We are all aware that Google is constantly testing new ideas for ads to improve user experience: more sitelinks, less sitelinks. One-line sitelinks, two-line sitelinks. Display URL in headline, description line 1 in the headline. Display URL below the headline, below the ad text. You get the idea. Most of these are out of our control, but you have some ability to increase your chances to be ‘opted in’ to some (e.g., ending your first description line in punctuation for extended headlines).
Well they’re at it again, and this time it’s for mobile devices. Everyone knows that mobile is blowing up faster than Ridiculously Photogenic Guy so it comes as no surprise that Google wants to create the best user experience there as well.
One of the most universal best practices for mobile is to be focused – short and sweet, to the point. User behavior is wildly different than desktops, and most aren’t wasting time researching products. They want actions… now. Which brings us to Google’s new mobile ad format.
After performing a search on my phone, the new results hit me:
I thought to myself, when did they start displaying three paid listings? Then I noticed the ad text was missing in two of three. Let’s discuss the “missing” ad text.
“Missing” Ad Text
In our previous screenshot, the first ad is a call-only creative, the second is using ad extensions, while the third seems to be your typical ad although its text is cut off. However, not every ad has ad text (description lines 1 and 2). Now, Google is now displaying arrows next to each:
This will expand the ad to display the text upon clicking:
I believe this was likely implemented to allow for three paid ads without taking up more real estate, but that’s a whole other discussion. I want to focus on two items I discussed earlier – better user experience and being focused (i.e., goal-oriented).
With these new ads, there is no more weeding through value props or comparing discounts. These changes are forcing the advertiser to be ACTION-oriented. Call NOW. Get a quote NOW. I believe this is where Google is heading with mobile ads. Which leads us to…
How does this impact my mobile strategy?
First off, let’s not write off ad text completely – this is only a test and may not even roll out to all ads. But with this new ad format, you should be using extensions to your advantage and rethinking what extensions should be used. An extension that’s implemented in your desktop campaign may not be ideal for mobile devices so don’t start cloning all your ad extensions just yet.
Let’s take a closer look at the second ad in our example:
This advertiser is using both call & sitelink extensions. Not only are they using extensions, but using them in a way to place their goals in front of the user. A user searching furniture shipping could call or get a quote instantly by just clicking these links, unlike our unlucky fellow in the third position:
Not only is this unfortunate advertiser not capitalizing on ad extensions, but they also have their text cut off – text that someone likely spent hours developing and testing. Maybe even days.
My point: use action-oriented ad extensions. If Google plans to cut off your ad text, and place more emphasis on ad extensions, then capitalize on that. They are easy to set up, and provide the opportunity to convert in less clicks; sometimes as little as one click. Lastly, use them in a way to create a better user experience. Get your goals in front of your potential leads and start seeing more money NOW!
Have any ideas on how Google’s new ad format will affect your mobile strategy? Please share below.
Thought I’d do a little something for the newbies today! There is a (not so fine) line between spam and adding value. For so long people looked at Wikipedia and spammed it for link juice, thank GOD for no-follow or could you imagine what wikipedia would look like?
Inbound Marketers, SEO’s whatever you want to call us are looking to drive relevant traffic, and Wikipedia can be a great source (no-follow or not) of that but also link value. Wikipedia is a top destination for research and I would imagine that as people find information there, a fraction of them end up having that research ends up on the web and in other trusted sources.
Remember guys one thing I am talking about is ADDING VALUE. There is a massive difference between spamming a forum and leaving a quality comment with a link. If you are unsure, this is spam that I zap on my forum all about Philadelphia.
This is not:
With that definition lets move on to show you how this can work for you.
#1 reason why you should look at Wikipedia before developing “quality content” – if the Wikipedia page is actually quality, it will likely have some reference links. This gives you a rough idea on the types of assets that the editors let fly and stick.
As I scrolled through each of the resources above, I started to get an idea of the “right” type of content that would fit. Make sure you keep your Mozbar on, so you can see how many links these reosurces are getting on their own. Seeing that not too many had a ton of links, I thought this would be easier to add value as the resources there were not blockbuster by any chance. I did find one resource that has insane links:
Uh oh – a crappy set of links indeedy – false positive – feel free to do your own look up in Majestic or SEOmoz to find the aggressive garbage here, but this post is not about why garbage like this works.
Use this as a way to get your boss/client an idea on how many links you may be able to get over time based on other resources there. That is the real exercise here is to try to get an idea on how many links I can expect to get over time.
So lets throw the spam idea out of our minds and dig into how you can use this for yourself.
Researching the opportunity
My first question was do people enter “informational style” queries?
I am looking for “what is” [keyword] style queries here – using ubersuggest . Sure enough I find a lot of “definition style queries” telling me I am in a research ripe niche.
You’ll also notice that jobs and taxation are huge areas of research, yet in the Wikipedia page there is nothing about taxation in the references, can you say, resource RIPE opportunity?
When looking at the Wikipedia page, above also look at the dates of the resources, nothing newer than 2010, and even those are OK, but far from the definitive resource.
Getting the data
Now its time to go and run some searches to see if I can find some data to borrow and cite in my research, try a query like this (h/t @ethanlyon):
You’ll end up with resources left and right, hint used the advanced search for .PDF and .XLS and you’ll find even more (and don’t forget searches in places like scribd.
Your work has already been done!! You just need to aggregate it, making the “pitch” a lot easier.
Now you should develop your asset and go submit to wikipedia, right? WRONG!
Just like any marketer, you need to develop a marketing plan, which I’ll cover later in a second article as this piece is already getting long, but you’ll need to scour twitter, twitter directories, blogger directories, and backlinks to other expat resources, looking who has linked to popular pages is a great call too (see below), and develop a mini-marketing plan for your asset.
Now before you do a thing, run a search on wikipedia and go find some way to add value to the other pages that have little content or outdated content. you’ll be given instant opportunities to add value.
Matt Cutts recently announced during a panel with Danny Sullivan (recapped at SearchEngineLand) that Google would be working on a penalty for over optimized sites.
I’m pulling three items discussed and the translation that went on in my head.
Quote: “We are trying to make GoogleBot smarter, make our relevance better…”
Translation: We’re seeing sites succeed through off topic in content link buys. An example would be a post about pet medications and linking out to car seats because the article talks about not having to set up car seats & packing the whole family into the car when you need to buy pet medications. These types of links are working at the moment and I’m hoping this is Google getting relevance down better so these types of low level link buys won’t work.
Issue: Anyone can build these spammy links. You could easily sink a competitor if you spent $5k and drowned them with on topic links in off topic posts. It’ll be interesting to see how Google can apply this as a site penalty vs just penalize the sites selling these links.
Quote: “…looking for those who abuse it, like too many keywords on a page…”
Translation: You know those sites that have a nice homepage, but then you look below the footer and there’s 8 paragraphs of keywords stuffed content? Yeah, this applies to those sites. It makes no sense to have a footer with more content below it than above it.
Issue: This could be a great addition to an over optimization penalty. The only issue I’m seeing is if it lumps in companies with a long disclosure at the end of every page. The fact that it would be at the end of every page should help Google be able to parse those out.
Quote: “…or exchange way too many links or go well beyond what you normally expect.”
Translation: There are a natural amount of reciprocal links for sites. You have customers you link out to & they link back, partners who sell complementary products & links to the BBB that will link back to the site. There is a threshold for reciprocals and they’re dialing it down. The reciprocal link radar at Google might go off right now when that percentage of total links is at 25% or 15% or 5% right now, but I’m reading this as Google raising flags at a lower percentage.
Issue: Large client lists that link out could be an issue if you’re an email marketing service or provide wp themes. I’m sure there is a better example, but those are the first two that came to mind.
This over optimization penalty could never happen. Google has rolled back other plans after finding that they weren’t a fit. The above is total speculation and I could be way off, but digging into SEO day in & day out I wouldn’t be surprised to see one of these included into the potential upcoming over optimization penalty.
You can follow me at @adammm as I’ll be updating in our blog if we see any new developments.
What is the downside of asking questions that will get links?
1. Where did you attend high school/college/graduate school?
The types of links I’ll be looking for are:
a. Alumni spotlights b. Alumni updates c. Alumni donations d. Entrepreneurial classes/marketing classes to offer an appearance in person or via skype e. Regional alumni websites f. Events to sponsor on campus
2. Who owes you a favor in or out of your industry?
Straight up, seeing who they can ask for a link. It may be a buddy who has a blogroll without them in it, an old interview that has no link, a complementary business with a testimonial section, or something I’m not thinking of.
3. Where do they volunteer time & what is their favorite charity?
a. Find sponsors & donation sections of these charity sites & see if they’ll donate for a link. b. Donate on behalf of your client during the holidays instead of sending a cheesy gift. c. Is there a story to pitch to a local blogger or news station about the president or the company working with a charity? You’re not good at SEO if you’re not willing to do some PR.
4. What previous business did they work at or help start?
a. Can they get a link from them? b. Were they in the position long enough that they can still be considered an authority on that subject (could have guest posts in 2 verticals)? c. Did someone interview them while they were at that company who would be willing to interview them at the current company?
5. Can you provide me with your LinkedIn login info?
a. What influential people are they already connected to? b. What are the possibilities for a guest post with someone on there?
6. What clubs did you belong to in college & what is your favorite sports team?
Find out how to sponsor a fraternity, sorority or club team. You say the funds might not be there to pay (shudder) for a sponsorship? What about paying for t-shirts, stickers, whatever it is to get a link there. T-shirts sound like a lot of money, but for a 25 person sorority, it’s around $200.
7. Is public acknowledgement of employee successes & contributions to the company important?
If the answer is no, you probably have a terrible job. Here’s the linkbait: Do a press release on an entry level employee or anyone who doesn’t have a title starting with a capital C, V, or manager. Praise them for the job they do. Highlight any activities out of work that help make them a great person. Something like this hasn’t crossed my radar, but I would 100% link to a press release about a warehouse worker who recently received a raise or promotion.
It could be gain tons of links, it might flop without testing this idea yet. Has this been done and I’ve missed it?
8. Can you identify your ethnic background and religious affiliations? Have you ever served in the military?
a. If they’re Christian, find Christian blogs/business blogs interested in an interview or guest post. If they’re Polish, find blogs specific to Polish businessmen & businesswomen. If they’re an atheist, find an angle to pitch at atheist sites. There’s almost always an angle that’s there or that can be created. b. We have a client right now where we found the VP of marketing was in the army AND a former superintendent of a school district. His linkability just shot up big time as soon as we catch him for 5 minutes (Wil covers the idea of only needing 5 minutes for linking).
9. Can we talk for less than ten minutes about what you love about your industry and how you handle work and time with your family?
a. Google voice record it, you now have two guest posts; one for an industry site and one for a family site. b. Even if you can’t find a link for this content, you at least know what drives & motivates the president.
I won’t believe it if there are no links to get after you ask these questions. Even if there’s only 2-3, you’ve taken the time to find easy linking opportunities and you also know a TON more about the person who is making decisions.
If you haven’t yet, follow me at @adammm and @seerinteractive for more linkbuilding, SEO & PPC info.
Will the addition of social create the perfect search eco system? I have my doubts….
(I should preface this by saying these thoughts are my own and not representative of SEER Interactive as a whole.)
Last week I began writing this post based around something Rand Fishkin said in his article about buying blogs:
“Google’s webspam team has all the incentive, brainpower and money in the world, yet their bets seem to be centered firmly on Google+ and the social graph eventually subsuming the “natural” results with those biased to what our friends and connections share/+1.”
Then Yesterday, SEER CEO Wil Reynolds posted an article on SEOMoz discussing the truth about engagement and value vs. backlinks when it comes to rankings. Using examples of search results in the SEO industry, Wil broke down how big name SEO companies were being beat by lesser known competitors who are using heavy anchor text backlinking. I thought it was a great article but I noticed a similar sentiment to Rand’s opinion in the comments which was that many SEO’s are looking forward to the day when social integration hits and gets rid of those pesky backlink spammers and their unfair rankings for good.
My initial reaction to this idea is that if you think “rankings spam” is bad now then just wait until social signals really play a role. The massive potential that exists for buying +1′s, circle’s and other social factors is quite frightening to think about.
I know, I know, it’s just going to be sources from users you “trust” right? I certainly hope so but Google also tells us not to buy links and that rankings should come from quality content that is linked to naturally and not hundreds of directory links with keyword anchor text. We all know how that works out though…
What I would like to consider is, what if general +1′s and gross number of users in circle’s become a significant factor in the ranking algorithm?
I think the SEO community is as close to as perfect an example as you can get for an area where social integration will have a net positive effect on search results. It is important for us to stay engaged and on top of what is going on in the industry. We read articles to improve our skill sets and share what we know to give back and help grow our reputation’s. We will +1 an article we love and add the writer to our circle’s. This is one of the best examples of a fully integrated ecosystem I can think of. The only problem I see is that it might give us rose colored glasses when considering how social would actually integrate in other industries.
Who wants to +1 the site they ordered their first insulin pump from because they just contracted type II diabetes? Will most people add to circle’s the author whose articles they have been reading about how to declare bankruptcy? Will a busy mom take the time to actually engage with her favorite brand of wood floor cleaner or cold medicine? These and countless other industries are valuable to consumers and benefit from search results that return quality and relevant content. They are not however something most people want to share with others. In fact I would wager that overall the majority of industries in existence do not naturally evoke social engagement.
That’s why I think applying social signals as a powerful rankings factor across the board will not improve the quality of search results overall.
Facebook has over 800 million users who spend an average of 8 hours per month on the site an astounding 4x as much time as an average Google search user. Facebook is the undisputed king of social networks and for years brands have been trying to get a slice of that pie and connect with their customers.
I find it extremely interesting than that in a recent article from Ad age they reported on a study that showed over a large sample of major brands that user engagement was only 1.3%. Even more surprising is what that 1.3% represents:
”If you subtract new likes, which only requires a click and in the minds of the researchers are akin to TV ratings, and isolate for more engaged forms of interaction, you’re left within an even smaller number: 0.45%. That means less than half a percent of people who identify themselves as like a brand actually bother to create any content around it.” – Study: Only 1% of Facebook ‘Fans’ Engage With Brands
In another article on the same subject, Ad Age delves deeper into the Facebook user engagement for what they consider “sexy” brands or one’s who have historically had passionate customers.
“Looking at 10 passion brands — including Nike, Old Spice, Harley-Davidson, Porsche, Ford Mustang, Jack Daniels and Tiffany & Co. — the researchers found an average engagement of 0.66% The average engagement for the 10 brands with the largest fan bases was 0.36%… Only one brand of the entire 200 in the analysis got an engagement level of 2%” – Even Sexy Brands Struggle With Low Engagement on Facebook
Can Your Brand Compete With This?
I have at least five friends who have shelled out money for a Jack Daniel’s t-shirt and I bet half the SEER office has watched one of the Old Spice guy’s YouTube clips. Yet these popular brands are struggling to engage users on Facebook, the site where people by far spend more time than anywhere else on the web.
If these mega brands are struggling then what hope do industries where social interaction doesn’t fit have of sending Google signals of “natural” and “trusted” user engagement? If Google implements an algorithm that is looking for those signals, what will happen to the rankings of the #1 nose hair trimmer when no one wants to share that they just bought one?
Some might say that Google will show the regular organic search results and if the industry isn’t social then the social part of the algorithm won’t have an effect.
I would argue that it is more likely that other social factors will take up that space. If it’s not users in your circle’s that have made the recommendation then it may move on to the site with the most +1′s or the most users in their circle’s as a whole. We have already seen in the Google+ your world search many results show up on the sidebar based primarily on how many circle’s they are in.
Think about the way links are evaluated now. If you are in a niche where you will never get a link from CNN, Tech Crunch, Rolling Stone or even a highly reputable blogger then who wins in the rankings? Right now in many cases it’s the site’s willing to buy anchor spam on hundreds of low value sites. That tactic is even winning in highly competitive niches!
So if Google makes the shift and includes a social component in their algorithm what makes you think it will work perfectly and only include your trusted sources? I think a sliding scale that starts with your most trusted sources and goes down to other options like most +1′s, circle’s, recent Google+ page updates, etc. is much more likely.
It would be unreasonable to try and say what weight social could have on the algorithm. Let’s say for arguments sake that it is significant. What would stop me from…
Paying a celebrity with millions of Google+ fans to add my clients page to their circle’s for a large fee, dwarfing the reach of my competitors (similar to paying them for a tweet).
Use Amazon’s mechanical turk to have hundreds or thousands of people +1 a post for a few pennies each.
Create farmed out circle accounts where thousands of people through Fiverr or other services help build up fake accounts so those accounts have thousands of followers. Then use those built up accounts to follow my clients site’s improving their reach, scope and rankings. (similar to a link pyramid).
Then instead of complaining about black hats and their linking tactics SEO’s will be hollering because of artificial user engagement and the rankings benefit it’s causing. I can hear it now “I create quality content for my customers but I am getting beat out by best-spam-site-ever.com who’s buying thousands of Google circle’s and +1′s, it’s not fair”.
The point is, the barrier to entry for social media accounts is extremely low. At least with content farms and link pyramids those people have to buy hosting, add some sort of content and backlink profile to their site before loading it up with anchor text links. With social media, anyone can join and aggregating thousands of accounts or users could very well become the norm.
At its worst, this could create a whole new resources, time and ROI suck for SEO’s and our clients. Throw in the fact that top rankings would no longer be standardized making it harder to predict and judge your traffic and you have a potential nightmare.
I can easily envision a day three years down the road where SEO’s are sitting around talking about the good old days when the only thing they had to worry about was anchor text linking spam.
What do you think? Will you be happy to see a full on social integration? Do you see social integration as another cost that could lead to a lower ROI for you and your clients? Am I totally off base here or am I a level 32 wizard who can predict the future?
During a recent review of keyword research for one of our new ecommerce clients I was introduced to the concept of revenue by keyword group. The concept is pretty simple – gather a solid amount of organic data from GA assuming you have it (preferably from one calendar year to avoid missing seasonal trends) and begin to bucket those keywords in excel to get a clear picture of which keyword groups are performing best.
You can look at bounce rate, time on site, page views and of course, conversions. With some simple excel formulas you can even get a sense of which groups are most profitable on a revenue/visit basis – which is powerful info if you have a wide variety of products, brands or price points on your site.
When thinking about a sneaker retailer you could theoretically begin to make the case that mens adidas soccer cleats is a more profitable area than say, womens reebok basketball shoes. When you throw ranking data into the mix the data becomes even more clear since you can see areas where you have high profitability and sub-optimal rankings.
Assuming you have limited resources for your campaign, it makes perfect sense to try to find a numerical basis for deciding where to focus from a keyword perspective. Revenue by keyword group also helps you steer clients away from the mindset that they need to rank for that crazy competitive one word or two word phrase that may take away from your long-tail, high revenue keyword groupings…but should you?
While revenue/keyword is powerful and revenue/keyword-group is arguably more powerful, it is critical to remember that GA data only accounts for last-click transactions. How many transactions do you think are made via one, single search or touch? Furthermore, how much revenue could you be missing out if you choose to ignore or shift focus away from those high volume, short-tail phrases your client contact is so jazzed about?
Thankfully one client at SEER has attribution tracking in place, so we can see exactly what we’re missing when we only have last-click data to analyze. In their case, out of all transactions for January only 20% converted off of one non-branded organic touch – proving that the majority of transactions are performed only after a customer has hit the site multiple times (either through organic, ppc, display or email in this case). That % should not surprise anyone who works in ecomm or who is an online shopper – the fact is that most people browse, refine searches, click ads and click emails before buying. I’m not saying you’ll see an 80/20 split on every site, but in general the higher the price point is, the more people will do their research before buying.
When looking at the difference between last-click attribution (comparable to GA data) and multi-click attribution (taking all touches into account) we saw a 15% difference in organic, non-branded revenue…showing that the true value of our organic rankings were in fact higher than we were reporting in GA. Not only did we see that organic was helping other channels, we also saw that the biggest gaps in multi-click revenue vs last-click revenue were the highest volume keywords in the mix, all ranging between 2 and 3 words.
So what did we learn? We learned (for a fact) that the short-tail, high volume queries do play a major role in driving revenue even though we couldn’t necessarily see that in GA (last-click data showed tons of traffic, but crap conversion metrics). We also learned that ignoring those keywords could prove to be a costly mistake since they serve as the gateway for many of the more refined, long-tail and branded searches and as a key contributor for other channels.
The main takeaway here is that last-click conversion data should always be approached with caution, particularly in e-commerce and even more so w/ products that are expensive. While steering your client away from terms like soccer cleats might yield a short-term lift for long-tail queries, if their position for the short-tail completely evaporates you can expect the long-tail and other channels to take a significant hit in the long-run.
If anyone has taken a similar dive into attribution I’d love to hear about it – sadly I have not seen many sites who have proper attribution tracking so our exposure to this type of analysis is somewhat limited by the availability of the data set.
SEOmoz’s API has gotten very popular recently. Last month they updated their API limits to make sure that their popularity isn’t going to bring down their servers. With the new limits, Tom’s original tool would cause rate limit errors and with Google Docs’s 1 hour caching, you would have to wait an hour before you can start again.
What’s been updated?
Simplified Setup
I simplified the setup. Everything you need to setup is now in a “Settings” sheet. All you have to do is:
1. Get your SEOmoz API member ID and secret key
2. Paste your member ID and secret key into the “Settings” sheet
Fewer rate limit errors
Using batch mode means you will get fewer rate limit errors if you need to get metrics for multiple URLs. This works by making calls to the API in batches of 10.
Don’t worry. Sending in batches is recommended by SEOmoz so you’re not breaking any rules (see: SEOmoz’s API documentation).
You might get still get errors with > 40-50 URLs because Google Docs might timeout. It’s not SEOmoz’s fault. It’s a Google Doc limitation. You should actually be writing your own code if you need that many metrics anyway.
How to use
1. Create a column with URLs you want to get metrics for.
2. Then use the function =getLinkscape( ... ) and select all the URLs you need metrics for.
The easy way is to type out =getLinkscape( — up to the left parenthesis, then highlight all your URLs with your mouse. In my example, I selected all three cells.
If you select more than 10 the function will automatically get metrics from SEOmoz’s API in batches of 10. You can select as few or as many as you want but selecting in multiples of 10 will be is most efficient for the API.
3. Press enter, and the rest of the cells will fill themselves in. Magic!
Actually, not so much magic. Just code.
The function will give you all nine decimal places for the metrics (in case you actually need them). In the above example, I formated the numbers to two decimal places and made things look nice for the screenshot. From this point forward, I’m sure you can make it look great.
Quick Tips
Copy and paste values: After getting the data you want, select everything and paste the values back in the same place. This way, the sheet won’t need to call the API again, it will already have the data.
Select URLs in multiples of 10: For example, select 30 URLs at once. This is most efficient for the API.
Thanks and I hope this helps speed things up for you. I’m usually found on Twitter @djchrisle
you’ll be given 
