Search Engine Watch « Steak news and blog

Defining Search Engine Optimization in 2010

July 29th, 2010 by Gareth Owen | Tags: Gareth Owen, Google, Google Ad Planner, natural search, Search Engine Watch, SEO
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By Gareth Owen, Search Engine Watch, July 28, 2010

My last post, “What’s Next for Search, SEO?,” managed to produce some interesting takes on the future, past, and present of devices and how we use them/optimize for them. Thanks for your responses. They got me thinking — what year am I stuck in?

The simple answer is that I never quite came to terms with the ’90s. Having been born in 1980, I just couldn’t accept that a new decade had anything to do with me. Plus, my football team was unbeatable in the ’80s and is now average at best. So if I were really pressed for an answer, I’d say I was stuck in 1988. Early May, to be precise.

But I’ve also noticed some definite differences in search engine optimization (SEO) campaigns and approaches to SEO from agencies and in-house teams that can give clues about when they last carried out a root and branch review of how they do SEO.

Since 2000, SEO has been developing as an art and as a defined function of marketing. Each year has tended to see specific approaches and developments that have helped to define how you should approach SEO. If 2005 was about internal linking, then 2009 was about optimized PR and advertorials.

What I’m particularly interested in is defining SEO in 2010. This isn’t necessarily about finding something new, more about what seems to really be producing results after the Caffeine update and the May Day changes.

The trend we’re seeing is that highly relevant links from sites with quality link profiles of their own are adding the most value to an SEO campaign, rather than those with outright PageRank (we have also seen a large number of sites suffer ranking drops due to an inordinate number of sitewide inbound links, but that’s another story).

This may not be anything new in itself — highly relevant links have always been important and difficult to come by for a number of reasons. But the reduction in apparent value of PageRank, and increase in the value of a purely relevant site and content, is interesting.

What is doubly interesting (and helpful) is that Google has a tool that can specifically identify what those highly relevant sites might be. (It won’t actually get links from them, you’ll still have to be creative there).

The tool? Google Ad Planner — allowing you to see what sites match the same user profile as your client’s site, and also filter by industry sector/classification of the site, giving a neat picture of what Google feels is a relevant link profile for your client. You can then export a list of the best sites to target for links — it can even tell you which ones are using Google text ads on their site, thereby giving you a foot in the door to discuss advertising rates, content hosting, reciprocal links, or whatever you feel is the right approach for each site.

So, if there’s a theme for 2010, it has to be that taking the time to identify your market and focusing on how to build relationships with those relevant sites will put you above SEOs that are still focusing on optimized PR and advertorials. They’re stuck in 2009…

What do the iPad and Tablet Computers Mean for Search?

July 9th, 2010 by Duncan Parry | Tags: Duncan Parry, iPad, paid search, Search Engine Watch, search marketing
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By Duncan Parry, Search Engine Watch, July 2, 2010

The iPad. Surrounded by hype, adored by some, denigrated by others.

Like the iPhone before it, the iPad is a category igniter — it won’t end up being the dominant product in its category in terms of sales volumes, but as the poster boy of tablet computing it has drawn attention and media coverage, which has promoted the device category to the public.

However, it’s first to market — and as an iPad user myself, I’m beginning to glimpse how the device will have an impact on search and digital strategies going forward. Here are my thoughts so far.

Search Engines and Tablet Devices

Obviously search engine interfaces need to be tailored to the device. The iPad doesn’t support Flash, so any video content embedded into search results will need to be available as HTML 5 video — and for any other formats that different tablet don’t support. This is important as Bing in particular looks to integrated media content directly into the page as part of it’s entertainment channel.

Google has already launched an iPad app — similar to their mobile one — which incorporates search, e-mail, and other popular Google products, as well as a built-in browser. The iPad can only run one app at a time, so this makes it easier to switch between Google products and the web. However, most consumers won’t want to install an app, so ensuring search websites work with the operating systems and browsers of different tablets is key.

There’s an opportunity here to innovate. Google already offers voice-based searching on the iPad and Android phones; so far I’ve found the accuracy variable but no doubt that will improve over time. This innovation can go further: touch screens actively encourage the use of the fingers — so there’s an opportunity to enable uses to interact with search results in this way, for example, expanding plus boxes by swiping down or drawing circles on maps to find local businesses with that radius.

So experts are predicting the days of keyboards and mice are numbered — but I think they will be around for a long time to come. Just as we’ve accepted touch screens on phones alongside keypads, so will touch screen computing be a mainstream experience alongside the keyboard and mouse. However, this could lead to an increase in typos and misspelled search queries; we’ve all got fat-finger syndrome at times!

Geo-targeting

Tablet computers are ideal for using search on the move via a phone or wireless connection. So detecting the user’s location and personalizing search results accordingly is another important aspect of the tablet computing search experience, just like it’s increasingly becoming on “normal” computers.

This doesn’t just extend to search results, though — brands need to embrace geo-targeting, too, driving consumers to landing pages that are tailored to their location — whether that is with store information, products shipped to that area, or other customization. This is getting easier for brands to execute — alongside IP lookups, there’s a W3C initiative that HTML5 supports to develop a standard way for browsers to determine the user’s location after they opt-in to providing that data — so there soon won’t be any excuses. Firefox users can try it here; Chrome and Safari support it already, too.

Landing Pages

As well as localizing page content, brands will need to look at how well their pages work on the browsers and operating systems on tablet computers — some sites simply don’t work well, or at all.

Take Google Reader for example — it relies on a lot on scrolling up and down lists of feeds and within articles; but the scroll bars simply don’t always work when using the touch screen of the iPad, resulting in the user grabbing the whole browser window by mistake. This is a Google issue not an Apple one; other sites with some (but less) scroll bars are fine. Google have assumed that everybody has a mouse; a contrast to using Gmail on iPad, which has a well-designed interface suited to touch screens.

I’ve also noticed a few brands customizing the iPad keyboard in their apps, for example moving the @ key onto the first keyboard layer if the app requires it a lot. Little touches like this make apps and websites a joy to use — as opposed to a nuisance.

Time to Plan

Table computing is, of course, in its infancy and I’m not advocating widespread website redesigns for this device category over night. Brands that offer products particularly suited to the leisure-time orientated nature of the iPad should consider developing apps; most brands should concentrate on fixing any glaring bugs with their website on tablet computers while monitoring their analytics and market research reports for the growth of tablet computing. Now’s the time to plan for the future and ensure you have the CMS infrastructure and analytics capabilities to set up device-specific paid search campaigns and landing page in future.

Brands will need to learn how to offer a rich experience on tablet devices — or risk providing consumers with a poor experience they’ll associate with the brand across all devices.

What’s Next for Search, SEO?

July 7th, 2010 by Gareth Owen | Tags: Gareth Owen, natural search, Search Engine Watch, search marketing, SEO
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By Gareth Owen, Search Engine Watch, June 30, 2010

One of the points that will be high on the agenda at this year’s Online Marketing Show will be that the web has finally graduated from our PC monitors and now exists firmly in the air around us, waiting to be accessed at any given moment. Internet usage on mobile devices is now growing at the rate that was predicted some three or four years ago, making this year definitely, officially, the year of mobile… hooray!

It’s not all about mobile. Any number of devices during the next decade and beyond will be able to access the wonders of the Internet, and all of them will need to be able to search and quickly retrieve the information or websites that people are looking for. This is where search engines need to think about how their interfaces and results will work on any number of new devices.

Even on the biggest, prettiest smartphones, Google’s search results don’t fit on the screen, removing the majority of paid search listings that make up so much of Google’s revenue. If everyone were to use mobiles only to search for info, Google might even go bankrupt!

Google has a separate index for mobile devices, so it’s not as though they haven’t thought about this. But as the web becomes ever more accessible, two questions remain:

1.How will search engines really help users find what they’re looking for, especially on the smaller devices?
2.How will they continue to know what are the most important results for natural search?
The second question is particularly important for SEO. So much of what we do boils down to ensuring that the myriad of connections on the internet make it clear that our sites, or our clients’ sites, are viewed by the search engines as important. Not only important, but important for specific themes and keywords, and we manage this using techniques on and off the website itself.

So how does that change when people are using the Internet in different ways via different devices and potentially being given different results depending on what device they use? How will search engines know what is important, or whether something is more important for a mobile user than a tablet or laptop user?

There are still a lot of “ifs” involved here. Ultimately, the search engines might feel that what exists now is good enough to tell them which are the most important sites.

In SEO we’ve become accustomed in more recent times to viewing off-site optimization techniques as having the biggest impact on rankings. But perhaps there is an argument that for each device you will need a site specifically optimized for each different version of Google. Google for mobile, Google for smartphone, Google for tablets — each version might prefer different types of web property to display higher in the listings.

Ultimately, there isn’t a definitive answer right now. However, in the near future it’s likely that SEO will not only encompass social media (that’s if you believe it doesn’t already), but SEO teams may well need to ensure their skill-sets include a large degree of developer knowledge specifically for ensuring websites are compatible with multiple devices.

Is Retargeting Ready to go Mainstream? (Part 2)

June 14th, 2010 by Duncan Parry | Tags: Duncan Parry, paid search, retargeting, Search Engine Watch, search marketing
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By Duncan Parry, Search Engine Watch, June 4, 2010

In part one, we talked about factors that should drive the adoption of retargeting (also referred to by Google as “remarketing”). Now we’ll examine the limitations of Google’s offering, other tools, and some thoughts on how marketers can embrace retargeting.

Digital Getting Wiser

The growing maturity of the digital industry, and the level of knowledge within agencies and marketing departments, is an important factor here, too.

Retargeting & Paid Search

Most marketing departments have an awareness, if not in-depth knowledge, of search and display. Increasingly, campaigns are analyzed across channels as tools like MediaPlex, tag carriers, and a number of independents provide the ability to analyze the consumers full journey path during a cookie period — from first impression, to first search, to last search, and the traditional last click.

Once marketers know consumers visiting Site A are likely to search and buy their products and have planned their display and search campaigns to leverage this trend, the next obvious step is to look at where drop-offs are occurring — which consumers are searching, but then not buying — and what sites can they be reached on with retargeting?

Third-Party Tools

Google’s offering enables this sort of tactic, but only for sites with AdSense ad units on them. Using a third-party tool like MediaPlex or DoubleClick Boomerang as well, brands can run this sort of activity web-wide. Not just retargeting to “lost” prospects who didn’t convert, but targeting existing customers with cross sells.

Once you’ve dropped a cookie that tells you things about the visitor/customer, your only constraints are your budget and ideas. No doubt, other tools providers are scrambling to introduce this functionality if they don’t already have it.

Display’s New Best Friend?

Google’s announcement also included one other piece of important information: it’s not just for search. Once you’ve added a piece of code to pages on your website, you can retarget consumers who visit the site through any source:

Sending a customer CRM e-mail out? Retarget customers who click but don’t buy with a display ad.

Have a members-only area? Retarget recent log-ins with a new product.

Receiving a lot of direct traffic as a result of a new TV campaign? Don’t let your competitors suck up sales from the interest you’ve generated — run a display campaign featuring the TV ad tailored to people who have visited the site but dropped out mid-shopping cart, with your order line phone number in the advertisement.

All of these options could make retargeting display advertising’s new best friend, a shot in the arm that could cause brands to fundamentally re-examine the interaction of search and display, and to remember a basic fact when planning: consumers don’t operate in silos, and neither should we as marketers.

Who Does Your SEO Team Speak to?

June 14th, 2010 by Gareth Owen | Tags: Gareth Owen, natural search, Search Engine Watch, search marketing, SEO
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By Gareth Owen, Search Engine Watch, June 2, 2010
The biggest obstacle with actually integrating SEO activities with other business functions is that SEO people don’t talk to other teams enough.

This isn’t as harsh a criticism as it first sounds — we’re all busy in agencies and passionate about the subject and clients. Time is at a premium. So it isn’t as easy as just saying that SEOs are antisocial hermits tucking themselves away in corners.

Good SEO doesn’t happen in a vacuum, as we all know. There are many ranking factors that are specifically aimed at ensuring SEO happens as part of a natural online marketing presence and not just a focus on the one goal of getting traffic from Google.

Happily, there is a big plus side to this for digital agencies, as a good display campaign, affiliate campaign, and social media campaign will all help your SEO progress for a range of reasons. Here’s a quick list of considerations for SEO teams.

Speak to Your Display Team

Always try and negotiate content hosting arrangements with media buys. If you’re buying banner ads on a site, then see if they will also host press releases or product reviews with backlinks.

Alternatively, ask your display/media team for their list of contacts at key industry sites and see if you can negotiate a deal separately.

Finally, see if you can put clean links within display ads so that all ad placements pass direct value back to the client’s site.

Speak to Your Affiliate Team

If you’re running a good affiliate campaign, see if you can negotiate clean links or content hosting alongside your affiliate links. Some sites already add a clean link as well as a standard affiliate link as a matter of course.

See if you can get a list of affiliate contacts and negotiate deals to put useful content on their sites — good quality product reviews, for example, can be of real interest.

Speak to Your Social Media Team

More SEO Advice
•Search Engine Optimization is Unfair
•Breaking the Single Keyword Obsession in SEO Campaigns
•Powerful SEO Content: Understanding Breadth of Coverage
It may be jumping the gun slightly, as there is no conclusive data or any confirmation from Google, but I’ll join the ranks of SEOs already going with this. A well-run social media campaign will have SEO benefits. If you can get people talking about your special offers on LCD TVs for the World Cup, then you will rank better for related keywords.

One of the benefits of a well-run social media campaign is that key influencers will be identified and directly engaged. Get your social media team to help you out by trying to get that all-important content onto the key blogger sites.

These are some simple solutions to the age-old problem of getting links from important and relevant sites. And remember, if you’re extra charming, you might even get other teams to get those links for you — double whammy!

Is Retargeting Ready to go Mainstream?

May 14th, 2010 by Jocelyn Bull | Tags: Duncan Parry, paid search, retargeting, Search Engine Watch, search marketing
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By Duncan Parry, Search Engine Watch, May 7, 2010

Alongside all of the coverage of the iPad, Apple and Google’s growing war, and iPhones being left on bar stools, Google’s launch in March of a retargeting capability from search into the content network felt comparatively ignored.This is one of the important trends for search and display marketers of 2010. Many may not be using retargeting now (sorry, remarketing as Google calls it), but we’ll look back on 2010 as the year this became a mainstream tactic. This should be the year most paid search and ad serving tool providers rushed to support retargeting, if they didn’t offer it already.

Why? Three reasons: the recession, Google and the growing maturity of digital.

Tear Down the Digital Wall!

We all know display budgets have suffered from recessionary pressure over the last few years as brands cut budgets, looked for efficiencies, and in many cases stopped any activity that didn’t generate a return in terms of direct acquisition.

Retargeting helps close the loop between search and display and knocks down some of the walls that have developed in the industry. Consumers don’t perceive display and search silos – they go about their business on the Web, reading content, using Facebook, seeing ads, and then search when they’re ready to start their journey to a purchase. They don’t care about how we structure agency teams or brands allocate their budgets across channels or attribute sales.

Retargeting allows display and search budgets to work in a more complementary manner; not passively when post-campaign analysis is carried out and trends are spotted, but actively, with conscious decisions taken to retarget consumers based on search clicks during their research phase.

A Boost for the Google Content Network – and Paid Search Generics

Google entering this space is an obvious move for the company. Their revenues from the content network will increase if this works, and many advertisers have, despite Google’s insistence to the opposite, found that the content network just doesn’t work for them.

This could bring them back into the content fold. Once Google backs a marketing technique, agencies and many brands start questioning if it’s something they should make a pillar of their strategy (to the frustration and relief of display and search people who have been shouting into the dark that this was the way to integrate disciplines for years).

Potentially, retargeting will also further underline the need to invest in generics term in paid search or as part of a natural search strategy. While often expensive and competitive, these terms many receive a boost as brands deliberately re-engage consumers “lost” after visiting a site via a generic term.

If a retargeted ad causes them to revisit the site and buy, when previously they may have not done so, future investment in a generic term can been justified and the cash involved made to work harder. This approach drives increased volumes and becomes a positive feedback loop feeding into the bottom line if managed efficiently.

Next time, we’ll look at how digital is getting wiser, some third-party tools, and display’s new best friend.

Search Doesn’t Only Happen on Search Engines

May 12th, 2010 by Gareth Owen | Tags: Gareth Owen, natural search, Search Engine Watch, search marketing, SEO
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By Gareth Owen, Search Engine Watch, May 5, 2010

People don’t just search on search engines. Think about it – when was the last time you bought something online simply by searching for it and going straight to a site to buy it?

This isn’t a recent trend. Consumers have never acted this simply. They have been much smarter than search marketers have given them credit for since e-commerce was born. It’s only now, as we interact online more than ever, that this is becoming ever clearer and more measurable.

The purchase decision takes place before and after a keyword search – that much is clear. People are searching for information on Facebook, Twitter, and review and price comparison sites for starters, and using the information they find to help them make the right decision.

For example, according to a Forrester survey of adults 16 and up in the U.K. who made a recent purchase, 31 percent used retailer sites, comparison sites, and other websites when starting to research products before buying, and 25 percent used a search engine.

One other clear illustration that these things are important: Google has replicated them all within its search results. For “price comparison and user reviews,” read “Google products.” For “social media recommendations,” check out information on social search results being trialled in Google labs.

Google, in particular, has followed these trends admirably, but hasn’t led them — they already existed. The key is to make the most of this opportunity and see past Google’s dominance, for brands and agencies. So what does it really mean for both?

What does it Mean For Brands?

First, to properly identify the true cause and effect of a range of online activities, brands will need proper tracking and attribution modeling software, which is already an ongoing issue for many. There are a lot of solutions available. The challenge is to find one that works across all of the required channels and can be implemented on your website platform for a reasonable cost. A tag carrier is a good place to start, building in flexibility to use different providers if necessary, and strike direct CPA deals in the display and affiliate spaces where available.

Second, visibility across a range of media is one thing, but the company needs to have a genuine marketing strategy behind their online campaigns — a picture of what they’re trying to achieve before starting, not just an ROI figure in mind. KPIs need to be set for display ads, site sponsorship, paid search, and social media campaigns to reflect the whole online search journey. One key figure rarely taken into account online is the impact on brand recognition and loyalty. It’s not anything new really, complex attribution models have been used for offline media for years.

What does it Mean for Agencies?

Agencies really need to prove their worth. The old argument about search providing a better ROI than other forms of advertising is no longer enough. It doesn’t work in a silo and search doesn’t just happen on search engines.

The real value-add of a good agency is a focus on a set of data and metrics and an understanding of how to improve them. Take that basic principle and apply it to running online campaigns across a range of activities and you have a valuable search agency. Fail, and you’re history.

One specific result of this change is that digital agencies cannot afford to allow PPC, SEO, display, affiliates, mobile, and social media to operate as individual teams. They’re all part of one campaign for one client, so this requires a lot of data and strategy sharing between teams. Sometimes this might mean working closely with a competitor.

Finally, the onus is on agencies to lead clients. This means proving the case by testing different KPIs for different campaigns. Perhaps the best way to visualize this is to go back to the AIDA funnel and think about what activities should sit at each point, the KPIs that would be most relevant at each stage, and build a strategy from there.

Where does Search go From Here?

As a discipline, search will still be focused on optimization of keywords for maximum ROI, but it’s time for companies and agencies to start to put those keyword searches in their proper context within the online consumer journey and consider measuring individual campaigns using a range of different metrics — all of which are available with the right tools.