Web Search & Marketing Newsletter – July 2014

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

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

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

On to this month’s edition…

Introducing ‘Google My Business’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Guidelines for Moving Websites

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Benefits of Bing Ads

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

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

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

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

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

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

Welcome to the latest issue of our monthly newsletter – the first for 2014 – which covers news, tips and advice on effective website marketing and search marketing techniques and trends.

To start the New Year, we’ve put together a list of the top events that took place in the search engine marketing / online marketing world in 2013, which have had an impact on websites already, but will also have an ongoing impact throughout 2014. These events include developments in the Pay-Per-Click field with Google AdWords, within the SEO sector, and also with Google Analytics.

We’ve covered these events in some detail in previous issues of this newsletter, but here we summarise the main changes and the implications for any website marketer, as they will all have a bearing on developments in 2014 and may be used to an advantage where applicable. In this fast changing and developing marketplace, we can expect further changes in the next 12 months, but 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 by month. You can also follow us on Twitter for the latest developments during the month, or Like our Facebook page or Google+ page for updates.

On to this month’s edition…

Developments in Pay-Per-Click Advertising

Google AdWords launches Enhanced Campaigns

In February 2013, Google announced major new changes to AdWords, called Enhanced Campaigns, and these were fully implemented across all accounts by the end of July. Enhanced Campaigns met some criticism from advertisers as some of the previous flexibility across devices was removed, but the benefits included some more flexible bidding strategies and targeting of some ad extensions. Most advertisers have not seen significant changes since the introduction of Enhanced Campaigns, although the main issue remains the management and cost of mobile ads and some associated factors. However, since the new system is now fully operational, advertisers should be looking at the new opportunities for their campaigns and how some of the new settings can be used to their advantage.
(You can read our original article on this issue here).

Google Shopping integrates with AdWords

In September there was a significant change to Google Shopping (previously called Google Product Search) which meant that it became more closely integrated with the paid AdWords advertising system. Although any ecommerce business can still upload their listings to Google Shopping, the visibility of these in the search results and in the Shopping search is now dependent on running a Google AdWords Product Listing campaign. This change proved controversial as many small businesses showed concern that they would not be able to compete with those companies that can afford a larger advertising budget. However, since the change, most advertisers have found that the paid Product Listing Adverts are a very effective search marketing technique for price competitive products, at a lower cost per click than the standard text ads. This is likely to become more competitive in 2014 but it’s an essential advertising tool for online retailers to be using.
(You can read our original article on this issue here).

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) Trends

Google introduces the new ‘Hummingbird’ Search Algorithm

Google announced a major change in 2013 through implementing the ‘Hummingbird’ update, which is a new search algorithm that attempts to improve results for conversation based search queries. The Hummingbird update allows Google to understand more detailed search queries and to also identify the correct meaning or context of the search request to produce more relevant results. Some website marketers have seen notable ranking changes following the introduction of this change, but the impact for most companies was minimal and underlined the importance of unique and quality content on web pages. However, it is one of the ongoing and ever-changing factors that website marketers need to consider as part of their SEO strategy and content development to ensure that ‘long tail search terms’ are being incorporated effectively and that search referrals continue to increase in 2014.
(You can read our original article on this issue here).

The importance of search query data in Google’s Webmaster Tools

Google Webmaster Tools is starting to gain more importance for website owners when reviewing search query data and traffic coming from organic (SEO) search rankings. This is due to the more limited data now available in Google Analytics (see below) which means that the reports in Google Webmaster Tools provide at least some level of insight and trend information. The Google Webmaster Tools reports can be integrated with Google Analytics, but also provide some depth of analysis in the original reports, including the ability to click on a specific page URL and see what search terms are sending traffic to that URL. Although there are also limitations with these reports, all website marketers should be using this information at least monthly to track their SEO activity.
(You can read our original article on this issue here).

Guest blogging gains popularity

Following Google’s previous actions to crack down on poor quality links, 2013 saw an increasingly popular trend for ‘guest blogging’ for website marketers to develop valuable backlinks on popular and prominent blogs. However, it has also become a new platform for spam emails and for bloggers to be inundated with requests to post content, so that what used to be a valuable technique has now become popularised and questionable. While the technique can still be used effectively, Google’s Matt Cutts has emphasised that spammy or paid content can lead to harsh penalties for specific websites or networks of websites. It is therefore more important than ever to implement effective and valuable strategies for guest blogging, including developing relationships and contributing valuable content, and it remains one area to consider for link and content development in 2014.
(You can read our original article on this issue here).

Changes with Google Analytics

Google Analytics showing “(not provided)” search data

Perhaps the biggest frustration for search marketers in 2013 has been the increasing impact of ‘not provided’ data in Google Analytics, which has meant that organic search term data is no longer being reported and so is unavailable to companies to see which search terms have been used to find their website through a Google search. This is the result of Google using a secure search function, initially just for Google account users but then, by the second half of 2013 for most searches globally, due to privacy concerns. For search marketers, this loss of data is significant and places more reliance on Google’s Webmaster Tools reports (see above) or data from paid search activity. By February 2014 it’s expected that all Google search data will be ‘not provided’ and there is little that can be done about this other than look at the overall search traffic volumes and some alternate but less insightfull reports.
(You can read our original article on this issue here).

Google’s Universal Analytics

Google had been testing their ‘Universal Analytics’ tracking code for some time and made it available to all Analytics accounts in March 2013. The roll-out of this significant new version is likely to continue more actively in 2014 as Google wants to move all websites to this upgraded version of the new tracking code – it’s a simpler but more flexible tracking method, enabling new functionality and potentially tracking of users across different devices. There are still some limitations – such as being able to use remarketing – but this should be fixed soon and the new UA code will need to be upgraded by website owners to keep up with the ongoing development of Analytics tracking and reporting.
(You can read our original article on this issue here).

Google Analytics introduces Demographics & Interests Reports

Regular users of Google Analytics will have seen some notable changes to the report layouts and naming during 2013 as Google continues to improve the product and make it more accessible to the average user. Two notable reports that have been added are the Demographics and Interests reports, which use Google’s user data to provide a sample insight into the visitor profiles of a website – you can see gender, age range, interest categories, which in turn can provide new insights as well as advertising targeting opportunities. To enable these reports, website marketers may need to amend their Analytics tracking code (and the new Universal code doesn’t yet support these reports) but it’s a recommended enhancement that should be implemented and reviewed in 2014.
(You can read our original article on this issue here).

Welcome to the latest issue of our monthly newsletter – the last for 2013 – which covers news, tips and advice on effective website marketing and search marketing techniques and trends.

In the first article this month, we take a look at Google’s updated Opportunities Tab within AdWords and how, if used correctly, it may improve the performance of a campaign.

Next, we take a look at the importance of Google Webmaster’s search query data and how this can be very useful in helping to provide more information about the keywords that are used from the search engine to visit your website, and which are the main landing pages that are visited from the search results.

In the final article this month, we examine the different types of Facebook advertising and the different reasons and benefits of using these as part of a social media marketing campaign.

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

On to this month’s edition…

Google updates the AdWords Opportunities Tab

Google recently announced some changes to the Opportunities tab within the AdWords system, which can potentially help advertisers find ways of improving the performance of their campaigns. This section in the main navigation tabs suggests different ways to increase the performance of the campaign (or spend with Google) so it can provide good insights but also needs to be managed with caution.

The new Opportunities tab is designed to be more user-friendly and presents the advertiser with suggestions based on the previous 7 days of activity (or longer for some elements). These are some of the options within the Opportunities section that can be considered to improve a campaign’s performance:

Convert more customers in your best locations
If your conversion rate differs across locations, you might see opportunities to increase your location bid adjustment where your conversion rate is high, or decrease your location bid adjustments where your conversion rate is low.

Get more out of your existing budget
If you’re maxing out your budget, you might see opportunities to lower your bids to capture more clicks – or, of course, Google might suggest that you increase your daily budget level!

Be there more often than competitors
If your ads are being seen less frequently than other advertisers competing for the same traffic, you might see opportunities to be seen more frequently with (higher) bids to show your ads more often than advertisers like you.

Show ads that are more relevant
If Google spots an adgroup with keywords related to lots of different themes, it’s harder for you to show a highly relevant ad, so you might see opportunities to create new adgroups from existing keywords. This can be a particularly useful suggestion that can help to improve your targeting and your keyword Quality Scores.

Reach more customers on closely related searches
If you’re missing clicks on searches that are very similar to your existing keywords, you might see opportunities to broaden your keyword match types – which will, of course, increase your spend.

Be seen on the first page
If your ads are showing below the first page when users search on high-quality keywords, you might see opportunities to raise your bids to show ads on the first page.

The opportunities you’ll see are tailored to your account and should be selected based on their possible impact to your performance. The new look design and presentation in this section now makes it easier to decide which opportunities are being suggested and which should be implemented.

Of course, as noted above, these opportunities or suggestions by Google do need to be handled carefully and with caution, as the simultaneous implementation of too many opportunities could result in a dramatic difference to the way in which the allocated budget is spent. The recommendations are being generated automatically based on past trends and many of them will also benefit Google from increased spend for the advertiser and income for Google, so ideally these opportunities need to be consider carefully in the context of the campaign objectives.

Best practice would be to introduce one opportunity at a time, then monitor how that impacts the campaign before introducing more, through on-going optimisation and review. The most appealing initial opportunities are those to get more out of your existing budget and show ads that are more relevant, both of which could lead to a lower average cost per click.

If you’d like more information about the new Opportunities for better campaign performance in AdWords, please contact us now.

Using Google Webmaster’s Search Query Data

Anybody who regularly runs Google Analytics reports would be familiar with the increasing percentage of keywords bundled into the rather unhelpful “(not provided)” data category. So the Google Webmaster’s search query data, which includes a “top pages” tab, is starting to gain more importance for insights into Google’s SEO ranking activity for a website. This data is provided through the on-going changes to improve the compatibility between Webmaster Tools and Analytics and shows search queries that drive traffic to your site, as well as which pages benefit the most from them.

The “top pages” tab is in the search queries section of Webmaster Tools and is where you’ll find data for the pages that perform the best in Google’s search results. It shows impressions, click counts, average position, and an increasing amount of data for individual website pages. Clicking on any page URL will show a list of what search terms are sending traffic to it and users can also click on any of the search terms to see how it performs across your site – i.e. which pages get traffic from this term.

This is a very useful function within Webmaster Tools, which helps to fill the gap created by the unavailable “(not provided)” keyword data in Analytics. Data can be compared for the last 30 days compared to the previous 30, so broad trends can be reviewed to see how often a website has appeared in the search results, which search terms clicks have been acquired from, and what ranking positions have changed.

There are some discrepancies between data that is shown from both of those accounts as the information is being collected from different sources, and the Webmaster Tools data is quite generalised, but it’s a good step in the right direction. You can view more information about the reasons for that discrepancy and the best ways to use the search query data here.

So website marketers who use Webmasters and Analytics should be aware that this data is available to provide valuable information about the website and how it is driving visits from Google’s search results. The Webmaster Tools data can now supplement the reports that are withholding information from Analytics and so trends can be seen to show if SEO activity is improving website visits, and from which search terms.

If you’d like more details about the most effective ways to use this data to improve the performance of your website, contact us now.

What are the different types of Facebook Advertising?

If you are using Facebook business pages as part of your social media marketing activity, there are a number of ways to run advertising on the Facebook platform. Over the past year Facebook has tried to make the process of setting up ads more useful for advertisers, as well as adding more options to give advertisers more flexibility, but also to create more revenue options for Facebook! So, what are the main options and how can they be used?

Advertisers on Facebook can either use ads to direct users to their Facebook content, or to take them directly to their website content. Internal ads – that keep users within Facebook – tend to work better in most cases and these are called ‘engagement ads’. Anyone clicking on the advert can take an action without leaving Facebook, which is where they probably want to stay and interact within this social networking site.

There are several different types of Facebook advertising which can be used by advertisers – these are the traditional Facebook ads down the right hand column, as well as the newer options of Sponsored Stories and Promoted Posts. Each can be used in different ways, such as to build up the number of Likes, or to encourage more engagement with your content, such as commenting or sharing posts.

The traditional Engagement Ads on Facebook are the ones used to promote your business page and these usually appear down the right hand column, against the news feed of a target user. Advertisers can use a range of targeting options to try to reach the most relevant target audience, based on location, age range, interests and other factors. The ads include a link to the Facebook page (or external website) and also include a Like button, so that a strong compelling ad can attract more Likes without necessarily getting users onto the business page first.

Another ad option is Sponsored Stories – this can be used to show an advert based on a post on your business page, or a new Like by a user, and it will be displayed to your followers and their network of friends, so this is good to use once you start building up a strong network of Likes. It’s a way of getting more visibility for a post or an action (see last month’s issue about EdgeRank) and these stories can capitalise off a friend’s interaction with a Facebook page to reach more people on a personal level.

It’s important to remember that with these ads, the advertiser is less able to control all the content that is being promoted, because Sponsored Stories promote the actions of Facebook friends with a specific business page or entity with the goal of enticing Facebook members to like the same page as their friend, or friends, have. If a member or visitor interacts with a Facebook business page, this action will be promoted to a larger audience, regardless of the post’s contents. Sponsored Stories therefore promote a friend’s relationship and interaction with a page, to target and encourage a Facebook member to interact with that business and so Sponsored Stories can be effective in improving a company’s image and through emphasising customer satisfaction.

Promoted Posts are a newer advertising option on Facebook and give advertisers many different options through promoting links, photos, texts and videos. Page Post ads contain different formats that are classified as sponsored or promoted to increase the advertisers reach. Page Post ads can be used in a link form to promote a website or in a photo form to promote something like an upcoming sale.

A Promoted Post text ad gives businesses the opportunity to go into more detail about a service or product being offered. Offers in a form of an electric coupon can be included in an ad, which is redeemable for a member who clicks upon the advertisement. This form of Facebook advertising is popular amongst larger companies, as the content of the advertisement is totally controlled by the advertiser, unlike Sponsored Stories.

Facebook has also introduced Sponsored Results, which gives advertisers the chance to appear in the Facebook search results for relevant search terms. This is a very similar concept to the Google AdWords model to target searchers, and is also linked in to Facebook’s Graph Search which was introduced over a year ago to improve the search functionality within the site. At this stage, these type of ads can only be set up using the Facebook Power Editor – a tool we will be covering in a future issue of this newsletter.

If you would like to know more about how Facebook advertising can benefit your business, contact us now for more details.