What has Yahoo been up to?

Google has been making noise around the industry with Instant, Google TV and a bunch of other things that serve as a reminder that they are number 1. It is good though that the other players are still rustling feathers. Yahoo just released a new interface that brings a bit more jazz to the searching process. The screen shot below shows that Yahoo is integrating an “accordion”  like navigation to the top of their SERPS. This a digression from the clean UI that Google strives to keep, but I have to say, I like what Yahoo is doing here.

Read the rest of this entry »

Google Instant–SEO and paid search impacts

Google Instant is a game changer. It will alter the way people conduct their searches, how they absorb SERPs and the strategies marketers need to reach their target users. This aligns perfectly with society’s ADD because now users only have to wait a few milliseconds before seeing search results, and Google is predicting our queries. Now we won’t have to hassle with completing them ourselves.

As with all of Google’s updates, questions arise. Two of the most popular questions are: how will this change SEO and what are the impacts to paid search (PPC) campaigns. These two questions are percolating in SEM circles, and we have a few ideas on the matter, but before we get into what this means for marketers, here is a quick recap of the new functionality:

Predictions: Google Instant takes its query suggestion tool to the next level as it predicts what users are searching for. As users type their queries, Google displays search results for various predictive keywords. Typing “holiday” into a query box will no longer just suggests “holiday shopping” as your target keyword. With Google Instant, results appear for “holiday shopping” as you type your query. If “holiday shopping” is not the phrase you were looking for, don’t fret. Google will adjust its prediction and continue to render search engine results pages as you type queries. This means that during any given query, users could see multiple search engine results pages (SERPs).

Dynamic results: Google has already been doing this to some extent with their suggestions below entered keywords, but with Google Instant they are taking this one step further. They are starting to predict what users are going to query and serve up query results as users are typing. Here’s what Matt Cutts of Google had to say about their new technology:

“A key insight behind Google Instant is that if we want to get people answers and solve their problems faster, we can help with that by improving our UI to help you formulate queries more quickly (and then doing a bunch of hard work under the hood to answer that query too). Google typically returns search results in milliseconds, but it takes several seconds for you to type a query. In other words, the limiting factor on a typical search is you. With predictive search and instant results, you can often get the answer you want much faster.” Source http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/thoughts-on-google-instant/

Personalized search integration: Google Instant currently only works when users are logged into their Google accounts. This add to the personalization and relevancy of Google’s keyword suggestions because they are pulling from your past search history.

Google’s alphabet: Here’s a cool little test. Google has now essentially established an alphabet. Type in a letter like “W” and it populates results like Wells Fargo, Wikipedia, and Wal-Mart. It predicts you were looking for, and apparently, Google thinks we are looking for big brands. Best Buy and Amazon are two other examples of the top query predictions and results that Google renders for a single alphabet letter. Good news for marketers is that Google is clearly giving a nod to brands, but unless you have the market cornered on your namesake’s first letter, you might be out of luck.

Now onto what this mean for your search engine marketing program…

One thing that will be impacted is impressions. Users could see up to seven or eight different SERPs for a given query, so it makes sense that the number of advertisements users are exposed to will also multiply. This could make CPCs go up if conversion rates go down and quality scores suffer, but this is might not be the case if Google has taken this into account with their algorithm.

There is also debate about Instant’s impact on long tail keywords. Before Google Instant, SEOs could optimize webpages to target longer tail keywords that are arguably less crowded and less expensive to achieve high rankings. Another reason they are an attractive SEO target is that they cater towards users who are deeper in conversion funnels.  With Google Instant, users could avoid longer keyword phrases to find desired content because Google might predict what they want and serve it before users complete their query. On the other hand, the predictive nature of Google Instant might lead to longer keywords as users are exposed to keyword phrases beyond what they have typed. As of this post, the sides are fairly divided, but either way, it is agreed that a change is likely.

Google Instant will also place a heavier impact on universal search because multimedia assets will draw users’ attention as results filter in. This means marketers should put extra stock in their multimedia content and make sure it is optimized to be indexed and rendered with as much jazz as possible. This means adding rich snippets into listings which Google can incorporate into their universal search results, and marketers should revisit their meta descriptions and title tags to make sure they are optimized to grab browsers’ attention at a quick glance.

Users can deactivate Google Instant if the update is a little too intrusive, but by all accounts, this update stands to dramatically impact how searches are conducted. Ben Gomes of Google says, “Google Instant seems so obvious, that in retrospect, you’ll wonder if search could have been any other way.”

Advanced SEO at Interactive Marketing Day SD

Rand Fishkin from SEOmoz bestowed upon us some advanced SEO strategies. He’s already talking about statistics, but promises not to get too statistical. The presentation covers four areas where one could improve.

He notes that paid search gets about 14% of SERP clicks while organic areas get 86%, per Avinash Kausnik. He notes the tremendous imbalance in industry wide paid search spends and SEO spends considering these stats.

Four methods accelerate SEO:

• Increase rankings in individual results.
• Getting rankings in universal search (video, news, GPS)
• Improve long tail traffic
• Better convert existing search traffic

Think about search volume, the value of a visitor, and the competition when doing keyword research. This can be done with tools or manually, depending on the scope. Analyzing the competition and their on-site strengths, as well as their linking. Look at domain diversity in backlink profiles, this is a sign of strength. You have to also be weary of altering anchor text. And of course links from authority sites is fantastic.

Now Rand goes into correlation data that he has gathered that points out the heavy influence that exact match keyword domains have in rankings. Links from exact match keyword rich domains as well as just owning them is a powerful strategy.

Badge strategies are a good link building technique. He uses Picnik as an example of offering badges, that have keyword rich alt tags, for fans to post on their sites.  They rank VERY well because of this.

Infographics are great for link building. Don’t just focus on people linking to your infographic. Offer your infographic in an embeddable format for people to use.

Content licensing is another great link building tactic. Allrecipes.com offers licensing of their recipes, images, and other content as long as you link back to them! this solution is highly scalable.

The Search Engine Ranking Factors at SEOmoz are discussed next. I am highly familiar with this and feel that it is spot on. It is reproduced every two years and put on to the same URL, with the old info moving to a different page. This allows that URL to gain strength over and over again with time. So if at first you don’t succeed in ranking, try try again!

Next he gives some resources on how to get visibility in Universal Search. Video results are a great place to get visibility. Video results get high CTR in the SERPs and not many people are optimizing for it. You can use many different platforms to host the video for you, making it very cost effective and scalable.

Local/maps results are another fairly easy way to get more visibility through Universal Search. If you do not optimize for local searches you need to submit to the Google Local Business center. Here is a great local optimization resource.

Image results can be another great place to get traffic and exposure. Believe it or not this drives significant traffic and are hyper effective for certain verticals like crafts, furniture, design. Some best practices for ranking well in image search are keyword rich alt image tags. The image file name is no long a high ranking factor but having the image posted on other sites seems to have an effect. Size matters in image search rankings. Check sizing of images ranking for what you want to rank for and mimic that.

News results require an RSS feed with title, date, author, etc. Google does look into your business to see if you provide enough good content when you submit for inclusion. Blogs will get accepted to Google News. If you do not submit, you’ll never get in so go for it.

Real time results depends on speed of publishing of course. Big media firms have staff ready 24/7 to post breaking stories. But anyone can break news with the advent of Twitter! This is bigger than ever with the recent Google Caffeine update rolled out completely just a few weeks ago. Google Caffeine allows for faster indexing and ranking of results and is based on predictive modeling and topics.

Blog results are similar to Google News. But all you really need is an RSS feed. Getting referenced (linked to) from other authority bloggers really helps you get into blog results faster.

Shopping results are based on product data feeds that you submit. Reviews are aggregated and posted within these results. High volumes of reviews seem to really help, not necessarily good ones just get volume.

25% of all queries are brand spanking new, the long tail is still very strong and I do not see that changing. Lot’s of unique content really helps here. It is really easy to rank for long tail search. Rand does not think that blogging is really a big long tail strategy, he feels that it is just too difficult to scale. UGC is the way to go for scaling content. Gawker Media pays his writers based on how much traffic their articles command. Finally, Twitter is a great way to build content.

Now he moves into conversion optimization as the final strategy. Look at the conversion funnel and isolate opportunities at each point in the funnel. Even the smallest incremental increase in conversion rate has such a huge impact. It is highly effective because of this! There is a ton of psychology is powerful in CRO. Making your higher price points or add on the default selection has a huge impact. Social proof, put a name and face to your offer! Scarcity is a huge factor as well, show that only a few products are left and people will be compelled to buy now, before it’s gone!

That wraps it up for now. Overall it was a good presentation and was a good fit for the crowd here. I feel like most of the audience found value. There were not many advanced SEOs in the room, at least that is the vibe that I got. But there were many people that employ SEOs in the room and they seemed to glean a ton of value. I will embed Rand’s presentation once I can get my hands on it.

Keeping Google Interested In Your Content

An important question was posed to Matt Cutts at Google Webmaster Help today…

“Say your index page has been cached by Google and you then you change the meta description. How long does it take for a Google bot to recrawl that page? Or must your request it via Webmaster Tools?”

So this is addressing caching of pages by Google, which is a very important determinant of how authoritative Google views your domain or specific pages. A higher frequency of caching means that your site is important enough for Google come back and crawl it more often than not. If it takes six weeks between cache dates on a page then you can safely say that Google finds the page stale and possibly not relevant anymore (time/freshness factor) or that the page is not as valuable to visitors. Eventually cache dates will get further and further apart, and then the page will fall into a supplemental index which is like being a second class citizen in Google’s world.

How does one avoid falling into supplemental oblivion? Well, let’s first examine Mr. Cutts response…

“There are a few cases where if we haven’t seen the content change the last eighteen times that we visited then maybe the nineteenth time we’ll wait even longer (between caches/indexing). But in general when there’s regular content, and in our opinion that’s important content…”

Now what constitutes “important” content in the eyes of Google?

“…we’ll generally try to revisit that page often to see whether it’s changed or whether there is any new information on it.”

A good blog post with a high level of engagement (comments) is a great example of new information being added to a page. This should attract Google to cache the post more often. This is why getting your constituents to engage with your content is critical in establishing authority within Google.

“But if the page hasn’t changed in a while (no fresh content/ discussions), or the page doesn’t have a high Page Rank, then it can take longer to cache.”

And there it is, Page Rank! Page Rank is not the end all be all measure of authority by any means (at least not the Page Rank we see). This is proven in many instances where a page with a lower Page Rank will rank above a page with a higher Page Rank. A truer metric of rankings is Google’s internal, secret Page Rank that no one can or ever will see. Google uses it to calculate authority of a given page, and this calculation is almost entirely based on linking, or the various sites that are linking to YOUR page(s).

SUMMARRY

There are two things that can increase the caching/indexing of your pages; fresh content and links.

Now when Google says fresh content this doesn’t necessarily mean that the content has to update every day or even every week. But if Google crawls a page a bunch of times, over a few months probably, and sees no changes to content, it will stop crawling the page as often to focus on other relevant pages with newer content. So adding new content or tweaking the existing content on your pages every so often is a good idea, especially to keep the content updated with the times. Google is placing a great deal of emphasis on time and dates of pages lately too. There is just no need to obsess over it on a weekly basis. I suggest refreshing your most important pages every few months to keep them current. Ultimately this should please your visitors and the search engines. And after all, that is what search engine optimization is all about!

The other thing that can keep your pages popular with Google are links, the equity of Page Rank and ultimately rankings. Links, like fresh content, send a signal to Google that other people find your page(s) useful, fresh, and relevant. Google figures that if other pages are still linking to your content then it must be of some use or importance. A steady growth of new links to your most important pages will help ensure that they stay at the forefront. It does not have to a large amount of links, and it can even come in the form of blog comments from relevant sites or social media sites.

THE FUTURE

A few things have not been specifically addressed here. Is social media a factor? So for instance if a page is referenced in Twitter, will that increase Google perception of authority, relevance, and freshness?

And are engagement stats like CTR (click-thru rate), time on site, and/or bounce rate being factored into Google’s perceived authority of a page?

I would love to hear everyone chime in with comments on these two things and let me know what you think of social media and engagements stats and their role in page authority, if any, at the moment!

Google Analytics Launches New Features

Google Analytics announced today new product features that they will be launching in the next few weeks. Here are a few brief descriptions:

1. Increased goal completions. The days of only being able to implement 4 goals are over. Now you will have the ability to implement 20 goals; and be able to  assign specific number of viewed pages and/or time spent on site as a goal

2. Mobile websites will now be tracked regardless if the device runs Java Script or not. Mobile applications within the iPhone and Android will now be tracked through Google Analytics to understand how users are engaging with the application. Of course there will be additional coding required

3. Added advanced analysis features allows you to apply filters within the reports for easy analysis and drilling down into the data without having to export

4. Multiple custom variables will allow you to track and define visitors by specific attributes, interactions, and/or behaviors

5. The most attractive improvement that Google Analytics is launching is Intelligence. While reviewing your reports, Google Analytics will alert you when there have been substantial changes in metrics or trends within daily, weekly, or monthly reporting periods. You will also be able to customize and define your own alerts that you want Google Analytics to  monitor.

If you’d like to read more about the features in more depth, check out the Google Analytics Blog.

Google the Lead Generation Killer?

There is drama brewing the in the lead generation industry!

If you didn’t catch the news that LendingTree has filed a lawsuit against one of its key service providers, Mortech. Whats dramatic about the lawsuit is not really the lawsuit itself. Let me explain:

Everyone should know who LendingTree is, but there is a good chance you do not know who Mortech is.  Mortech provides real time loan pricing data from 100′s of banks to the mortgage industry. There happens to be a number of different companies that provide the same service, but in this case LendingTree chose to partner exclusively with Mortech.

The drama begins to unfold when LendingTree learns that their exclusive partner is allegedly speaking with Google about providing the same services. The LendingTree suit claims that Mortech infringed on their contract and broke their confidentiality agreement by discussing a similar, if not the same, service that is provided to LendingTree. The drama is not necessarily about the specific lawsuit, but rather the fact that Google is looking at bringing a mortgage pricing engine/lead generation platform to their search results.

Believe it or not, Google is not the first search engine to try this. As a matter of fact,  AOL attempted mortgage lead generation in early 2007 with no success and then Yahoo tried lead generation later the same year, again with no success. Don’t count Google out just because AOL and Yahoo couldn’t make it work. Google is taking a completely different approach with their strategy. You can get an idea of what Google’s plans are by checking out Search Engine Lands 2008 article that covered the launch of the UK version. This beta was different then the upcoming US version in that the rates were added by humans. The US version will include real time rates posted by Mortech’s pricing engine. By doing this Google would eliminate the interaction with the brokers, post accurate rates and then be able to possible sell the inquiries on a CPL.

This is big news for companies in the lead generation industry. Its my guess that LendingTree recognizes this as a major threat and is going to do everything possible to stop or slow down the launch of this new Google service. The lawsuit, while directed at Mortech, is more about stopping Google from becoming a direct competitor in my opinion.

The launch of a service like this will easily take clicks away from companies bidding on mortgage related keywords. I don’t think that can be denied, but will it kill the mortgage lead generation vertical altogether? Of course not. A bigger question that needs to be asked is if this plan is successful will they go into other verticals? If Google can successfully generate and monetize mortgage leads from this new service what is going to stop them from moving into other verticals?

The evolution on online marketing has been slowly moving from the CPM and CPC pricing model to a CPA or CPL pricing model. Google noticed this on 2006 and launched their CPA pricing model within Google Adwords. I think this move into the mortgage lead generation vertical shows that they believe advertisers will continue to make the shift towards CPA based marketing strategies. Google will be able to integrate their own lead acquisition platform into multiple verticals and instead of worrying about cost per clicks, ad variations and conversion rates advertisers will simply be able to buy the leads directly from Google.

What do you think? Is this a long shot or exactly what Google plans on doing? Give me your thoughts.

AdWords Trademark Policy Update

Overview

Google recently announced that starting June 15^th, advertisers will be allowed to use trademark terms in their ads even if they do not own that trademark nor are an approved reseller/partner.  Currently, advertisers have complete control over who can place their brand name in the headline and/or description line in order to ensure competitors are not using such brand name as leverage.  Advertisers who own their brand name manually grant companies permission to use these terms in the ad copy on a case by case basis.  Google will be rolling out an automated tool to properly scan landing pages and allow use of brand terms in ad copy based off of the following advertiser criteria:

1.       Resellers or partners:  Tool will scan the landing pages to ensure branded product is sold.  An example is Best Buy selling Belkin routers on the landing page.  The tool would allow ‘Belkin’ to be displayed in the ad copy

2.       Informational sites: Sites that compare and or review products, but do not sell such products.  For example, CNET as an advertiser may have a page dedicated to comparing routers.  They will be able to run ads saying “Looking for a new router? Compare Belkin to D-Link and….”

This change has no affect on keywords: anyone can currently bid on any term in AdWords.  Google’s Quality Score will bring the most relevant ads and landing pages to the top rank.

Why?

It appears that Google is making the marketplace more accessible to all advertisers by automating this feature.  However, the technology rolled out will ensure that competitors will not be allowed to fall under the 2 categories above.  Google’s goal (and that of the search landscape) is to connect the audience with qualified ads and, in effect, connect the user to the right page as quickly as possible.

Impact

The trademark update will obviously give companies less control over who can use their brand terms in ad copy.  However, the direct effect of this change will depend on the brand.

Clients with Resellers/Partners

Companies with a large manufacturing base (i.e. several resellers) may see an increase in cost per clicks as the paid search marketplace increases on both brand and general terms.

Clients’ Products on Informational Sites

On the other hand, informational sites, in time, could be quite beneficial to all advertisers.  Although ad dollars are moving towards the lead gen aspect of search, there are still a large percentage of users researching before they buy.  These sites may take away clicks initially, but these users are becoming more educated about your product and, if it is a good fit, will be more likely to convert – and convert faster.  This means a potential increase in conversion rates and return on investment.

What to do?

Clients with Resellers/Partners

Keep track of your clients’ resellers–which keywords they are bidding on with your brand in copy.  There won’t be much you can do to change their copy, but it is best to avoid click cannibalization and increasing CPCs.  In some situations, you may be able to work with your resellers or partners to keep this from happening.

Clients’ Products on Informational Sites

See which informational sites are displaying your client’s brand in their ad copy.  This could be an upsell opportunity for some premiere display placement, especially if the information is positive for your client.

So mark June 15^th in your calendar as Duplicity Day.  You may start to see your brand more than expected!

~Daniel Romotsky

Google Chrome Viral Videos

The launch of Google chrome was relatively low-key. It went live, media outlets mentioned it–that was about it. Now, Google is stepping it up a notch. Today the search engine Goliath launches 11 YouTube videos in the hopes that they will become “viral.”

This blog post proves that their move is working.

The videos do not call out Chrome’s competition, namely Firefox, Internet Explorer and Safari. Instead, the campaigns encourages users to think about what they really want from a browser. Each video varies drastically from one to the other, but all in all, they tout that Google Chrome improves online efficiency and general snazziness.

To see all of the videos, visit http://www.youtube.com/user/googlechrome. It’s definitely worth the trip.

Cha-Ching: Michelle Obama Loves J. Crew, and Vice Versa

Before the election, Michelle Obama went on “The Tonight Show” with Jay Leno. Amid the Sarah Palin “clothes-gate” scandal, Leno asked about the origins of Michelle’s yellow ensemble. “Actually, this is a J. Crew ensemble,” she replied. “You can get some good stuff online.”

J. Crew could not have asked for better promotion, and now they’re cashing in. Just look at the Google results for “michelle obama”:

Simple, effective, topical, and piggybacking on America’s hottest brand (the Obamas), it’s the Holy Grail of paid search ads.

In this tough economic time, even online retail (previously an area of meteoric growth) is taking a major hit. But connecting your brand with America’s hottest couple — the Obamas — is sure to pay off. Numerous studies have reinforced the importance of branding during recessions. As soon as young women have some extra money to spend, they are likely to head to J. Crew, rather than its competitors. After all, the future First Lady shops there.

Chrome: Bye Bye Internet Explorer (for me)

I don’t want to jump to any conclusions, but with only a couple day’s use of Chrome, Google’s entry into the web browser market, this might be the last time I click on that little “e” icon in my quick launch toolbar.

For the last couple of years I’ve utilized two browsers daily.  I do so because I can log into the same website with two separate accounts. For example, with both Firefox and IE7 open, I can log into different account profiles on Facebook; a personal account and work account.

With the introduction of Chrome, I now have the luxury of choosing which browsers I want to use. With Chrome, Firefox, and Internet Explorer available to me (and Opera), this more than likely signals the end of Internet Explorer for me.

Personally speaking, without any scientific tests to back up that personal opinion mind you, Chrome feels so much faster than either Firefox or internet Explorer. And the look and feel of Chrome is lighter than IE. Apparently my feeling is on-point as many tests have proved that Chrome is faster.  Check out some of the test results here, here, and here.  Though Firefox, Google’s buddy, refutes some of those claims.

Chrome Features

In my day and a half of use, I’ve already discovered some cool new Chrome features.

We’re so used to seeing some customized homepage when you start using a browser, or having a few tabs open up after we’ve set our preferences, but with Chrome, it automatically shows you linked-screenshots for the most-visited sites at startup, all on one tab, and will do so with any subsequent new tabs that are opened.

That could be a good thing if you are the only one using the browser, could be a bad thing if your significant other or co-worker shares your computer.  Just saying.

One thing that has always bothered me are browser-specific websites, or more specifically sites that work on IE, but not Firefox.  With Google Chrome, Function Point and DART users can rejoice, you can now successfully log into both without having to use Internet Explorer!

Another cool little feature that I have already discovered was the “Find” feature.  it works as with any other browser, but with Chrome, when you press Control-F, it not only jumps to the first instance, but tells you how many instances of that same word is in the document. 

By many accounts, Chrome is great for everyday web browsing, but users that have more advanced tastes should probably wait until a later, more stable release.

One interesting SEO sidenote with Chrome, the browser tabs are brought all the way to the top of the window, eliminating the location where we usually see the full title tags.   Now title tags are limited to space of a tab. Is this a way for Google to focus more on content and less on meta data?  If Chrome, or Chrome’s layout, catches on, will that decrease the current 65-70 title tag character limit and mark a Google alorithm shift?

Anyways, I haven’t used Chrome for any significant amount of time, so I bet there are several cool secrets hidden in Chrome.  All I know is that Chrome, with it’s clean template and efficient web browser with speedy load times, that’s enough for me to move away from Internet Explorer.