Google Ad Words

What Google AdWords’ Ad Rank Update Means for Your Business

This week, Google announced a significant AdWords update: Ad Rank, the system for ordering competing ads on search results pages, now takes into account the anticipated effect of your ad extensions and formats.

To date, Google has considered only your max CPC and Quality Score as part of the Ad Rank algorithm.

Now, ad extensions and formats play a role in where your ads show on SERPs. The projected effect can be the factor to push you past your competition, if max CPC and Quality Score are equal.

Why the Emphasis on Ad Extensions and Formats?

Google has concentrated heavily on building out ad extensions this year, most recently with the additions of review extensions and image extensions in June, and  a mobile-friendly/multi-screen update in August.

Extensions are useful for making ads more useful and interactive; they allow you to share more information in different ways and can make it easier for potential customers to connect. Click to call ad extensions, for example, can be a great thing for local businesses. Google shared research last month that shows 70% of mobile searchers call a business directly from search results.

If you haven’t found a use for ad extensions, you’d better find one quick, because Google’s quiet rollout of the Ad Rank update has a greater impact on all advertisers than one might think – even if you’re not using extensions!

So What’s New With AdRank?

Oh, you know, not much… except that this update means you might actually be penalized for not using ad extensions and your competitors have greater opportunity to influence your CPC.  So, there’s that.

See, using ad extensions raises your CTR and Quality Score, effectively reducing your CPC. The formula to determine what your actual CPC is factors in the Ad Rank of your competitors—if they use ad extensions and see a boost in their Ad Rank, your ad position goes down and your CPC goes up.

This sounds like a great opportunity for a competitive edge, right? If you’re on the ball, have implemented ad extensions and understand how they work, you can effectively influence not only your own campaign performance, but the cost of your competitors’.

Except the way in which Google implemented this change makes their entire advertising pool a sea of winners and inevitable losers. Rather than encouraging advertisers to adopt ad extensions, they’ve made it so that those who don’t may be unwittingly penalized.

Remember that the Google AdWords auction is just that: a real-time, living, breathing auction. Your CPC (note, this is not your max CPC bid, but the actual price you pay) is influenced by what other people were willing to pay for their click. Their ad rank divided by your quality score, plus one cent, is your CPC.

Simply, if your competitors are using ad extensions and you’re not, this change affects you.  Ad Rank affects both your ad position and the cost per click of your nearest competitor. When you are that competitor to someone else, you are affected.

What Can You Do About The AdRank Change?

The update has already rolled out; there’s no grace period here for advertisers to figure out all the nuances of this change and how it may impact their campaigns—and ultimately, their business. This is concerning, especially for SMBs who may already be struggling to keep up with the multitude of AdWords changes this year.

Ad extensions are no longer optional. Yet despite Google’s forced migration to enhanced campaigns, I estimate that as of today, only 1 in 20 small businesses use a click to call ad extension.

Here is what you need to understand and implement moving forward:

• Expect average CPCs to increase.  As more advertisers adopt extensions, people will have higher average ad ranks. Since your cost per click is directly proportional to the ad rank of your nearest competitor, chances are that CPCs will go up.
• Watch for less room for organic results in the SERPs. Where is Google going to put all these ad extensions when everyone has them? Expect to see the space occupied by paid advertising further expand into organic territory.
• Keep a close eye on your campaigns. You’re already optimizing several times a week… right? Probably not, but ideally, you want to be aware of changes in your ad positioning and CPC as soon as possible. You’re now more vulnerable to the market than ever before.
• Find the extensions that make sense for your business and campaign. The click to call extension might not make sense for you, but maybe discount offers or a location extension does. Get to know Google’s various ad formats and extensions and test out those that seem logical to find the right fit.

The moral of the story is: using ad extensions will raise your Ad Rank, CTR and Quality Score, which reduces your CPC and improves your ad positioning. Remember though that if your competitors are also using ad extensions, that has an effect on your campaign. All other things equal, is that a cancelling out effect, or does one retain an edge over the other? That remains to be seen.

Big in 2013 For SEO

What’s Big in 2013 For SEO

The rules of search engine optimization keep on changing, and old techniques quickly become outdated with the development of fresh search technologies. This is a point that Google has been driving home lately with its Panda and Penguin algorithm updates (most recently, Penguin 2.0). These algorithm changes are aimed at weeding out spammy, irrelevant websites while shining a spotlight on websites that actually offer value to their visitors.
The frequent sharing of content across social media has also changed the rules of SEO. Likes, retweets, and shares are natural, human indicators of quality for search engines to go on. Without a doubt, high quality content and social media are the driving forces of SEO in 2013.

Increased Mobile Usage

Mobile internet usage has increased significantly in the past five years, and experts expect this trend to continue in the years to come. A survey conducted by Accenture found that the majority of internet users used a mobile device to connect in 2012, and a good number of those users do so regularly.
Mobile internet users use their devices to perform a variety of tasks, including banking, accessing social media, doing product research, and shopping online. Take advantage of this new flood of mobile traffic by optimizing your website for mobile users. A few ways to do this include:

• Using responsive design to design your website
• Creating mobile apps to appeal to consumers
• Optimize your email communications for mobile use

The New Rules of Linking

Gone are the days of link farms and link trading to improve search rankings. The quality of the backlink now matters more than the quantity, which means that backlinks from respected websites will do your website the most good.
However, this doesn’t mean that you need links from sites like USA Today or The New York Times to succeed. Links from smaller, yet more relevant websites are also good for SEO.  Guest blogging for established websites is a great way to accomplish this.
In addition, an infographic published by SearchMetrics points out that content with good and plentiful internal links tends to get higher search engine rankings. Building internal links within your content isn’t only good SEO, but it’s a great way to generate a readership on your website as well.

Social Media

Social media has become the most popular medium for sharing interesting content across the web. If your content goes viral across social media websites, this means increased traffic to your website and more social signals for search engines to pick up on.
To encourage this, make your content easily shareable on social media by using social share buttons for all of your content. You should also create your own accounts on sites like Twitter and LinkedIn if you haven’t already in order to expand your reach. If your web presence is a wheel, think of your website as the hub of the wheel and your social media as its spokes.

Black Hat SEO = Lower Rankings

Search engines are becoming smarter all the time, and increasingly difficult to manipulate. In the past, a site owner could rank by doing a little keyword research and stuffing those keywords into a website that has little other value.
Today, instead of putting so much weight on keywords, Google rewards websites with content that users share naturally across the web. The Search Metrics infographic referenced earlier also points out that though large brands tend to lack on-page SEO, they still rank well because of the quality of their backlinks and their strong social signals.
Certainly, on-page SEO still influences your rankings. Just make sure it’s an accurate reflection of the content of your website and that it’s supported by good backlinks and social sharing.

Using Multimedia

Though text plays a big part in SEO, taking a multimedia approach to your content will attract more visitors. Diversify your content with pictures (perhaps a few from where you live), slide shows, infographics, and video that readers will find helpful or entertaining. Pictures are especially important since site visitors may or may not watch videos, but they can decide whether or not to read a blog post based on the post’s image and headline.
You should also optimize your multimedia by:

• Using keywords in image ALT tags
• Including a transcript of your videos
• Including keywords in your file names
• Using keywords in your picture captions
• Syndicating original images on content sites like Flickr and Photobucket

Longer Content Has Become More Important

Though blog posts of 300 to 500 words still attract readers,suggests that web users link to longer posts and articles more often. This could be because longer pieces tend to contain more useful and detailed information. The keyword is “useful.” Again, keep in mind that content must be valuable and relevant in order to attract both readers and search engines.

Google Authorship

Use of Google authorship has soared since Google introduced the practice in 2012.  Google authorship allows authors to claim the online content they’ve written by connecting it to their Google+ account. Google looks favorably upon content that has been claimed by its owners, and claiming authorship also helps Google to find and curate more of your content. Claiming authorship is good for SEO, and helps to build your online brand and reputation.

No More PageRank Updates This Year

Google’s Matt Cutts: No More PageRank Updates This Year

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Google’s head of search spam, Matt Cutts, said on Twitter yesterday that Google won’t be pushing out a new Google Toolbar PageRank update this year.
Niels Bosch asked on Twitter if we should expect an update to PageRank before 2014. In response to that, Matt Cutts said, “I would be surprised if that happened.”

It has now been 8 months since the last Google Toolbar Page Rank update. In fact, the last update was on February 4, 2013 and honestly, I think Page Rank is finally dead – at least the Toolbar Page Rank.
I’d be surprised if there was another Toolbar Page Rank update ever. Maybe Google will do one next year and then let it quietly go away forever.
Here is Matt’s response from yesterday:

Over the years, support for Page Rank has dropped. Google never offered a Google Toolbar for Chrome or any add-on to show Page Rank values. Google dropped the Google Toolbar for Firefox in June 2011. Internet Explorer is the last browser to still have a PageRank display offered by Google, but the data that flows into that display hasn’t been updated for over six months.
When we asked Google two months ago about when the next update would come, Google had no comment.
Earlier this year, Google said that PageRank in the toolbar wouldn’t be going away

New Definition of SEO

Do You Know The New Definition of SEO

The way we advertise,sell and deliver SEO services has undoubtedly changed.Google's algorithm updates have made content marketing and social media the core of a strong organic search strategy. So while the practice of SEO evolves, the definition of SEO ought to evolve as well.

Other digital marketing strategy such as email marketing, paid search and search retargeting have very clear, undisputed definitions. The definition of SEO, on the other hand, seems to be just as unclear as the practice itself.

Current Definitions of SEO

Even when you Google the phrase, "definition of SEO", nothing really concrete is returned.
Wikipedia's official definition is, "the process of affecting the visibility of a website or a web page."
Search engine optimization is about way more than this.
Webopedia's definition is, "a methodology of strategies, techniques and tactics used to increase the amount of visitors to a website by obtaining a high-ranking placement in the search results page of a search engine (SERP) -- including Google, Bing, Yahoo and other search engines."
SEO is more than this too.

Is Web Presence Optimization the Evolution of SEO?

So what is an accurate description of SEO given the changes to the industry?
Web presence is an all-encompassing approach to optimizing an entire web presence for organic search including the website, social channels, blogs, articles and press releases. Where strategies, techniques, and tactics are still used, but content marketing and social media are strongly incorporated.

What's Your Definition of SEO?

Here are some new definitions of SEO to consider, and I invite you to comment below with your own.

1. SEO is the ongoing process of uncovering and discovering non-branded keywords that are driving organic search traffic and conversions, then publishing content optimized for those keywords.
2. SEO is the process of producing optimized content that is discoverable by the target audience as they progress through the buying cycle.
3. SEO is about a prospect discovering a brand's content and web presence through search and social, and the owner of that content being able to understand who consumed the content and the impact of the content across the organization.
4. SEO is the outcome of a content marketing strategy that makes use of highly converting keywords that your target audience is searching on.
5. SEO is the process of enhancing the visibility of a brand's web presence in organic search.

SEO in the digital marketing mix is here to stay. Standardizing a definition of SEO will help buyers better understand the importance of it, the reason for committing to it, and the short- and long-term impact an SEO strategy has on a web presence.

If you have something to ask feel free to ask me at humanspiker@gmail.com

Google Penguin 2.1

Matt Cutts: Google Penguin 2.1 is Going Live Today

Google Penguin 2.1 is launching today, according to a sources  from Google's Distinguished Engineer Matt Cutts. The first update to the second-generation Penguin algorithm designed to target web spam will affect ~1% of searches to a noticeable degree.Look how does the latest update go for you.

Google Penguin 2.0 went live on May 22 and affected 2.3 percent of English-U.S. queries. When it launched, Cutts explained that while it was the fourth Penguin-related launch, Google referred to the change internally as Penguin 2.0 because it was an updated algorithm rather than just a data refresh.
"It's a brand new generation of algorithms," Cutts said in May. "The previous iteration of Penguin would essentially only look at the home page of a site. The newer generation of Penguin goes much deeper and has a really big impact in certain small areas."
This is Google's fifth Penguin-related launch.
Google originally launched the algorithm that was eventually become known as Penguin 1.0 in April 2012. There were two refreshes last year: in May and October.

Many sites have already vanished with these updates.

Panda Updates

Google’s Panda Update is a filter introduced in February 2011 meant to stop sites with poor quality content from working their way into Google’s top search results.Panda is updated from time-to-time to track spam . When this happens, sites previously hit may escape, if they’ve made the right changes.Panda may also catch sites that escaped before. A refresh also means “false positives” might get released. Our latest news related to Panda is below.


Google's head of search spam, Matt Cutts posted a new video today talking about the Panda update. The question he tried to answer was, "what should a site owner do if they think they might be affected by Panda?" Matt's short answer to the question is to make sure to write high quality content, content at the level of published books or in popular magazines. Cutts explains that Panda launched on February 24, 2011 and this year has been integrated into the "indexing process" where the algorithm is somewhat baked into the normal ranking algorithms. The reason for this is because now the [...]

At SMX Advanced, Matt Cutts, Google's head of search spam, announced that the Panda algorithm is still being updated roughly every month, but that update is rolled out slowly throughout the month. It is like a Google Dance, but in this case, a Panda Dance. What happens is Google will run the update on a particular day, let's say on the 4th of the month. Then Google will slowly push out that impact over 10 days or so throughout the month. Google will typically repeat this cycle over monthly. Google said in March that they will stop announcing Panda update because they were more of a rolli [...]

More About Google Updates

Over the last few years the changes to search algorithms and user behavior on the Internet have made  the older SEO practices almost redundant. It's even actually be doing more harm than good. These days, search engines and consumers want quality and social proof. The SEO whole landscape has changed, and the current shift can be defined by a single concept that is integration.

Search Marketing Integration (SMI)

This is a new term that you have started to hear a lot more in the world of search.As the search engines widen their gaze and perfect the techniques they use to measure content quality, brand sentiment and relevance, the optimization of a site for search will increasingly overlap with other marketing disciplines.
Over the next couple of years SMI will become a pre-requisite for a first-page listing on Google. SMI will revolutionize the entire organization's approach to sales, marketing, PR, branding and everything in between.

New Ways to Search

Twitter’s integration into Google's results ended last year, and Google+ has since provided the antidote to that broken relationship. Just a couple of weeks ago Facebook also launched its own enhanced search engine.

I have no doubt that social-oriented search will continue to make headway. As a result, social signals will continue to exert influence on SERPs, and SEO techniques will have to be applied to social properties.
I also believe that social properties like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Quora will eat away at Google's market share ... or get bought up by Google itself. Imagine a search engine that incorporates the data from a platform like LinkedIn with the accuracy and scope of Google! Google… I hope you’re listening.

Branding

One key element in Google's Penguin update was the inclusion of an organization's brand reach as a factor in SERPs. This means that the greater your brand popularity, the higher the probability of achieving a first-page position. Therefore, an SEO must keep branding initiatives carefully aligned with an overall strategy.
Additionally, link building, which has historically been focused on individual product keyword phrases, must now include a healthy percentage of branded anchor text phrases to support branded traffic and incoming links. Savvy link builders will have strategies for building out natural link profiles with a sprinkle of brand, product, and SEO keyword links.

PR

SMI, or “new SEO,” will lean very heavily on traditional PR channels. Over the last few years most print publications have been busy trying to find ways to win back their share of the digital market.
Due to the reputation and authority that they brought with them from the print world, many of these publications have quickly gained great authority online. Due to this authority, the relationship that brands and organizations have with these magazines and newspapers will have a significant effect on search visibility.
Press releases, interviews, and relationships with magazines are a big part of SMI. As more companies wake up to the integrated nature of the new SEO and recognize the link-building potential of traditional PR opportunities, their value will only increase.

Search Engine Marketing (SEM)

The relationship between organic search rankings and paid ads is one that’s been debated for years. Though no concrete evidence shows us exactly how paid ads impact a site’s organic listings, we have seen website’s organic traffic increase when paid ads are running.

Lastly, the intelligence gained from running SEM campaigns should be directly applied to organic. This includes which keywords generate sales, which landing page techniques create conversions, and identifying which trends are important by testing new phrases and products.

Video Marketing

Video is fast becoming one of the most influential factors in all aspects of digital marketing. Its influence now reaches deep into SEO territory.
One of the most influential search movements of the last few years has been the integration of different types of content directly into the SERPs. If Google sees it as relevant to a particular query, you’ll now see images and videos outranking the organic page listings and visually dominating the page.

 

This can be particularly useful if you’re targeting a long-tail query. If the query relates closely to a visual concept that could be better explained in a video than a blog post, you will almost certainly gain a better search position by producing a video.
A Forrester study from January 2010 showed that a webpage with a video on it was 53 times more likely to gain a page-one position in the SERPs. Additionally, 1 in 3 tech B2B decision-makers are turning to online video for information (Google). Viewers of videos are also 64 percent more likely to purchase after watching a product video. These figures show that search visibility and performance are directly improved by the integration of video and, as a result, video should be integrated into all digital campaigns.

Thought Leadership

Every industry, sector and niche has thought leaders to provide guidance, commentary and inspiration. Are you that person? If not, who on your team can fill this role?
If you are providing a service or product that delivers genuine value to those who buy it, you should have people within your organization who have a capacity for producing informative, persuasive content. This content is the backbone of any successful SMI campaign.
Your ability to create compelling content will govern the success or failure of your SEO, social and marketing automation (MA) campaigns. Without it, everything comes to a stop.
You should produce content that lives both on your own site and elsewhere on the web. Everything you produce should be of the highest possible standard and be shareable, search optimized and link worthy.
Don’t just stick to a blog. Create videos, white papers, eBooks and online presentations. Then syndicate all of this content through your social channels and use it as part of your MA campaigns to help prospects through the sales funnel.

The Social Web

I specifically saved “social” until last. The social web has changed the game completely. Your social strategy should impact all your marketing channels and campaigns. With search engines increasingly using social signals in their algorithms and measuring “brand sentiment” more accurately by the day, the SEO world can’t ignore the importance of a well-managed social presence.
Social media should be the lynchpin for all your marketing, sales and after-sales activities. It’s an area which has an impact on everything from top-of-the funnel lead generation to after-sales service and customer retention.
Social media directly impacts search visibility and provides a primary channel for distributing your invaluable content. This impact is also trackable beyond just visibility.
Facebook’s capabilities can be set up in under an hour. Google Analytics can display social conversions as well. If you want to get your head around how SMI should be working for your organization, start with social.