A little over a month ago Google announced that they were rolling out, modified broad match, a new targeting feature for paid search advertisers. This new match type lets you create keywords with greater reach than phrase match and more control than broad match. This works by adding a + directly before a word in a broad match keyword. Each word proceeded by a + must appear in the query exactly or as a close variant (including misspellings, plurals, etc.)
This feature was originally released as a limited beta in UK and Canada. As most paid search advertisers, I was very excited about this new targeting feature; it could potentially cut back on negative keyword research and search query report craziness (which may give you minor heart attacks when you see the absurd term that Google thinks is relevant).
In the announcement and in the AdWords help center they are very adamant on pointing out that using broad match terms that only contain the modifier will have a significant negative impact on your campaign volume (if currently using broad match). If you are looking to decrease volume due to trending over budget and want to reduce spend than switching to modified broad match may be a good option
Google recommends keeping existing broad match keywords active, adding new modified broad match keywords, and adjusting bids to achieve your target ROI based on observed performance. They recommend that you set the bids higher for the modified keywords to start.
I implemented some modified broad match terms using the recommendations that Google gave. Below is the test I did along with the results that came from such test.
For the test I took one of my best performing campaigns and used the top performing broad match terms for this campaign- added a new ad group using these terms with the modifier. For the sake of the experiment we are only looking at these terms specifically. Here is an example of how I used the modifier (keywords were changed to keep client anonymous):
pets store (+pets store)
pet stores (+pet stores)
pet store (+pet store)
First- I looked at the search terms for the time period that the test has been live. I pulled two reports, one showing the broad terms and the other showing the modified terms for the same time period.
The first report showed the broad terms generated impressions from search queries around similar terms but none of the terms match the keywords specifically. A majority of the search queries did not include either of the words I was bidding on and some were completely irrelevant.
In the second report every term was matched to a query that included the term that contained the modifier. There were very few irrelevant queries that these were matched to.
When only looking at the search terms we can confirm that the broad match modifier does a better job at matching your keyword to relevant search traffic.
Now, lets look at numbers!!
First we will compare broad vs. modified broad:
Impressions 8% higher than modified terms
Clicks 17% lower than modified terms
CTR 31% lower than modified terms
CPC 29% lower than modified terms
Cost 40% lower than modified terms
Conversions were the same
CPA 40% lower than modified terms
Conversion rate 20% higher than modified terms
When comparing the match types it is hard to determine which the better option is. If we are only looking at CPA and conversion rate, in this case Broad match would be the better option. But if youre thinking in terms of quality score you definitely want to keep CTR in mind (which overtime may decrease our cpc and possibly our cost and CPA in the future). The CTR for the modified terms is higher than the broad match terms. As Google says- match type doesnt directly affect your QS but it can help improve your CTR. Hmmm
My take from this is not that broad match is necessarily better, but rather the importance of keeping both match types, which is illustrated even more greatly by the table below
So lets compare the keyword metrics from when we ran the test to the previous 30 days (again we are only looking at the above mentioned keywords performance specifically)
Impressions decreased by 8%
Clicks increased by 5%
CTR increased by 16%
CPC increased by 3%
Cost increased by 8%
Conversions increased by 300%
CPA decreased by 73%
Conversion rate increased by 280%
These numbers show that adding modified broad keywords in addition to the broad terms significantly increased performance across the board. Most notably CTR, conversions and conversion rate all increased and CPA decreased by 73%.
According to Google Adwords Blog:
Adding modified broad match keywords to your campaign can help you get more clicks and conversions at an attractive ROI, especially if you mainly use exact and phrase match keywords today.
After conducting this test we can confirm that indeed adding modified broad match keyword increased clicks (by 5%) and conversions (300%) and an attractive ROI or CPA (-280%).
Some things to remember when using the modifier:
Make sure that you are using the modifier properly
If the old ad group has all broad match, then set a higher CPC for these new match types
Google recommends that you keep existing broad match keywords active, add new modified broad match keywords, and adjusting bids to achieve your target ROI based on observed performance.
If the old ad group has all exact and phrase match, then set a lower CPC for these new match types
Let the ad group run and collect some data then run the search query report examining these two ad groups and their variations
Dont forget to add negatives and pull search query reports! Modified eliminates a lot of unwanted traffic but negatives keywords are the only way to ensure that you are not showing up for terms that are irrelevant.
I definitely recommend testing modified broad match for all current and future campaigns- but as with all match types make sure that use the match types that work best for you or your client.
Recently Google Places launched nationally and on Mobile, “Google Tags”, which allow business owners to highlight important aspects of their business within Google’s local listings and maps. Adding these tags to your local listings is not typically free and costs a flat monthly fee of $25. Currently Google is offering a 30 day Free Trial for Google Tags, so this is a great time for local businesses to learn more about this feature and to give it a try as they are a powerful way for business owners to make their listings stand out within Google’s Local Listings.
What are Google Tags?
Below is an example of a Philadelphia Laser Hair Removal Center’s use of Google Tags.
As you can see in the example below, the addition of the Google tags helps Med Spa’s listing stand out from the competition.
If I click on the tag I am taken to the Coupon Page, screen shot below:
These tags also show up on Google Maps. When scrolled over on the map the details are shown as seen below:
How to Get Started With Google Tags:
To get started with Google Tags a business will need to set up a free Google Places Account
Once you login into your Google Places account, look for the create a tag link. Tag types available are based on the information you have available in your listing. The full list of tags includes:
Photos
Videos
Posts about your business
Link to your website
Reservations
Menus
Coupons
If you don’t see one of these tag types it means you will have to add the type of information to your listing. For example if you have not added video to your listing then you will need to add videos in order for this tag to be available.
Once you select the tag type you can proceed to billing and activate your listing. Your tag should show up on Google within a few hours.
Why Should I Test Google Tags?
The tags will not help your listings rank, but will help your listing stand out from competitors. You will also be able to track the effectiveness of your tags in the local business dashboard and modify your tags as necessary. This is a great way to promote coupons, offers and reviews.
Now that Google is offering a free trial of this feature, any local business owner should test local tags before your competitors do to see if this is something worth running in the future for the $25/month flat fee. If these tags help you get even one new customer a month and your profit on that customer is more than $25 than running Google Tags is no brainer.
Google has some great videos and additional details on how to get started.
Recently Google Places launched nationally and on Mobile, Google Tags, which allow business owners to highlight important aspects of their business within Googles local listings and maps. Adding these tags to your local listings is not typically free and costs a flat monthly fee of $25. Currently Google is offering a 30 day Free Trial for Google Tags, so this is a great time for local businesses to learn more about this feature and to give it a try as they are a powerful way for business owners to make their listings stand out within Google’s Local Listings.
What are Google Tags?
Below is an example of a Philadelphia Laser Hair Removal Center’s use of Google Tags.
As you can see in the example below, the addition of the Google tags helps Med Spa’s listing stand out from the competition.
If I click on the tag I am taken to the Coupon Page, screen shot below:
These tags also show up on Google Maps. When scrolled over on the map the details are shown as seen below:
How to Get Started With Google Tags:
To get started with Google Tags a business will need to set up a free Google Places Account
Once you login into your Google Places account, look for the create a tag link. Tag types available are based on the information you have available in your listing. The full list of tags includes:
Photos
Videos
Posts about your business
Link to your website
Reservations
Menus
Coupons
If you dont see one of these tag types it means you will have to add the type of information to your listing. For example if you have not added video to your listing then you will need to add videos in order for this tag to be available.
Once you select the tag type you can proceed to billing and activate your listing. Your tag should show up on Google within a few hours.
Why Should I Test Google Tags?
The tags will not help your listings rank, but will help your listing stand out from competitors. You will also be able to track the effectiveness of your tags in the local business dashboard and modify your tags as necessary. This is a great way to promote coupons, offers and reviews.
Now that Google is offering a free trial of this feature, any local business owner should test local tags before your competitors do to see if this is something worth running in the future for the $25/month flat fee. If these tags help you get even one new customer a month and your profit on that customer is more than $25 than running Google Tags is no brainer.
Are you in the middle of running a twitter campaign? Are you seeing significantly less twitter traffic than you were hoping? Before giving up on your twitter campaigns you should make sure that the data youre analyzing is accurate!
First lets check the traffic we are currently recording as twitter traffic, from the GA dashboard:
Open the Traffic Sources Report
Open the Referring Sites Report
Filter the source to include twitter.com
This should be all of my twitter referrals right? Nope! A Majority of twitter referrals will show up as Direct Traffic in Google Analytics!
Well how can this be?
Most twitter users do not use twitter.com itself; they use applications such as Tweetdeck. When a user clicks on a link in one of these 3rd party apps since they are not in a browser they do not send any referring information. When Google Analytics doesnt receive any referral information it puts all of these visits (your twitter referrals) into direct traffic.
Below is an advanced segment which shows this in action:
(Image no longer available)
You can clearly see that a small increase in twitter referrals can actually correspond to a much larger increase in direct traffic!
Fortunately there is a very easy way to fix this! Before you shorten the URL in twitter add the parameter utm_source=twitter, being careful to include the & or ? as necessary to mark this addition to the URL as a parameter. Now whenever anyone clicks on a link in a 3rd party app, the Google Analytics will record the visit as coming from twitter instead of as a direct visit.
Want more information than that? You can add another parameter such as utm_campaign=CAMPAIGNNAME switching out CAMPAIGNNAME for the name of the twitter campaign you are currently running. Now not only are you correctly tracking your twitter traffic but you are following Avinashs Rule Segment or Die!. This is particularly useful if you run more than one twitter campaign at once and need to be able to tell which of the campaigns is the most effective.
Have you launched any twitter campaigns recently? Did you tag the URLs correctly? Look back through your Google Analytics data and see if you get any spikes in direct traffic the same time you get spikes in twitter referrals. If so you may have under-estimated the value of your twitter campaign!
At SEER we pride ourselves on our SEO process and with good reason. From audits, to content creation and linking strategies, our step-by-step process for helping our clients grow rankings, traffic and conversions has been tweaked, revised and refined by some very talented individuals – most of whom post to this blog.
However, as with any process, there are times when we need to step outside the proverbial box and alter our strategies for a particular client. Whether its because of their own site limitations, the competitiveness in the industry, or our perceived change in the algorithms we often need to adjust our efforts to achieve success.
In this post I am going to outline a (relatively) quick way to analyze the competition to help you determine if you need to adjust your process. This will be the first part in a series of posts that will feature simple checks you can perform to help isolate the areas where your competition has a leg-up, and where you need to focus.
Disclaimer The following analysis uses Open Site Explorer, and is therefore limited in two ways.
First, you will need to be registered as a PRO member to perform the full export of 10k links. If you do not have a PRO account, you will be limited to up to 1k links.
Secondly, this export will be limited to 10k links. So if you are analyzing a competitor who has a significant number of links, please keep in mind that the analysis performed below will only apply to the 10k most valuable links, as determined by OSE.
Ok, now that the disclaimers are out of the way we can dive into the analysis. Given that this is the first tip in the series, I wanted to make sure that it provided significant value which is why well be looking at how your competitors are (or are not) beating you with anchor text targeted links.
Hypothetical – Lets say you were a search agency located in the great city of Philadelphia naturally youd probably want to rank for a term like philadelphia seo company right? Maybe youd also consider going after a much broader term like seo company too. Now lets also assume that you are new to the space, and arent quite sure what your competitors are doing. One of the first things we do here at SEER is to analyze how the top 10 SERP competitors are performing with targeted anchor text links and here is one way to do it.
First, run a search for your targeted KW for this example I will use seo company.
Next, catalog the top 10 SERPs and run each of them in Open Site Explorer. Be sure that you are only exporting followed links, from external sites. If you are out of the top 10, don’t forget to run your site as an additional export.
Once you have the data, the next step will be to copy all of the sheets into one workbook to allow you to view the data together. This is probably the most time consuming part of the process, but it is a good way to keep your research organized especially if you plan on running this type of analysis for multiple KWs where the SERPs vary. I organize the different sheets by naming them in order of appearance in the SERPs.
Now that you have all ten (or eleven) data exports in one workbook, your next step will be to calculate the number of exact and phrase match links that each site has. To do this, simply create a summary worksheet at the beginning of the workbook and paste the following functions to find the number of exact and phrase-match KWs your competitors have. (Note: The figures calculated will only represent the matching links in the first 1k or 10k links, depending on your access level in OSE).
Exact: =COUNTIF(‘SheetName’!C:C, “keyword”)
Phrase: =COUNTIF(‘SheetName’!C:C, “*keyword*”)
Next, I recommend that you plot the results in a graph to give you a good visual representation of where you stand in comparison. This will help you determine if this is an area where you are particularly strong or weak, and it can also help you understand the relationship between exact and phrase match anchor text, and how these impact rankings.
and just like that you have gained significant insight into your competition, and more importantly, determined if anchor text is an area where you are leading (less project time), on par (falls within standard process), or below average (need to adjust process!). This type of understanding will help you develop the right approach for each client or site you are working on and will hopefully give you some insight into the impact anchor links have on rankings (amongst hundreds of other factors). This was the first time I’ve looked at the data for ‘seo company’ – and already it looks like if you do not have the KW in your URL, targeted anchor text is likely a key factor for ranking (www.promodo.com looks like an outlier in this set). Time to get at it I suppose :)
To make things a bit easier I have uploaded a sample excel document that will calculate all of this for you! All you need to do is swap out the data for your keyword and be sure to take the data from OSE and paste it correctly in the appropriate sheets the numbers and graph will update automatically!
Note: You can alsocombine this spreadsheet with the link profile sheet posted on the SEOMoz blog. This sheet takes the same OSE data and analyzes the quality of inbound links based on Page Authority – giving you you two powerful data sets to play with.
Another note: While we now tap into the SEOMoz API and look at this data programmatically (huuuge thanks to @andrewburke86) this type of excel work proved to be invaluable when analyzing the competitive landscape and our project plan. In the next posts I will outline more ways to manipulate this data to drive strategy.
If you have any questions, excel tips, or another way to pull this info feel free to drop a line in the comments section below!
Last November, Google introduced Ad Sitelinks, a feature enabling Adword’s users to add up to four additional links to their advertisement. Sitelinks gives advertisers an opportunity to direct traffic to multiple landing pages on their website, which will, according to Google, increase the infamous click-through-rate (CTR) on average by more than 30%. The Sitelinks appear under the normal advertisement in list form, making the entire ad space larger. Sitelinks have only been made available to branded campaigns thus far, and those campaigns meeting the following qualifications:
1. Your ad is in the first position above the search results
2. Your ad has a substantially higher CTR than any other ad on the page
3. Your ad site links URL direct users to pages that are part of your main site
As with any other new ad feature, tool, beta, mechanism, etc. we couldn’t help but conduct our own analysis to find out the true effect of this new Sitelinks phenomenon. We know that Google promised an increase in CTR, but as professional online marketers, we couldn’t ignore sitelink’s impact on conversions, CPA, and overall cost. Even though CTR does hold a strong place in our hearts, every marketer knows that clients would rather see an increase in conversions than CTR.
So, we dove right in. Here at SEER, we launched Sitelinks for eight of our clients branded campaigns over the past year. After letting the campaigns run for several months, we pulled reports for each campaign to uncover any apparent advantages or disadvantages of Sitelinks. The success of the Sitelinks has been measured by each campaigns CTR, conversions, total cost, and CPA before and after the addition of Sitelinks.
Findings
CTR and Conversions
As shown in the table above, Sitelinks has proven to be most effective in improving CTR of each branded campaign. After adding Sitelinks, all campaigns except Client 2, showed an increase in CTR ranging from anywhere from a 0.77% to an 80% increase. After the implementation of Sitelinks, many of the campaigns experienced an increase in conversions; Client 1 saw a 189% increase. Three out of the eight campaigns experienced a decrease in conversions. While no one prefers to see any decrease in conversions, Client 6 only experienced a slight decrease of 0.34%. Below you will see a graph of Client 1′s CTR vs. Conversions on a steady upward trend:
Cost and CPA
The addition of Sitelinks has triggered an unpredictable pattern in total cost. About half of the campaigns experienced an increase in cost, regardless of change in CTR. All clients except for clients 5 and 6 experienced a decrease in CPA after the development of Sitelinks. The increase in CPA for these clients can be traced to their decrease in conversions. For example, Client 4 experiences a 17% increase in conversions, and a resulting 6% decrease in CPA.
Analysis
After careful analysis in Adwords and Excel, it is evident that, once again, Google is correct! The implementation of Sitelinks has been most successful in increasing the CTR of branded campaigns across the majority of our clients.
But, why?
From a marketer’s perspective, Sitelinks epitomizes the two features desired most by customers: control and efficiency. The strong improvement in CTR suggests that users are more likely to click on ads when multiple landing page options are available. By utilizing Sitelinks, the user has more control over their landing page destination and can decrease navigation time through the desired website. They know that if a Sitelinks says “about the product,” they will land on a page that tells them “about the product.” Sitelinks improves efficiency of internet research and shopping, which the distracted consumer craves.
While it was exciting to see an increase in CTR for most of our clients, we couldn’t ignore the demise of other important metrics. Unfortunately, the increase in CTR did not correlate to an increase in conversions for all of the campaigns. Even though three of our clients experienced an increase or maintained their CTR, they saw a decrease in conversions. This decrease in conversions, however, does not necessarily indicate a lack of success in the campaign. For example, even though one campaign experienced a drop in conversions after Sitelinks was added, both CTR and conversion rate remained constant. Overall, users converted as frequently, but there were fewer clicks on advertisements.
Of course, when analyzing any search campaign, we cannot ignore outside or external factors. As professional marketers, we constantly tweak ad copy, battle sudden changes in budget, and adapt to landing page edits, etc. Because of this, it is hard to blame a decrease in conversions on the addition of Sitelinks, or just one factor in general. The decrease in conversions experienced by those three campaigns can be attributed to a variety of reasons. A few weve thought of specific to our test campaigns follow:
Appearance
We can’t lie – the ads with Sitelinks look a lot sweeter. They’re larger and place at the top of the page, generally an unbeatable combination for search success. Because the ad incorporates different landing page options, it appears more similar to the organic searches – a possible reason as to why more users may initially be drawn to the site. User’s who do not normally click on sponsored search ads may find this appearance more inviting and legitimate and click on these links more frequently than sponsored ads without Sitelinks. Unfortunately, while the ad does look cooler, it may be attracting more unqualified clicks mainly because it is overpowering, not necessarily because its product or service is more relevant.
Purchase Cycle and Decisions
Sometimes, a drop metrics really isn’t your fault. When analyzing metrics it is important to follow the news and note the purchase cycle and type of product or service offered. Users searching for branded terms may only be in the research phase of the purchase cycle. Additionally, depending on the type of product or service, cost, and commitment level, it may take the user a longer time to convert. For example, Clients 5 and 6, located in the financial and education verticals, offer services which often require a lot of research and consideration before conversion. Therefore, the user already may be looking for more general information about the brand, and not necessarily ready to convert right away. Below you will see Client 5′s trend with an increase in CTR and decrease in Conversions:
Product/Service
Problems that may arise with the marketed product or service have the ability to negatively impact sales even with a successful PPC campaign. As a marketer, our main job is to highlight the benefits of a client’s product or service in order to (hopefully) drive sales. We have no control over the product features, the manufacturing, or regulations surrounding the product; all of which have the ability to positively or negatively affect sales. For example, Client 7, located in the eCommerce vertical, relies on multiple manufacturers to consistently stock their supplies which they sell through the web. Sometimes we must pause ads and ad groups due to delays in re-stock, which can obviously contribute to a decrease in sales. Below you can see a graph of Client 7′s Conversions vs. CTR. Although there was an overall increase in conversions, you can still see a few dips in conversions after the addition of Sitelinks in November 2009, which correlate to product/manufacturing issues:
Seasonality
Seasonality of a company’s products or services may have affected the decrease in conversions, especially for one of our clients. Client 6, located in the educational vertical, added Sitelinks in December 2009, and saw a decrease in conversions through June. This decline may relate more to the season and cycle of school applications rather than the addition of Sitelinks itself. Check out a Google Insights search for the term online colleges. You can see the trend here follows a similar pattern spiking in January, trending down toward summer, and re-spiking in August. Below in a graph of Client 6′s CTR vs. Conversions, you will see a dip in conversions during the winter and spring months:
Branded Campaigns
Because this analysis was conducted online on branded campaigns, it is hard to evaluate the true impact of Sitelinks as we are working with an audience base that is already aware of the client and likely to know what it is they need on their website.
With the addition of Sitelinks, most of our client’s sites received the promised increase in CTR, although conversions did not necessarily improve as a direct result. Of course, various outside factors may have also played a role in all metrics. Overall, there did not appear to be any blatant disadvantages in enabling Sitelinks for branded campaigns. The key is to start off small, evaluate the strategy and if it works for you expand it for greater success!
