Web Search & Marketing Newsletter – January 2015

Welcome to the first issue of our monthly newsletter for 2015, which covers news, tips and advice on effective website marketing, with a particular focus on search marketing techniques and trends.

To start this New Year, we’ve compiled a list of 10 key events that took place in the website / search marketing world in 2015, which have already had an impact on many online businesses, but will also have an ongoing impact throughout 2015. These events include developments in the organic search marketing field, as well as notable changes in Google AdWords and Google Analytics.

Each of these events have been covered in some detail in previous issues of this monthly newsletter, but we have summarised the main changes below and the implications for any website marketer, as they will all have a bearing on developments and online success in 2015. In this rapidly changing field, we can expect more notable changes over the coming 12 months and we will continue to report and comment on these. However, for now, these recent ones from the past year need to be considered as part of your marketing plans for this year.

You can read more below, or you can also browse through previous editions of the newsletter, either by month or by subject. You can also follow us on Twitter for the latest developments during the month, or follow our Facebook page or Google+ page for updates.

On to this month’s edition…

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) Trends

Google My Business for local search

The launch of ‘Google My Business’ in June marked another stage in the evolution of local search marketing through Google, and a further change to the original Google Places listings that many companies had previously set up. Google My Business was supported by extensive media advertising as Google encouraged local businesses to create or claim / update their listings, so that potential local customers – particularly on mobiles – could find their information through search. Google My Business has certainly had teething problems and the close integration with Google+ has caused some confusion and difficulties, but any online business should ensure that their details are set up correctly and managed on Google My Business with the correct details and branding.
(You can read our original article here on Google My Business).

Ongoing changes from Google ‘Panda’ updates

One of the more significant changes to Google’s ranking algorithms in recent years has been codenamed as ‘Panda’. Although first introduced in 2011 to try to reduce duplicate and poor quality content in their search results, Google has been making regular ‘tweaks’ to this algorithm over the last few years, with a significant one noted in May 2014 (Panda 4.0). If your website has been following Google’s webmaster guidelines and implementing correct search engine optimisation (SEO) techniques over time, there shouldn’t be any noticeable impact from these changes, and if anything, possibly some ranking gains as competitor sites might (hopefully) be adversely affected!
(You can read our original article here on the SEO impact of Google Panda).

HTTPS becomes a known ranking factor

In a significant blog post in August 2014, Google announced that they would begin to view HTTPS encryption as a positive ranking factor, so that potentially websites that were hosted on a secure server would get a ranking boost. Google rarely goes public about ranking factors in their search results, but on this occasion they made this clear in an attempt to encourage websites to become more secure and therefore to make the web generally safer from hackers. This was naturally followed by websites deciding to move across to secure hosting as part of their SEO strategy, although recent reports show there has been no significant impact from this yet.
(You can read our original article here on HTTPS as a ranking factor).

Developments in Pay-Per-Click Advertising / Google AdWords

AdWords revises AdRank factors

AdRank is the core factor in Google AdWords that determines ranking position, combining the bid price with the Quality Score attained by an advertiser’s search term. Back in February 2014, Google announced some changes to the factors that determine AdRank, by including in weightings for ad extensions (particularly sitelinks), which would now also have a bearing on an advertiser’s Quality Scores and so AdRank. As a result of these changes, ad extensions gained more importance and also the AdRank became a bigger factor in determining whether ads are eligible to display extensions and different formats when appearing at the top of the search results.
(You can read our original article here on AdRank as an AdWords ranking factor).

Shopping Ad campaigns become a notable part of AdWords

Although the Shopping campaign option in AdWords had been available since 2013 (also known as Product Listing Ads), the format of these campaigns changed in the middle of 2014 so that advertisers had to eventually migrate their existing campaigns to the new settings, or new campaigns could be set up differently. These shopping campaigns are a visible and highly effective form of advertising for many ecommerce retailers and so Google made the set up and management process easier for many advertisers.
(You can read our original article here on Google AdWords shopping campaigns).

Callout extensions added to AdWords

Google introduced a new advert extension option towards the end of 2014, which would also supposedly contribute to AdRank (see above). These ‘callout’ extensions enabled advertisers to add an extra line of information in bullet point format, which would appear below their ad text when the ads appear in the top left panel above the main search results. Similar to sitelinks – but without a link option – the callouts offer more flexibility in messaging and meant that all advertisers had the opportunity to include more marketing content in their ads.
(You can read our original article here on callout extensions in AdWords).

Changes with Google Analytics

The Google Analytics Solutions Gallery expands

Back in March 2014 we featured the Google Analytics Solutions Gallery, which had been launched to enable Analytics users to share their report formats and for other users to download and use them. The Gallery has continued to grow into a valuable resource for Analytics users, providing a wide range of pre-built dashboards, segments, custom reports and more. There are reports covering a wide range of needs, many of which have been posted by Google staff, and is a great time-saver to fast-track the creation of new reports in Analytics.
(You can read our original article here on the Google Analytics Solutions Gallery).

Universal Analytics becomes the default tracking code

Back in May 2014, Google released their new Universal Analytics code from beta so that it became the default tracking code for new accounts, whilst existing accounts were encouraged to update to Universal and take advantage of the new reports and tracking options that were available. Although many websites still use the older versions of Google Analytics, the new tracking code is gradually becoming more commonplace and all websites will eventually be updated to use this version.
(You can read our original article here on Google’s Universal Analytics code).

Google Analytics relaunches benchmark reports

Although a number of new reports were introduced into Analytics during 2014, towards the end of the year saw the relaunch of benchmark reports for Analytics accounts. Using their wide base of websites that now track and share data through Analytics, website owners and marketers can now access a series of reports to see how their trends compare to other similar sites in their market sector. The reports can provide some new insights and indicators for future strategy and are a valuable addition to the range of reports available.
(You can read our original article here on benchmark reports in Google Analytics).

Google Analytics adds Treemap reports

At the end of the year, a new set of visual reports were added to Google Analytics to help AdWords advertisers improve the performance of their campaigns. Treemap reports are a popular way to review data visually and so quickly identify areas of good or bad performance that can then receive additional attention.
(You can read our original article here on treemap reports in Google Analytics).

Welcome to the latest monthly issue of our newsletter which covers news, tips and advice on effective website marketing, with a particular focus on search marketing techniques and trends.

In the first article this month, we take a look at Google’s recent introduction of a ‘mobile-friendly’ label to its mobile search results as a way to help users find mobile-friendly pages. In addition, we look at Google’s recent statement that it’s testing this ‘mobile-friendly’ criteria as a ranking signal for its search engine results.

As it’s becoming increasingly important to ensure that a website is well optimised for mobiles, we also look at the new mobile usability reports in Google Webmaster Tools, which highlight major mobile usability issues across a website. Finally, we examine how the new AdWords Treemaps reports in Google Analytics enhance the speed and insight of trend identification, or trouble spots, across an AdWords account.

You can read more below, or you can also browse through previous editions of the newsletter here. You can also follow us on Twitter for the latest developments during the month, or follow our Facebook page or Google+ page for updates.

On to this month’s edition…

Google’s Mobile-Friendly Search Results

Google has just announced the introduction of a ‘mobile friendly’ label which will appear in their mobile search results, to indicate which websites are likely to work better to visitors clicking into the site from a smartphone search. Linked to this, there are reports that Google is also testing this ‘mobile friendly’ criteria as a ranking signal to help improve the positions for sites that are geared up for mobile searchers.

This new ‘mobile-friendly’ label in Google’s mobile search results is intended to alleviate the common frustration of searchers on a mobile phone that can occur when the website has not been optimised to be viewed on a mobile. It is already starting to appear in results in the US and will be rolling out globally over the next few weeks.

In order to achieve a ‘mobile friendly’ label, a website will need to meet the following criteria, as detected by Googlebot – the automated programme that visits and indexes the website pages:

• It avoids software that is not common on mobile devices, like Flash
• It uses text that is readable without zooming
• The page content is sized to the screen (such as responsive designs), so users don’t have to scroll horizontally or zoom in
• It places links far enough apart so that the correct one can be easily tapped.

Related to this identification and labelling of ‘mobile friendly’ websites, are the reports that Google is testing this criteria as a ranking signal for its mobile search engine results. This would mean that websites designed only for desktop or laptop screens may be pushed lower down the rankings on a mobile-search results pages, whereas those seen to be ‘mobile friendly’ will get a ranking boost in the future.

Google is currently conducting limited A/B tests of the mobile criteria, involving thousands of individual users so that some see one set of results while others see a different set, to see which results perform better based on a number of usability criteria. A spokesman declined to comment on when Google might integrate the new ranking criteria fully into mobile-search results, but this would seem to be a likely extension of the labelling policy and aim to encourage site owners to make their websites more mobile friendly and so take advantage of this growing area of search traffic.

If you would like to know more about how to make your website eligible for the ‘mobile-friendly’ label, please contact us now.

Using Mobile Performance Reports in Google Webmaster Tools

Following on from the first article this month, it’s clear that website marketers need to ensure that their sites are optimised well enough to qualify for Google’s ‘mobile-friendly’ label. One way to do this is to review a new set of reports that are now available in Google Webmaster Tools to help site owners identify potential issues with their sites on mobile devices.

The new Mobile Usability report in Google Webmaster Tools were added in October and these help to highlight the major mobile usability issues that can be present across an entire site. This is therefore a useful feature for web marketers and developers, plus the reports include graphs with trends over time, so it’s possible to see the progress that’s been made if mobile changes are implemented on a website.

A mobile-friendly site is one that you can easily read and use on a smartphone, by only having to scroll up or down. Swiping left/right to search for content, zooming to read text and use UI elements, or not being able to see the content at all make a site harder to use for visitors on mobile phones. Therefore these new Mobile Usability reports show the following potential issues: Flash content, missing viewport (a critical meta-tag for mobile pages), tiny fonts, fixed-width viewports, content not sized to viewport, and clickable links/buttons too close to each other.

The reports will list potential issues with the website as a whole, or on individual pages, as identified by Google’s indexing programme. More information on how to make a great mobile-friendly website can be found on their Web Fundamentals website, plus you can also test your website using the Mobile-Friendly Test tool. In addition to these pages, Google also provides documentation in their Webmasters Mobile Guide on how to create and improve a mobile site.

If you would like more information about reviewing your site for mobile usability, contact us now.

New AdWords Treemaps Reports in Analytics

Google has just launched a new set of reports in Analytics, which enable AdWords advertisers to see a ‘Treemap’ report of their advertising performance, linked to key Analytics data. Treemap reports are a popular way to review data visually and so quickly identify areas of good or bad performance that can then receive additional attention.

The new Treemap reports in Google Analytics can be found in the Acquisition menu, under AdWords. At the moment these are shown as Beta reports and are gradually being rolled out and developed based on user experience. The Treemaps represent data as rectangles so that the size and colour in each rectangle represent different metrics, so you can combine different aspects of your data into a single visualisation. You can also drill down into the rectangles to see more specific information about a particular campaign or adgroup or keyword.

These nested rectangles allow the identification of trends and trouble spots across an AdWords account, with the speed and insight that often isn’t possible when looking at numbers alone. It enables advertisers to have the ability to understand an account with enhanced clarity and to determine what the relative levels of importance in different areas of your account are, or if anything has been overlooked.

The visual treemaps provide an intuitive representation of good and bad performance, highlighted by green and red overlays. For metrics where a high number is good (like click-through rate) there will be higher numbers in green; for metrics where a high number is bad (like bounce rate) there will be higher numbers in red. Users can choose which metrics are compared within the treemaps, depending on the data and objectives required.

These new reports are a valuable addition to the tools available for managers and allow KPIs to be analysed at a rapid rate, which can lead to enhanced and more productive AdWords management. You can read more here about the new Treemap reports.

If you’d like to know more about how to use AdWords Treemaps in Google Analytics, please contact us now for more details.

Welcome to the latest monthly issue of our newsletter which covers news, tips and advice on effective website marketing, with a particular focus on search marketing techniques and trends.

In the first article this month, we take a look at how Google’s removal of the option in AdWords to opt out of close variants on exact and phrase keyword match types has caused a backlash in the Pay-Per-Click market. Next, we look at the best ways to make the most of the excellent, and increasingly useful, real-time reports in Google Analytics. In the final article this month we examine how the invaluable SEO tool, Open Site Explorer, gets a makeover.

You can read more below, or you can also browse through previous editions of the newsletter here. You can also follow us on Twitter for the latest developments during the month, or follow our Facebook page or Google+ page for updates.

On to this month’s edition…

Google AdWords and Close Variant Match Types

At the end of September, Google AdWords started to change the way that exact match and phrase matched words could be targeted, so that the disable option is being phased out and so all match types are now served up with the ‘variation’ or ‘near’ match option as standard. However, savvy AdWords proponents and managers throughout the industry have strongly disagreed with this decision, as it will place limits on the targeting levels of keyword campaigns.

Google says the reason for introducing this change is because ‘people aren’t perfect spellers or typists’ and ‘at least 7% of Google searches contain a misspelling’. So ‘the relative search result will be provided even if what the User typed isn’t perfect’.

The option to disable these close variants was removed, so exact and phrase match keywords are now matching to close keyword variations (commonly misspellings, singulars, plurals, etc), which Google says ‘allows you to reach more of your potential customers with the right ad’. You can read more about this on the Google AdWords Blog.

The key point about this is that advertisers are slowly losing control over their ads. Variation match isn’t always bad and there are times it can be good to use variation match. However, there was previously a choice, which no longer remains. It’s this that has infuriated the industry as this change, together with previous recent others to AdWords, are further eroding the ability to control costs and conversions within AdWords.

The beauty of exact and phrase match (without close variants) was that users could guarantee that a searcher used a specific phrase that triggered an ad. In this new all-variant ecosystem, this isn’t the case.

A positive aspect of this change however, is that with voice and mobile search, it’ll be more likely to catch those conversions that hadn’t been caught before. Overall though, the Pay-Per-Click market isn’t happy with this change, as the opinion is that the most realistic reason for the removal of the ability to turn off this option is to further increase AdWords’ profitability.

If you want to know more about how the end of ‘pure’ exact match keywords can influence your businesses’ results through AdWords, contact us now.

Making Use of Google Analytics Real-Time Reports

Back in September 2011, Google introduced Real-Time reports to their Analytics service, which marked a notable improvement in the type of reporting available to users and placed Google Analytics alongside some of the high-level analytics tools that charged good money for this type of analysis. Since then, real-time reports have provided Google Analytics users with some valuable insights into their website activity.

The Real-Time reports can be accessed within the main Reporting view within Google Analytics, and there are a group of reports available under the Real-Time section in the left hand menu. Each report view contains activity charts for sessions in the last 60 seconds and 30 minutes (the total length of an active session). There is an overview summary report, plus more detailed views of current sessions on the site by location, traffic sources, content (pageviews) and, more recently, reports to show active events being recorded or goals/ecommerce conversions.

These reports provide a fascinating insight into the current activity that is taking place on your website – whether there are hundreds of visitors on the site at any one time, or just a few. The reports constantly change, with the charts showing new sessions appearing or dropping off the site, and the tabular reports change as visitors appear or move around different pages on the site, indicated by green lines for new activity and red when a session or pageview ends.

So these reports can be good to review occasionally to get a better feel for current volumes of traffic on the site, and high-volume websites can display these results to staff to show traffic levels at that time. However, there are other uses of these reports as well which can be particularly useful, even if you only have a low volume of traffic on your website.

Firstly, the real-time reports can be used if you are conducting short bursts of marketing activity – such as posting on social media or sending out an email campaign. Once the activity is made, you can view the real-time reports to see what immediate reaction your marketing achieves and so how many new visitors come onto the website from that source, plus what they do on the site. This short term activity is harder to track through the standard Analytics reports, and so the real-time reports can give you a better understanding of impact.

The second main function of the real-time reports is perhaps more important, since they can be used to check or verify how the Google Analytics code is working on your website and tracking data in the reports. By navigating through your website in one browser window, and viewing the real-time reports in another, you should be able to identify your actions on the site and verify that the code is working well. This technique is useful to track goal paths, events and also external traffic sources to see how Analytics is recording these – for example, clicking on Facebook links will sometimes record a visits source as ‘direct / none’ due to tracking paths, which would indicated the need to use referral tracking URLs for those type of links, where possible.

Of course, if your website has a lot of ‘noise’ in the real-time reports due to high volumes of visitors on the website, you can create a new view which is filtered for your IP address, which makes it easier to implement the latter of these approaches. The first one will be harder to track, unless another filtered view is created for that particular source of traffic.

If you’d like to know more about Real-Time reports in Google Analytics and how to use them for your website, please contact us.

Open Site Explorer Gets a Makeover

Open Site Explorer is a simple tool built by US company Moz and launched at the start of 2010 to enable website marketers to check how many, and which, sites are linking to any other website. It is designed to replicate Google’s PageRank calculations on the number and value of links around the web, and can be a useful resource to assess your own, and your competitors’ link profiles.

Moz refers to Open Site Explorer as “The Search Engine for Links”. It has recently undergone a few changes, with a new URL and a new look to provide a range of link research tools for marketers. Some of the more advanced features and full reports require a Moz Pro subscription which starts at $99 a month, but there is also a free option available with a limited number of searches and data per day.

When you use Open Site Explorer, you can enter your own web address, or one for a competitor, and get metrics on link activity including the number of internal and external links, the top linked pages or linking domains, and the page or domain authority of the linking sites, which is a key measure for link quality. These are actionable metrics that you can track and use to measure SEO performance, such as:

• Page Authority: The quality score of your web pages (based on link metrics)
• Domain Authority: The quality score of your website (as a whole, based on link metrics)
• Linking Root Domains: The number of domains (separate websites) linking to you directly from their website (as opposed to multiple links coming from the same site)
• Total Links: The total quantity of links points to your website
• Social Signals: This includes social media metrics that have a positive correlation with rankings. These include Facebook shares, Facebook Likes, and Google +1

One of the best options is the competitive analysis which you can run against a number of other websites to see how these metrics compare and what the potential gap may be in link performance. When reviewing the links for a competitor site, this tool can be used to identify competitive opportunities through link building, since you can see which sites are linking to your competitors. If these sites might also provide an opportunity for your website, then you can contact these other third party sites to also request (or submit) a link to your own site. In this way, by targeting a small percentage of possible links across a range of competitor sites, your website could increase its own link profile in a legitimate and targeted way.

The refreshed look for Open Site Explorer includes a new side navigation feature, improved filtering that allows link data to be sliced and diced more easily and a significant increase in speed – all welcome improvements to this invaluable SEO tool.

If you would like more information about Open Site Explorer and how it can be used to enhance your website’s SEO, contact us now for more details.

Welcome to the latest monthly issue of our newsletter which covers news, tips and advice on effective website marketing, with a particular focus on search marketing techniques and trends.

In the first article this month, we take a look at Google’s release of new benchmark reports in Analytics, which is an extremely useful tool to assess how your website is performing compared to the competition. Next, we look at the roll-out of callout extensions in Google AdWords, and how the correct use of this additional line of text in ads could help your advert performance.

You can read more below, or you can also browse through previous editions of the newsletter here. You can also follow us on Twitter for the latest developments during the month, or follow our Facebook page or Google+ page for updates.

On to this month’s edition…

New Benchmark Reports in Google Analytics

Google has just released some new benchmark reports in Analytics and these are now appearing in the reports menu. These reports provide another level of analysis with Analytics and enable website marketers to compare their key metrics against those of other companies in the same market sector, for better or worse.

Google Analytics used to provide some benchmark reports in the original interface, but these disappeared several years ago with the promise that they would be provided again in some form. Google has now just reintroduced these reports and use a much larger sample size to compare data, giving Analytics accounts another reporting option and potentially some more reliable, or meaningful data. Users can now view these reports within the Audience section of their account, and compare their results to peers in their industry, choosing from 1600 industry categories, 1250 markets and 7 size buckets.

These benchmarking reports use the ‘footprint’ of Google Analytics across thousands of websites and allow companies to potentially set meaningful targets, as well as spot trends occurring across industries. They may also provide the answer to important questions, such as:

• Which channels should more investment be put into?
• How your mobile engagement compares to your peers?
• How unique is your audience?

The new Benchmarking reports display acquisition and engagement metrics, such as sessions and bounce rate by Channel, Location, or Device Category dimensions. To ensure total data transparency, the number of properties (websites) contributing to the benchmark is displayed once you choose the industry, market and size. A helpful heat map feature makes it easy to see areas of strength and opportunity, and where to devote more resources.

Benchmarking reports can only be accessed by accounts that have opted in to share their data anonymously. Therefore, if you can’t currently see these reports, check in your Admin section under the Account Settings to ensure that the option “Share anonymously with Google and others” has been ticked. Also under the Property Settings, you should select the industry category that best fits with your business, as Google has been, and is, collecting data against these categories to provide the reports by industry sector.

It’s certainly worth testing these reports and to see what results are shown. How you use this depends on your industry category / country and the sample size, and whether you think this is meaningful for your business, but it can provide some useful insights that can be considered and then tested with changes to your marketing or website. Google says this is only the beginning for benchmarking reporting within Analytics, and they will be expanding these capabilities in the coming months, both incorporating conversion metrics and adding support for mobile apps.

You can read more details on benchmarking reports or you can contact us now for more information about how we can help you use these reports most effectively to enhance the marketing of your business.

AdWords Callout Ad Extensions Rolled Out

Google has recently announced the roll-out of ‘callout’ extensions within the AdWords system. These new callout have some distinct advantages for advertisers and they should be used and tested to see how they can help to improve the performance of advert clickthrough and conversion rates.

The new callout ad extensions can be found within the Ad Extensions tab, and enable advertisers to add an extra line of information below their ad text when the ads appear in the top left panel above the main search results. Any number of callouts can be set up, with a maximum number of 25 characters, but only 3-4 are likely to be shown with most ads, in a single line of bullet point. The callouts are similar to sitelink extensions, except that the former don’t require links to the site, which is a benefit as a separate landing page isn’t required. That offers a lot of flexibility in messaging and means any size site should be able to take advantage of callouts.

Google states that highlighting offers like free shipping, 24/7 customer service and price matching can increase clickthrough rates. Callout extensions can also be useful for promoting deals, sales and other special or seasonal offers that will help make an ad stand out from those of competitors. It’s therefore important to consider the offers and services provided by your business that can generate a competitive advantage, as well as discovering ways callouts can compliment existing sitelink and ad format strategies.

Like sitelinks, callouts can be set up and edited at the campaign or ad group level without having to create new ads, and data is retained even after making edits. One difference from sitelinks is that callouts can also be set up at the account level and Google recommends setting up four callouts at the account, campaign and ad group levels. This ensures as many callouts as possible are available to show with an ad. The most granular level callout will be shown.

Google states that “The order of your callouts, their length and how they perform, factor into how many callouts appear, and whether a callout will show for your ad.” Another crucial incentive to implement callouts is that, as with other extensions and formats, they factor into Ad Rank, which can lead to a higher Quality Score and a reduction in average cost-per-click.

There will undoubtedly be many case studies on the optimal combination of how best to place USPs in either callouts, ad copy, or sitelinks, but at this stage, it’s clear that the ability to increase ad real-estate with another line is a positive option for AdWords advertisers – especially for those who are savvy enough to include it quickly after the recent launch.

You can read more about showing additional callout extensions below your ad, or you can contact us if you want details on how we can help to improve your CTR with this new feature.

Welcome to the latest issue of our monthly newsletter which covers news, tips and advice on effective website marketing, with a particular focus on search marketing techniques and trends.

In the first article this month, we take a look at Google’s increasing focus upon https as a ranking factor and why that should be noted by webmasters and SEO practitioners. Next, we look at the global consternation about Google Analytics data corruption by the Semalt referral traffic. In the final article this month we examine the significant increases in mobile search share in the UK, US and Australia.

You can read more below, or you can also browse through previous editions of the newsletter here. You can also follow us on Twitter for the latest developments during the month, or follow our Facebook page or Google+ page for updates.

On to this month’s edition…

Google Announces HTTPS as a Ranking Factor

In a rare move, Google announced at the start of August that they would be using HTTPS encryption as a positive ranking factor, in an attempt to encourage websites to become more secure. Currently this is only a small signal that can contribute to a higher ranking position, but Google says that this is likely to become a bigger factor in the future.

Google’s move is a significant one and part of a strategy to ensure that websites accessed from Google’s search results are secure. They have therefore provided this guidance and details to help webmasters prevent and fix security breaches on their sites, which can be seen here.

More webmasters have recently been adopting HTTPS (also known as HTTP over TLS, or Transport Layer Security), on their website, which is encouraging. Google wants to encourage more webmasters to do this however, by using HTTPS as a ranking signal, so that websites using secure, encrypted connections will see a benefit in the rankings.

Currently, this only affects fewer than 1% of global queries and is still less critical than other ranking factors, such as high-quality content, while webmasters are given time to switch to the secure protocol. Over time though, Google is very likely to strengthen the importance of https as a factor, as they want to encourage all website owners to switch from HTTP to HTTPS to keep everyone safe on the web.

Google is beginning to publish detailed best practices in its help center to make TLS adoption easier, and here is a useful article on how to change your website’s address. Google is also very keen to see more websites using HTTPS in the future to make the web more secure, so the sooner webmasters make that transition, the more they will benefit from the inevitably increasing weight that will be put onto that by Google’s ranking algorithms.

If you’d like more information about how your website could benefit in the rankings from the transition to https, contact us now.

The Issue of Semalt Referrals in Google Analytics

Many users of Google Analytics will have seen a growing number of visit referrals from the Semalt domain over the course of this year, although the quality of visits are poor and reflect an automated visit, which has been impacting the overall user metrics for these websites. Globally, this has become an irritation but one that Google has now targeted and provided a new tool to combat similar activity in the future.

Any search for Semalt will get some varied results, but their website describes itself as ‘a professional webmaster analytics tool that opens the door to new opportunities for the market monitoring’. However, many Analytics users just find it to be a significant annoyance as it has been skewing the data in their reports from the beginning of this year, with 100% bounce rates from a significant number of visits. These also tend to mostly originate from Brazil.

There have been a growing number of complaints about Semalt referrals, as the company seems to employ malware to crawl the web and spam server logs, potentially ruining your Google Analytics data with irrelevant data. This ‘referral spam’ is apparently used by Semalt to drive traffic to their website to get users to sign up for their €14.65 / month service.

However, this spammy traffic data pollutes many Google Analytics reports, because all crawler traffic uses the HTTP referrer header containing the URL semalt.semalt.com/crawler.php (which redirects to semalt.com). For some accounts this activity ceased in April, but for others it has continued until Google appeared to begin to automatically block it in early August and hopefully, for most Google Analytics accounts, this will mean that these referrals will now cease.

Google have also recently introduced a new Bot and Spider Filtering function in Analytics. This allows users to select this in the Admin / Views area of Analytics to then exclude all data that comes from specific bots and spiders on the IAB known bots and spiders list. More information about this new filtering option can be found here.

These recent changes should now fix this data problem, but historical reports for this year will continue to carry the Semalt referrals, which need to be considered in trend data. If you’d like more details about how the accuracy of your Google Analytics data reports could have been affected, please contact us now.

Increases in Mobile Search Share

This article highlights the increasing importance of mobile click share and advertising spend for business owners and online marketers. Recent research shows the rapidly growing speed at which the adoption of mobiles are used to access the Internet is a highly significant trend.

Data released in August 2014 by digital marketing software firm Kenshoo shows how three of the most mature paid search markets – US, UK and Australia – saw mobile search share rise by between 8 and 11 percentage points year-over-year in Q2 of this year. From those three countries, the one that had the largest percentage increase in clicks was Australia, which rose by a notable 13 percentage points in this year’s Q2 annual comparison. The search advertising share of clicks here rose to 44% (with 38% in the UK and 33% in the US).

This data indicates that mobile browsing is proving to be exceptionally popular in Australia, as average phone CPCs for search advertising spend remain 12 cents lower than for tablets and desktops. The average CPC spread between phone and tablet has narrowed in the US and UK, however, with the US figures showing that average phone CPCs are just $0.04 cents lower than tablet. In the UK, the phone CPCs are only .02 Euros less than tablets. The Kenshoo report surmises that “Higher CPC for mobile (in the US and UK) reflects marketers getting savvier about how to measure mobile and set different goals for campaigns targeting those devices.”

Oddly, in Australia, Kenshoo found that clickthrough rates on both tablets and phones fell, bucking the overall trend reported by Google in Q2. The gap between mobile clicks and spend also widened in Australia year-over-year, with 35% of spend allocated to mobile and 44% of clicks generated from mobile ads. This indicates that due to the lower CTRs causing a lower level of competition in targeting mobiles, marketers here still have the potential to get excellent ROI from them before the CPC gap between the devices narrows.

If you would like to know more about how we can help to improve your online marketing ROI from mobile targeting, contact us now.

Welcome to the latest issue of our monthly newsletter which covers news, tips and advice on effective website marketing, with a particular focus on search marketing techniques and trends.

In the first article this month, we take a look at the Google AdWords location targeting options and how the limitations in this may impact the ways that you can market your business through search advertising. Next, we look at what the recent changes to Facebook Reach mean and how this signifies the end of brand marketing through business pages and community groups with organic reach. In the final article this month we review the SEO impact of Panda 4.0 and how this affects approximately 7.5% of English-language queries.

You can read more below, or you can also browse through previous editions of the newsletter here. You can also follow us on Twitter for the latest developments during the month, or follow our Facebook page or Google+ page for updates.

On to this month’s edition…

Google AdWords Location Targeting Options

Location targeting of ads through Google AdWords has been one of the best features for many years, allowing advertisers to target a specific country, state, city or even suburb. Targeting by geographic location is an essential tool for advertisers to help improve relevancy and control spend, however, whilst the location targeting settings in AdWords are predominantly accurate, several limitations exist.

Advertisers using Google AdWords can set location targeting options at the campaign level, either with a single location setting or with multiple locations being targeted within the campaign. Within these settings there are also some advanced options whereby advertisers can choose to include or exclude people based on where they’re likely to be physically located or the places that they’re interested in (i.e. using the location term in their search query). Targeting by search query location is usually good for relevancy, but many searchers will not use a location term in their query and so that’s where the advertiser is reliant on Google’s ability to identify the current location of that searcher.

The AdWords system uses several factors to determine the physical location of the searcher, using either the identified location of the person’s computer or from a mobile device location. An IP (Internet Protocol) address is therefore the most common way that Google uses to identify location – this IP is a unique number assigned by Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to each computer connected to the Internet. With mobile devices using Wi-Fi, Google may detect the mobile device’s IP address to determine physical location or, if it’s connected to a mobile carrier’s proxy server, then the carrier IP is used to determine the device’s location. This is generally the best option for Google to include users within the defined geo-targeted area, but it’s not 100% accurate.

IP address targeting has certainly improved over the past 10 years but can still be limited by accuracy if, for example, the IP address is associated with the wrong location or if the address is associated with a very broad geographic location. In large corporates with offices across multiple locations may also provide incorrect information to Google as the main server or Intranet connection will incorrectly identify the city location for some searchers. One quick way of testing your own location identified by Google is to click on the ‘Search Tools’ menu when searching and then in the sub-menu below that, the final option shows the location Google has identified for you as a searcher. If this is wrong, then it is possible to change this setting on your device.

If searchers are using a mobile device – which is increasingly common – then the geo-targeting can be more accurate as long as users have enabled precise location sharing on their mobile device. Google looks for a number of signals in this instance, such as GPS location, Wi-Fi location, or Google’s cell ID (cell tower) location database (in the US). In many cases the GPS location can be used and provides good targeting accuracy which is ideal for local search marketers.

In general, location targeting in Google AdWords works best down to city level, and although there is sometimes the option to select pre-defined regions within a city, or to use more specific location or radius targeting, the smaller the area becomes the less effective it will tend to be, particularly if the main city centre / location is not included. In these cases the advertiser should supplement their activity with a campaign targeting a wider geographic area, but limiting the search terms to only include ones with location words included in the query. Once the geo-targeting has been set up, Google then provides a number of different reports to help advertisers review activity by user locations.

If you would like more information about how location targeting can help your AdWords campaign, please contact us now.

What Changes To Facebook Reach Mean

At the end of 2013, Facebook quietly changed its rules for ‘organic reach’ which has effectively ended the option for ‘free advertising’ used by many companies. It’s a move driven by revenue targets which will force more advertisers to now rethink their brand strategies on social media and put more money behind advertising, especially with ‘promoted posts’.

One of the main techniques used by companies on Facebook has been to promote “likes” of their business pages to build a large and tailored audience, which can then be marketed to, either directly or subtly through news feed posts. However, the recent changes to Facebook’s algorithm means that this content being posted by companies is now much less likely to appear in their followers news feeds – it’s estimated that only 5% of followers will see this content compared to around 15% last year.

Therefore the end of this ‘organic reach’ – which allows a post from a company to be seen, without them having to spend money on it – means that the value of these posts will be reduced in terms of visibility and impact, unless the content generates good engagement from the followers (likes, shares, comments etc). The alternative is that companies will now need to spend money on promoting these posts to ensure wider coverage of their target audience.

Facebook has said that the reduction in organic reach was due to the huge increase in published content on the network and so was designed to promote relevant content rather than push companies into paid advertisements. However, it’s also a convenient way to increase revenue whilst also putting a higher value on the role of Facebook as a business marketing tool. Companies must now decide whether to spend more in this sector or to pull back and do less if it’s not as effective as other channels.

Depending on your product or service, Facebook can still be an attractive marketing tool with a good range of targeting options and advertising tools. It also has a huge reach and is regularly used, particularly on mobile devices, but it certainly won’t work for every business, or the positive impact will slowly build over time, which is hard to measure if advertising spend increases.

If you’d like more details about how the changes to Facebook reach may impact your business, contact us now.

The SEO Impact of Panda 4.0

In Google’s continuous effort to clean up the quality of their search results, they introduced a significant algorithm change in 2011 which became known as the ‘Panda’ update. At the end of May this year, another notable change to the settings was announced, called Panda 4.0, which is thought to affect around 7.5% of English-language search queries. The aim of this new update is to remove or reduce the rankings of sites that contain poor, duplicated or irrelevant content, but there should have been no impact on well written and optimised sites.

Panda 4.0 was the first update to the Panda algorithm in over a year and seems to focus on penalising duplicate content sites, ensuring authoritative sites with original content continue to rank well. Websites that have been the victim of copyright theft and have had valuable original content stolen are now seeing a return in traffic. Websites that have blatantly plagiarised original content from other websites are now receiving penalties and reduced ranking positions. These latest Panda updates – the details of which are always kept confidential by Google – are once again increasing search result quality, ensuring that users are directed to websites with the best quality content.

It appears that certain search queries and niches have been hit hard by the latest update, with terms such as ‘pay day loans’ seeing major changes in search results due to harsh penalties handed out to poor content websites that were previously ranking well. In contrast, the initial findings across leading digital communities has been an increase in traffic for authoritative websites, which are well recognised for producing valuable original content. Some large sites with substantial link building strengths and resources but offering little value in content have also been hit hard – it’s been reported that Ebay has seen substantial drops in rankings for major queries, which may or may not be the correct way that Google intends the ranking to work, but there is likely to be an ‘adjustment’ period with further revisions after this main update.

Hopefully your website has not been affected by these latest changes, but if you’d like to know more about the Panda 4.0 algorithm change and it’s impact on the search results, please contact us for details.

We hope you’ve found this month’s newsletter useful. Please contact us if you need any more information on the items covered, or our advice on any aspect of your website’s performance. Also, if there are any issues you would like to see in future editions of this newsletter, please submit your suggestions to us.

Welcome to the latest issue of our monthly newsletter which covers news, tips and advice on effective website marketing, with a particular focus on search marketing techniques and trends.

In the first article this month, we take a look Google’s recent introduction of ‘Google My Business’, which should interest SMBs that want to have a strong local representation on Google Search. Next, we look at the latest advice for webmasters on how to make website moves between domains easier and to reduce the risks on search results. In the final article this month we review the benefits of Bing Ads as an alternative pay per click advertising service to Google AdWords.

You can read more below, or you can also browse through previous editions of the newsletter here. You can also follow us on Twitter for the latest developments during the month, or follow our Facebook page or Google+ page for updates.

On to this month’s edition…

Introducing ‘Google My Business’

At the beginning of June, Google announced the introduction of ‘Google My Business’, the new account for companies to target their local market. This service replaces Google Places and should be of significant interest to business owners or online marketing managers who are interested in maintaining a strong local presence on Google Search.

Over the past year, the original Google Places listings have undergone a series of changes, with some businesses having been forced to re-claim and re-verify their listings multiple times, either via a postcard or telephone PIN code as Google launched new feature updates and modifications. In addition, some companies have seen their user reviews and other valuable content disappear or get overwritten as these local listings have been ‘enhanced’.

Finally, last month Google announced the launch of ‘Google My Business’, the long awaited and, so far, much-lauded redesign of its local business portal. ‘Google My Business’ replaces both the original Google Places for Business interface and the more recent equivalent within Google+ (Local), consolidating several features into a friendlier interface.

Local search had become a difficult system for business owners to manage, particularly since it was integrated more closely with the Google+ social network interface. This was ironic, as Google has poured unlimited resources into providing accuracy and usability for the consumer, endeavouring to ensure they have the gold standard for Local search, which is way ahead of the competition. It wasn’t a money-spinner though, and as a free service not tied to the consumption of ads, Google’s small business portal was permitted to languish.

From the business owner’s point of view, the perspective is quite different. Strong representation in Google Maps is the single most important differentiator between businesses who succeed or fail in gaining new customers via local and mobile search. Despite the hurdles, business owners who recognise the benefits have gone to the trouble to navigate the often-complex process, or find someone to do it for them.

So the ‘Google My Business’ account is an improvement and it’s designed to connect local businesses with customers, whether they’re looking on Search, Maps or Google+, and across all types of device. It requires much of the same information as before, with address and contact details, opening hours and brief business information, plus it makes it easier for Google users to rate, review and share business details through the Google+ network.

If you have a business and, in particular, a local target market, you need to ensure that your business has a strong local presence on Google with an up to date and complete business listing. If you need more information or help with this, please contact us now for details.

Guidelines for Moving Websites

Sometimes website owners have to move the site, from a more basic server move to a more complex domain change. These changes can have a varying degree of impact on Google and other search engines, depending on the way the move is managed, so Google’s Webmaster Tools have recently provided guidance on best practice for such changes, to minimise the impact on Google Search.

Website moves involve two types of content transfers, from transferring a website without a URL change (such as moving hosting) to transferring a website with a URL change (such as a full domain change, or a sub-domain or page URL changes following a redesign). The steps needed to move a site with no URL change are more simple and straight-forward, such as setting up a new hosting plan, removing temporary blocks to crawling and updating the relevant DNS settings.

However, moving a website with URL changes can be a difficult process and the risks of impacting the way that Google indexes and ranks a website can be more significant. There are 4 basic steps to follow, which are: prepare the new site and test it thoroughly; prepare a URL mapping from the current URLs to their corresponding new format; start the site move by configuring the server to redirect from the old URLs to the new ones; monitor the traffic on both the old and new URLs.

Google has recently provided a series of help pages for Webmasters, which outline these steps in more detail and provide best practice actions to help minimise the risks and to enable the transfer to occur with the minimum of risks to the way that Google views the site. It’s certainly not a process to be undertaken lightly, especially if the website is well established and has built up some good value with Google over the years, but sometimes these things have to take place and these procedures need to be followed.

In addition to this new content, Google has also produced information for developers of mobile sites to cover the issues involved with such configuration changes as moving from a separate mobile URLs to using responsive web design, which is becoming increasingly common.

If you’d like more details about best practice for website transfers, please contact us now.

The Benefits of Bing Ads

Bing Ads provides search marketers with the only real alternative to Google AdWords. Although it has a much smaller market share than Google, the Bing advertising network offers a number of benefits to advertisers, particularly as Bing strives to increase its share of the search market in the competitive online marketing community.

Bing Ads should certainly be considered by any search marketers as a low cost way of reaching the remaining share of the search market not covered by Google. It’s easy to set up a new account and, if an advertiser currently uses AdWords, it can also be easy to import an existing AdWords campaign into a new Bing Ads account, as many of the features replicate those offered by AdWords.

Bing Ads reportedly has the highest value conversions in the industry, so that based on the assumed average Internet conversion value of $100, it has been calculated that an AdWords conversion would be worth $146 and a Bing conversion would be worth $192. Overall, Bing Ads is seen to have less than 5% market share of the UK search market, but they also claim to have a loyal audience of searchers who use Bing or MSN search and avoid Google search altogether.

One of the main advantages we have seen with companies using Bing Ads is that the average cost per click is substantially less in comparison to AdWords, and the cost per conversion is also lower, due to the much lower levels of competitor activity. Of course, the market coverage and the volume of traffic is also much smaller than on AdWords, but Bing Ads is becoming a valuable alternative for advertisers, producing profitable conversions from the remaining sector of the search market.

Bing Ads is also improving the services available to advertisers, including new features in their Intelligence Tool, which provides unmatched and advanced demographics for a keyword’s audience. Add-ons for the Intelligence Tool can now be directly installed in Microsoft Excel, providing advertisers with valuable demographic data. Another impressive feature is auto-tagging, which is now available in the Accounts and Billing menu option, allowing advertisers to track individual keyword performance.

If you’d like to know more about how Bing Ads can benefit your business, or if you’d like to set up a new account, please contact us now.

Welcome to the latest issue of our monthly newsletter which covers news, tips and advice on effective website marketing, with a particular focus on search marketing techniques and trends. This issue marks 10 years of this newsletter, with over 350 articles published in this time and much has changed! Take a look back at the original edition published on our UK website from June 2004 (although the original design for this edition has changed).

Back to the present day and for the first article this month we take a look at Google AdWords’ enforced campaign migration from the Product Listing Ads (PLA) format to the new Shopping campaigns (by late August) and the impact this will have upon existing campaigns. Next, we examine the recent introduction of call forwarding numbers for AdWords advertisers and the benefits of using this option.

Finally this month, we investigate the increasing trend in SEO sales tactics to use scaremongering to convince some website owners to sign up through a potentially misplaced fear.

You can read more below, or you can also browse through previous editions of the newsletter, either by month or by subject. You can also follow us on Twitter for the latest developments during the month, or follow our Facebook page or Google+ page for updates.

On to this month’s edition…

Google’s New AdWords Shopping Campaign Format

Ecommerce advertisers using Google AdWords should be using Product Listing Ads (PLAs), as this links to Google’s Shopping search engine and enables small product images and prices to appear at the top of the search results. However, Google is updating the PLAs campaign format to the new Shopping campaigns, so that any AdWords campaign managers who currently use PLA campaigns need to be aware of these significant changes.

At the end of 2013, Google tested a new campaign format for how retailers manage product ads on Google Shopping via AdWords. In February 2014, it made Shopping campaigns available to all Product Listing Ad (PLA) advertisers and in March it released AdWords API support to help manage the campaigns at scale. This was shortly followed that month by the official announcement of a forced campaign migration to happen by late August this year. More details about that can be found here.

As a result, businesses and AdWords managers should be prepared for the imminent changes to the new Shopping campaign format. Google has continued to release more information about this enforced upgrade, including details about the new upgrade options here. This information culminated in the very useful article on how to monitor and optimise Shopping campaigns here.

One of the key benefits of this migration to the Shopping campaigns is that it’s no longer necessary to create separate ad groups, or product targets to track impressions, clicks and cost. This should make it easier to integrate the Google merchant centre listings into the AdWords Shopping campaigns and it’s now also possible to analyse and report on the PLA performance by product attribute or by individual items in the Dimensions tab, regardless of the campaign structure.

If you want to know more about the benefits of the migration, the Web Marketing Workshop UK are Google Shopping specialists and are at the forefront of these developments. So, if you’re interested in having a new Shopping campaign set-up, or an existing PLA one migrated and optimised to its maximum potential, contact us now for more details.

Using Call Forwarding Numbers in Google AdWords

Google has recently introduced call forwarding numbers for AdWords advertisers, which enables an alternative method of phone call tracking and advanced call reporting for all advertisers who use call extensions. Although this system is not as sophisticated as some call tracking services, it does help to provide advertisers with more insights into phone leads coming from their advertising spend.

When a Google forwarding number is used with an advertiser’s call extension, a unique Google phone number is registered to the ad. This tracking number doesn’t cost anything extra with the number either being toll-free or charged at local call rates. The two main benefits of these new advanced call reporting features are advertisers can now see where the call is originating from with local area codes recorded and the duration of the call is also saved. These new advanced features provide useful information to advertisers who can then assist in creating a profitable mobile advertising campaign.

The Google forwarding number is a simple redirect with the visitor being directed to the correct business number from the ad. Google forwarding numbers are only available in the search network and are currently incompatible with the display network. These new features allow advertisers to identify and target calls of high value which can lead to conversions and overall mobile advertising success.

Linked to the call forwarding numbers are new reporting features that include phone impressions, total phone calls and phone through rates. Phone calls by specific type of mobile device can be accessed. The dimensions tab allows advertisers to see a detailed analysis of each call with useful information such as duration of call, call status and area code from which the call originated. The goal of the Google advertiser should be to identify what types of calls are most valuable and likely to lead to conversions. Once this call type is identified, advanced bidding strategies should be implemented to ensure mobile ads have the best chance of reaching this caller.

Previously the lack of advanced data in relation to call tracking has led to poor quality calls being counted as conversions. These new features allow advertisers to specify the characteristics of a call that should be counted as a conversion. Conversion tracking will vary across different advertisers so that, for example, plumbers may potentially count a conversion as a call that has duration of longer than 40 seconds – this may be due to plumbers only needing a name and address for which a quote is provided. In contrast, a florist may count a call as a conversion only if it lasts longer than two minutes, which is necessary due to payment information often needing to be provided over the phone.

If you want to learn more about call forwarding numbers in Google AdWords, or try these for your campaigns, please contact us for more information.

SEO Trends and Scaremongering Sales Tactics

Over the past few years, Google has introduced some high profile updates to their search ranking criteria, in an attempt to improve the quality of their search results and to combat some of the less desirable search engine optimisation (SEO) techniques that have tried to ‘game’ the system. As a result, some SEO agencies have been using scare tactics to overplay the impact and to convince some website owners to sign up through a potentially misplaced fear.

Google’s primary concern is to provide their users with a positive search experience, to get to the desired results – and quality of results – as quickly as possible, and so to return again for future searches. They have always done this well, which is why they became so successful, but they are always competing against the SEO industry, whose aim is to get websites into the relevant search results to drive visitor traffic to websites. This can be a fine balancing act and although Google provides best-practice guidelines to webmasters, many companies try to manipulate the results to their own advantage using techniques that are not acceptable to Google.

Over the past few years there have been several significant changes by Google to improve the quality of search results. These updates have been introduced and refined over time and the main ones have been named as Panda (from Feb 2011, targeting low quality content sites) and Penguin (from April 2012, which was mostly targeting poor quality link networks). More recently, the Hummingbird update in August 2013 was a different update which changed the way the search algorithms read and interpreted online content to try to understand the relevant meaning and context.

These developments have been used as a core sales approach by some search marketing agencies and not just from those anonymous Gmail addresses that send out templated emails – usually from India – but also from some mainstream agencies who are touting for business. The claims of widespread ‘changes to the rules’ and massive impacts across most websites are often overstated to scare companies into signing up and serve to continue the myths and confusion behind effective SEO techniques.

However, the basic principles of SEO remain much the same today as they always have. Yes, there have been changes in emphasis and focus, but the core elements such as title tags and on-page content focused around the search phrases that people use remain just as important, as do clean and fast loading websites, fresh and unique content, plus external links from other high quality and relevant websites. Most sites that had their rankings impacted over the last few years were usually the result of poor quality link building, often outsourced and generated from low quality sites that Google can identify and penalise.

Some say that SEO is now ‘dead’ or that it’s changed significantly, but this isn’t the case. Google and other search engines still need to use signals from websites to determine relevancy, as well as the hyperlinks between sites and social media signals to identify popular or good quality websites that will provide unique and useful content to users.

If your website has been following these key principles and complies with Google’s guidelines, then little has changed and you may have even seen ranking improvements as competitors drop back. SEO remains a core online marketing strategy, which needs to be an ongoing and long term process for every website. It also needs to be focused around words and content that takes advantage of the many ways that people search online, and the content also needs to be focused on the searcher’s needs and expectations when they find your website.

If you’d like to discuss your current and future SEO performance or strategy, please contact us for more details.

Welcome to the latest issue of our monthly newsletter which covers news, tips and advice on effective website marketing, with a particular focus on search marketing techniques and trends.

Just over a month ago, Google released their Universal Analytics product from beta, so this edition of the newsletter looks at this much anticipated upgrade to Google Analytics, plus its benefits and the implications for all websites using this tracking. Related to this, we also examine how the implementation of Google’s Tag Manager code to a website has significant benefits in terms of functionality and the potential to reduce the management time and tracking resources on a website.

Finally in this issue, we review another significant event from the past month, which has been the recognition of the ‘Heartbleed Bug’. This is a major security breach that exploits a vulnerability in supposedly secure SSL and TLS encryptions and presents a significant concern to every Internet user.

You can read more below, or you can also browse through previous editions of the newsletter, either by month or by subject. You can also follow us on Twitter for the latest developments during the month, or follow our Facebook page or Google+ page for updates.

On to this month’s edition…

Google’s Universal Analytics is Released

In an eagerly-anticipated development, Google recently announced that their latest version of Analytics – known as ‘Universal’ – has come out of its beta stage and is now the primary version of the Analytics product. This should be of significant interest to any business website owner, or website marketing manager, who actively controls and analyses this data, as it’s much more suitable for today’s multi-screen, multi-device world.

The new Universal Analytics product has a range of new features and benefits which are summarised below. The immediate issue for most websites that are currently using Analytics is to upgrade the tracking code snippet on their site pages, which can be done now, or eventually Google will force all websites to use the new code, as the existing code will eventually be discontinued. If you currently use Analytics, you’ll need to login to your account and start the upgrade process within the Admin area – which is clearly explained within the account.

One of the main features being promoted by Google with the new Universal Analytics is that it will enable more modern functionality, including the gradual roll-out of the User ID feature to help you better understand the customers’ full journey through a website towards a goal or sale completion. These reports will show anonymous engagement activity across different screens and visits to your site to provide a more user-centric view of the traffic, to help you build a more tailored experience for your customers as well.

It will also enable new cross-device reporting that shows how the website’s users are interacting with your business across multiple devices, at different times. With the User ID, you can get a more accurate user count, analyse the signed-in user experience, and get access to the new Cross Device reports. You can read more about User ID here, or how to set up the User ID here.

Other improvements include tracking code that is also more flexible and easier to implement on a number of levels. In addition to this, there is time-zone based processing of reports, which provides the data more quickly without any time-zone lag, leading to much fresher data. There is also more advanced benefits for developers and the improved cross-domain, or sub-domain tracking for websites, as well as the ability to create custom dimensions and custom metrics to collect data that’s unique to your business and stay up-to-date with new features.

In addition, Universal Analytics also gives you access to new configuration options. These are organic search sources, session and campaign timeout handling, referral exclusions and search term exclusion that add a new level of functionality to control the data. You can read more about the benefits of Universal Analytics here.

This is a major advance for Google Analytics and the ability to track how (anonymous) users behave across multiple devices and sessions is a huge leap forward from the previous version and will provide an invaluable level of data and reporting detail in the future. If you would like to know more about Universal Analytics and how it can benefit your business, contact us now for more details.

Google Tag Manager – Why Use It?

Following on from the first article this month about Universal Analytics, this is a perfect time to consider implementing Google’s Tag Manager code on your website, as it offers numerous benefits to both business owners and marketing managers. A key benefit of the Tag Manager (GTM) is its ability to deliver any code that you want to your site, without lengthy manual and sometimes costly, code changes. This will make future upgrades and enhancements much simpler, since modifications can be made through GTM by marketers and not through technical developers.

If you decide to implement the new code for the Universal Analytics tracking on your website, then it’s also a good time to consider setting up a Google Tag Manager account and using this code instead – which can incorporate the Analytics tracking functions. Some of the other benefits in setting up the Google Tag Manager are:

• Speed
  As changes and new tags can be made rapidly and do not require code changes to the website it’s great for marketers, with its excellent ability for quickly adding marketing tags for Adwords or conversion tracking, without involving a developer.
• Flexibility
  As marketers don’t need to involve a developer with every tweak to simple tags, this frees up time for developers to focus on larger projects. GTM’s robust features and extreme customisation options also give it great flexibility.
• Debug Options
  A critical element is the ability to use GTM’s de-bugger to ensure tags work before they are live on the site.
• Version Control
  Every time you publish a change, it creates a new version, which is archived. If at any time you need to rollback to an existing version, you can do so easily. This is also a great way to keep tags organised and trouble-shoot tagging problems.
• User Permissions
  GTM allows you to set permissions for individual users that include view, edit, and publish. So varying levels of access can be provided for internal employees, or for out-sourced marketing agencies.
• Built-In Tags
  GTM has included tags for classic and Universal Analytics, AdWords conversions, remarketing, as well as other popular ad networks. These allow marketers to customise the tags with just a few pieces of information and without the time-consuming complication of implementing code.
• Event Listeners
  GTM can be used to target links or buttons by attributes that are already on the link, or by using a standardised naming structure like data attributes, instead of manually tagging each link that you want to track as an event within Google Analytics. This a very important and time-saving benefit.

The reason for adopting the use of GTM is very compelling, especially due to the way in which it can reduce resources and is so adaptable and customisable. There are numerous types of code that can be quickly added to your site, a few examples of which can be seen here.

In you’d like more information about the benefits of GTM and how it can save your business money, please contact us now.

The Heartbleed Bug – Does It Affect You?

On 1st April Google’s security team reported their findings on the vulnerability in OpenSSL, used by website’s with secure data handling such as ecommerce sites. At the same time, a Finnish company had also discovered the bug and it has been revealed to be far from an April Fool’s joke! However, action has been taken quickly during the month to patch the bug and to prevent any serious security breaches.

The Heartbleed bug was revealed to be a serious security flaw located in the OpenSSL library – for a more technical background you can read more here. In simple terms, this bug is a flaw that makes it possible for important user information to be stolen through different SSL and TLS encryptions. The Heartbleed bug can lead to personal information being hacked and accessed by others, in the form of emails, instant messaging conversations and VPN’s.

As a result of flawed OpenSSL protection, hackers have been able to eavesdrop on individuals and gather data such as usernames, passwords and other valuable personal information. This bug has become a major concern for businesses across the globe with valuable and confidential business information now potentially being accessed and compromised by outsiders.

The only way that this bug can be corrected is through installing the ‘Fixed OpenSSL’ patch. Users may have to wait until this patch is implemented for different operating systems, networks and software, although the top Internet security firms have been working on solutions around the Heartbleed bug to ensure valuable personal information is protected.

If you are concerned that your information has been hacked from a vulnerable website – or that your website might be vulnerable – then you can use the Symantec SSL Toolbox web security service. This will inform you whether a specific website is safe from the Heartbleed bug. If you are considering using a website and providing the site with valuable information, then it is a good idea to use this tool to ensure the site is safe from potential SSL security breaches. Changing all your passwords regularly is another effective way of ensuring your personal information remains safe.

The Heartbleed bug is a major security breach and worry for all Internet users across the globe and vast amounts of resources and funding will be needed to ensure the security breaches caused by this bug are repaired in the near future.

If you’d like to know how the Heartbleed Bug could affect your business, contact us now for more information.

Welcome to the latest issue of our monthly newsletter which covers news, tips and advice on effective website marketing, with a particular focus on search marketing techniques and trends.

In the first article this month we take a look at the role and importance of landing pages and how they can have a significant impact on how an online marketing campaign performs – in particular, with Google AdWords. Next, we examine how 2014 is likely to be a revolutionary year in the search environment as it’s predicted to be the first year in which mobile search queries exceed desktop search queries based on global searches.

You can read more below, or you can also browse through previous editions of the newsletter by month. You can also follow us on Twitter for the latest developments during the month, or Like our Facebook page or Google+ page for updates.

On to this month’s edition…

The Role and Importance of Landing Pages

If you’re using Google AdWords, a good landing page can provide your business with a series of important benefits, including improving your Quality Score, which in turn can help to improve your ad position and lower your cost per click. A good landing page can also improve conversions, save you money and have a substantial influence on whether a campaign succeeds or fails.

Landing pages are those pages on your website that people first see when they find your site through a search engine – either from the ‘organic’ results, or via the paid listings such as AdWords. Each landing page therefore gives the site visitor a first impression of your business and plays a key role in conversion optimisation – getting a visitor to complete the task on your site that you want them to, whether it’s to make a sale, send an enquiry or sign up for a newsletter.

As noted above, a landing page is an important element in Google AdWords as it can contribute to an improved Quality Score. Each time you create or amend an advert, Google will automatically visit the landing page being used from the ad and assess how well the landing page will work, so there are some key requirements to consider.

The following tips need to be followed to ensure visitors enjoy your landing page experience and that you can maximise your Quality Score for each keyword:

• Make sure your landing page has content that is relevant and closely to related to the text ads and keywords used. You should check the title tag, description tag and body content for the terms being used.
• Visitors should be able to easily find what they want. If your text ad is selling a product, make sure the product is easy for visitors to find once they are sent to your landing page.
• Ensure your landing page offers unique and useful information, including offers that are unique and only available from your site.
• Contact information on the landing page should be easy for visitors to see, and if a landing page requires information through a form, it is important to let the visitor know why and for what purpose.
• Make sure the privacy policy of your business is easy to access from the landing page.
• If you are selling online, make sure that personal data is collected using a secure processing server (https) with a valid certificate.
• If you are showing adverts on your landing page, make these clearly distinctive from your own content.
• Avoid pop-ups and other features that can be considered annoying to visitors.
• Make sure that the back button works if visitors want to return to the search results.
• You should also consider how your page is viewed from a mobile device if this is a core part of your advertising market.

In summary, a landing page should be easy for visitors to use and it should portray a sense of trust. The landing page should be highly related to the text ad and keyword that enticed the visitor to click the advertisement. A landing page should be easy to understand and visitors should be able to quickly locate more information if it’s needed.

If you’d like more information about landing pages, or a review of those you are using, please contact us for more information.

Mobile Queries Outgrow Desktop Queries

2014 looks set to be a revolutionary year in the Search Marketing sector, with mobile search queries expected to overtake desktop search queries for the first time. The news has been indicated by several industry leaders, including Google’s Matt Cutts, and comes earlier than expected with most predicting such a shift was still years away.

Mobile search queries are expected to exceed desktop search queries based on global searches, which shows the changing nature of the search environment. Google is reluctant to confirm these reports, as the company wants to encourage cross platform promotion, and this does of course remain the smartest strategy for advertisers who still need to target both desktop and mobile users.

However, the increasing trend in mobile searches are hardly a surprise for industry experts, considering there are estimated to be two billion desktops actively being used across the globe, which is well short of the five billion active mobile devices. This mix does vary by country, with India, for example, being well ahead in mobile v desktop usage, whereas globally, mobile traffic is seen to be about 30% of all Internet activity.

The increasing search trend on mobile has made it more important for website owners to ensure their websites can be accessed through these devices. Also, advertisements targeting mobile platforms are becoming ever more important as a result of the booming mobile search queries. The data available within AdWords can clearly show mobile usage and advert interaction. Plus, Google Analytics also provides website marketers with information about visitors arriving from mobile devices and how they interact with the website.

When this data is reviewed, AdWords advertisers can understand the behaviour of their specific market and then determine what type of mobile ads are created. Both mobile text and image ads can be implemented to either high-end smartphone users – which include users of iPhones and Android devices – or to the declining number of WAP users, which includes mobile devices with smaller screens.

If you’d like to know more about reviewing and targeting mobile search users in your marketing activity, please contact us for information.