Web Search & Marketing Newsletter – November 2015

Welcome to the latest issue of our monthly newsletter, featuring 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 look at Google’s recent announcement that they will now be targeting hacked sites in the search results with changes to the algorithms, so that identified sites will be removed from the ranking results to protect searchers and improve the quality of the results.

We also look at the new Facebook M service which has recently been announced, which is designed to be an advanced digital personal assistant, combining artificial intelligence and real people to help users complete tasks. Finally we look at the latest enhancements to the Google AdWords Display Network service, that can help advertisers improve the cost-effectiveness of their campaigns.

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 Search Results Filtering Hacked Sites

As a follow up to our article in September about avoiding getting your website hacked, Google announced in October that they are introducing a series of algorithmic changes that aim to tackle hacked spam in the search results. This makes it ever more important to ensure that your website is not affected by this problem.

There has been an increasing number of legitimate sites being hacked by spammers and used to engage in abusive behaviour, such as malware downloads, promotion of traffic to low quality sites, porn, and marketing of counterfeit goods or illegal pharmaceutical drugs. This is a significant issue for the website owners – who may not be aware of the issue – and for Google, which monitors impacted sites in their search results to try to prevent unwitting searchers coming across these bad sites.

Website owners that don’t implement standard best practices for security can leave their websites vulnerable to being easily hacked, so that spammers and cyber-criminals purposely seek out those sites and inject pages with malicious content in an attempt to gain rank and traffic in search engines. Google has recently posted a series of webmaster blog articles with tips and advice to try to avoid this happening and they are now aggressively targeting hacked spam in order to protect users and webmasters.

These latest algorithmic changes that have been reported will eventually impact an estimated 5% of queries, depending on the language. Google says that as they roll out the new algorithms, searchers might notice that for certain queries, only the most relevant results are shown, reducing the number of results shown on a page. This is due to the large amount of hacked spam being removed, and should improve in the near future.

So Google is taking steps to weed out the bad content whilst retaining the organic, legitimate results. From a webmaster perspective, following the recommended best practices that we recently outlined is a good strategy, and having a Google Search Console account to also monitor potential issues that Google has picked up is also advised.

If you’d like to know more about these new ranking changes and how to avoid your site getting hacked, please contact us for more information.

Facebook M – a personal digital assistant

At the end of August, Facebook announced that they were testing a new service called M. This is a personal digital assistant inside the Messenger app, that completes tasks and finds information on the user’s behalf, being powered by artificial intelligence that’s trained and supervised by people.

M appears to be a significant project for Facebook and one that they are investing in with a long term strategy to become a leading service that can effectively complete tasks on your behalf – such as purchase items, get gifts delivered, book restaurants, travel arrangements, appointments and more. It is intended to compete and perform much better than Apple’s Siri and Microsoft’s Cortana.

The difference with Facebook’s M is that it’s currently a hybrid service that uses artificial intelligence combined with a group of Facebook employees who will make sure that every request is answered. If M can provide a more efficient service than its competitors, Facebook hopes to boost the number of people using it on mobile, which will in turn lead to increased revenue from their transactions.

Once a user gets access to M through Messenger (which will be free), they can send a note to M, which will be interpreted by the software as a natural language query and then ask follow up questions in the message thread, if required, and send updates as the task is completed. Users won’t necessarily know whether a computer or a person has helped them.

The unique aspect of this service is that Facebook’s M ‘trainers’ have customer service backgrounds and so they will make judgments and perform tasks that the software can’t. As the service is used more and more, the intention is that the software will then learn from human behaviour and eventually become sophisticated enough to process requests correctly itself. This may be sometime off and could represent a significant financial investment by Facebook, but they are taking the long term view that this will become a powerful market-leading tool in the future.

If you’d like to know more about Facebook M, please get in touch.

Google adds new features to the AdWords Display Network

Over the past few years, the Display Network part of Google AdWords has seen a range of improvements in targeting and ad formats, to reflect the increasing role of this feature for advertisers to reach potential customers on all devices. Google has recently introduced some additional new features that enhances the functionality of this service.

Firstly, Audience Insights have been added directly in AdWords to help advertisers find out more about their target market and to improve the targeting options by such aspects as age, location, and interests. These insights provide aggregate information about people in your remarketing lists, so that advertisers can quickly and easily take action through improved targeting. For example, if most people who converted on your site are cycling enthusiasts, you may wish to add this affinity audience to your campaign. Or, if many of your customers are females between the ages of 25 and 34, you might want to customize your ad creative to appeal to this demographic.

The second enhancement is that the display ads will now only be charged on a cost per thousand (CPM) basis if the ad is viewable on the screen. Google says that most display ads (around 56%) never had a chance to be viewed because they were ‘below the fold’, or in a background tab, so that although an impression may be generated, the ad wasn’t viewed. Therefore Google is changing their system to only bill advertisers when the ad impression is viewable, so that over the next few months, all campaigns that buy on a CPM basis will be upgraded to be viewable CPM (vCPM).

The third new enhancement affects dynamic remarketing ads, which will now become more flexible and automatically re-shaped and re-sized to fit all device types. These ads are linked to a Merchant Centre feed for ecommerce retailers and the design layouts will also be touched up to look great on any mobile or desktop site, or app.

These are all welcome additions and should help display advertisers see better results from their campaigns – if you’d like to know more, 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 a continuation in our regular series of articles about Google AdWords developments, this month we take a look at a couple of new developments which should be of significant interest to AdWords managers, or any business that has a campaign running. Firstly, Google recently announced that Gmail ads are now available for all advertisers directly in AdWords. Secondly, structured snippet extensions have been released, which are useful as they allow advertiser-provided structured information to show with text ads and can improve ‘AdRank’.

In our final article this month, we take a look at how the SEO industry is eagerly anticipating the launch of Google’s latest ‘Penguin’ search ranking algorithm. This is expected to include real-time updates and may be launched before the end of 2016.

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…

Using AdWords to Place Gmail Ads

Google AdWords now provides all advertisers with the ability to target ads to Gmail users, so this article should be of interest to any marketers who have previously considered advertising within this service. This is a worthy consideration, as the traffic volumes in Gmail can be vast, so there’s plenty of potential to target a wide-ranging audience.

Google recently made Gmail ads available for all advertisers directly through AdWords. Standard text ads no longer display in Gmail and have been replaced with higher-quality ‘native’ ads that integrate more seamlessly with the inbox.

Advertisers can manage these Gmail ads right in AdWords by setting up a Display Network campaign and creating a Gmail ads format in the Ad gallery. The ad has two main parts:

• The collapsed ad that users initially see, which matches the look and feel of the Gmail inbox. Users can click on this to expand it and get more details.
• The expanded ad unit is triggered by a click on the collapsed ad. This is a full-page native ad that recreates the informational and visual richness of a landing page. After users click to expand, any subsequent clicks on the content are free, including clicks to save the ad to an inbox or forward it to others.

Advertisers can choose from several customisable Gmail ads templates for the expanded ad unit. They can feature a single image, highlight a promotion that combines an image with a description and call-to-action button, or showcase multiple products at once. The custom HTML format offers the greatest amount of flexibility in how assets are configured and allows the creation of an even richer ad experience by including videos, forms, phone numbers, and multiple links and calls-to-action.

Once the ads are developed it’s then possible to reach the desired audience with advanced display targeting, by using the existing options like keywords, affinity audiences, demographics, and topics. For example, a sports apparel advertiser could select relevant topics like “Fitness” and “Sporting Goods” or reach people in the “Health & Fitness Buffs” or “Running Enthusiasts” affinity audiences.

As Gmail ads have evolved, Google has continued to give users the ability to actively control the types of ads they see. As with other Google ads, users can manage their ad settings to remove unwanted ads from specific advertisers. They can also opt out of interest-based ads entirely.

Google’s announcement to make the native Gmail ad option available to all AdWords advertisers is a positive step. It’s probable though that, due to the large size of the target market and the ‘big-player’ level of competition, the cost of using these ads may be mostly prohibitive for some markets but would be worth testing with some focused targeting criteria.

More information about how to display Gmail ads can be found here.

If you want to know more about how to set up an effective Gmail-based advertising campaign, please contact us now for more details.

Structured Snippet Extensions Available in AdWords

In the second of our AdWords articles this month, we take a look at the use of structured snippet extensions to show additional information with text ads. This should be of interest to AdWords managers, as all ad extensions typically boost the performance of an ad and are also a factor in supporting ‘AdRank’. Although ad extensions aren’t always eligible to show, the more that are provided, the better the auction is at selecting the best combination of extensions to improve performance, so these new ones are a useful addition.

Earlier in the year, Google introduced dynamic structured snippets in AdWords. This automated ad extension can give customers a better sense of the content on a website before an ad is clicked upon. Whether it’s highlighting a list of hotel amenities or top clothing brands, dynamic structured snippets can make search ads more relevant and helpful while saving time by simplifying campaign management.

Since their release, Google has received feedback requesting a function to enable customisation of the information that shows in this format, which is why structured snippet extensions became available to all AdWords accounts during September. The advertiser-provided structured information that shows with text ads can range from amenities to brands to product types. A predefined “Header” can now be selected to then input a list of customised values that make the most sense for a business. For example, a hotel brand promoting hotel property can now create a structured snippet for “Amenities”, such as ‘Free Wi-Fi’, ‘Swimming Pool’ and order them accordingly.

There is a similar extension already available called ‘Callouts’ but their uses differ by having distinct attributes. Callouts should be used to highlight what makes a business, service, or product unique, whereas complimentary structured snippets highlight a specific aspect of the particular product or service. The use of both gives an excellent depiction of what a business provides, whilst simultaneously contributing to boosting the performance of an ad.

More information about Structured Snippet Extensions for AdWords can be found here. If you’d like to know more and how they can be used as part of your AdWords campaigns, please get in touch.

Real Time Penguin Algorithm Updates

Our final article this month examines a topic that is currently of great interest to the SEO industry. Changes to Google’s ranking algorithms can have a significant impact upon how businesses perform on the Search Engine Results Page, so it’s necessary to keep up-to-date with any forecasted amendments to these.

The so-called Google ‘Penguin’ algorithm update was first announced on April 24, 2012. The update was aimed at decreasing the search engine rankings of websites that violate Google’s guidelines by using ‘black-hat’ SEO techniques to artificially increase the ranking of a webpage, particularly by manipulating the number of links pointing to the page through unscrupulous techniques and using poor quality websites.

Since then there have been numerous updates to this algorithm change to continually refine and improve the quality of the search results. The last official update was Penguin 3.0, which took place on October 18 2014, almost a year ago. The last time we saw a significant shift with the Penguin algorithm was before December 2014, so the industry is expecting another one soon although Google is being typically coy with the details it releases about it.

In June, Google’s Gary Illyes explained that they’re working on solving the issue of making the Penguin algorithm run in real time, which is a “hard problem” for Google. The most recent information is from John Mueller at Google Switzerland, who said that he doesn’t know for sure when the Penguin algorithm would launch but if he had to guess, it would be before the end of the year and it would be the real time version.

Google has regularly stated that they will be making Penguin run more often and as it’s almost a year now since the last update, the next one is expected soon. Judging by the limited information provided though, there’s the feeling that even Google can have problems with such a technical advancement, causing its release to be frequently delayed. Once it is released however, there may be some more Penguin penalties for unethical links pointing to many websites, so it’s well worth keeping an eye on.

You can read more about the suspected launch of the dynamic update by the end of the year, here. To find out more and how it could impact your website, please contact us.

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 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, 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 at look at how the correct ownership and allocation of User management permissions in a Google Analytics account can be an vital factor in the successful running of an online business, in terms of the control and security of data.

We also look at Facebook’s ad relevance score, which can help achieve greater visibility for ads and also lead to lower costs to reach your target audience. Finally this month, we review Google’s recent announcement about the use of ‘doorway pages’ for search optimisation and how recent ranking adjustments could penalise this technique.

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…

Ownership of Google Analytics Accounts

This is a critical topic for analytics managers in online businesses of all sizes, as it’s vital to know who owns and manages Google Analytics accounts and access permissions for your company. The analysis of this important data can be crucial for streamlining the profitability and success of a modern-day business, but the management of access to it is often over-looked.

At corporate, SMB, or small business levels, there can often be multiple accesses granted to numerous administrators of an analytics account over time. These can be across various departments, or for internal or third party managers who may have also created the account in the first place. Most large companies have multiple pockets of analytics professionals spread throughout the organisation so it’s possible that there are multiple users of the account/s with differing levels of access privileges.

The important issue is that the business needs to ensure ownership of their own website analytics data, and have control over access to this information to maintain security and longevity of the reporting. There have been many cases where a website developer has created the Google Analytics account, for example, but not provided the site owner with full admin rights, so that there is always a danger that in the long term, if relations with the supplier sour, then the business could lose access to their account.

Since many companies are now using Google Analytics, Google has improved the ways in which access permissions are granted, as they understand the importance of the access privileges and have therefore provided the ability of users to do this in a logical manner. Google introduced two big changes to user permissions in recent years:

• There are now three different types of user permissions: 1) Manage Users provides full control of the settings and user access 2) Edit access enables users to make changes to the set-up options, but not provide access to other users, and 3) Read & Analyse access gives users the ability to view reports but make no changes to the settings.
• These 3 different types of permissions can now be applied any of the 3 different admin ‘levels’ of a Google Analytics account: Account level, Property (website) level and View (reports) level.

This set of options enables Analytics administrators to apply the correct permissions based on what the User should be able to do. For example, a big company with a separate marketing team can provide access to only those sections they wish them to view. It’s important that ownership of the account is clear, as many organisations forget to audit the people that have access to the data and so this should be done at least once a year (or once a quarter depending on the required level of data governance).

People that that don’t need access should be removed, or have their permissions adjusted as necessary. It’s also best practice to regularly assess and limit the number of users that have Edit permissions at the Account level, and of course to ensure that the login accounts with full manager access are part of the business and not an email that is linked to an external agency or could be lost in the future.

Analytics data can provide valuable insights into the way in which a website is running, so maintaining full ownership of the account is a significant consideration, which is often over-looked in the successful running of a business. You can read more about managing Google Analytics User permissions in this article by Justin Cutroni, the primary Analytics evangelist at Google.

If you would like to know about ensuring the correct levels of Google Analytics management for your business, contact us now for more information.

Facebook Ad Relevance Score

An increasing number of businesses are using Facebook to advertise to their customers and target market. If your business is already doing so, or considering it in the future, this information is useful to bear in mind, as it’s important to understand the advert relevance score. The more relevant an advert is to its audience, the better it’s likely to perform and advert relevance score makes it easier for you to understand how your advert resonates with your audience.

Facebook considers how relevant an advert is when determining which adverts to show to a user. When your advert is relevant to your audience, its relevance score is higher and it is therefore more likely to be served than other adverts targeting the same audience. As a result, you pay less to reach your audience and this relevancy factor is similar to the way in which the Google AdWords keyword Quality Score works.

Advert relevance score can also help you:

• Know when to refresh your advert. When your advert’s score drops, it may be an indicator to refresh your advert’s creative or change its targeting.
• Determine which advert creative is more relevant. You can use the score to test your creative to help determine which message, image or video resonates most with your audience.

After your advert is served more than 500 times, it receives a daily relevance score from 1–10. Ten means that Facebook estimates your advert to be highly relevant and one means that it’s estimated to not be very relevant. (You can view the score in Adverts Manager by going to Campaigns and clicking Adverts).

Your advert’s relevance score is based on positive and negative feedback that Facebook expects from the people seeing it, based on how the advert is performing. It is calculated differently depending on your objective (e.g. clicks to website or video views) but it’s based on:
– Positive feedback: The number of times Facebook expects people to take a desired action, such as sharing or liking your advert, or help you achieve your objective, such as visiting your website.
– Negative feedback: The number of times expected for people to hide your advert or indicate a negative experience, such as choosing not to see adverts from you.

There are a number of ways to improve your advert’s relevance score, with the five most important being:

• Be specific with your targeting
• Consider your advert’s image and message
• Refresh your advert
• Learn from testing
• Avoid using offensive content

Following these tips can save your business advertising revenue by reducing the cost of Facebook advertising. You can read more about the Facebook ad relevance score here.

If you want more details about how we can help your business succeed through advertising on Facebook, contact us now.

Google Sets Guidelines for SEO Doorway Pages

Google recently announced that it will soon introduce a search ranking adjustment to clamp down on the use of web pages that are created solely for search engines. This is very important for webmasters and online marketers, as sites with large and well-established ‘doorway page’ campaigns might see a negative impact from this change.

Google’s Search Quality team is continually working on ways in which to minimise the impact of ‘webspam’ on users. This includes targeting these so-called ‘doorway pages’ as they have a long-standing view that such webpages are developed only to improve rankings on search engines, which in turn can harm the quality of a user’s search experience. For example, searchers might get a list of results that all go to the same site, so if a user clicks on one result, doesn’t like it, and then tries the next result in the search results page and is taken to that same site that they didn’t like, that’s a really frustrating experience.

Over time, Google’s seen sites try to maximise their ‘search footprint’ without adding clear, unique value. These doorway campaigns manifest themselves as multiple pages on a site, or across a number of domains. To improve the quality of search results for Google’s users, it will soon be introducing a ranking adjustment to better address these types of pages and this could have a dramatic impact on the rankings of sites that use this unfavourable SEO technique.

To help webmasters better understand their guidelines, Google has added clarifying examples and freshened its definition of doorway pages in its Quality Guidelines for Webmasters. Therefore here are questions to ask of pages that could be seen as doorway pages:

• Is the purpose to optimise for search engines and funnel visitors into the actual usable or relevant portion of your site, or are they an integral part of the site’s user experience?
• Are the pages intended to rank on generic terms yet the content presented on the page is very specific?
• Do the pages duplicate useful aggregations of items (locations, products, etc.) that already exist on the site for the purpose of capturing more search traffic?
• Are these pages made solely for drawing affiliate traffic and sending users along without creating unique value in content or functionality?
• Do these pages exist as an ‘island?’ Are they difficult or impossible to navigate to from other parts of your site?
• Are links to such pages from other pages within the site or network of sites created just for search engines?

Therefore it’s essential that webmasters who have previously used ‘doorway’ pages take notice of this imminent change and edit their website accordingly. You can read more about Google’s ‘doorway’ page guidelines here.

If you want to know more about how the use of these pages could seriously impact your business’s rankings on Google, 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 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 issue of our monthly newsletter which covers news, tips and advice on effective website marketing, with a particular focus on search marketing techniques and trends.

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

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

On to this month’s edition…

Google Announces HTTPS as a Ranking Factor

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Issue of Semalt Referrals in Google Analytics

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

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

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

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

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

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

Increases in Mobile Search Share

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

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

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

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

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