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SearchCap: CRO tips, local search proximity & paid search analytics http://ift.tt/2nrSMFF Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. The post SearchCap: CRO tips, local search proximity & paid search analytics appeared first on Search Engine Land. Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article. SEO via Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing http://ift.tt/fN1KYC March 31, 2017 at 08:14AM
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Getting the most bang for your buck: 11 CRO opportunities http://ift.tt/2nTlHFv Improving marketing performance often involves a lot of spot treatment: you spend some time working on your paid search campaigns, then you spend some time working on your organic search, and so on and so forth. One of my favorite things about conversion rate optimization (CRO) is that so much of it is channel-agnostic. How often do we get the chance to work on one central project that stands to improve the performance of all of our channels at once?! Not often enough! Plus, no matter how well your channels are already performing, there’s always opportunity to generate more business by facilitating conversion. Check out the suggestions below to uncover pain points and actionable tips for increasing conversion rate. Put your best foot forwardThe likelihood of conversion begins before a prospect even reaches the website. We all know that different keywords are likely to perform differently; that’s why advertisers bid differently on different keywords. But this understanding isn’t often translated to conversion optimization, though it should be. For example: Understanding keyword intent can have an impact on conversion rate. Why? Because understanding keyword intent provides insight into where the prospect is in the buying cycle and, therefore, the type of information that they are looking for. Aligning conversion actions with the prospect’s stage in the buying cycle allows advertisers to provide the right content to increase the likelihood that the prospect will take action. Depending on marketing strategy and profit margins, some advertisers may want to go as far as to align conversion actions with keyword intent — but that could be a whole post in itself, and it is understandably not feasible for all advertisers, either due to profit constraints or marketing nurture resources. Ads play a role in conversion optimization, too! Ads help manage the expectations of visitors. This is one of the reasons I like to look at ad performance by analyzing conversions by impressions instead of click-through rate (CTR). The fact is, CTR can be misleading. It’s still a valuable health metric, but if the visitors don’t ultimately take an action, then it isn’t such a valuable KPI in the grand scheme of things. On-page optimization tipsThis is the most commonly discussed part of conversion rate optimization. In fact, when CRO comes up in conversation, it seems like the discussion typically goes straight to landing page layouts. That’s because landing pages play a huge role in conversion rate — and therefore provide some of the biggest opportunities for improvement. Prioritize your conversion actions and create a hierarchy. Doing so helps facilitate conversions by making it clear and obvious what the visitor should do next in order to continue the buyer journey. To do this, consider what your primary goal is for each page that you create. The action that you require from the visitor in order to achieve this goal is considered your highest priority. They won’t always be quite ready for the sale or the demo, or whatever your highest priority action is, but that’s a great reason to provide micro-conversions, which allow them to continue to engage with you in the meantime, all while you are tracking their behaviors and providing useful content. Micro-conversions could be things like downloads, video plays, email subscriptions and more. Determine which of these are most relevant to your goal, or otherwise most valuable, and prioritize accordingly. As you lay out your landing page, you should place appropriate emphasis on the calls-to-action (CTAs) and where they fall on the page, based upon the hierarchy that you’ve created. The key to micro-conversions is to ensure that they aren’t competing against your highest priority CTAs. This brings me to my next point. De-clutter & keep it simple. One of the ugliest things in the worldwide web is a cluttered website. Cluttered websites are overwhelming and hard to follow. In some cases, they lack credibility because they look unprofessional. In other cases, even when they are known to be professional, they lose visitors among all of the options. For example, think about a government site. Whoa. Talk about a house of glass — and I’m not talking about the glass houses that people throw stones at! I’m talking about the carnival glass house mazes that are so hard to walk through because right when you think you’re headed down the right path, you run into a window. We’ve all been there: At least 10 links seem semi-relevant to what you are looking for, so you choose the one that you think is most relevant. The page loads, and it isn’t what you were looking for, but there’s a link on it that reads like it may have the information you need. You click on it, and it wasn’t what you were looking for, either, and the cycle repeats until you realize that you’re back to where you started. Cluttered sites can occur for various reasons, but try to keep in mind that sometimes less is more. Providing too many options can create a frustrating experience for visitors. Instead, stick with providing the few that are most relevant. Consider all devices. Every year, this gets closer and closer to being an unwritten rule, but we’re not quite there yet — so it is still written! As you build your landing pages, and ultimately your site, keep in mind that different devices are used, well, differently. Elements of a page that might be perfectly reasonable on a desktop could be very challenging or frustrating on a mobile device — like a long form or clickable links that are close together. Being without a mouse or a keyboard changes the experience drastically. In addition, consider the mindset of the consumer when on desktop vs. mobile. Depending upon your business, a consumer may be more likely to take certain actions at certain times of the day, which may or may not coincide with certain device usage. For example, some B2B companies may find that long-form content is more likely to be consumed during the day (and therefore on a computer), whereas those using a mobile device in the evening may just want a short synopsis or a video, and the ability to submit a quick form with questions. Want to get a second opinion on whether or not your page is mobile-friendly? Check out Google’s free mobile-friendly checker. Although it can’t give you a comprehensive breakdown of tips around intent, it can help you to ensure that the structure of the site facilitates a positive mobile user experience. For more information, dig into the mobile usability section within Google Search Console, which will provide tips for improving mobile-friendliness. Establish credibility and develop trust. One of the best lessons I’ve ever learned was from a paid search client. They said, “We don’t include the word ‘trust’ in our ads because we don’t believe that we can simply tell someone to trust us.” While I won’t make a case one way or the other for using the word in your ad copy, there is something to be said for the sentiment. When visitors arrive at your site, they have no reason to trust you beyond your word. Trust symbols can help give them peace of mind. There are plenty of ways to portray trustworthiness: display testimonials, offer references, provide (and maintain) satisfaction guarantees. Displaying awards and badges of trustworthy organizations (such as the BBB) can help, too. Even beyond the symbols, there are a few things that can help a business look credible at first glance. One is a modern, clean website. Rightly or wrongly, a good-looking website portrays more credibility than an outdated site. In addition, certain secure payment options can also provide a level of trust simply because the visitor can be confident that even if the site is not legitimate, they have a way of refunding their money through a source which they already trust. Know your audience and write for them. This one ties in nicely with some of the other considerations, but it warrants the individual mention. When you write your copy, use words and language that are relevant to your consumer. As product experts, we sometimes write over our consumers’ heads, which isn’t good. Write content in a way that is most meaningful to your audience. If you aren’t sure how to do this, start by writing with them in mind. After it’s written, read it and make sure these questions are easy to answer from the consumer’s standpoint:
Look at site speed. Slow load times can lead to a frustrating user experience. As consumers, we want to find information quickly. If a site takes too long to load, we’ll look elsewhere. You can easily test your site speed with this free Google tool. The tool will test both desktop and mobile site speeds. Bonus: it not only gives you a score but provides suggestions for improvement. Strategically leverage images. Well-placed, relevant images can transform the appearance of a text-heavy landing page. I recommend testing new images, as well as the placement of the images on the page. Test, test, and then test some more! I contemplated whether I should put this bullet first or last. It’s arguably one of the most important, but it’s also the most often stated. Everyone knows that landing pages should be tested, but developing tests can still be tough. Hopefully, the above points have provided some inspiration. Continuing the conversationThink of the buyer’s journey as a cycle — not a linear trajectory. What difference does it make to view it in this way? The fun doesn’t end after the conversion — the cycle just starts over! After the conversion (or the sale), there are often immediate opportunities to upsell, cross-sell or continue engagement through blog posts, content and social media. A few suggestions: Cross-sell and upsell. With every sale’s end comes a new beginning. Now that you know more about the types of products or services that the consumer is interested in, you are well positioned to provide recommendations about complementary products. Don’t miss out on the opportunity to provide them with suggestions while they are in the buying mode. Provide opportunities for them to join in conversation. There are truly endless opportunities for doing this. Here are a few examples: invite them to follow your social channels, invite them to share content, engage them with user-generated content, share your blog or tips, or even facilitate discussion with other customers through the use of a shared hashtag or group. Some opinions expressed in this article may be those of a guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here. About The AuthorAmy has built and implemented multi-channel digital strategies for a variety of companies spanning several industry verticals from start-ups and small businesses to Fortune 500 and global organizations. Her expertise includes e-commerce, lead generation and localized site-to-store strategies. Amy is currently the Director of Digital Marketing & MarTech at ZirMed. SEO via Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing http://ift.tt/fN1KYC March 31, 2017 at 06:13AM
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The newest addition to the marketing mix’s Ps: Proximity http://ift.tt/2nT1i3l Any marketer worth their salt, or at least one who has managed to stay awake during Marketing 101, can rattle off a long list of marketing mix “Ps.” You know what I’m talking about: product, price, place, promotion, people, processes and physical evidence. Unfortunately, those old pillars of marketing don’t quite hold up under the weight of today’s digital marketing needs. Our aging mnemonic sorely needs a renovation. It’s time we add proximity into the mix. Digital puts you in the center of the mapLong gone are the days of unfolding a paper map to find out where you are and where you want to go. Back then, when you ran off the edge of the map, you either got a new map or assumed that “here be monsters.” You’ll find no edges on today’s digital maps. You are limited only by the power of your zoom and the reach of your click. By default, you are the center of the digital map. The world fills in around you, depending on the whim of your search. Proximity — the distance from the user to any given location — is a heavily weighted ranking factor for all “near me” searches. Only when you specifically move the focal point from yourself to an area without you in it does proximity seem to loosen its grip on rankings. And it makes sense that digital maps should be organized this way. Something closer to you is usually easier to get to than something farther away. For marketers, the further a potential customer is from a store, the less likely it is that the customer will visit the location. Since most people find businesses through local search and digital maps, proximity needs to be a major aspect of every marketing strategy. If you get everything else right but fail to optimize for proximity, you’ll have a hard time leading customers to your brick-and-mortar locations. Local SEO: Tipping the scale of proximity in your favorYou can’t control where your customers are when they search, but you can put a finger on the scale of proximity to help you rank above another similarly distanced location in your business category. How? You have two options: You either purchase a higher rank with PPC, or you optimize for organic and hope that the user is searching in an area wide enough that the map needs to filter out locations. Google and the other major search platforms are making it harder to win the organic hustle with each passing year. But there are still things you can do that will help you improve your rankings on the map. First, give yourself a chance to show up in local search results by doing the basics. Make sure that your location information is accurate and properly distributed to all the major location data aggregators. Specifically, your name, address and phone number (NAP) need to be accurate, and your geocoordinates for each location should lead customers to the right place. But the bare minimum doesn’t really cut it anymore. It’s 2017, after all. If you’re relying on the incompetence of your competitors to win at local search, you’re in trouble. So how do you tip the scales in your favor? You increase the weight of your local credibility and authority. Local citations, reviews and Google My Business attributesProximity’s influence diminishes as the map zooms out. The more area within your field of vision, the more important it is to filter out locations on the map to avoid clutter. If you’re only looking at the area covered by a city block, good luck trying to shake proximity’s influence. However, if you zoom out just a little, other ranking factors increasingly come into play. Recently, Andrew Shotland and Dan Liebson gave a presentation about local search ranking factors at SMX West. Some of the most important factors they uncovered outside of proximity were local citations, reviews and optimizing for Google My Business (GMB). Local citations are important in that they give Google a strong indication that your location is where you say it is and that you have enough clout to attract backlinks. Meanwhile, reviews help establish the local authority of your brand. The more people vouch for your location with positive reviews, the more comfortable Google feels about sending customers your way. Finally, Google My Business is critical for helping your cause in local search. This is especially true for filling out your GMB attributes. We’ve begun to see the proliferation of Google My Business fields for each business type. For example, a restaurant will have the opportunity to fill in fields ranging from payment options, takeout, delivery, patio seating and anything else you’d want to know about a location. You can expect GMB attributes to become a significant ranking signal going forward, thanks to digital assistants and voice search. Why? Because digital assistants and voice search are allowing for much more discerning answers when it comes to helping us find locations. Voice search and digital assistantsThe way we ask questions is changing. Thanks to digital assistants and voice search, when we talk to Google Assistant, Amazon Alexa or Siri, we give these search engines much more information than we typically do with a typed search. We’re often terse when typing in search queries, mainly because we grew up having to do precise keyword matching if we wanted to see relevant search results. But Google and the other search engines are getting much better at understanding the meaning of words. More importantly, they’re getting better at interpreting user intent. As a result, exact keyword matching is no longer as important — much to the chagrin of advertisers. However, this allows questions and answers to be much more nuanced. The growing intelligence of search engines is fueling the rise of voice search. Instead of typing a simple query on Google like nearby Mexican restaurants, we’re much more likely to get long-winded with voice search and say, “Okay Google, where’s a good nearby Mexican restaurant with patio seating and a short wait?” Thanks to the blossoming artificial intelligence of search engines, these nuanced questions are becoming much easier for digital assistants to answer. But just because Google can understand the intent behind more complex questions, it doesn’t mean that Google has the data to answer them. It’s no mystery why Google is crowdsourcing business attributes through Google Maps by asking users about their recent trips to a location. Google is gathering as much information about a location as possible to have the data to answer more nuanced questions. This presents marketers with an opportunity. If you meet the nuanced criteria of a user’s question by filling out as many applicable attributes as possible in GMB, your location can leapfrog businesses that might be closer but fail to meet the search criteria. After all, there may be only be a handful of restaurants in an area that meet the criteria of my previous voice search question. Proximity is still a factor, of course, but you at least lessen its tyranny and raise your odds of ranking higher organically. Final thoughtNo matter what marketers do, thanks to the way digital maps are organized, it’s hard to escape the influence of proximity on search results. That’s why, even though our list of marketing mix Ps is growing long, it’s time that proximity joins the list. Some opinions expressed in this article may be those of a guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here. About The AuthorBrian Smith is the director of local solutions and resident local search expert at Placeable, a local marketing company specializing in enterprise brands. For over 12 years, Brian has been conjuring up solutions to the most vexing search problems for his clients. Responsible for all aspects of Placeable's managed services organization, Brian executes local search strategy through content marketing, data syndication management, and technical enhancements to Placeable's suite of products. When the Montana native isn’t working on ways to improve his clients' search strategies, you can find him driving his kids to various sporting events and dance practice. SEO via Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing http://ift.tt/fN1KYC March 31, 2017 at 04:10AM
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39 questions with Google at SMX West http://ift.tt/2ohQQmM It always attracts a lot of attention when Googlers are up on stage and open for questioning. The Ask Me Anything (AMA) with Google Search at the recent SMX West conference was no exception. This panel, moderated by Danny Sullivan, featured two prominent Googlers: Webmaster Trends Analyst Gary Illyes and Webmaster Outreach Specialist Mariya Moeva. In this post, I’m going to recount the bulk of the questions asked, and the answers from Illyes and/or Moeva. Please note that responses have been summarized rather than directly quoted. Let’s get started! 1. Does Google maintain any metric along the lines of a “Domain Authority” concept? Gary Illyes: This is something that Google feels does not really work. For example, on blogspot.com, the user blogs created there really shouldn’t inherit the authority of the main domain. All ranking is page-specific. 2. What about subdomains? Illyes: No such thing as subdomain authority. Mariya Moeva: Before we get asked, I’ll add that there is no similar signal for folders, either. 3. Can you talk about the update called Fred? Illyes: We make tons of updates all the time, and this is not something we would have thought to name or announce. It only got a name because of an interaction on Twitter with Barry Schwartz. Google won’t communicate about what this particular update did, but you can find the things that it targeted if you carefully read all of the Webmaster guidelines. Unfortunately, we can’t say which particular ones. Moeva: One of the issues with naming updates is that people start attributing all sorts of things to those updates, even though they aren’t actually related. 4. When will Google stop ranking internal search pages? Why does this still work? Illyes: We do frown on these pages getting indexed, as they are not that useful for users. We do have algos that try to get rid of them, and for that matter not even crawl them, but sometimes these don’t catch everything, and we may have to manually intervene. Moeva: If you’re trying to get these pages out of the index for your site, you can use the parameter handling feature in Search Console to say, “Don’t look at these pages.” 5. What data does Google use to see the “also try” info in a Knowledge Panel? Illyes: Maybe we leverage the Knowledge Graph categories to find similar pages, but that’s just a guess. 6. What if your site does not get a Knowledge Panel? How do you get one? Illyes: There is no way to do that really. Google does consume Wikidata, so that could get you in. Google also uses the CIA World Factbook. Anything that gets in requires multiple sources of data to support the need for it to be in there. 7. How do I control the picture that shows up for my business in the Knowledge Graph? Illyes: If an incorrect image comes up, report it. Note, though, you need many people to report it for it to get looked at, and they have to come from accounts that have not previously abused the system. (Illyes then mentioned the example of Stone Temple Consulting, which shows an incorrect image of a Chinese temple, and explained that sometimes the problems are hard to fix, but they are working on it.) 8. Can you bring back the link operator? Illyes: No. 9. We heard you say that Baidu uses AMP, but we thought they had their own thing. Moeva: Baidu started with mobile instant pages (MIP), which they still support, but more recently, they have expanded to support AMP pages as well. 10. Do you plan to expand the Google Posts feature? (Note: This is a feature where people can post information directly into the search results, but it’s used in a very limited way today. You can read more about it here). Moeva: This feature was used during the US elections, and we are looking at future potential uses. Of course, for this to work it has to be high-quality info. The target groups are usually not really savvy on the SEO side, so the feature is good for the website-challenged. So we don’t know how we’ll expand it, but we’re trying to see what kinds of groups it makes sense for. 11. In Search Console, when we see links from hacked sites, should we disavow them? Illyes: Do you trust the links? If you don’t, then disavowing them makes sense. Our algorithms do their best to auto-discount these, but these algorithms are written by humans and sometimes subject to error. 12. Should I have my exact keywords in the domain name? Illyes: Exact match domains (EMDs) are not inherently bad, but some people do things with them that makes them bad. If you see someone else that’s ranking and you think it’s because they have an EMD, our advice is to not worry about it and try to figure out the other reasons it ranks. 13. If we have an EMD, but it is really the company name, do we need to worry about EMD algos? Moeva: Unless you have really poor content on 50 EMDs simultaneously, don’t worry about it. Danny Sullivan: If you have an EMD that matches the really good solid content you are already doing, you’re on the right side of history, and you’ll be fine. 14. Is a subdomain or subdirectory better for targeting different countries? Moeva: Our site has a good post on this. It shows a table for when/how to pick which variant. 15. How does Google deal with the new domain names (such as .SHOP). Illyes: These are treated the same as any other TLD. 16. Is it true that Google won’t crawl a URL that has more than two folders? Illyes: No. Moeva: There is a limit to the characters in a URL, though. 17. Does folder depth make a difference ranking wise? Illyes: No. 18. If we launch a subdomain, and it gets penalized, will the domain be impacted? Moeva: It depends on the reason why. If a blog got hacked, then that impacts only the subdomain. Generally, we try to be as surgically granular as possible. 19. Does Google access info from Gmail and other sources to personalize results? Illyes: Yes, if you’re logged in. Sullivan: This happens only within Gmail (I think). 20. Why did you decide to do a video on how to hire an SEO? Moeva: Our target was non-savvy people, to help them understand how to approach it. 21. How many sites do you manually review in a week? Moeva: Every Googler has to do 20 sites before breakfast (joke). Seriously, scale is the main objective. Google is trying to find patterns, more than sites. Ideally, we do this in a way that you find a pattern that scales across many sites. 22. How does it affect our ranking if our responsive mobile site has the same content as the desktop? Illyes: This is the desired behavior, and there is no duplicate content issue since they are on the same URL. Also, there is no such thing as a duplicate content penalty. (Author’s note: If you have duplicate content because you are scraping other people’s sites, this can result in your site being hit by Panda, but that is not what Illyes is addressing in his response.) Having a responsive site will help you, especially in the future. With mobile-first, when it rolls out, responsive sites won’t have to change anything. Other sites may have to do something more to not suffer when that transition happens. 23. What would be harmed by Google being more open and transparent? Sullivan: To be fair, they are very open on many things. Moeva: The issue is that we’re trying to get people to focus on the right things. If we start dissecting (and sharing) what we do every day, this would prevent people from focusing on their sites. You should try to focus on the good stuff. Worrying about what Google change happened, when the next one will be, etc., diverts your focus from where it belongs. Illyes: Both of us teach a class to Nooglers (new Googlers) called the “life of a query.” We know a lot about how it works, and this class is very specific. But, we have to decide if revealing a piece of information will hurt us in the long term. If we share info that causes people to do the wrong things, this can hurt the search results, and we can’t allow that. But we try to be as transparent as possible. 24. Can Google see a bounce on your site, even if not from a search result, and is it a negative result when that happens? Sullivan: In other words, do you use click-through rate (CTR) as ranking factor? Illyes: We only use CTR for QA purposes, not direct ranking purposes. Moeva: We also don’t use things like Chrome to capture data like that. 25. If CTR is not a ranking factor, then why do tests sometimes show that it does influence rankings? Sullivan: What if you believe that Google is lying about this — that you believe they’re using CTR, even though they say they aren’t? What would you do differently with your site? In principle, nothing. You should be trying to optimize to improve CTR and retain users anyway! 26. What about RankBrain and machine learning? What’s up with that? Illyes: Not really anything new happening. The team is focused on some other machine learning ideas, and I can’t say what they are or whether they will be applied to search. But we’re always throwing out ideas on how to better understand pages or queries and working to make search better. Machine learning is just a tool that you can apply to different things. Moeva: A great example is what video to show you next on YouTube; that’s an interesting challenge that is a perfect application for machine learning. We can leverage what people have watched and match them up with choices made by others with similar affinities. Sullivan: Could you have a machine learning search algorithm system now? Illyes: We probably wouldn’t want that, as we still look at search pages manually, and machine learning algorithms are freakishly hard to debug. For example, if we see some problem manually, it would be impossible to figure out why the decision was made. If we replaced the traditional algorithms with machine learning, we would have a really hard time improving results, because we would not able to identify where the failures are or what caused them. Moeva: The algorithms are only as good as the training data that we give them, and that’s a big issue in coming up with good ones. 27. How do you measure voice searches? Can the rest of us get to see that? Moeva: Voice queries are often super long-tail because of their use of natural language, so it’s hard to decide what to show. (Moeva then asked people to provide feedback on what they would do with it.) 28. Is it possible to highlight quick answers in Search Console separately? Illyes: We get this request a lot, and we’ve talked to the highest possible person in the search team to see if they can, but we have not persuaded them yet. We’re still fighting for it, but it’s not a simple problem. Please ping us on Twitter and tell us how you would use that data to help us. 29. How do you get featured snippets? Moeva: Create content that is relevant to the query and structured well. Structure it as an answer to a question. 30. Is WHOIS info used as part of local ranking? Illyes: No idea. 31. Does the percent of 404 pages on your website impact your ranking? Illyes: No. 32. Should we cross-link between product and category pages? Illyes: Does it help users? 33. Does a large e-commerce site have a natural advantage over a small site? Illyes: It doesn’t matter. 34. Will traffic from email and social media help your rankings? Sullivan: In other words, do you use social signals? Illyes: We did it in the past for a specific feature, but then the social media site turned off the feature, and it was a really bad thing, and for this reason we’re not willing to be dependent on social signals. 35. Is content length a ranking factor? Illyes: No. The quality and relevance of the content is the key. 36. Is it bad if we have http and https live on a site at the same time? Illyes: In general, no — but we have seen situations where sites have some differences between the sites, such as they implement hreflang to the http version of the site, but not the https version. That type of thing could be an issue. 37. Do you look primarily at the source code for a page or the document object model (DOM)? Moeva: We look at the DOM. 38. Will we see an AMP e-commerce carousel in the near future? Illyes: We are looking into e-commerce features, and we’re very aware that this functionality is needed. If you want to see what’s planned, check out the AMP roadmap. 39: Is authorship really gone as a ranking factor? Illyes: Yes. Sullivan: Dead, dead, dead, deader than Google+. Some opinions expressed in this article may be those of a guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here. SEO via Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing http://ift.tt/fN1KYC March 31, 2017 at 04:08AM
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Paid search analytics: What treasures are hiding in your data? http://ift.tt/2nHo1ih On the surface, paid search analytics seems pretty straightforward. You just drop a code snippet on your page and go, right? Unfortunately, while setting up paid search analytics is fairly simple, using that data in a way that benefits your business can be quite challenging. Few people get into marketing because they think, Gee, I sure love number crunching! However, while setting up and evaluating analytics data may not be the sexiest part of marketing, if you aren’t taking the time to understand your paid search analytics, you could be missing major opportunities in your paid search account. To show you why, let’s take a look at some case studies. Attribution problemsA few months back, we started working with a new client. They had spent about $50,000 on AdWords over the course of about seven months, and their account seemed to be in decent shape. Things were working acceptably well, but they were hoping that we could help them take things up a notch. In addition to paid search, this client had also hired an SEO agency and invested quite a bit into driving organic traffic to their site. That seemed to be working fairly well, too, so it looked like everything was running smoothly. Well, looks can be deceiving. Although they were technically “tracking conversions” in Google Analytics, they hadn’t kept a close eye on how GA was attributing those conversions and didn’t realize that a lot of paid search leads were being improperly attributed to organic traffic. In addition, they weren’t tracking calls — one of their most important sources of leads. As a result, we initially had a bit of a hard time optimizing the campaigns. We’d make strategic moves in their AdWords account, and… organic leads would increase. That was a problem. The longer we worked on the account, the more frustrated we became. Something just didn’t seem right. Finally, we convinced the client to let us set up call tracking and take a hard look at their Google Analytics configuration. Once we saw what the situation was, it didn’t take us long to figure out the problem and get things sorted out. That was when things got interesting. Before we fixed their conversion tracking, our paid search campaigns were averaging around 28 leads per month. That meant our cost per lead was about $286: After we fixed the attribution problem, the same campaigns drove 129 leads at a cost per lead of $73: Now, admittedly, some of that increase was due to the fact that we were now tracking phone calls. However, the combination of inaccurate attribution and incomplete conversion tracking meant that our client had been underestimating their paid search performance by a significant amount. And, to make things even better, now that we could actually see which keywords, ads and campaigns were driving conversions, we were able to start optimizing their AdWords account. In less than five months, we more than doubled their conversion volume while cutting their cost per lead by around 20 percent. But imagine what would have happened if we hadn’t invested time into looking at this client’s analytics setup. No matter what we did, we never would have been able to drive decent results, and SEO would have kept looking more and more effective. After a few months, the client might have given up on AdWords entirely in favor of driving more organic traffic only to discover that — inexplicably — their SEO lead volume disappeared! However, by taking the time to assess and refine their analytics setup, we were able to identify the true source of their leads and use that information to deliver even better results from their AdWords account. Misdirected ad spendA couple of years ago, I did an audit for a potential client. Unlike the client in the preceding example, this company had good analytics data — they just weren’t using it effectively. When they came to Disruptive, they were in a bit of a frustrating situation. Their campaigns were driving a lot of high-value sales, but they just couldn’t seem to get their campaigns to produce better than break-even results. In fact, the month before they approached us, they had tried to solve the problem by increasing their budget by 30 percent. Unfortunately, if you don’t make money on a sale, it doesn’t matter whether you have 100 sales or 130 sales — you still won’t make money! I’ll admit it: their situation didn’t make a lot of sense to me. Over the past 90 days, their ads had received almost 100,000 clicks, and they had a conversion rate of 17.44 percent. For most businesses, that would be a major win! So, I asked the million-dollar question: “How many of those conversions are actually turning into sales?” As it turned out, only 1 percent of their leads became paying customers. With that one discovery, it became clear what the problem was. They were paying for the wrong traffic and the wrong conversions. I dug deeper and discovered that well over 40 percent of their budget was paying for clicks and conversions that never turned into sales. In other words, by adjusting their targeting in fairly simple ways, they could have redirected that wasted ad spend and cut their cost-per-sale by 40 percent while increasing sales by 24 percent! All they had to do was use the conversion data they already had on hand. Growth opportunitiesEarly in my career, I had an AdWords client who worked in an incredibly competitive industry. In fact, during the first year that I worked with them, their cost per click, cost per conversion and cost per sale doubled. And I couldn’t seem to do anything about it! Now, the client had a great sales team and excellent margins, so my campaigns were profitable, but watching my cost per sale inch its way upward every month drove me crazy. I don’t like losing, and I hate “unsolvable” problems, so I started poring through my client’s analytics data in search of a clever way to turn things around. As I hunted through the data for options, I discovered something unusual. A large number of our clicks and conversions were coming from search terms that had little to do with our core offering. However, these search terms indicated a big market need for a service that my client could easily provide. More importantly, no one else in the industry was competing on those search terms, which meant our cost per conversion was 67 percent lower. I talked to my client and explained the gold mine I had just uncovered. He decided to create a new offering around the opportunity, and I built out campaigns focused on addressing this unmet need. In a matter of days, our cost per conversion dropped through the floor: We had so many cheap, high-quality leads that the issue changed from “How do we cut cost per lead?” to “How do we hire enough sales people to field all these leads?” For this client, going through their analytics data uncovered a growth opportunity that took their company from 25 employees to over 250 employees. They made millions in profit and received multiple rounds of VC funding. ConclusionWhile setting up paid search analytics may be straightforward, if you aren’t using your data effectively, you may be missing out on major opportunities to improve the performance of your paid search account. It may not be the most exciting part of running a paid search account, but it can certainly be one of the most profitable uses of your time. In each of these case studies, taking the time to look at their analytics data unlocked enormous unrealized potential in the client’s paid search account. The only question is, what treasures are hiding in your paid search account? Some opinions expressed in this article may be those of a guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here. About The AuthorJacob is passionate entrepreneur on a mission to grow businesses using PPC & CRO. As the Founder & CEO of Disruptive Advertising, Jacob has developed an award-winning and world-class organization that has now helped over 2,000 businesses grow their online revenue. Connect with him on Twitter. SEO via Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing http://ift.tt/fN1KYC March 31, 2017 at 02:14AM
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Search in Pics: Google silence box, a noodle cafe & rusty Googlebot http://ift.tt/2oGPeiK In this week’s Search In Pictures, here are the latest images culled from the web, showing what people eat at the search engine companies, how they play, who they meet, where they speak, what toys they have and more. Google silence phone box:
A rusty GoogleBot printed in 3D:
Google Nooooooodle cafe:
Google 10 year work anniversary certificate:
SEO via Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing http://ift.tt/fN1KYC March 31, 2017 at 01:29AM
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Bing Ads Will Stop Supporting Monthly Budgets as of April 30 by @MattGSouthern http://ift.tt/2noJvxY Bing has announced it will stop supporting monthly budgets for all Bing Ads entry points by April 30. This includes Bing Ads online, Bing Ads Editor, API and Mobile Apps. At the end of April, all monthly budgets will be migrated to daily budgets. The company strongly recommends moving campaign budgets to daily budgets before April 30. Keep in mind that once budgets are migrated, you will not be allowed to add or update monthly budgets. When the forced migration takes places, all unshared monthly budgets at the campaign level will be converted to a daily budget. Bing explains how this is going to work:
Any Automated Rules which were once in place for monthly budgets will need to be recreated, as they will not be carried over. Since Shared Budgets are set as daily budgets by default, they will stay the same. Here is some more information about Bing Ads Shared Budgets, which can now be imported from Google AdWords campaigns. SEO via Search Engine Journal http://ift.tt/1QNKwvh March 30, 2017 at 12:39PM
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Google Implementing New Innovations for Measuring Store Visits by @MattGSouthern http://ift.tt/2on7O08 Google has announced a series of new innovations which will improve how the search giant measures store visits in AdWords. In addition to making store visits available to more advertisers worldwide, these new innovations will be able to report on more store visits for those already using store visit insights. Since introducing store visit measurement two years ago, Google AdWords has measured over 4 billion store visits around the world. Here’s how it will improve store visit measurement going forward. More Data, Same AccuracyThrough evolving its measurement technology in the areas of machine learning, mapping technology and survey quality — Google AdWords is now able to report on more store visits while maintaining the same level of accuracy. Deep LearningGoogle AdWords has upgraded its store visit measurement technology with deep learning models. These upgrades will allow the company to measure store visits in difficult areas, such as multi-story malls and locations where multiple businesses are close together. New Mapping InitiativesGoogle has improved the way it’s able to map the exact geography and geometry of business locations. Its store visit measurement technology now has a better idea of where physical business locations begin and end. This was accomplished through refreshed imagery from Google Earth and Google Street View, and scanning the Wi-Fi strength inside buildings to figure out their true boundaries. Manual Verification of Store VisitsGoogle is using surveys to have customers manually verify that they’ve visited a business. This data is then used to calibrate Google’s machine learning models. This allows Google to report on more store visits which may have otherwise been excluded. SEO via Search Engine Journal http://ift.tt/1QNKwvh March 30, 2017 at 11:56AM
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Google AdWords Rolls Out 3 Important Upgrades to Dynamic Search Ads by @MattGSouthern http://ift.tt/2omGcIy Google AdWords has introduced three improvements to Dynamic Search Ads (DSA), which are said to make them more effective than ever. Here’s what’s new. Page FeedsA page feed allows advertisers to specify the exact URLs which are to be used with Dynamic Search Ads. This will help ensure only the most relevant products and services are advertised to customers via DSA campaigns. This works by providing Google with a feed of what you want to promote, and the corresponding landing pages. Dynamic Search Ads will then generate ads only based on the URLs you provide, as long as your campaign is set to “Use URLs from my page feed only.” For more information on how to create a page feed, see Google’s AdWords Help article. Expanded Dynamic Search AdsDSA campaigns will soon be able to support expanded text ads. That means longer headlines and descriptions for providing more information about your products and services. This update is said to be rolling out over the next month. Showing More Relevant Ads by DefaultGoogle is improving the overall effectiveness of DSA campaigns by showing searchers more relevant ads.
Advertisers are already seeing an increase in conversion rate and a decrease in CPA as a result of these updates, according to Google. SEO via Search Engine Journal http://ift.tt/1QNKwvh March 30, 2017 at 09:27AM
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SearchCap: Baidu AMP, paid search bids & Google Maps ads http://ift.tt/2oDPXl5 Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. The post SearchCap: Baidu AMP, paid search bids & Google Maps ads appeared first on Search Engine Land. Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article. SEO via Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing http://ift.tt/fN1KYC March 30, 2017 at 08:01AM |
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