A short time ago Google officially launched a change to their algorithm targeting websites that are cluttered with paid advertisements above the fold. According to Inside Search the Google update “looks at the layout of a webpage and the amount of content you see on the page once you click on a result”
Sites that have little quality content above the fold will be most affected by the change.

A bad user experience results from visiting a website and being presented with poor quality content, excessive advertisements making site navigation confusing and difficult, or requiring the user to scroll down the page in order to read the website content. This is something Google is trying to punish by introducing this algorithmic update. Moving forward these types of sites might not rank as highly.

The algorithm change does not affect sites that place ads above the fold to a normal degree. The change will affect sites where there is a small amount of visible content above the fold and/or relevant content is pushed down by ads.

Google asserts that websites that implement ads to a normal degree will not be affected by the change, with only around 1% of all searches impacted. But how do you determine a ‘normal degree’?

Google recommends using the Browser Size tool, along with other chrome based tools that demonstrate just how much on screen real estate is being occupied by advertisements.

Impact on SEO

On paper the new algorithm change could be viewed as a good thing, with less ads meaning more relevant quality content, right? But this raises a question about whether or not Ads can be considered irrelevant content.

What about Google themselves? A large proportion of Paid Search ads appear above the fold before the user has to scroll down to reach the natural listings. Using their own logic the Ads would appear further down SERP results.

Danny Sullivan has touched on whether Google’s own search results are top heavy in an interesting and informative blog post on Search Engine Land.

On the above image the yellow box washed out and blends into the white of the natural listings. Is this deceptive or misleading?

The response from Google regarding the algorithm change was that “this is a site-based algorithm that looks at all pages across an entire site in aggregate. Although it is possible to find a few searches on Google that trigger many ads, it is vastly more common to have no ads or few ads on a page.

This algorithm change is designed to demote sites that make it difficult for a user to get to the content and offer a bad user experience. Having an ad above the fold does not imply that you are affected by this change. It is excessive behavior that Google are working to avoid for users.”

Danny asked the question how Google knows what an ad is.

“Google have a variety of signals that algorithmically determine what type of ad or content appears above the fold. It is completely algorithmic in its detection. Google do not use a hard coded list of ad providers.”

Conclusion

This change is one of over 500 Google expect to roll out to search this year. From an SEO perspective the update is another facet in the equation which must be considered.

It is probably too early to consider completely revamping your paid advertisement strategy, but it is worth keeping it in the back of your mind and using common sense. Continuing to deliver relevant content and the best possible user experience is always the best practice recommendation for web users.

Content will always be king, long live the king.

There was a major advertisement battle last year in India. It was about the “Mystery Shampoo” and if it was the number 1 shampoo.

Around July 23rd, P&G Pantene came up with the idea of Mystery Shampoo. It was on TV, web, blogs and print but nobody really knew what it was. The idea was to build buzz about the “mystery” theme, finally ending with a big reveal that it was Pantene.

There was just one hitch with their plan: their biggest competitor. There had been hints of the Mystery Shampoo campaign before it launched, and just a few days later on July 28th, Dove came out with a counter advertisement “There is no mystery. Dove is the No. 1 Shampoo.” Any buzz that Pantene was trying to build was ruined and Dove reaped all of the rewards from this campaign. This is a classic example of smart entrapping of a competitor in marketing.

So what went wrong with Mystery Shampoo?

• Gave hints about campaign even before launch
• Too much time between tease and reveal
• Gave enough time for smart competitor to cash-in on the opportunity

Cautions and Some Tips

• Teasers extended to long durations can be put brand at risk
• Don’t give hints to your competitors
• Don’t use incorrect statistics (you can and will be sued by competitors!)
• Guard yourself for defence before you go out to attack a competitor
• Create good memory about brand by using strong visual effects. Build a story. Build curiosity.
• Your product should be available in market when you launch/reveal the campaign. A teaser is all about building curiosity and expectation which ultimately leads to purchase
• When you create expectations, make sure that your delivery meets those expectations
• Use different mediums to maximize your exposure. Make the best use of social circles
• It is worth making big noise when you are ending your campaign

It is one of Google’s most dramatic search updates; integrating personal/social search and website content all in its patented search algorithm. Introducing Search Plus Your World!

Rather than going through the list of its features (which you can find out by searching here) and discussing Google’s latest antitrust law breaches, let’s dive into the bigger scheme of Google’s intent with Search Plus Your World and its implications for SEO.

Who Knew Swimming with Sharks in Australia would be so awesome?

I’m sure a lot of people these days know that there are awesome things to do , if you search hard enough for it. Care to swim with the sharks in Australian waters?

However, it is more than likely people would only try something new & awesome (like swimming with sharks) through trusted recommendations from personal connections via word of mouth, rather than simply reading it online. Here’s how Search Plus Your World actually comes into the picture.

The Lead up to Search Plus Your World

Search Plus Your World is the missing piece of the social media puzzle that has brought together Google’s attempt in delivering a rich and useful “Google” content experience to search engine users, positioned for businesses. This is through organising content by named entities i.e. people, places in search results, rather than content only provided by website owners.

The past few years have also seen many product inclusions in Google’s SERP’s (with many failures) which have brought them to this point, including:

• Google Social Search.
• Google Rich Snippets.
• Google Buzz.
• Google Plus One Button.
• Google +.
• The Google Bar UI Change.

However to provide a clear distinction between personalised/social search & web content, other changes were required to “clean up” its SERP landscape.

• Google Panda Updates – lowering search engine rankings for websites with low-quality content.
• The introduction of schema.org – rich mark-up to provide more structured data to search engines.
• Expanded Site links – Most often for brand queries to provide even more relevant results for users
• Improving search filters for other Google verticals, particularly image & social results.
• Implementation of the authorship tag – To associate content with named entities.
• Query Encryption (SSL) on Google.com – To protect personalised search query data.
• A toggle to distinguish between personalised/social search and website results – Search Plus Your World (as below)

Search Plus Your World for SEO Impact

Basically, the use of Search Plus Your World will allow search users to find content based on:

• Google+ content from your circles.
• Related people and pages from Google+.
• Photos from you and your friends.
• Profiles in search.

So what does this change mean for businesses depending on Google for their website traffic?

All users signed in to their Google account will see the personalised results as the default. At the moment there are observations from SEO professionals i.e. John Doherty suggesting Google is hiding local listings for personalised results. Danny Sullivan also demonstrates no Adwords results, as they are currently being replaced by Google+ brand pages.

Raven Tools co founder & CPO Jon Henshaw provides a great summary of its impact.

“In theory, it will provide more relevant search results that have been pre-screened by trusted connections.
1. Your participation and GPA in G+ will influence some of the search results for other people.
2. Your participation will not affect the search results for the majority of people doing searches outside your network, with your GPA being the possible exception, assuming it has some impact on the algorithm.”

Overall, for the time being, the quality of personalised results has not made any significant contributions to Search Plus Your World. This is due to the lack of engagement by Google+ users and the adoption rate of the Google Authorship tag.

Search Plus Your World for SEO Recommendations

It is clear that Google+ reinforces Search Plus Your World. Since other social media channels i.e. Twitter and Facebook aren’t integrated in Google, this places an ever greater emphasis of playing by Google’s rules.

Here a few tips for businesses to get ahead of the game:

1. Treat your Google+ profile like a website – ensure it includes all relevant yet optimised information about you. Include links on your profile back to your website.
2. Create a Google + Brand page and become an active member to become influential in other users circles.
3. Include targeted keywords in all Google+ posts to increase the likelihood of it being found in search.
4. Treat +1’s like quality backlinks. Only link to content that is worth sharing with your personal connections. SEO managers should focus on gaining high quality links for a website, as this will influence the authority of a Google+ page.
5. If blogging is a part of your SEO strategy, it is important to implement the authorship tag by linking it to your Google+ profile. This will help your profile gain more authority on Google.

Final Thoughts on Search Plus Your World

Even though Google is trying to make this a central part of what they do, it is my opinion that they have brought this latest update too soon. Like other newly introduced products, i.e. Google Places, Google should have introduced it on the right hand side of the SERP’s. Over time and with more user feedback, it could have then placed it “in” the search results.

Group M have also commented on the development of Google Search Plus Your World in a recent press release.

Let us know your thoughts!

Time to Search + Your World in Google.

Happy 2012! I hope everyone’s as stoked as I am for the last. Year. Ever. Today, a 70 year old taxi driver told me that the only thing I have to do in my life is get married. I promptly proposed to him, but he turned me down. Hopefully 2012 won’t be full of more heartbreak like that.

Today we’ll talk about something near and dear to all of our hearts: money! Bids on AdWords, specifically.

Let’s do it.

What are bids?

Your bid is the absolute maximum amount of money you’re willing to pay for a click on this keyword. We’ve already talked about your Quality Score, which makes up half of your ad rank, but your bid is the other half. If my bid is higher than your bid, and we have the same Quality Score, my ad rank is higher than yours and I’ll rank first. Woot.

How much do I really pay?

Your bid is the maximum you’d pay, but most of the time you’ll end up paying a lot less. The exact formula that Google uses is a bit complicated.  They multiply your Quality Score and your bid and get your ad rank. Then they look at the ad rank of the dude below you, divide it by your Quality Score and add one cent. That’s your price!

This infographic comes from SmallBizTrends and explains it pretty well:

When should I change my bids?

You should change your bids whenever you can make your campaign better. In Google AdWords, you should always be testing something. Quality Score takes some time and effort to change, but you can change your bid instantly. And changing your bids means changing your position. And that means you can test which position works best!

Maybe you’re currently ranking 5th for a certain keyword- increasing your bid and your position to 3rd might get you lots more clicks and lots more conversions. Maybe you’re ranking 1st for another word but spending ridiculous amounts of money. Decreasing your bid might drop your costs but maintain your conversions. You never know until you try.

Should I keep increasing my bid until I’m first?

Google would like that very much! But it’s probably not the best strategy for you. Being first for everything doesn’t make sense because some words are more important to you than others. I’m sure that there are some words that you want to be first on (like, your brand), but there are others where 3rd, 4th, maybe even 5th is the sweet spot of lower cost without sacrificing too many conversions. Do whatever works for you, there’s no “perfect” position, so keep testing until you find what’s right for you!

Can you believe that 2011 is over?! Can you believe I’ve been living in Australia for more than a year now?! Me neither. But alas, it’s the end of the year, people! That means best-of lists and future predictions. I prefer the predictions. They’re more fun. And when you’re wrong, nothing bad happens.

So, what’s going to happen next year?

AdNews says it’s the year of gamification, NFC (near field communication), mobile marketing and social television.

E-marketer says that music will continue to grow in the cloud, people will stop “checking in” to look cool and only use it to get a deal, and content will become more magnetic.

The Mayans say the world is going to end! Scary.

Here’s what I think:

Mobile will keep growing astronomically. Anyone under the age of 15 will be completely disgusted at the thought of a pay phone. There’s no turning back from being connected all the time. Phones will do more stuff, it’ll be cooler stuff (html 5!) and they’ll be permanently attached our hands (if they aren’t already).

Bing will get bigger. It can’t be a one-engine world forever in Australia. They’ve got ads planned for this year. They’re doing relatively well in the States with almost 15% market share. And, they have pretty pictures.

Android will continue to grow. If you still only have your App written for iPhones, get someone to make it for Android, now.

People will use social media for good. OK, this is about 50% hope and 50% prediction, but charities and organisations looking to do good in the world will figure out how to make social work for them in a big way.

Cloud computing will catch on for the masses. OK, people still might not recognise that what they’re using is cloud computing, but non-techies will be saving things on the cloud, utilising the cloud for music and photos and videos and life.

The companies who succeed the most this year will be the ones who create fun. Fun in their ads, in their engagement, in their workplace, just more fun! Companies are getting personalities, and people are buying from companies that they like. And working for companies that they like. And they like them because they’re fun!

I will receive the most epic birthday presents ever. It’s not until April, so you’ve got time.

People will feel like total losers when the world doesn’t end, but we’ll get a hefty population boom 9 months later. Yay for “we’re all gonna die” action!

Happy holidays, all. And we’ll see you in 2012!

This year marks Google’s 11th annual look back at the searches that compose the year’s Zeitgeist—the spirit of the time. With Zeitgeist, Google look at both the popular and the  fastest rising terms around the world.

If you want to get your geek on and compare terms across categories, countries or just throw yourself into data, go to Google’s 2011 Zeitgeist site.

The video below shows what captivated people this year:

What got me most were the poigniant images that Google used throughout this video, they certainly gave my heart strings a good old tug. The two sections that tipped me over the edge were images of 9/11 anniversary and images of the troops (arriving home, being remembered and a father’s grief).

On that note, a very special shout out to all the men and women serving over this Christmas and New Years. Thank you for all you do.

If you would to leave a message for our troops you can via the Defence Department (Messages to the Troops) or Telstra’s Messages of Support (which was started on Anzac day and is still going strong).

As with many things in life, the field of PPC also has the age-old debate of quality versus quantity. A lot of newcomers to the field have a tendency to include too many keywords within a campaign. People seem to think that the bigger their keyword list is, the more likely it is that they’ll get more conversions. The rational here being that if I get 2 conversions with 100 keywords, I must be able to get 200 conversions from 10,000 keywords, right?! Plus, it’s also really impressive to talk about your campaign with 8 MILLION keywords.

“Damn, he must know what he’s doing, he has so many keywords!”

What generally ends up happening is that people spend a lot more money but don’t actually make the campaign better. If you add keywords for the sake of adding keywords, you will most likely have a pretty low click-through rate and lower overall Quality Score. This drives up your costs per click meaning you end up paying way more than you should be. To make matters worse, people tend to put all of these extra keywords on broad match! This just drives up your impressions to heaps of traffic that has no interest in your website whatsoever.

So, when you’re adding new keywords or creating a new account I suggest you consider the following:

-          If you’re pulling the See Search Terms Report make sure your date range gives you enough data to work with.

-          How much traffic are you getting from this keyword? If you’re not getting more than 5 impressions in 6 months, it’s probably not worth adding.

-          Use the traffic estimator and keyword tool. The keyword tool can give you new ideas while the traffic estimator will help you decide whether the keyword is worth adding or not.

-          If you’re adding keywords from the Search Terms Report, make sure you add them as exact match, not broad. Use broad match as a tool to find new keywords, but use exact match to be your sniper-like tool for the real money makers.

Having a huge keyword list will make the account harder to manage and you’ll end up with 90% of the keywords just taking up space but never even seeing the light of an impression, all while you’re costing yourself more money per click on the good ones. Of course, if you add additional words and they’re working for you, by all means keep them! But there’s no need to have a huge list just to say you have a huge list.

It’s always better (and easier!) to start off small and build out the keyword list as time goes by instead of starting off with 100,000 keywords and then having to go through all of them to decide which are useless.

In PPC, quality will always trump quantity.

Translation websites used to be bad. Really bad. The first time I heard about them was eight years ago during my German class. My friend used a translation tool for his homework. Let’s just say it didn’t end well.
Since I hadn’t looked in a while, I thought it was worth taking a look at how the tools work now. Have they improved? Now all search engines offer to translate your text in any language, so which one is the best? (Being French in Australia leads you to these type of interrogations ).

To answer this question, I decided to write the little story about my friend in French and to translate it in English on 3 different tools:
• Google translator (http://translate.google.com)
• Yahoo babel Fish (http://babelfish.yahoo.com)
• Microsoft Translator (http://www.microsofttranslator.com)

Original

La première fois que j’ai entendu parler des sites de traduction, c’était un lundi matin en cours d’allemand. Oui je faisais partie de ces gens qui avaient pris allemand et qui le regrettent encore aujourd’hui. Je détestais l’allemand et j’avais de bonnes raisons pour cela. Pendant que moi j’étudiais Goethe et la vie en Allemagne de l’est en 1965, ceux qui avaient pris anglais chantaient les Beatles. Mon voisin de classe, Renaud, détestait aussi l’allemand. Bon Il faut dire qu’il était particulièrement mauvais. Ce lundi matin, il est entré tout souriant, un essai de deux pages dans les mains “J’ai trouvé un site. Tu copies-colles ton texte en Français, le site le traduit dans toutes les langues.” Une semaine plus tard, Frau Mügler distribue les copies. Renaud est confiant, il n’attend que les compliments.”Tu n’as pas écrit cet essai” lui dit-elle. S’il y a bien quelqu’un qui a du regretter de prendre allemand, c’est bien Renaud Breton.

Yahoo Babel Fish

The first time that I heard of the sites of translation, it was one Monday morning in the course of German. Yes I belonged to these people who had taken German and who regret it still today. I hated German and I had good reasons for that. While me I studied Goethe and the life in East Germany in 1965, those which had taken English sang Beatles. My neighbor of class, Renaud, hated also German. Good It should be said that it was particularly bad. This Monday morning, it entered all smiling, a test of two pages in the hands. “I found a site. You copy-adhesives your text in French, the site translate it in all the languages.” One week later, Frau Mügler distributes the copies. Renaud is trustful, it awaits only the compliments. “You did not write this test” says him it. If there is well somebody who has to regret taking German, it is well Renaud Breton.

Renaud Breton’s expected grade with this tool = 10/20

Microsoft Translator

The first time that I heard of the translation sites, it was a Monday morning in German. Yes I was one of those people who had taken German and who regret today. I hated the German and I had good reasons for this. While I was studying I Goethe and life in Germany of the East in 1965, those who had taken English singing the Beatles. My neighbour of class, Renaud, also disliked the German. Good it must be said that it was particularly bad. Monday morning, he entered all smiling, a test of two pages in the hands. “I found a site”. “You copies-glues your text in French, the site translated in all languages.” A week later, Frau Mügler distributes copies. Renaud is confident, he expected that compliments.”"You did as not written this essay” she said. If there is someone who has of regret to German, it is Renaud Breton.

Renaud Breton’s expected grade with this tool = 05/20

Google Translator

The first time I heard about translation sites, it was a Monday morning German classes. Yes I was one of those people who took German and regret to this day. I hated German and I had good reasons for that. While I was studying Goethe and life in East Germany in 1965, those who had taken English sang the Beatles. My neighbor class, Renaud, also hated German. Well I must say it was particularly bad. On Monday morning he came smiling, a two-page essay in his hands. “I found a site. You copied and pasted your text in French, the site translated into any language.”
A week later, Frau Mugler distributes copies. Renaud is confident he is waiting for the compliments. “You did not write this essay” she said. If there’s someone who’s regrettable to German, it is Renaud Breton.

Renaud Breton’s expected grade with this tool = 15/20

Compared to 10 years ago, I can see the improvements. However Yahoo and Microsoft seem to still translate word for word a bit too often, leaving out context. The big surprise was definitely with Google Translator. Renaud Breton could definitely fool Frau Mügler today!

Good old Google, always trying to simplify things, and in the process, confusing all the people who knew the old way. This is definitely the case for the Search Query Report, or what’s now just “See Search Terms”. In the days of old, you’d have to go into the Reporting section of Google AdWords and choose to run the Search Query Report, or “SQR” as the cool kids would call it. In October of 2010, Google made it easier. And it actually is easier! A lot easier! Some people still reminisce about the days of old and call it the SQR, but it’s been over a year now, so say it with me now, “I see search terms!”

Why use the “See Search Terms” report?

If you have an AdWords account, it’s not that you should use this report, you have to use this report. When you have any keywords in your account on either phrase or broad match (which you really should have), you need a See Search Terms to see what the real queries are that are bringing people to your site. If you have “monster truck” on phrase match, you might get people searching “buy monster truck”, “monster truck rally”, and “monster truck porn” (c’mon, it’s the Internet, don’t act so surprised). Now that you have a list of the actual queries, you can go in and add the terms that you want on exact match and be sure to add negatives so that you stop getting the searches that you don’t want.

How often should you use it?

See Search Terms is your friend. Use it early and use it often. Use it for a specific ad group, use it for a whole campaign, use it as much as you can use it and then use it some more. OK, so running it daily probably won’t show you anything new, but run it frequently and see how often you see new queries coming through. In some industries, it might be monthly. In others, maybe quarterly is OK. Make sure that you’re running it often enough that you feel comfortable that you’re not missing anything.

How do you access it?

You can access this report any time you’re looking at keywords within the AdWords interface. So you can look at any date range, any campaign, any ad group, etc. When you’re in the Keywords tab, you’ll see a small grey button that says “See Search Terms”. It’s located in the middle, right under the graph.

Click on it and you can just look at the keywords selected or at all of the keywords in that view. Then, you can sort by impressions, clicks, conversions, all the usual metrics. Sometimes it will say, “Not enough data to display particular queries”. If that happens, you’ll need to expand your date range or the keyword set you’re looking at.

Happy Reporting!

Thanksgiving is probably the best American holiday there is. I’ve never had a bad Thanksgiving.

Even that time where my brother’s girlfriend added water chestnuts to the stuffing (the best Thanksgiving food, hands down), it wasn’t bad. And the time where I was vegetarian and alone in a new country wandering around looking for football to watch, finally finding it in a casino with a smattering of homeless people napping; it still wasn’t bad. Because it was Thanksgiving. And on that day more than any other in the whole year, you’re forced to think about how good you have it (even if you don’t), and say thanks for all the good stuff. And when you’re thinking about the good stuff, and when you’re stuffing your face with wayyy too much food, it really can’t be bad.

Aussie Thanksgiving

So, this Thanksgiving, I’ll share a list of search-related things that I’m thankful for. Feel free to add one of your own!

• Google Remarketing- it makes using the Google Content Network so much easier, you can target people who have actually been to your site so are already qualified as the kind of user you want to be in front of.
• Google Site Links- it’s great to be able to send people to different pages depending on what they’re interested in. Site links are cheap and effective.
• Yahoo RAIS- this is a new ad type from Yahoo, and I’ve got to admit it’s pretty cool. Getting a video as your ad in addition to the text is a new way for customers to interact with your brand.
• Microsoft Excel- OK, so it’s not totally search-related, but it’s tough for me to imagine being able to do my job without it.
• Click-Path Analysis- finding links between SEO & SEM is a lot easier when we can see full paths that customers are taking and being able to optimise based on first click, last click, and equal attribution models equates to more sales for our customers.
• ClickTale.com- these guys allow you to watch where users are going on your site and see how they interact with your pages. When you pay a bit more for a subscription (it’s still quite cheap), you get lots of heat maps and other added value goodies.
• USAFoods.com.au- OK, these don’t have anything to do with the search industry, but I searched for them to find them, and I was overwhelmed with awesomeness. My pumpkin pie and green bean casserole are all thanks to you!

American or not, it’s always good to take some time out to think about the good stuff. Thanks for reading this blog!