how companies should really use search
DESCRIPTION
Getting your business found in search enginesTRANSCRIPT
@annstanley
How companies should really use search?
byAnn Stanley
October 2012
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Part 1 – Introduction to search
@annstanleyTop UK sites by visitsSource: Hitwise week ending 16/6/2012
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Organic Search Results (SEO)
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Understanding the search results
Ads - PPC
Display options
Organic or natural results
Universal results – maps, news, shopping etc....
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Google – local businesses
Ads - PPC
Display options
Organic or natural results
Universal results – maps, news, shopping etc....
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Searching for products
Ads - PPC
Display options
Organic or natural results
Universal results – maps, news, shopping etc....
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How to get into the Google results• Map – create a free Google Places listings (also in Bing) – this is
now part of Google Plus• Shopping results – feed your ecommerce database into Google
Merchant Centre• Images & videos – make sure these have keyphrases in the file
names and tags• News, blogs and author results – create ongoing blog content on
your site or via news feed sites (PR) • Ads – set up an AdWords pay per click account – where you bid
on relevant phrases and you pay if they click on your ad• Organic or natural listings – search engine optimise your website
ie SEO
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Part 2 – Quick Wins!
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Getting listed in Google Places (Local Search)
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Add your company details
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Create a Google+ page
@annstanleyBing Map – listing through My118 Information
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Using Google AdWords or pay per click (PPC)
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Listings dynamicallyordered bybid price & relevancy
2
User submitssearch
1
Pay Per Click in Action
User clicks on paid link, triggering payment to Google
3
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Ad Extensions, Local Listings (map) and new Product Listing ads
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PPC Account Hierarchy
Keywords3-9 per ad group3 x match types
Ad Groups 20-100 per campaign(each has its own ad
copy and landing page)
Campaigns (<20)(set a budget and
targeting)Estate agent
Local estate agent
Local estate agentLocal estate agents
Professional estate agent
Professional estate agent
Professional estate agents
“City” estate agent
Bromsgrove estate agent
Bromsgrove estate agents
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Typical PPC results
GlossaryImpressions = number of times your ad is seenClicks = number of times searcher clicked on your adCTR = click through rate is clicks divided by impressions (>2% indicates a more relevant keyphrase and ad combination)Avg CPC = average cost per click (amount paid when users click on your ad)Cost = total spent in period (clicks times average cost per click)Avg Position = Average position achieved in resultsConversions = completed sales or completed registrationsConversion rate = conversions divided by clicksCost per conversion = total cost divided by number of conversions
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Managing PPC – what’s important• Quality Score – Google’s measure of relevancy – it affects
your position and how much you pay (eg QS of 8/10 you pays half as compared with 4/10)
• Click through rate – pause phrases and ads with a CTR below<1%, otherwise this drags down your QS
• Position and bidding – you may have to bid lower (cost per click) and settle for position 3-6 to avoid the bidding war of position 1-3, where the CPC will be too high!
• Cost per acquisition (CPA) – most sites have a typical conversion rate of 1%. Your cost per sale or lead will be 100 x your cost per click – can you afford this?
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Remarketing (Google)
• Set-up in AdWords• Visitors to certain pages on the website (from all
sources) have a Cookie added to their PC• They are then shown an ad when they visit another
site on the Google Display network• Ideal for targeting customers that came to your site
but did not convert• Ad Serving Networks outside of Google offer a similar
technology (called Retargeting)
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Remarketing in AdWords (aka stalking)
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Remarketing results
Client 1
Client 2
Client 3
Client 4
CampaignConv. (1-per-click)
View-through
Conv.
Conv. rate (1-
per-click)Conv. (1-per-click)
View-through
Conv.
Conv. rate (1-
per-click)
Conv. (1-per-click)
View-through
Conv.
Conv. rate (1-
per-click)Conv. (1-per-click)
View-through
Conv.
Conv. rate (1-
per-click)TOTAL 445 84 1.7% 2833 220 2.57% 559 118 2.44% 862 1716 1.06%Brand 39 0 6.7% 413 0 8.99% 433 0 5.13% - - - Remarketing 9 84 2.3% 54 215 3.11% 15 118 1.34% 179 1716 3.06%Competitors - - - 216 0 2.01% - - - 184 0 1.88%Vouchers 29 0 15.26%
• Remarketing In Google is on a CPC basis but its success has pushed the prices up (one account has increased from 78p to £1.38 in a year)
• Retargeting is also available outside of Google via ad-serving networks or Demand Side Platforms (DSP) – mainly sold on a CPM basis
• Facebook have just launched Facebook Exchange in the UK (via a limited number of distributors) - offering Retargeting and Behavioural targeting on a CPM basis
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Google Merchant Centre for ecommerce sites
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Integration with Google Merchant Centre
New Product Listing ads
AdWords product extensions
Shopping results from Merchant Centre
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Summary of different shopping results in Google
Keywords =Samsonite luggage
Organic shopping results
(Merchant Centre)
AdWords Products ad extension Product Listing ads
Map and Places/Local
listings
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Part 2 - Search engine optimisation (SEO)
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On-page optimisation
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A search engine is made of three basic components:
A Spider or RobotAn automated browser, it searches the web for new websites and changes to websites then views the web pages and strips out the text content
A Storage System or DatabaseA record of all the pages viewed by the Spider
A Matching Process or Relevancy AlgorithmThe rules that tell the search engine how to determine what would be relevant to your search
How Search Engines Work
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Check that your site is indexed?
Do you have keyphrases in your url, title and description?
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Google keyword research tool
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Determine the level of competition
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Page plan with levels of monthly searches vs competition (results in Google)
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• Title Tag• Content• Heading content• Frequency of phrases (how many times they are
mentioned)• Density of phrases (proportion of the text)• Internal Link structure with anchor text)• Image optimisation (file names, Alt tags)• Avoid Spam techniques and over-optimising• Create new ongoing content on your site eg a blog
On-page factors
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Example of On-Page Factors
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Keyphrase density (using SEO Quake)
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Off-page optimisation
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Checklist for optimising your website• Carryout keyphrase research• Prioritise your keyphrase by high search volume and low competition
(use pay per click data if you have it?)• Produce a topic and a page plan (ie which pages are to be optimised
with which phrases)• Write new optimised content on existing and new pages, (URL, title,
description, headers, keyphrase density, anchor text, image optimisation)
• Upload your content through your CMS and add new links from the homepage for new pages eg in the footer (you may need to get your developer to do this)
• Add new optimised content every week via a blog • Review results using Webmaster Tools and Analytics
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• Domain age• Domain name• Filename/full URL• Directory listings• External Link Structure• Anchor text of inbound links• Page quality of inbound links• Social bookmarks• Reviews and testimonials• Social indicators especially Google +1 and Facebook
“Shares”
Off-page factors
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Key to Google’s algorithm:• Indicator of value: PageRank• Indicator of relevance
Best links from:• Highly trusted sites (high PageRank / Domain
Authority)• Pages with relevant content
Why are Links important?
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Off-page factors - Linking
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Off-page factors - Linking
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• Content that people will want to link to• Free stuff• Blog posts• Useful documents/articles• Online tools• Video and audio• Funny or entertaining content
• Your content on other sites• Article syndication site• Guest blogging• Online PR• Directories
Getting Links
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Importance of Social
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Importance of social• Direct sales e.g. Facebook commerce • Direct traffic e.g. Brand pages (Facebook,
Google Plus, Twitter) • Community, loyalty and word of mouth
(Facebook Likes, Twitter, Reddit, Digg, Delicious) and social shopping sites e.g. Kaboodle
• Referrals, links and SEO benefit (Google Plus, Facebook Shares, social bookmarking)
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Social networking for businesses (personal vs company profiles)
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Part 3 – Integrating digital marketing channels and
Attribution Modelling
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Using PPC data to determine the most effective keyphrases for SEO?
• It can take 6 -12 months to see a significant result for your SEO activities
• But you may have wasted your efforts on optimising for keyphrases with high volumes of searches but no conversions
• We recommend you use PPC data as part of your SEO strategy– Narrow down your list to the keyphrases that convert– Use as many months data as possible and use “See Search Terms”
to see the actual converting phrases– If you are not currently using PPC then you may want to run a PPC
campaign before starting your SEO, in order to understand your keyphrase profile
@annstanleySelecting keyphrases for SEO using PPC conversion data
Keyword Searches (phrase match)
Competition (Allintitle:
"keyphrase") Ratio
PPC data Conv. (1-per-
click)
See search terms
conversionsTotal
conversions1 2900 14,200 0.20 307 3072 27100 2,050,000 0.01 196 1963 14800 598,000 0.02 185 1854 2400 3,540 0.68 86 865 73 551 0.13 42 18 606 1600 472,000 0.01 29 29 587 590 82,400 0.01 49 498 58 168 0.35 48 489 4400 582,000 0.01 47 47
10 260 8,060 0.03 45 4511 3600 516,000 0.01 44 4412 880 210 4.19 43 4313 16 366 0.04 25 11 3614 260 28 9.29 16 18 3415 140 10,500 0.01 29 2916 210 8,270 0.03 16 12 2817 3600 51,300 0.07 24 2418 58 6 9.67 24 2419 73 30 2.43 23 2320 1600 205,000 0.01 22 22
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Increase in organic traffic and salesJan 2011 - Aug 2012 – monthly visits from organic (dark blue line) vs. revenue (light blue line)
Visits from organic 2011 (dark blue line) vs. 2010 (orange line) – weekly results
SEO project started July 2011
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Attribution – top paths leading to a sale
Last click before a conversion
Assisted click – in conversion path
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Integration of channels (last click vs. assisted click)
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Part 4 - Optimising for Mobile
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Device responsive design
• Same url for all devices rather than a separate mobile site or sub-domain• User detection agent (distinguishes device)• Liquid or responsive design suitable for each size device/operating system/browser• Mobile design often has a single column with most important content/features moved
to the top and in some cases some content hidden
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Amazon.co.uk responsive design or Amazon.co.uk App
Main site – with adaptive CSS Amazon App
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Part 4 -What’s new in Google?
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Google layout – logged in
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Google’s “Search, Plus Your World”(Google.com)
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Local results – “Venice” update
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Panda?
LSI – Latent semantic indexinghttp://searchenginewatch.com/article/2104571/Google-Panda-6-Months-Out-Still-Has-People-Baffled
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Google Panda update and need for ‘good quality content’
• In 2011, Google implemented a rolling algorithm update known as ‘Panda’, which ‘penalises’ sites that host poor quality content and/or provide a poor user experience
• The effect of the Panda update was widespread and, with every update, Google becomes more sophisticated at judging the quality of content on a site
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Optimise for the user – not search engines
• Making sure a site is optimised to provide a rich, relevant and rewarding experience for visitors is the best way to avoid Panda penalties, which means:– No duplicate content– All pages to have unique, relevant and useful content
(even the 1000s of product pages on ecommerce sites!)
– Good levels of interaction on site (low bounce rates, inbound links to ‘deep’ pages, social mentions etc…)
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Use of Schema.org and rich snippets
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Penguin• Google Algorithm change to “penalise” sites with:
– Unnatural and poor quality links (very high numbers, high proportion of “exact match anchor text”, links on every page of a website, poor quality source of links)
– Search spam – keyword stuffing• P-Day = 24th April – if you had a significant drop in
traffic then you were affected by Penguin update• You may have received an “unnatural links” warning
in your Webmaster tools• Clean your site up, remove bad links (on other sites)
and put in a “reconsideration request”• Bing has introduced a “disavow” feature in Bing
webmaster tools. Google expected to follow.
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Summary• The digital landscape is more complex and fragmented with many channels to sell on-
site and off-site• You can get quick wins with local listings, Google plus, and paid search • Paid search continues to offer new ad formats, particularly Product Listing Ads
(integrating with Google Merchant Centre) and Remarketing• SEO is a long term technique that involves both on-page and off-page optimisation• Social is important to generate direct traffic and sales; but also indirectly due to the
importance of social indicators in SEO • Use data from PPC to identify converting keyphrases and use these for SEO• Understanding Conversion Attribution is key to maximise the ROI from different
channels• Take advantage of the increasing use of Smartphones by having a mobile responsive
design• Panda and Penguin has changed the way website need to be optimised – content is
more important than ever!
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Thank You
Ann Stanley@annstanley
www.anicca-solutions.com