Web Search & Marketing Newsletter – August 2015

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 recent enabling of local reviews through AdWords. This should be of significant interest to AdWords managers, although Google has yet to confirm when these will appear in the UK.

In our second article this month, we look at how Bing has improved its Webmaster Tools service, which includes compelling information that webmasters should be aware of, in order to utilise some of the best search tools available. Finally this month, we take a look at Google’s release of its latest quarterly financial results and what sections of its business are currently receiving most focus.

You can read more below, or you can also browse through previous editions of the newsletter, either by month. 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 Enables Local Reviews Through AdWords

This latest change by Google is an interesting development for businesses that are keen display good review ratings as part of their AdWords ads. Google recently announced that it will combine both ‘My Business’ listings and AdWords campaigns, to show these ratings beneath the ads. It’s yet to be definitively clarified by Google whether this will soon be coming to the UK from the US, but the rollout of this option is likely in the coming months.

At present, these review extensions will only appear within the ads on desktop and tablets, not mobiles. This is quite ironic as Google has become increasingly focused upon showing location based search results on mobiles and people increasingly rely on the opinions and experiences of others to help make decisions, such as which restaurant or dentist to visit! So we would have expected these reviews to be included in the mobile search results, but as space for these ads is more limited, this is the primary reason why these will only be shown on those devices that have more room for advert ‘real estate’.

The new ‘My Business’ reviews will be seen instead of seller ratings from 3rd party sites. Previously it was only possible to get Google Local review stars if you were using AdWords Express and typically they would show if you had at least 3.5 stars and a minimum number of reviews (in the case of seller ratings that number is 30). Google hasn’t yet specified the exact number of reviews that are required to show the local review stars, but it will probably be a similar number to reflect well-reviewed businesses.

Although the review ratings don’t include mobile ads, the local ratings seen on desktops and tablets will make ads more useful and informative to consumers searching for local information. They can also improve a business’s ad performance, so these are a welcome addition by the search advertising community.

If you want to know more about building your business reviews and using these within your AdWords ads, please contact us now.

Bing Improves Webmaster Tools

It’s essential for every SEO practitioner to keep track of their website’s performance, and there are plenty of tools that can be used for this. Bing is still a small player in terms of search traffic compared to Google, but Bing’s tools can be helpful in increasing search traffic and quality on both those and other search engines.

A useful feature in the Bing Webmasters toolkit is Connected Pages. This allows the connection of related pages and to get insights into the search traffic from Bing to social network accounts. For example, if your Twitter account and Facebook account are also ranking for your brand name you might want to see how much search traffic they generate. With this feature you’re able to see and analyse this data. The only requirement is that these social network accounts link back to the site that you’ve verified in Bing Webmaster Tools. This feature is extremely useful if your brand has a large social presence and so by adding all of your social networks to Connected Pages, it’s possible to keep track of their search performance.

Another good feature from Bing is the Index Explorer. This makes it possible to find old sub domains or subfolders (such as ones a developer worked with a long time ago) that are still being indexed by the search engines. It’s important to detect any duplicate content that may have been left from that work and Index Explorer is an excellent way to reveal the areas that you don’t want Bing bot to identify anymore. This allows the Bing crawler to focus on more important pages and it can also be good for finding old, lost folders that had been forgotten about!

Geo-Targeting is another decent Bing feature for sites that have multi-regional directories. It speeds up the process of marking pages as localised content for a specific country/region, such as for a http://example.com/newzealand/ directory. This saves plenty of time adding canonical URLs to the pages to specify which is the preferred version for the search engine to show – which is still required in Google’s Search Console (the new name for their Webmaster Tools service) to prevent duplicate content.

Bing Page Preview is useful to show previews of your pages in its search results. If Bing bot visited your page when it was down or scripts weren’t running, then Bing could be showing the wrong screenshot of your site. Within Bing Webmaster Tools Page Preview feature it’s possible to make Bing replace the screenshot with an updated version. This feature ensures that you always have influence on how your site looks like in its search results and allows you to block images from the site that aren’t wanted to be seen.

In computer programming, an application programming interface (API) is a set of routines, protocols, and tools for building software applications. For real SEO experts, the API is a great way to export a lot of available data from Bing Webmaster Tools. Even with Google’s newest version of their API, a lot of information is still not available. Bing enables the export of information on search terms and crawl settings directly from the API. It also provides search volumes on the keywords that you’ll receive traffic from and so this information is useful for a site’s SEO work, and can’t easily be retrieved from Google (at scale) anymore.

These Bing specific features are additional and superior to those provided by Google at present and enhance the SEO development to assist in getting the best performance in not only the Bing search results, but those for other engines, also. Any SEO expert should be very familiar with them and it’s possible that Google will follow Bing’s lead here and introduce similar tools to their Search Console service.

If you want more details about how to make the most of Bing, or Google’s Search Console to enhance your site’s SEO, contact us now.

Google Releases Second Quarter Financial Results

In mid-July Google announced its latest quarterly results which elated investors as they exceeded Wall Street expectations. They were primarily based on strong advertising revenues driven by Search, YouTube and Play, coupled with the perception of a new commitment to financial discipline as the company continues to grow and expand across more business areas.

With the latest quarterly revenue up 11% year on year, and 3% on the previous quarter, to US$17.7 billion, Google’s stock soared to a new high. Class A shares crossed the $700 threshold following the announcement of the results, up more than $100 from the trading price at the time the market closed the previous day. The spike added an extraordinary $50 billion of market capitalisation. In their primary search arena, paid clicks through AdWords jumped 30% globally compared to the quarter a year before. However, the average cost per click was lower again due to the increasing share of mobile search ads.

However, nearly a year after the launch of the ‘Google for Work’ brand, little was mentioned about its intention to storm into the enterprise market with its cloud-based productivity tools, along with a new commitment to a channel strategy. So the results provided very small insight into the health of its cloud business. Google was also quite coy about their results and didn’t go into much detail, with Ruth Porat, the new CFO of Google, only stating “Our strong Q2 results reflect continued growth across the breadth of our products, most notably core search, where mobile stood out, as well as YouTube and programmatic advertising. We are focused every day on developing big new opportunities across a wide range of businesses. We will do so with great care regarding resource allocation”.

Google is shedding partners with a new program that eliminates all but the most profitable. Those are the same partners that the company said formed the cornerstone of its strategy to become a serious enterprise cloud player. There were only two uses of the word “cloud” in the entirety of the Google earnings presentation, or Q&A session that followed. There was no mention of Google for Work and Ruth Porat only referenced the enterprise cloud business once by telling investors it falls into the “adjacent areas” category of Google’s various business pursuits.

The framework encourages a 70-20-10 split in resource dedication: 70 percent going to core businesses like Search; 20 percent to the adjacent businesses, which include Chrome and Android as well as the cloud platform; and 10 percent to developing “really sizable” new markets by pursuing “exciting opportunities,” Porat told investors. Omid Kordestani, Google’s chief business officer, did tell investors, “We’re seeing strong momentum around Google Cloud platform, with a range of great new features”. Other than that, no further information was divulged, as Google chose to keep their cards close to their chest. This isn’t surprising, as Microsoft and Amazon Web Services ramp up their attacks to win the hyper-scale cloud wars and aggressively beef up their channels.

If you want more information about Google’s recent financial results, please contact us now.

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 at Google’s recent updates to its search algorithm and the impact this may have on businesses’ search results. We also examine the imminent update to the Panda algorithm and what impact that’s likely to have on the results.

In our second article this month, we provide a reminder for AdWords advertisers that Google’s support for Adwords Editor v.10.6 ends on July 1st and scrutinise the benefits for AdWords managers of upgrading to the latest v.11.1. Finally this month, we discuss how Google has enhanced the localised “Near Me” search results and what can be done to increase a business’s conversions through the correct use of advert extensions, particularly in mobile ads.

You can read more below, or you can also browse through previous editions of the newsletter, either by month. 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 Updates its Search Algorithm

In mid-June, Google confirmed another core search algorithm update which is likely to have an effect on the search ranking results. This is therefore an important issue for any website business to consider and whether these changes may have an impact on their organic rankings and website visits coming from Google.

This latest update by Google was a core ranking change, which is something the search engine does throughout the year. Google stated that it was not related to the previous, significant, Panda or Penguin updates, or related to it’s aim to have more sites secured (using the https protocol) by promoting those in the rankings. (Some sources have in fact reported that the rankings of https domains have actually been adversely effected by the recent changes).

Google’s Panda Update is a search filter introduced in February 2011, designed to stop sites with poor quality content from working their way into Google’s top search results. Panda is updated from time-to-time. Google also launched the Penguin Update in April 2012 to better catch sites deemed to be spamming its search results, in particular those doing so by buying links or obtaining them through link networks designed primarily to boost Google rankings.

In May, Google said they are still working on making these two algorithms refresh faster, but more recently said, “this is not a Panda update. As you know, we’re always making improvements to our search algorithms and the web is constantly evolving. We’re going to continue to work on improvements across the board”. Google has remained quite cagey about the recent change, with Gary Illyes recently saying, “I can’t comment more on this, though. We make hundreds of changes every year”.

So initially, the consensus was that it was simply a normal Google core search update for which they won’t provide further details. But upon further scrutiny, this update may have been related to news content, as data analysis showed that “new newsworthy content” received a boost in the rankings with the update.

The SEO community is expecting to see more updates very soon, as the Panda algorithm is due to be refreshed again. Google has told the community to expect core search algorithm updates in the future, as they continue to work on making search quality better. Gary Illyes announced that the next Panda update will happen in the upcoming weeks and he referred to it multiple times as a data refresh, not an algorithmic change. It’s intended to further refine the accuracy of the targeting of sites with poor quality content. So the ‘shake up’ in the rankings isn’t expected to be quite as dramatic as it would be for the introduction of a complete change to a search results algorithm.

If you would like more information on how the Google algorithm changes could impact the rankings of your business, contact us now for more details.

Google’s Support for AdWords Editor 10.6 Ends July 1st

AdWords Editor was designed with the most sophisticated advertisers in mind, as it helps to reduce the time spent on managing large campaigns by simplifying workflow, but for anyone managing an AdWords campaign, it can be a great time-saver. In February this year, we published the article ‘Google AdWords Editor is Updated’ which described what Google are calling ‘the biggest update to AdWords Editor since its release in 2006’. In this follow-up piece, we take a look at the support for AdWords Editor v.10.6 ending on July 1st and the benefits of upgrading to AE v.11.1.

There are numerous changes made to the latest version, including full support for labels, upgraded URLs, call-only ads and ads in mobile apps. There are also improvements to the search bar, more localisation support and enhancements to overall User Interface navigation, which provides a sleek, fresh new layout that makes viewing data, accounts and edits easier than ever.

More details about 10 new features can be found here. The upgrade symbolises how seriously Google is about catering to advertisers who manage multiple or large accounts. One of the key benefits is the ability to quickly download multiple accounts at once and view them side-by-side. Also, viewing different parts of an account at the same time on multiple screens is a massive change that allows you to view everything at once, making it easier to gain insights into the data.

Two other important benefits are the option to save popular searches, and the function of being able to view the history of recent changes. It’s now possible to undo or redo changes immediately, which is critical when making thousands of changes and can prevent any hard work being lost. Another important addition is the function to create and manage call-only ads in AdWords Editor, as they represent an easy and efficient way for mobile consumers to connect over the phone with businesses.

The updated version of the popular offline Editor has been well received by the AdWords community. The benefits of it certainly outweigh the limitations, so remember to upgrade to it now as support for the older version has now ended and this is not likely to work from this month.

If you would like more information about how the use of AdWords Editor can improve the AdWords management for your business, contact us now.

Google Enhances Localised “Near Me” Search Results

According to Google, 4 out of 5 consumers say they want search ads to be customised to their city, post code or immediate surroundings and that now more than ever, people search online to find things nearby. Interest in “near me” searches on Google has doubled since last year, with 80% coming from mobiles. So it has continued to develop richer local ad formats that deliver more relevant localised information based on what someone searches for.

Last year Google enhanced location extensions to show up to three different locations for a business in a single ad unit. From the end of May the search results were enhanced to show three or four different businesses for location-related searches, such as “nearby restaurants.” Each ad features click-to-call and directions. This new format organises the information that on-the-go consumers need, so they can easily compare options and take action, like calling the business or visiting the store.

In addition to location extensions, there are many types of other extensions in AdWords that can make ads more useful and engaging. These include Sitelinks, Callouts and Reviews. The correct use of the right extensions help businesses reach their goals of driving online and offline conversions, giving customers the information they were seeking “near me”, and reinforcing customer trust. This in turn can lead to significant rises in incremental conversions and so, are critical to get right in the increasingly mobile-centric online world.

If you want to know how the correct use of extensions can help your business benefit from Google’s enhanced localised search results, contact us now.

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 revisit a story from September last year about the rise of fake referral visits in Google Analytics reports – at the time this was just the ‘semalt’ domain, but since then, this occurrence has become more widespread for many Analytics users, including a new version which creates fake ‘events’. This should therefore be of interest to any Google Analytics users who, like many, have become increasingly frustrated with this problem and we consider ways that this problem can be resolved.

In our Adwords article this month, we examine Dynamic Search Ads and how they can be used to enhance the marketing of e-commerce sites – if they are correctly optimised – and we take a look at the best ways to do that. Finally this month, we look at the re-branding of Google Webmaster tools into Search Console, which has been done to appeal to ‘everyone who cares about search’.

You can read more below, or you can also browse through previous editions of the newsletter, either by month. 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…

Tackling Referral Spam in Google Analytics

Over the past year the occurrence of fake referral visits appearing in Google Analytics reports has become more widespread and an annoyance for many website marketers who are seeing an increase in these false domain names in their reports. These is something that Google Analytics can’t seem to block and new types of fake activity are starting to appear, including false event actions. So what can be done about them?

We first covered this issue in September last year with an article called ‘The Issue of Semalt Referrals in Google Analytics’ as the first occurrence of this activity came from fake visits appearing to come from the semalt.com domain. Initially this was a minor irritation but the number of sessions now coming from fake or ‘ghost’ domains is becoming more widespread and a bigger distraction for many websites as they can skew the visit metrics in many accounts.

These ghost referrals create visit sessions in Analytics traffic reports, apparently indicating that people have clicked to a website from a fake link on the reported site. These sessions are identified by 100% new visits and also show 100% bounce rate, and often occur in high numbers for a short period of time. Common websites offer ‘buttons’ for your website or special SEO offers, and the sessions mostly emanate from Brazil or Russia, although this is not always the case.

So why are these fake referrals happening? In most cases, by appearing as a referral source the people behind these domains want Analytics users to notice them and so visit their websites to see what they are. They may then try selling SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) or Analytics services, like Semalt did (and is now using the domain best-seo-solution.com), or they may be trying to spread a virus onto an unsuspecting user’s device. Either way, they represent an unscrupulous technique which is an annoyance at best, and at worst, a threat to the value of Analytics reports as well as people’s devices.

A more recent development has been the creation of fake events in users’ Analytics reports which are linked to the ghost referrals coming from the domain eventtracking.com. Indications are that this issue is going to get worse, but there has been little acknowledgement from Google about this, or attempts to block this activity, so what can be done?

The best way to remove these fake referrals is to add a filter to your reports view (rather than by adding the ghost domains to the Referral Exclusion list in the Admin / Property settings). A Google search for many of these fake referral sites will display many articles and opinions on how to deal with them, but most will recommend creating a filter for the Google Analytics views being used – in which case, a RAW unfiltered view should be retained and a new view created with the necessary filters added. Details about how to filter all types of referral spam can be foundhere. You can also find out about removing the newer eventtracking.com referral spam here.

Eventually Google may build in some ways to remove this ghost activity from all Analytics accounts, but the people and techniques being used behind this dubious business practice will keep trying to find ways to add their spam activity to the Analytics reports. Hopefully it remains a phase that will eventually die out, rather than a growing trend that increasingly damages the value of Google Analytics as a tracking and reporting tool for websites.

If you want to know more about how these ghost referrals could impact your business and ways to combat them, please contact us now for more details.

Using Google AdWords Dynamic Search Ads

Dynamic Search Ads (DSAs) are one of the varied campaign formats that can be used by Google AdWords advertisers to help increase search coverage for paid ads, particularly for advertisers with large websites, or ecommerce stores with multiple products. DSAs are linked to the pages on a website that are indexed by Google and therefore driven by the content of the website.

When using a Dynamic Search Ads campaign, Google AdWords will use details from your indexed web pages in the Google search database to decide whether to enter an ad into the auction for a given search query. Assuming it judges the search query a good fit, it dynamically generates an appropriate headline and landing page to show to the searcher.

Another way to think of DSAs is like the text ad equivalent to product listing ads. With Google Shopping, you give Google a feed of all your product information and set bids based upon information contained within that feed. With DSAs, Google grabs the information it needs from your site and targets it based upon that information.

Marketers who should use DSAs are e-commerce advertisers with thousands of items in stock and a huge inventory of landing pages, making it a useful technique for sites that have a constantly changing mix of products. Another method is when AdWords advertisers may have an extensive website of content who may want to target a wider range of ‘long tail’ search terms that aren’t currently covered by the standard keyword targeting techniques.

There are three key positives to using DSAs:

• No one wants to spend hours every week uploading new products (or keywords) and pausing ones no longer sold. DSAs will take care of this without the associated costs that come with using a specialist advertising platform.
• The dynamic advert headlines aren’t limited to just 25 characters.
• This is a much better way to mine for new keywords than the traditional keyword planner. Where that planner tool is effectively ‘blind’ to your specific products, DSAs will be harvesting data from your site and so having it running in the background makes sure you don’t miss out on changes in user behaviour or new keyword trends.

However, there are also two key negatives – firstly, you give Google a lot of control over your ads, not only where they’re pointing, but also what they say. And secondly DSAs also cross the SEO-PPC bridge, so that if your website contains poorly optimised title tags or page content, for example, matching the right query to the right product is going to be trickier for Google. So DSA product targeting used to be a bit poor on accuracy, but they are a lot better now and perform extremely well when properly optimised. Setting up DSAs is relatively straightforward, however they tend not to do well without careful monitoring and optimisation.

DSAs are designed to sit in the background and catch any traffic that might have fallen through the cracks of your existing campaigns. This means you’ll need to do the fairly arduous job of adding in all existing positive keywords from your account as campaign-level negative keywords for your DSA campaign. In addition to this, checking the search query report will help you ‘trim the fat’ out of your campaigns and so running these regularly is the key to running a successful DSA campaign.

As it’s not possible to control the advert headlines, the 2 description lines can be edited and tested, often with a strong offer or call to action. Optimising ads is also the best way to improve a DSA campaign’s structure, by comparing the search queries for each ad group against the ad copy and then writing something more relevant. Finally, and crucially, to get the best long-term ROAS (return on ad spend), separate the top performing DSA search queries into their own adgroups and compile highly relevant advert creatives.

You can read more about DSAs here or if you would like more information about how we can help maximise the use of DSAs in your AdWords account, contact us now.

Google Webmaster Tools Re-branded to Search Console

Google Webmaster Tools was first unveiled about a decade ago and has been developed as a valuable resource for website marketers, providing a host of tools for anyone wanting to review and improve their website’s performance in Google’s search rankings. In May, Google announced that Webmaster Tools would be re-branded as ‘Search Console’.

This change is in name only, because Google has realised that the reports and analytics part of the service appeals to more than just webmasters and so they want the name of the tool to attract “everyone who cares about search.” Search Console is meant for marketers, SEO specialists and webmasters.

This name change comes soon after the recent revamping of the Search Queries report – renamed as Search Analytics – which now breaks down search data and filters in many different ways for a more precise means of analysis. This upgraded report remains one of the key tools in the Webmaster Tools / Search Console account, as it reflects the ways that a website ranks in Google and attracts clicks from the search results, as well as reporting on changes to ranking positions.

More can be read on Google’s announcement about this here, or you can contact us now to find out about the Search Console tool.

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 for 2015, 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 release of AdWords Call-only campaigns and describe the pros and cons of these. This significant development should be interesting to businesses and AdWords managers that run campaigns of all sizes.

We also look at Google’s recent upgrade to its My Business listings that provide business owners with more control over how their photos are displayed in the search results. Finally, we examine the importance of getting AdWords ads to show on the first page of the results and how to do so. This should be of significant interest to any business that is currently running any AdWords campaign, or intends to do so at any time in the future.

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 Releases AdWords Call-only Campaigns

At the end of February, Google announced the launch of the new AdWords ‘Call-only’ campaigns. These are specially designed to only show ads on smartphones where a call can be made from the search results, and is therefore important for any business where mobile search and call leads are important, so that every paid click can be a phone call to your company.

People are living their lives online and engaging with businesses in new ways. With smartphones in hand, consumers are increasingly looking for products or services while on the go and then placing a call right away. Google states that “70% of mobile searchers call a business directly from search results.”

This is why the new AdWords Call-only campaigns have been introduced, since they are a way for businesses to reach potential customers by prominently showing their phone number, business description and call button when people are searching. It’s uniquely built for businesses that value phone calls more than website clicks.

Many businesses may still prefer to display the link to the website as well as the phone number however, as consumers may wish to have a look at the website before they make the call. It’s still possible to show both the website link and the phone number through the call extension option in the standard AdWords campaigns, but the new ad type is now simpler to create and manage. Firstly, AdWords managers click to create ads, then they can drop down to choose the call-only ad type. There is still a ‘display URL’ which helps to show who users are calling, but this doesn’t link to the site as the ‘destination URL’ from an ad extension does.

This quick set-up can be a time-saver for advertisers and now replaces the existing option to just show the phone number in ads. The advantage of this is that it’s now possible to bid just for phone calls and since every click goes towards a phone call, it’s possible to design a bidding strategy based specifically on CPA or ROAS goal for calls. This helps maximize the value of every call to a business and will be of benefit to those companies that want to target the mobile searcher and encourage direct calls.

The disadvantage is that these Call-only campaigns may lead to a rise in the average cost-per-click for the calls, and as the ads are easier to set up there’s likely to be more competition for the calls than previously. Also, critically, when a click occurs and the number is loaded up on the searcher’s phone, the advertiser is charged, whether or not the call is made. So this may result in lost expenditure on wasted clicks and as such, should be closely monitored for a positive Return On Ad Spend.

If you want more details about these new Call-only campaigns and how they could impact your business, please contact us now.

Google My Business Upgrade Gives More Photo Control

Also announced by Google at the end of February is the ability of businesses to have more control of photos displayed with their search and map results, through an update to the Google My Business product. This is a useful change for any business listed on this service, but especially those with shop-fronts who may want to better present their business online.

Once a business has a Google My Business listing set up and verified, it’s now possible to indicate to Google which image should appear when customers search for a business on Google. While doing that, it’s advisable to give a business a fresh look online by updating the profile, logo and cover photos to ensure these are up to date and as effective as possible.

The new photo interface walks business owners through six categories of images – identity photos, interior photos, exterior photos, photos at work, team photos and additional photos. The dashboard includes explanatory hints for each category. From the identity section – the profile, logo and cover photos – a business manager can select which image will be displayed on search and map results.

This is a useful enhancement to the previously limited choice of how the images could be displayed and will benefit businesses such as restaurants, in particular, that will be able to showcase their food more effectively than before.

If you would like more information on how Google My Business listings can help to improve your business presentation, contact us now for details.

Understanding the First Page Bid Estimate in AdWords

Any AdWords advertiser will know the value of prominently displaying ads on the first page of search results on Google. In order to do this, however, it’s necessary to understand what a first page bid estimate is and then to know that even if the first page bid estimate is met, in some cases the ad still may not appear on the first page of results.

The estimated First Page Bid amount within an AdWords account approximates the cost-per-click (CPC) bid needed for the ad to reach the first page of Google search results when a search query exactly matches the keyword. This estimate is based on the Quality Score and current advertiser competition for that keyword. There is also an estimated Top Page Bid that approximates the CPC bid needed for your ad to appear regularly in the top positions above the main search results.

When managing an AdWords campaign, these estimated bid levels can be seen in the Keywords view, by adding new columns to the standard settings. These estimates can then help an advertiser to make better bidding decisions. On average, ads that appear on the first page or above the search results tend to get substantially more clicks than ads that appear on other search results pages or alongside the search results.

If your first page bid estimate is very high, it may mean that your keyword’s Quality Score is poor or that competition for that term is high. The first page bid estimate is a guide, meant to give you greater insight with which to plan your bidding strategy – but meeting your first page bid estimate isn’t a guarantee of ad position. Ad position will still depend on competition from other advertisers, the components of your Quality Score (expected click-through rate, ad relevance, and landing page experience), your CPC bid, the expected impact of extensions and other ad formats, the budget and account settings, and user and advertiser behaviour.

First page bid estimates try to estimate the bid needed for your ad to generally reach the first page of search results for the device(s) that you’re targeting. If you’re running a campaign that is only serving on a single device, the bid estimate will reflect the bid required to generally reach the first page of search results on that device. Otherwise, the estimate will reflect the bid generally required across all devices, which can include mobiles, where there are fewer ads shown on the first page of search results.

In some cases, your ad may still rank on the first page even if the first page bid level isn’t reached, or it might not appear on the first page of search results even if first page bid estimate is met! Therefore it’s necessary to keep in mind that this estimate is a guideline, based on your keyword’s Quality Score and recent advertiser competition that applies to search queries exactly matching your keyword. It isn’t a guarantee about your where your ad will appear, but it does indicate that you may be losing out on possible search impressions for your target market.

Below are a few common reasons your ad might not show on the first page, even when you meet this bid estimate:

• Other advertiser activity: There could be new competition on your keywords.
• Search customer activity: The searches customers are performing might not match up exactly with your keywords.
• Budget changes: If you’ve changed your budget recently and it’s been spent, your ad might not run.

If your ads continue to not appear on the first page of search results when you meet the first page bid estimate, then it’s necessary to improve your Ad Rank. You can read about understanding ad position and Ad Rank here.

If you want to know more about bidding strategies and how we can help to improve your AdWords campaigns, please contact us now for details.

Welcome to the latest 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.

In the first article this month, we take a look at Google’s recent release of its ‘Pigeon Update’ algorithm that’s intended to improve the quality of local search results and we consider what impact that’s having on UK business listings.

We also look at the changes that have improved the level of sophistication and ability to target potential customers through the Google AdWords Display Network. Finally, we examine how the global release of Google’s latest version of the popular AdWords Editor tool has been the most significant change to it since its inception in 2006.

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 ‘Pigeon Update’ and Local Search Rankings

Google originally launched their new ‘Pigeon Update’ algorithm on July 24, 2014 for US English results, stating that it provides “more useful, relevant and accurate local search results that are tied more closely to traditional web search ranking signals”. Also, in an attempt to improve the quality of local searches, Google are “now relying on the factors such as location and distance to provide better search results to users”.

This local search ranking algorithm was unusually termed ‘Pigeon’ by industry watchers, following the previous Panda and Penguin updates in recent years – the reasoning was also that pigeons know their locality well enough to be able to fly back home! Following 6 months of usage on Google.com, ‘Pigeon’ was rolled out to UK search results in the middle of December 2014 and there have been some significant changes noted in the local search engine results since then.

The ‘Pigeon’ algorithm isn’t one focussed on fighting ‘spammy’ results, as long as there have been no unscrupulous methods implemented to get better local search ranking results that don’t comply with Google’s guidelines. However, it has altered the local listings in the search results – particularly where the small panel of 3-8 local results would appear on the main Google search page for the locally focused search term. There are now fewer ‘local’ listings for some search terms and early reports indicate that for some searches, Google is opting to display a higher percentage of standard web page listings, instead of the local results derived from the Google My Business listings.

Google also seems to be heavily favouring the physical proximity of a business location to the search intent, to provide a better ranking in from ‘Google My Business’, particularly for mobile searches. This is one of the most significant changes in this recent update, and of course something that can’t be changed by a business! However, there are also some ranking rewards for local businesses who have invested wisely in their own website’s SEO, as this ‘Pigeon Update’ appears to use more of Google’s main web search ranking signals built in to it.

For example, authoritative backlinks matter more in web search than they do in local search. Those and unique, relevant website content are now also becoming an increasingly significant factor in ‘local’ results along with the physical location of the business. As such, the update should reinforce that it is more vital than ever to have a mobile responsive, useful, properly optimised website for your local business to help target customers in your area. This is a crucial consideration in light of the mobile search revolution – as the mobile browsers have much less space available, attaining the top rankings in those is becoming increasingly important.

If you want to know more about how to improve your local and mobile search results, contact us now for more details.

Improved Google AdWords Display Network Targeting

Google recently announced that it’s changing the way in which customers can be reached through their AdWords Display Network. This should be interesting to any online marketeers that use this network, especially for widespread company branding which targets customers’ ‘other interests’.

Since 2009, advertisers have been using ‘interest category’ marketing to connect with people across the Google Display Network based on their interests. Since then, Google have added new and more powerful interest-based capabilities: affinity (for enthusiasts), custom affinity (for niche segments), and in-market audiences (for ready to buy shoppers).

As these more sophisticated audience tools offer advertisers additional flexibility and control, since January 15 2015 ‘other interests’ is no longer a targeting option for new and existing audience campaigns. Current campaigns that target ‘other interests’ will continue to run until June 2015, after which they’ll be automatically upgraded to one of these options:

Affinity audiences: Reach TV-like segments at scale to drive brand awareness (e.g. Kraft used affinity audiences to reach cooking enthusiasts to build awareness for their new ‘Fresh Take’ brand).
Custom affinity audiences: Niche segments that can be found and custom-tailored for a brand (e.g. Electronic Arts used custom affinity audiences to engage fans of specific NFL teams in their recent Madden GIFERATOR campaign. They created 32 custom affinity audiences, one per NFL team, to reach fans of specific teams with display ads timed to the real-time action on the field).
In-market audiences: Reach consumers while they’re actively browsing, researching or comparing products related to a category you choose (e.g. the online car dealership Autobytel uses in-market audiences to reach customers actively researching specific models, price comparisons, and consumer reviews, as opposed to casual car enthusiasts).

So the level of granularity that Google provides for controlling the targeting on its Display Network is increasing in its sophistication and will continue to do so, to give companies the best opportunities to target their customers most effectively.

You can read more about the enhanced GDN reach and if you want more information on how to better focus your Display Network targeting, contact us now for more details.

Google AdWords Editor is Updated

Google recently released an updated version of one of its most popular management tools – AdWords Editor – and this update was a significant one with some major changes to the look and functionality of the tool. AdWords Editor was designed with the most sophisticated advertisers in mind, as it helps to reduce the time spent on managing large campaigns by simplifying workflow, but for anyone managing an AdWords campaign, it can be a great time-saver.

AdWords Editor 11.0 represents the biggest update to the application since its initial release in 2006. It’s been redesigned from the ground up, with old features being enhanced and new ones added to help do more, in less time. With a brand new visual design and faster interface, AdWords Editor 11.0 is built to improve efficiency as you view changes as they’re are made across accounts, campaigns and adgroups.

The new design and interface mimics the Windows OS by enabling the ability to view multiple accounts at once by opening as many account windows as desired. Arrange them side-by-side and even copy and paste or drag-and-drop items between them. You can also add and manage all of the accounts, download data, and monitor status in the new accounts manager. It’s also possible to open multiple windows to view different parts of your account at the same time – for instance, you can now open a new window to view your keyword list while creating your related ads.

As the number of accounts grows, so does the need to find the things in them quickly. So there’s now a panel for selecting type lists. This feature removes the need to navigate using tabs, so you can quickly perform common tasks while instantly accessing your campaigns, advanced features and settings. If you’re looking for something specific, use the improved, advanced search bar. You can now apply multiple search criteria and filters, and even save popular searches for future use. Once you’ve found what you’re looking for, it’s easy to navigate and make changes using simple keyboard shortcuts (Mac & Windows).

Making large-scale changes is now even easier in AdWords Editor 11.0. Advanced multi-select functionality makes viewing and updating specific parts of an account simple. Select any combination of campaigns and ad groups to view their ads or keywords, and paste them into multiple campaigns and ad groups at once. You can also manage your Shared Library to assign bid strategies and sitelinks across multiple campaigns and ad groups. The ‘Make multiple change’ tool now automatically organises your text into rows and columns as you add, update, or remove multiple items on the fly, and a detailed history of your recent changes is now just a click away, along with the option to quickly undo or redo multiple changes in sequence or in bulk.

This update has been warmly received by the AdWords marketing industry, as it isn’t a forced update that immediately renders the previous version obsolete. Both versions can be used concurrently as mastery of the new version is attained, so that by April 10, 2015 support for previous versions will be withdrawn. You can read more and download the new version here.

If you want more information about how the new version of AdWords Editor can simplify your campaign management, contact us now.

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 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 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. 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.