seo-ss-1920-800x450.jpg" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; height: auto; margin: 5px 20px 20px 0px; max-width: 100%; padding: 0px; vertical-align: middle;" width="800" /></div>
<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; clear: both; font-family: Arial; font-size: 18px; line-height: 1.3em; margin-bottom: 20px;">
Everyone is preparing for the <a href="http://searchengineland.com/google-search-algorithm-adds-mobile-friendly-factors-app-indexing-ranking-215573" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #428bca;">mobile-friendly Google algorithm</a>which will touch down April 21st. But Google News publishers don’t have to worry just yet, at least in terms of the ranking in the Google News search results.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; clear: both; font-family: Arial; font-size: 18px; line-height: 1.3em; margin-bottom: 20px;">
Google News community manager, Stacie Chan, said in a<a href="https://plus.google.com/u/0/events/chm1eltb9vdfa0ssggai9la7a8g" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #428bca;">Google+ hangout</a> yesterday, that as of now, the Google News ranking team has no plans on implementing the <a href="http://searchengineland.com/google-search-algorithm-adds-mobile-friendly-factors-app-indexing-ranking-215573" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #428bca;">mobile-friendly algorithm</a> into the Google News results, at least not yet.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; clear: both; font-family: Arial; font-size: 18px; line-height: 1.3em; margin-bottom: 20px;">
Stacie said this at the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wk3HfdrOlmQ#t=1381" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #428bca;">23 minute mark</a> into the video, which I<a href="https://www.seroundtable.com/google-news-mobile-friendly-20055.html" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #428bca;">transcribed</a>:</div>
<blockquote style="background-color: white; border-left-color: rgb(153, 153, 153); border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 5px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #999999; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 19px; margin: 0px 0px 20px 36px; padding: 0px 20px;">
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; clear: both; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 18px; line-height: 1.3em;">
As of now, Google News is not committed to making that change yet. We are always exploring because we think it is awesome that sites are trying to be more mobile friendly. I love that. And Google News is very well aware that search is doing that… We are definitely exploring that option as well but don’t have an exact timeline for that or even weather or not we will implement that.</div>
</blockquote>
<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; clear: both; font-family: Arial; font-size: 18px; line-height: 1.3em; margin-bottom: 20px;">
Here is the video:</div>
<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; clear: both; font-family: Arial; font-size: 18px; line-height: 1.3em; margin-bottom: 20px;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/Wk3HfdrOlmQ?start=1381" style="box-sizing: border-box;" width="640"></iframe></div>
<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; clear: both; font-family: Arial; font-size: 18px; line-height: 1.3em; margin-bottom: 20px;">
What I said I am unclear about is if the <a href="http://searchengineland.com/googles-news-listings-beyond-traditional-205213" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #428bca;">In The News</a> box found in Google’s web search results, that include both news publishers and non-news publishers, will be included in this mobile ranking algorithm or not. That is unclear, but I suspect since it is not news specific (although it sounds like it is), it should be included in the mobile ranking algorithm.</div>
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16004045485581991251noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-317642280305963425.post-76858147205661961772015-03-25T03:14:00.002-07:002015-03-25T03:14:10.718-07:00Bing May Remove Navigation To Additional Search Result Pages<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<img alt="bing-word1-giantB-fade-1920" class="alignnone size-large wp-image-209517" height="450" src="http://searchengineland.com/figz/wp-content/seloads/2014/11/bing-word1-giantB-fade-1920-800x450.jpg" width="800" /><br />
Bing <a href="https://www.seroundtable.com/bing-omit-less-relevant-results-20039.html">may drop</a>
their paginated search results for some search queries where they are
confident that page one of the search results are “the most relevant
results” for the query.<br />
If you search for some long tail queries, for example searching for [<a href="http://www.bing.com/search?q=specifications%20for%20black%20iphone%206%2064GB">specifications for black iphone 6 64GB</a>]
at the footer of page one of the search results in Bing, instead of
finding links to more pages of results, you will see a message that
reads:<br />
<blockquote>
We think these are the most relevant results for your search. We’ve omitted some lower-quality results.</blockquote>
To be fair, there is a hyperlink to “see all results,” even the
results Bing itself admits were omitted because they may be
“lower-quality results.”<br />
Here is a picture of the Bing footer without the pagination:<br />
<img alt="bing-footer-omitted-results" class="alignnone size-large wp-image-217361" height="194" src="http://searchengineland.com/figz/wp-content/seloads/2015/03/bing-footer-omitted-results-800x194.png" width="800" /><br />
Here is a picture of the Bing footer with pagination for a normal search query:<br />
<img alt="bing-footer-pagination" class="alignnone size-large wp-image-217362" height="233" src="http://searchengineland.com/figz/wp-content/seloads/2015/03/bing-footer-pagination-800x233.png" width="800" /><br />
<hr />
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16004045485581991251noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-317642280305963425.post-21223746128368190072015-03-24T00:01:00.002-07:002015-03-24T00:01:56.119-07:003 Awesome Things You Can Do With The AdWords Dimensions Tab<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<a href="http://searchengineland.com/author/pauline-jakober" rel="author" title="Posts by Pauline Jakober">er</a> on March 23, 2015 at 10:35 am
<br />
<section class="sharing_controls mode_content" data-abbreviated-title="3 Awesome Things You Can Do With The AdWords Dimensions Tab" data-content-endpoint-selector=".sharing_controls_endpoint_content" data-content-startpoint-selector=".sharing_controls_startpoint_content" data-email-body="Hi,[newline][newline]I've shared a link from Search Engine Land.[newline][newline][title]:[newline][shortlink][newline]" data-email-subject="A link from Search Engine Land" data-featured-image="#insert-image-url" data-full-title="3 Awesome Things You Can Do With The AdWords Dimensions Tab" data-linkedin-source="Search Engine Land" data-permalink="http://searchengineland.com/3-awesome-things-can-adwords-dimensions-tab-216987" data-shortlink="" data-sticky-endpoint-selector="footer" data-sticky-startpoint-selector=".sharing_controls_startpoint_fixed" data-twitter-handle="@sengineland" style="display: block;">
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<img alt="google-adwords-bigA9-1920" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-211241" height="450" src="http://searchengineland.com/figz/wp-content/seloads/2014/12/google-adwords-bigA9-1920-800x450.jpg" width="800" /><br />
There are some features in AdWords you just can’t live without when
managing a PPC account — and the “Dimensions” tab is one of them. In
fact, I polled my team the other day, and they unanimously cited the
Dimensions tab as their favorite feature.<br />
So, why is it so awesome? I’ll share with you three essential tasks
you can perform today with a little help from this feature in AdWords.<br />
<h2>
The Dimensions Tab: Quick Intro</h2>
The Dimensions tab can be accessed in different views, starting at
the account level to the campaign level and down into the ad group
level. Its main function is analysis.<br />
Here’s a brief explainer <a href="https://support.google.com/adwords/answer/1704365?hl=en" target="_blank">from Google AdWords</a>:<br />
<blockquote>
<em>The Dimensions tab lets you slice and dice your data
by the dimension of your choice across an ad group, a campaign, or your
entire account. You can use Dimensions to view statistics that cut
across other AdWords tabs. For example, you can view your total stats by
month, hour, or geographic region. You can customize your table to
compare your total clicks in January across ad groups, or see individual
cities where your clicks came from.</em></blockquote>
Here’s an example of where you can view the Dimensions tab, using this sample screenshot from AdWords to illustrate:<br />
<img alt="Screenshot" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-216991" height="349" src="http://searchengineland.com/figz/wp-content/seloads/2015/03/dimensions-tab-sample.jpg" width="600" /><br />
The Dimensions tab is a great diagnostic tool that you can use daily.
You’ll find you may want to start at the account level to get a big
picture of what’s happening, then drill down into the individual
campaigns for more info.<br />
At my company, Group Twenty Seven, we tend to use a few views within
the Dimensions tab most: the “time” analysis, the “geographic” analysis,
and the “search terms” function. Let’s dive into these three features
to learn more.<br />
<h2>
Feature 1: Time Analysis</h2>
To refine the performance of your ads, you can drill down into the
“time” analysis under the Dimensions tab to see ad performance by:<br />
<ul>
<li>Hour of day</li>
<li>Day of the week</li>
<li>Day</li>
<li>Week</li>
<li>Month</li>
<li>Quarter</li>
<li>Year</li>
</ul>
You can then use this data to tweak the scheduling and delivery of
your ads based on when they will perform best. This feature can help you
control the budget, too. You can find out which day(s) of the week
performed best and then adjust bids accordingly, turning off other days
of the week.<br />
In the following example, you can see this B2B company’s performance
over seven days. If we were short on budget, we would use this
information to adjust, perhaps not showing ads on Saturdays.<br />
<img alt="Screenshot" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-216994" height="216" src="http://searchengineland.com/figz/wp-content/seloads/2015/03/dimensions-tab-time.jpg" width="600" /><br />
We use the daily view in the time report every morning to get a
snapshot of the daily ad spend and conversions and see if we can spot
any weird trends. If you were really tight on budget, or you had a
business that was reliant on specific hours of the day, you might want
to drill down into the hourly view.<br />
For example, a B2B company might need to schedule their ads to be
offline from midnight until 6 a.m.; a local pizza restaurant, on the
other hand, might only show ads from 4 p.m. to 9 p.m.<br />
<h2>
Feature 2: Geographic Analysis</h2>
Targeting the right location is a part of what makes your ads
relevant. So it’s great that you can quickly see which locations are the
top-performing locations by using the geographic analysis in the
Dimensions tab.<br />
Here, you can sort by conversions, countries, states and more. There are also ways to pull <a href="https://support.google.com/adwords/answer/2453994?hl=en" target="_blank">“distance” reports</a>
for ads with location extensions. This could tell you how well your ads
performed based upon where the person was located (relative to your
location) when they saw it.<br />
Here’s an example using a B2B account that shows the type of information you can see within the geographic analysis:<br />
<img alt="Screenshot" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-216995" height="245" src="http://searchengineland.com/figz/wp-content/seloads/2015/03/dimensions-tab-geographic.jpg" width="600" /><br />
<h2>
Feature 3: Search Terms</h2>
The search terms analysis allows you to see search terms that
triggered your ads from multiple views – account, campaign or ad groups.<br />
One example of when you might use this is if you noticed a campaign
spent a little too much one day. You could head into the dimensions tab
and view search terms. You can even sort by clicks.<br />
At that point, you might find some irrelevant search term made its way in, and you can then negate it right away. (<em><strong>Note:</strong> you can’t add negative keywords directly from this view.</em>)<br />
<img alt="Screenshot" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-216996" height="196" src="http://searchengineland.com/figz/wp-content/seloads/2015/03/dimensions-tab-search-terms.jpg" width="600" /><br />
There is a lot more to using the Dimensions tab to your advantage on a
daily basis to help you manage and improve the ROI of your PPC
campaigns. Other ways you can slice and dice data include:<br />
<ul>
<li>Conversions</li>
<li>Labels</li>
<li>Destination URL</li>
<li>Top movers</li>
<li>User locations</li>
<li>Distance</li>
<li>Paid and organic</li>
<li>Automatic placements</li>
<li>Free clicks</li>
<li>Call details</li>
</ul>
Dig in, and see how it can work for you!</div>
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16004045485581991251noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-317642280305963425.post-46155843655748929562015-03-23T05:26:00.002-07:002015-03-23T05:26:57.121-07:00Need To Grow Your PPC Account? Look To The Search Queries<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<img alt="keyword-magnifying-glass-ss-1920" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-212448" height="450" src="http://searchengineland.com/figz/wp-content/seloads/2015/01/keyword-magnifying-glass-ss-1920-800x450.jpg" width="800" /><br />
One of the most common inquiries I receive from e-commerce clients is
how we can garner additional, profitable traffic. Of course, this
inquiry can happen at any time during the agency-client relationship,
but I want to focus when it occurs after many months of management. To
phrase another way, clients want to continue growing after the account
has been built and (seemingly) all themes covered.<br />
Expanding into new paid search platforms is a given for growth, but
the purpose of this post is to examine an integral part of campaign
expansion within AdWords and Bing Ads accounts, the Search Query Report
(SQR). We all make use of this report, but I don’t believe advertisers
know the true potential it has for account growth.<br />
The most common use for SQRs has generally been to find negative
keywords. There will always be terms that can be added as new keywords
within existing campaigns and ad groups, but the report is primarily
meant to find poor performers for exclusion. However, within dynamic,
Shopping, and top-of-funnel campaigns, SQRs are a goldmine for new
keywords.<br />
Let’s focus on each campaign type and the specific parameters for expansion.<br />
<h2>
Dynamic Search Ads</h2>
<a href="http://searchengineland.com/adwords-dynamic-search-ads-work-better-think-194435" target="_blank">Dynamic Search Ads</a>
(DSA) don’t utilize keywords; instead, ads are triggered based upon the
user query matching a theme or product on the site. Google claims to
use its organic technology to best match the query to the landing page.
Often times, the DSA headline will be the designated page title, even in
cases like the below example where the headline is 10 characters over
the 25 character limit.<br />
<div class="wp-caption aligncenter" id="attachment_216736" style="width: 442px;">
<img alt="Image of dynamic search ad" class="wp-image-216736 size-full" height="134" src="http://searchengineland.com/figz/wp-content/seloads/2015/03/Dynamic-Search-Ad.jpg" width="432" /><div class="wp-caption-text">
A dynamic search ad with a 35 character headline</div>
</div>
For better or worse, there is a certain amount of uncertainty with
DSAs. Even when negative keywords are liberally implemented, poor
queries will still come through. The idea is to have a low enough bid
that these poor queries won’t tank performance.<br />
For example, you may have a $0.30 bid and, out of 100 clicks, only
receive 2 conversions. Assuming we are charged the full $0.30 each
click, our total cost is $30 for a cost per conversion of $15 (30/2). In
comparison, a standard text ad campaign may have an average cost per
click of $0.70, receive 100 clicks, and garner 4 conversions.<br />
Conversion rate would be better in this campaign, but cost per
conversion is higher than the DSA campaign at $17.50 (70/4). All of this
to say that we’re willing to bring in (some) poor quality traffic in
the short term in order to expand in the long run.<br />
When we review our SQRs, we find the keywords that are converting and
look to build new campaigns. Some new campaign opportunities are going
to be easy to find. Let’s say we see queries around the theme “brown
oval coffee tables” that have converted 5 times over the last 30 days
for a 5% conversion rate.<br />
We know the landing page is relevant to the query, so we would look
to create a new campaign around this theme (or create a new ad group in
an existing campaign). Along with the converting DSA queries, we can
expand our keyword list in this new campaign to capture a greater
portion of the qualified traffic.<br />
Other queries can lead to more of a grey area. We may find that the
query “reeve mid-century oval coffee table” converted once in the last
30 days, spent $1, saw 2 clicks and 3 impressions. Efficiency wise, our
conversion metrics are great. However, since this query and associated
variations are so niche, putting these keywords into their own campaign
may trigger “low search volume.”<br />
<div class="wp-caption aligncenter" id="attachment_216737" style="width: 444px;">
<img alt="Image of low search volume notice" class="wp-image-216737 size-full" height="193" src="http://searchengineland.com/figz/wp-content/seloads/2015/03/Low-Search-Volume.jpg" width="434" /><div class="wp-caption-text">
Low search volume notice</div>
</div>
In essence, our goal to create a more targeted campaign could
potentially hurt us. We would be removing a converting query from the
DSA campaign to place in its own campaign that may not receive
impressions. Most converting queries will lend themselves to stand alone
campaigns, but for ones that appear to be “one-off” converters, it’s
best to keep them as is in the DSA campaign.<br />
<h2>
Shopping</h2>
Many of the same principles discussed for Dynamic Search Ads apply
to Shopping campaigns as well. There aren’t as many irrelevant queries
with Shopping, but keywords are still absent. The queries found in
Shopping campaigns allow advertisers to see what shoppers are searching
and in turn create text ad campaigns.<br />
By adding text ads, advertisers will get double the exposure for
queries. In the example below, ATG Stores has both text and Shopping
ads.<br />
<div class="wp-caption aligncenter" id="attachment_216738" style="width: 442px;">
<img alt="Image of shopping and text ads" class="has-border wp-image-216738 size-full" height="513" src="http://searchengineland.com/figz/wp-content/seloads/2015/03/Shopping-and-Text-Ads.jpg" width="432" /><div class="wp-caption-text">
An advertiser with both Shopping and text ads</div>
</div>
Another source of expansion in Shopping campaigns is the Item ID
report located in the Dimensions tab. This report shows click and
conversion metrics for all products shown in the ad units.<br />
Whereas looking at the Shopping SQR would show which queries
converted, the Item ID report tells us which products were clicked
(similar to a destination URL report). For example, the term “Verilux
lamps” may be a great converter, but the ad showing the product with the
ID “VD01AA1” is getting those converting clicks. A text ad campaign
around top performing IDs would be valuable to test.<br />
<h2>
Top Of Funnel</h2>
Though top of funnel (TOF) campaigns contain keywords, they tend to
be broad since they target those in research mode. For example, we would
bid on terms such as “coffee tables” and “coffee stands” instead of
“oval coffee tables” or “mahogany coffee tables.”<br />
These more specific queries would get their own campaigns with highly
relevant ad copy. In turn, terms like “oval” and “mahogany” would be
negative keywords in the TOF campaign, as we want to ensure the specific
queries trigger the correct ads.<br />
Our TOF campaigns are a great source of new keywords since we’re
allowing leeway for expansion. The goal is that we’ll find queries we
hadn’t thought of that will allow for new campaigns. Let’s say we find a
common theme around “rustic coffee table” keywords.<br />
Not only can a new campaign be created, but also potentially a new
landing page if this category isn’t on the site. If the merchant doesn’t
sell these products, we can either add “rustic” as a negative keyword
or discuss the possibility of offering this inventory (which would
involve a much larger discussion).<br />
<h2>
Final Thoughts</h2>
Search queries are one of the most important aspects of PPC, yet they
are still underutilized when it comes to account growth. It’s amazing
how actionable SQRs can be. Branching into additional PPC platforms is
necessary for new audiences, but don’t discount how much growth can be
gleaned strictly by assessing your search queries.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16004045485581991251noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-317642280305963425.post-65206433970341056172015-03-20T00:10:00.000-07:002015-03-20T00:10:01.227-07:00The Importance Of XML Sitemaps In The Age Of Panda<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<img alt="sitemap-ss-1920" class="has-border aligncenter wp-image-214959 size-large" height="450" src="http://searchengineland.com/figz/wp-content/seloads/2015/02/sitemap-ss-1920-800x450.jpg" width="800" /><br />
In the early days of search engines, I wasn’t much of a believer in
XML sitemaps. But over time, I began to see first hand how they can
benefit websites.<br />
XML sitemaps serve as a way to communicate directly with the search
engines, alerting them to new or changed content very
quickly and helping to ensure that the content is indexed faster.<br />
For content publishers, it’s become critical to help Google
specifically understand if your site is the original publisher of
content. Why? Panda.<br />
<h2>
Content Syndication, Duplicate Content & Panda</h2>
It’s not uncommon for publishers to syndicate their content on other
websites. Further, it’s also not uncommon for publishers to have their
site’s content “curated” by other websites without a formal syndication
agreement.<br />
Unfortunately, the definition of content curation is fuzzy at best.
In a quick Google search for a recent Search Engine Land article, I
found over 47 copies of the article on other sites. (Editor’s note:
these are not authorized copies.)<br />
For every publisher site offering syndicated content or having
content curated by others (with or without permission), the stakes could
not be higher with Google. The <a href="http://searchengineland.com/library/google/google-panda-update">Panda algorithm update</a> focused
in part on removing duplicate content from search engine results pages
– meaning that if a site is not deemed the content originator, it’s at
risk of being excluded from the results altogether.<br />
XML sitemaps are just one tool that can help content creators establish their stake as the content originator.<br />
Just how profound can XML sitemaps be for indicating content origination?<br />
In theory, the content originator would likely have the earliest
indexed timestamp for the content. But take this example, from a
publisher that is not using XML sitemaps, into consideration. The
curating or syndicating site is having the same content indexed nearly
40 minutes earlier than the original content:<br />
<img alt="original_content_rgb" class="has-border aligncenter wp-image-214955 size-medium" height="154" src="http://searchengineland.com/figz/wp-content/seloads/2015/02/original_content_rgb-600x154.png" width="600" /><br />
<img alt="curated_site_example_rgb" class="has-border aligncenter wp-image-214954 size-medium" height="154" src="http://searchengineland.com/figz/wp-content/seloads/2015/02/curated_site_example_rgb-600x154.png" width="600" /><br />
<h2>
How To Get Started</h2>
So, how should you get started? First, you’ll need to create an XML
sitemap for your site. Some content management systems (CMS) have an
integrated capability to auto-generate XML sitemaps. For WordPress
users, I recommend using the <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/wordpress-seo/" target="_blank">Yoast SEO Plugin</a> as WordPress does <em>not</em> have built in sitemap generation capability. (If you are already using Yoast for SEO, <a href="http://searchengineland.com/yoast-wordpress-seo-plugin-vulnerable-to-hackers-216656">make sure you have updated</a> to the most recent version.)<br />
Ideally, you’ll want to use a plugin for your CMS (or innate CMS
functionality) to create a sitemap because these tools normally will
automatically update your sitemap as new content is added or content is
changed. However if you don’t use a CMS or WordPress, you can also
create an XML sitemap using various tools like <a href="https://www.xml-sitemaps.com/" target="_blank">xml-sitemaps.com</a>;
however, you’ll need to update your sitemap manually on a regular basis
to ensure that its information is correct and up to date.<br />
If you have a particularly large website, you may also need to employ
a sitemap index. Search engines will only index the first 50,000 URLs
in a sitemap, so if your site has more than 50,000 URLs, you’ll need to
use an index to tie multiple sitemaps together. You can learn <a href="http://www.sitemaps.org/protocol.html#index" target="_blank">how to create indices</a> and more about sitemaps at <a href="http://sitemaps.org/" target="_blank">sitemaps.org</a>.<br />
After you’ve created your sitemaps (and potentially sitemap indices),
you’ll need to register them with the various search engines. Both
Google and Bing encourage webmasters to register sitemaps and RSS feeds
through <a href="https://support.google.com/sites/answer/100283?hl=en" target="_blank">Google Webmaster Tools</a> and <a href="http://www.bing.com/webmaster/help/how-to-submit-sitemaps-82a15bd4" target="_blank">Bing Webmaster Tools</a>.<br />
Taking this step helps the search engines identify where your sitemap
is – meaning that as soon as the sitemap is updated, the search engines
can react faster to index the new content. Also, content curators or
syndicators may be using your RSS feeds to automatically pull your
content into their sites.<br />
Registering your sitemap (or RSS feed) with Google and Bing gives the
search engines a signal that your content has been created or updated
before they find it on the other sites. It’s really a very simple
process with both engines. To submit a sitemap to Google:<br />
<ol>
<li>Ensure that the XML Sitemap is on your web server and accessible via its URL.</li>
<li>Log in to Google Webmaster Tools.</li>
<li>Under “Crawl,” choose “Sitemaps.”</li>
<li>Click on the red button in the upper right marked “Add/Test Sitemap.” Enter the URL of the sitemap and click “Submit Sitemap.”</li>
</ol>
To register a sitemap with Bing:<br />
<ol style="color: #444444;">
<li>Ensure that the XML Sitemap is on your web server and accessible via its URL.</li>
<li>Log in to Bing Webmaster Tools.</li>
<li>Click on “Configure My Site” and “Sitemaps.”</li>
<li>Enter the full URL of the sitemap in the “Submit a Sitemap” text box.</li>
<li>Click “Submit.”</li>
</ol>
Another great reason to register sitemaps with Google specifically is
to catch Sitemap errors. Google Webmaster Tools provides great
information about the status of each Sitemap and any errors it finds:<br />
<img alt="sitemaps" class="has-border aligncenter wp-image-217061" height="441" src="http://searchengineland.com/figz/wp-content/seloads/2015/02/sitemaps-600x378.jpg" width="700" /><br />
For sites with multiple types of content, there are also additional sitemap types that can be used, including <a href="https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/178636" target="_blank">image</a>, <a href="https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/80471" target="_blank">video </a>and <a href="https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/34627" target="_blank">mobile</a> sitemaps.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16004045485581991251noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-317642280305963425.post-31214857569947252362015-03-18T23:53:00.001-07:002015-03-18T23:54:17.599-07:00Google Doorway Pages Algorithm & Guidelines Updated <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<b>Google simply proclaimed another huge amendment in formula, and now it’s targeting entree pages. i'll make a case for entree pages in an exceedingly bit, for currently this news is vital for all the bloggers, and affiliate marketers. This news seemed like a section of Panda, as this target pages with low-quality pages. I talked concerning low-quality pages, earlier here.<br /><br />According to computer programme perspective, a low-quality pages might be a page with less or tangential info, at constant time it might be archive pages, that ar ne'er the direct answer to one question. to feature additional perspective thereto, let’s cross-check the official announcement by Google webmaster team.<br /><br />According to them:<br /><br />Doorways ar sites or pages created to rank extremely for specific search queries. they're unhealthy for users as a result of they will cause multiple similar pages in user search results, wherever every result finally ends up taking the user to primarily constant destination. they will additionally lead users to intermediate pages that aren't as helpful because the final destination.<br /><br />Pages generated to funnel guests into the particular usable or relevant portion of your site(s)<br /><br />Above purpose expressly says, that once a user question for a result, they land on actual result page, once clicking on a link from the ensuing page of domain.<br /><br />That is however tags, categories, and author archive works. Even in my case-study of sick from Google Panda, I specifically mentioned tags, and classes ar one primary offender for Panda penalty. thus if you're on WordPress, i might suggest you to no-index tags and classes. If you're on BlogSpot, make sure that your labels aren't indexed in computer programme</b><b class="qtiperar" style="color: orange; cursor: pointer;" title="search engine|program|programme|computer program|computer programme"></b><br />
<br />
<h2 itemprop="alternativeHeadline">
Doorway Pages SEO could destroy your affiliate site:</h2>
<h2 itemprop="alternativeHeadline">
<img alt="Doorway Pages SEO" class="aligncenter wp-image-111386 size-full" src="http://www.shoutmeloud.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Doorway-Pages-SEO.jpg" height="354" title="Doorway Pages SEO" width="500" /> </h2>
<br />
<div id="tabs_container" style="margin-bottom: 20px; min-height: 300px;">
<div class="p-tools-textarea" id="preview" style="opacity: 1;">
<br />
Remember once Google unrolled actual match domain penalty, whose target was to punish actual match domains, that have few or additional low-quality content, and created only for taking advantage of keyword in domain.<br />
<br />
Similarly in entryway pages SEO, webmaster team mentioned:<br />
<br />
area unit these pages created only for drawing affiliate traffic and causation users on while not making distinctive price in content or functionality?<br />
<br />
That means, this penalty can have an effect on those micro-niche or affiliate sites, that area unit created for generating affiliate revenue, while not providing any price to the reader. this is often a decent news for those affiliate marketers, United Nations agency have affiliate website with high-quality, and original content. At a similar time, this is often dangerous for several affiliate webmasters United Nations agency produce stinky affiliate website, while not adding any price to the reader.<br />
<br />
If you've got AN affiliate website with few quality content, i like to recommend you to boost all of your low or medium quality content, to create it high-quality, and helpful for readers.<br />
<br />
Apart from all on top of there area unit few additional reasonably pages that fall within the class of entryway pages. you'll see them within the below screenshot:<br />
<br />
Doorways pages example<br />
<br />
Like previous few formula roll-out, there area unit probabilities that this formula amendment would possibly have an effect on legit websites too. If that happens to you, don’t be too shocked, because it happened within the past with others. At that point, simply check out the issue that you'll work to boost the standard of website, and await somebody to share his expertise of ill from entryway pages penalty.<br />
<br />
It will even be fascinating to ascertain, if entryway pages formula can result landing pages, that area unit created to capture email leads, and successively send a free downloadable eBook. as a result of such pages, doesn’t directly answer the queries, and lead you to a different action/page.<br />
<br />
Here is AN example of one of the many such indexed pages from Hubspot, that is additionally one in all my favorite resources for learning.</div>
</div>
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16004045485581991251noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-317642280305963425.post-72595599991660728952015-03-18T03:58:00.000-07:002015-03-18T03:58:07.902-07:00How Big Is Google’s Mobile-Friendly Algorithm? Bigger Than Panda Or Penguin<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<img alt="google-mobile-responsive-design6-ss-1920" class="alignnone size-large wp-image-211346" height="450" src="http://searchengineland.com/figz/wp-content/seloads/2014/12/google-mobile-responsive-design6-ss-1920-800x450.jpg" width="800" /><br />
Google’s Zineb Ait Bahajji from the Webmaster Trends team was quoted as saying at SMX Munich this morning that the upcoming <a href="http://searchengineland.com/google-search-algorithm-adds-mobile-friendly-factors-app-indexing-ranking-215573">mobile-friendly ranking algorithm</a> that will launch on April 21st will have more of an impact on Google’s search results than the <a href="http://searchengineland.com/library/google/google-panda-update">Google Panda</a> update and the <a href="http://searchengineland.com/library/google/google-penguin-update">Google Penguin</a> update did.<br />
Google did say when they announced the mobile-friendly ranking
algorithm that this would have a “significant impact” on the mobile
search results. This is key, it is only impacting the mobile results
and even so, it will have more of an impact than Panda or Penguin.<br />
The question is, what did Zineb mean by that? Is she saying that
let’s say this is impacting 40% of mobile search queries, whereas Panda
impacted about 12% of all English queries and Penguin was closer to 4%
of global queries across both desktop and mobile. Or is she saying that
across mobile and desktop, the impact will be larger than Panda or
Penguin? We know the mobile-friendly algorithm only impacts mobile
search results, so I’d assume she is talking about the mobile impact
only.<br />
Zineb from Google did not specifically release a percentage of
queries impacted. It is also believes that about 50% of all searches
done on Google are on mobile devices. <br />
The big takeaway from this is that if your site is not
mobile-friendly, get to work now on it. If 50% of your traffic from
Google comes from mobile devices, it sounds like if you are not
mobile-friendly that virtually all of that traffic from mobile is at
huge risk</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16004045485581991251noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-317642280305963425.post-5932727589945192752015-03-18T03:54:00.002-07:002015-03-18T03:54:12.521-07:003 Keys To Understanding Your SEO Needs<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<img alt="understand-needs-ss-1920" class="has-border aligncenter size-large wp-image-216979" height="450" src="http://searchengineland.com/figz/wp-content/seloads/2015/03/understand-needs-ss-1920-800x450.jpg" width="800" /><br />
If you’re a provider of search engine optimization (SEO) services, you’ve undoubtedly heard the following:<br />
<em>“I know I need SEO, but I don’t know exactly what I need.”</em><br />
If you aren’t an SEO vendor, you may have found yourself saying just that at one time or another.<br />
Businesses have slowly but surely begun to realize the value of
search engine optimization, and consequently, the demand for SEO
services has increased. However, it’s important to understand what you
hope to gain from an SEO program before you embark on one.<br />
After all, SEO can involve a lot of different things: technical
audits, on-page content recommendations, conversion optimization
recommendations, blog posts, link building programs, etc. It could also
be priced in any number of ways dependent on how many of those things
are included and to what extent. You’ll want to make sure that, when
scoping out a program or vetting a vendor, you know what it is you
should be looking for.<br />
Below, I’ve identified three key factors to consider when evaluating your SEO needs:<br />
<h2>
1. Business Goals</h2>
When thinking about any program, your business goals should always
come first. In fact, when businesses come to us asking only about
traffic and rankings, we try to push them towards what really
matters – their overall goals (and, of course, sales)!<br />
As noted above, an SEO program could involve a number of things. By
understanding what your overall business goals are, you can
determine which SEO services would best fit your needs. Do you want to
increase conversions? Build brand or product awareness? Gain visibility
locally? Fix a Google penalty? Each of these will require a different
SEO strategy.<br />
<h2>
2. Existing Performance</h2>
Another factor that must be considered is the existing performance of
your site. When we are assessing potential clients, we look at their
analytics data to provide us traffic numbers and conversion numbers over
time. We need to understand what we are up against and/or what we have
to work with.<br />
Take, for example, Client A:<br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<em>Client A came to us a year ago with a
site that had been on a downward trend for 12 months. In order to get
the site back on track and moving in a positive direction, we knew it
would require a lot of work and a lot of time on our part. In turn, we
created a pretty hefty proposal that included quite a bit of on-site
work and off-site work. Thankfully the client understood their position
and was on board.</em></div>
Take a look at how your site has performed over the past couple
years. Look at traffic trends, conversion trends, and any other pieces
of data in analytics that will help you understand what your site needs.
This will also help you figure out what type of budget you may have to
put together. If you’re fighting a negative trend, you are going to need
a more in-depth program.<br />
<h2>
3. Resource Constraints</h2>
Know where you need help. One of my biggest frustrations with any
client is when they tell us they have plenty of resources, yet when the
program starts, there is suddenly no one there to do what we need them
to do.<br />
<em>Just be realistic.</em><em> </em><br />
If you know where you are lacking, you can start to figure out how an
SEO provider can fill in the gaps. For example, if you know that you
need content on the site but you don’t have the internal resources to
create it, you probably need to rely on your SEO vendor.<br />
It also works the opposite way. If your SEO vendor is proposing
writing content for you but you have five content writers on staff, you
might just need some editorial guidance to ensure your content team is
targeting the right topics and keywords to help drive traffic and
conversions. A full content creation program is not needed.<br />
<h2>
Final Thoughts</h2>
Any business who is thinking of engaging in an SEO program should
make sure that they have a good understanding of each of these factors
going in. It will make the proposal process easier, it’ll help you find a
vendor more quickly, and hopefully, it’ll help you create a successful
program that helps you hit your business goals.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16004045485581991251noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-317642280305963425.post-6677837005048113142015-03-13T23:58:00.000-07:002015-03-13T23:58:00.586-07:00AdWords Search Query Data Now Available Sooner<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<a href="http://searchengineland.com/figz/wp-content/seloads/2014/08/google-adwords-red3-fade-1920.jpg"><img alt="google-adwords-red3-fade-1920" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-200864" height="450" src="http://searchengineland.com/figz/wp-content/seloads/2014/08/google-adwords-red3-fade-1920-800x450.jpg" width="800" /></a><br />
Today Google’s Jon Diorio <a href="https://plus.google.com/u/0/+JonDiorio/posts/XnsWn5yHHvP" target="_blank">announced</a> that some AdWords data is now being updated more frequently.<br />
I happened to notice the change this morning when I checked on a
Search Terms report in a campaign that launched just yesterday and has
very little data. I was expecting to see the “not enough data” message,
but instead saw results — even for a keyword that’s had one click and
fewer than 400 impressions.<br />
Diorio says, that in addition to search queries, more frequent
updates are available for geographic performance and automatic
placements data.<br />
The AdWords help center has a break down of when certain metrics and
reports are updated. Clicks and conversions, for example, are typically
reported within three hours, while search terms, automatic placements
and geographic performance data is typically updated within 6 hours with
this change. Other reports like the Top Movers report take longer.
Check the <a href="https://support.google.com/adwords/answer/2544985" target="_blank">Data Freshness page</a> for more details.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16004045485581991251noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-317642280305963425.post-24985173606616762802015-03-13T23:56:00.001-07:002015-03-13T23:56:43.871-07:00Bing Tests New “Favorites” Feature That Lets Users Bookmark Images<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<img alt="bing-images3-ss-1920" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-201882" height="450" src="http://searchengineland.com/figz/wp-content/seloads/2014/08/bing-images3-ss-1920-800x450.jpg" width="800" /> <br />
Bing is testing a new <a href="http://blogs.bing.com/search/2015/03/13/roundup-get-fit-stay-fit-with-cortana-new-favorites-feature-for-bing-images/">“favorites” feature that lets users bookmark images</a> when signed into their Bing accounts on a desktop. <br />
According to the announcement, as long as images are available on the web users will be able to save them to favorites.<br />
<div class="pull-quote">
Your Favorites are organized by your searches, and you can view them by clicking on “Images” in the top navigation bar.</div>
To use, select the image you want to save from Bing’s image search
results page, and then click the small heart-shaped “favorites” icon in
the bottom right corner below the image. Once saved, the heart will go
from white to yellow. <br />
<img alt="Bing image bookmark feature1" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-216851" height="379" src="http://searchengineland.com/figz/wp-content/seloads/2015/03/Bing-image-bookmark-feature1-800x379.png" width="800" /><br />
You can then find your saved images by clicking the “Images” tab in Bing’s navigation bar at the top of the page. <br />
<img alt="Bing Image Favorites" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-216852" height="293" src="http://searchengineland.com/figz/wp-content/seloads/2015/03/Bing-Image-Favorites-800x293.png" width="800" /><br />
The announcement was part of a “Roundup” post today on Bing’s Search
blog, following news about Microsoft’s continued efforts to <a href="http://searchengineland.com/report-microsofts-cortana-coming-to-ios-android-this-fall-216814">position Cortana as a lifestyle companion</a>.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16004045485581991251noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-317642280305963425.post-5512762325542252822015-03-13T00:55:00.002-07:002015-03-13T00:55:47.778-07:00Google: The Mobile-Friendly Ranking Factor Runs In Real-Time & Is On A Page-By-Page Basis<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<h2 class="subhead" itemprop="alternativeHeadline">
Google tells us that
the mobile-friendly algorithm launching in about a month is on a
page-by-page basis and runs in real-time, which eases the concerns of
many webmasters.</h2>
<br /><div class="sharing_content_channel">
</div>
<img alt="google-mobile-smartphones-blue-ss-1920" class="aligncenter wp-image-211355 size-large" height="450" src="http://searchengineland.com/figz/wp-content/seloads/2014/12/google-mobile-smartphones-blue-ss-1920-800x450.jpg" width="800" /><br />
Google announced last week that a new <a href="http://searchengineland.com/google-search-algorithm-adds-mobile-friendly-factors-app-indexing-ranking-215573">mobile-friendly ranking</a> factor will be added to the mobile search algorithm on April 21, 2015. At <a href="http://searchmarketingexpo.com/west/">SMX West</a>
yesterday, Google’s Gary Illyes answered some questions around this new
ranking factor, explaining that the ranking factor is run in real time
and that it works on a page-by-page basis.<br />
<h2>
Real-Time Search Algorithms</h2>
On the <a href="http://searchmarketingexpo.com/west/2015/full_agenda2/#1594">Mobile SEO panel</a>
that I moderated, we asked Gary when do webmasters need to get their
sites mobile-friendly for them not to be impacted by the April 21st
launch. Gary explained that the algorithm runs in real-time, so
technically, you can do it any day, and as soon as Google picks up on
the change, the site will start to benefit from the new mobile-friendly
algorithm change.<br />
By real-time, I believe this means that once Google crawls the page
again, it will immediately be labeled as mobile-friendly and immediately
benefit from the algorithm. If your pages are slow to be indexed
because they are rarely updated, then it is important to go
mobile-friendly sooner.<br />
Google did not clarify if it was real-time in the sense that as soon
as Google crawls and indexes the mobile-friendly page, or real-time in
the sense that it checks when the query is entered into the search box. I
would have to assume it is when Google crawls and indexes the page. And
depending on how often Google crawls and indexes your web pages, you
will need to time it so you can get all your pages mobile-friendly by
that April 21st date.<br />
<h2>
Runs On A Page-By-Page Basis</h2>
Gary Illyes also confirmed that this algorithm is run on a
page-by-page basis. So if you have 10 web pages on your web site and 5
of them are mobile-friendly and 5 are not, then only the pages that are
mobile-friendly will benefit.<br />
Google initially would not confirm if the mobile-friendly algorithm
is site-wide or page-by-page, so having this known is important for
webmasters. Many websites have sub-sections or specialized pages that
would be hard to make mobile-friendly, so webmasters do not need to fret
about going 100% mobile-friendly by April 21st.<br />
Of course, going mobile-friendly for all your pages is important as
mobile user growth explodes, but you can make a decision on a
page-by-page basis if the conversion process is complex on your content
management system.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16004045485581991251noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-317642280305963425.post-52535233102103561442015-03-13T00:49:00.002-07:002015-03-13T00:49:49.493-07:00Google Is Practically Begging Firefox Users To Switch Their Default Search Engine<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<img alt="google-firefox-begging-switch-800" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-216772" height="536" src="http://searchengineland.com/figz/wp-content/seloads/2015/03/google-firefox-begging-switch-800.jpg" width="800" /><br />
It almost looks desperate. Google has placed a big, new message above
its organic search results that asks — practically begs — Firefox users
to make Google their default search engine.<br />
While searching tonight, I suddenly came across the giant … alert?
ad? request? … that you see above. It looks a bit like a Google Onebox,
but says “Switch your default search engine to Google” and has a button
to “Learn how” and another button that says “No, thanks.” <br />
Danny Sullivan, our founding editor, also tested this and saw the
same switch request I saw. And the folks at IPIX Solutions saw it
tonight, too, and <a href="https://twitter.com/ipixsolutions/status/576243219710627840">tweeted about it</a>.<br />
<div class="fit-embeded" data-twttr-id="twttr-sandbox-0">
</div>
Why would Google give up the top two-plus inches of its search
results page like this? It goes back to the November announcement that
Mozilla was <a href="http://searchengineland.com/yahoo-becomes-default-search-engine-firefox-browser-209267">dropping Google in favor of Yahoo</a> as the default search engine in its Firefox web browser. Even as the No. 3 browser with about <a href="http://gs.statcounter.com/#desktop-browser-US-monthly-201403-201502">16 percent market share</a> (according to StatCounter), Firefox still drives a substantial number of searches.<br />
Since the deal was announced, Yahoo’s search share rose from 8.6
percent in November (again, StatCounter estimates) to 10.9 percent in
January. According to comScore, Yahoo’s market share in the US jumped
from 10.2 percent in November to <a href="http://searchengineland.com/yahoo-sees-big-1-6-percent-monthly-search-gain-new-comscore-data-213206">11.8 percent in December</a>. More recently, though, there are signs that Yahoo’s market share <a href="http://searchengineland.com/yahoo-search-share-drops-firefox-215739">may have hit a ceiling</a>, at least in terms of the immediate bump from its deal with Mozilla.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16004045485581991251noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-317642280305963425.post-61170178493888727542015-03-13T00:48:00.000-07:002015-03-13T00:48:18.613-07:00Google, Wal-Mart Breakup Suggests Problems Ahead For Local Inventory Ads<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<img alt="walmart-storefront-1920" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-207458" height="450" src="http://searchengineland.com/figz/wp-content/seloads/2014/11/walmart-storefront-1920-800x450.jpg" width="800" /><br />
Research shows that when they’re ready to buy, online shoppers want
to know where they can get desired products in local stores. Internet
influenced offline spending is many many times larger than
e-commerce and results in trillions of dollars in offline transactions
annually.<br />
However offline retail inventory data has been largely unavailable
until very recently, causing consumers in most cases to have to guess
where they can buy something or go through the painful process of
calling stores. A number of startups such as <a href="https://www.shopcurbside.com/">Curbside</a> and <a href="http://www.retailigence.com/">Retailigence</a> tap retail inventory feeds to drive consumers to local stores and retail locations.<br />
Google’s <a href="https://support.google.com/merchants/answer/3540291?hl=en">Local Inventory Ads</a>
also try to address this online-to-offline problem. And they seemed
like a great solution for marketers — until Wal-Mart decided they
weren’t.<br />
Wal-Mart had been participating in Google’s Local Inventory Ads
program until last week. The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) and others
recently <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/google-wal-mart-part-ways-over-local-shopping-ads-1425487026">reported</a>
on Wal-Mart’s apparently abrupt decision to stop sending local store
inventory data and product prices for inclusion
in Google paid-search results.<br />
Wal-Mart reportedly felt that local-store pricing information in
particular was too sensitive to disclose. Local Inventory Ads are
currently used by a minority of retailers on Google (roughly 17 percent
of the top 35 US retailers according to <a href="http://www.adlucent.com/">Adlucent</a>).<br />
Another motivation, according to the WSJ, is Wal-Mart’s own plan to
offer inventory data directly to its shoppers through Wal-Mart.com and
its mobile app, rather than through an intermediary:<br />
<blockquote>
Wal-Mart executives have told Google that Wal-Mart pulled
out in part because it wants to offer a similar local-inventory service
itself, rather than pay Google to do it, according to one of the people
familiar with the situation. With 5,000 stores, Wal-Mart is better
equipped than other retailers to satisfy shoppers who are using
smartphones to find merchandise nearby.</blockquote>
This dispute recapitulates an old complaint against Google:
by aggregating third party data or content, Google interposes itself
between publishers or retailers and their own customers and potentially
dilutes the value of those brands. Google and search marketers dispute
this characterization of course.<br />
This tension is particularly sensitive in a mobile context,
where some publishers and retailers see mobile as a new opportunity to
build direct relationships with customers and avoid Google as a
gatekeeper. (Of course <a href="http://searchengineland.com/study-growing-mobile-fanatics-segment-search-increasingly-shun-pcs-216575">mobile users search a great deal too</a>.)
It remains to be seen whether other Local Inventory participants follow
Wal-Mart or stay the course and whether Google can grow the program.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16004045485581991251noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-317642280305963425.post-6393343865753364942015-03-12T00:27:00.000-07:002015-03-12T00:27:22.901-07:00SearchCap: Google Webmaster Tools Upgrade, Yoast Plugin Bug & Mobile Growth<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<h2>
</h2>
<ul>
<li><strong><a href="http://searchengineland.com/yoast-wordpress-seo-plugin-vulnerable-to-hackers-216656" title="Yoast WordPress SEO Plugin Vulnerable To Hackers">Yoast WordPress SEO Plugin Vulnerable To Hackers</a></strong><br />
Millions of WordPress sites may be exposed to a Blind SQL Injection
vulnerability due to a security hole in the very popular Yoast SEO
plugin. The plugin has been updated, make sure to update your plugin.<br />
</li>
<li><strong><a href="http://searchengineland.com/report-brands-may-lose-10k-60k-visitors-per-month-ppc-trademark-bidding-215981" title="Report: Brands May Lose 10K to 60K Visitors Per Month To PPC Trademark Bidding">Report: Brands May Lose 10K to 60K Visitors Per Month To PPC Trademark Bidding</a></strong><br />
BrandVerity’s Q4 study looks at trademark usage in paid search across 10 industry verticals.<br />
</li>
<li><strong><a href="http://searchengineland.com/study-growing-mobile-fanatics-segment-search-increasingly-shun-pcs-216575" title="Study: Growing “Mobile Fanatics” Segment Search More, Increasingly Shun PCs">Study: Growing “Mobile Fanatics” Segment Search More, Increasingly Shun PCs</a></strong><br />
New consumer survey data from Thrive Analytics (for the Local Search
Association) reflect the emergence of a large and growing mobile user
segment dubbed “mobile fanatics.” Just over 40 percent of the U.S.
smartphone population, these mobile users search more and rely more on
their mobile devices than conventional smartphone users. The segment is
defined […]<br />
</li>
<li><strong><a href="http://searchengineland.com/competitive-analysis-leads-better-b2b-seo-program-216222" title="How Competitive Analysis Leads To A Better B2B SEO Program">How Competitive Analysis Leads To A Better B2B SEO Program</a></strong><br />
A key element in shaping your SEO program is understanding your
competition. To illustrate this, columnist Derek Edmond takes us through
a recent competitive analysis performed for a client.<br />
</li>
<li><strong><a href="http://searchengineland.com/more-hardcore-adwords-ab-testing-216078" title="More Hardcore A/B Testing: V2 Of The Free AdWords Script">More Hardcore A/B Testing: V2 Of The Free AdWords Script</a></strong><br />
After sharing a testing script last month, columnist Daniel Gilbert reviewed feedback and used it to make improvements.<br />
</li>
<li><strong><a href="http://searchengineland.com/google-webmaster-tools-adds-blocked-resources-report-updates-fetch-render-tool-216558" title="Google Webmaster Tools Adds Blocked Resources Report & Updates Fetch & Render Tool">Google Webmaster Tools Adds Blocked Resources Report & Updates Fetch & Render Tool</a></strong><br />
Google adds a report that shows you which resources you’re blocking
GoogleBot from by host name and updates the fetch & render tool.<br />
</li>
<li><strong><a href="http://searchengineland.com/close-smx-west-growth-direct-answers-seos-react-216009" title="The Growth Of Direct Answers: How Should SEOs React?">The Growth Of Direct Answers: How Should SEOs React?</a></strong><br />
More and more often, SERPs are including answers, not just links to
answers. Columnist Mark Traphagen recaps an SMX West panel that explores
the effects.<br />
</li>
</ul>
</div>
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