With the digital landscape evolution showing no signs of slowing down, it’s easy to become overwhelmed by the volume of new things we are exposed to on an almost daily basis.  What’s more is that often we are expected to understand and know how to use these new applications, programs and solutions almost immediately with no instruction manual or road map! 

That’s why I find it’s important to get back to basics every now and then and that’s what this blog post aims to do for Paid Search by providing an easy index guide to 20 ‘Must Know’ Paid Search terms. Whether you’re new to Paid Search, a CEO needing help deciphering reports or a small business owner trying your hand at AdWords for the first time, these ‘must know’ terms will go a long way to helping you get comfortable with the world of paid search.

General Terms

SEM: Search Engine Marketing – A form of internet marketing that works to promote websites through increasing their presence and visibility on Search Engine Result pages. This can be achieved through the use of programs such as Google AdWords and Yahoo Search Marketing. SEM differs from SEO (Search Engine Optimization) in that Search Engines charge advertisers a fee to appear in the ‘sponsored ad’ listing. SEO incurs no such fee.

PPC: Pay per Click – Another term for SEM which can be used more broadly to encompass other online marketing activities that are charged by the click. 

SERP: Search Engine Results Page

Keyword: A keyword is the term or phrase that is used to target ads to potential customers.  A keyword list consists of words or phrases a potential customer would type into a search engine when looking for your brand, product or services. The keywords selected help determine when and where an ad will appear.

Ad Group:  An Ad Group is made up of keywords that share the same theme. For example, keywords relating to ‘blue cars’ would form a ‘Blue Car’ ad group, and keywords relating to ‘red cars’ would form a ‘Red Car’ ad group as opposed to having just one ‘Cars’ ad group. Ad Groups also contain one or more ads that will be used to target the specific keywords within the ad group.

Campaign: Within AdWords, Campaigns are used to give structure to an Account by organizing the products and services being advertised. Campaigns generally represent an overall product or service grouping and contain a number of targeted and product specific ad groups.

Account: An Account is the top level of activity. It houses all campaigns, ad groups, keywords and ads.

Ads (Ad Copy/Creatives): An Ad is the only part of a paid search campaign that the customer actually sees. It is made up of the following:

                Headline: Max 25 Characters

Ideally the headline of an ad will be directly related to the keyword searched upon. As such it is best practice to try and include one of the keywords within the headline.

                Description Line 1: Max 35 Characters

                Description Line 2: Max 35 Characters

Your description lines should be well written, use clear and specific language and highlight the benefits of your product or service. Some key things to remember when writing ad copy are:

1. Think clear and simple when writing ad text
2. Include one of your keywords in the ad copy (a great way to ensure relevancy!)
3. Don’t use excessive punctuation and avoid unsupported superlatives.
4. Be sure to include any relevant price points, promotions or savings within you ad text. This helps a user decide on the relevancy of your offering before they click on your ad, saving you money by avoiding a wasted click and ensuring you receive a better qualified lead.
5. Have a compelling Call-to-Action: Buy Now, Order Online Today, Sign Up, Get a Quote
6. Always re-read, or have someone else sanity check your copy to ensure it makes sense and reads well before setting it live

Display URL – Max 35 Characters: The Display URL should give users a clear idea of the content on the landing page they are being sent to, and be relevant to the ad text. It does not have to be a working URL, but must share the same domain as the actual landing page destination. 

Destination URL: The destination URL is the real, working URL of the landing page you are directing users to. The landing page should be as relevant to the keyword and ad copy as possible in order to provide the best user experience and increase the chances of achieving your ROI goals.

Metrics

Impressions: The number of times an ad has been displayed.

Clicks: The number of times an ad is clicked upon.

CTR: The Click-through Rate (CTR) is worked out by dividing the number of clicks recorded by the number of Impressions delivered (Clicks/Impressions=CTR). For example, if an ad was displayed 100 times and it was clicked on by 10 people the CTR would be 10%

CPC:  The Cost-per-Click (CPC) is the amount of money an advertiser will pay for every click on an ad. This cost changes constantly and is not the same for every keyword.

Avg Rank: Average Rank, also known as average position, is an average of all the positions an ad has appeared in on the search engine results page over the given period. Typically there are 10 positions up for grabs on each SERP.

Conversion: A conversion is recorded when a user completes the desired end action on an advertiser’s website. It can be in the form of a completed sale, a filled out lead form, a quote or request for a call back, or any other desired action.

ROI (Return on Investment): ROI, or return on investment, represents the value gained by your business in return for the cost of your campaign. In simple terms, it is the ratio of the cost of your advertising activity relative to the profit created from the resulting conversions completed, i.e. (revenue-cost)/cost

Impression Share (SOV): Impression Share (or Share of Voice (SOV), represents the percentage of times ads were shown out of all the impressions available for your ad to appear against. For example, if your ad was eligible to appear 100 times, but due to targeting and budget settings only appeared 70 of those times, your ad would have an Impression Share of 70%.

Optimization Terms

Match Types: Keyword Match Types help control the delivery of ads. Some match types help deliver greater impression volumes, whilst others deliver a more narrow targeting option. Utilizing different match types helps deliver on KPI targets. The 4 Match Types are:

Broad Match: Broad Match allows ads to appear on relevant variations of the keywords in your account, even if you don’t have these variations in your keyword list. Variations can include phrases containing your keyword, synonyms, singular/plural terms or any other relevant variation of your keyword, i.e. if you have the keyword ‘mortgage’ in your account, your ad may show for ‘home loan’ search queries.                                                                                                                (An extension of Broad Match, ‘Broad Match Modifier’ can also be used to refine keyword matches. Learn More)

Phrase Match: Phrase Match allows your ads to appear for searches that match the exact phrase typed into the search query box. Additional keywords can precede or follow the phrase. For example, using Phrase Match the keyword “green bicycle” could be matched to the following queries; old green bicycle, green bicycle for sale, buy a green bicycle

Exact Match: Exact Match should be used when you want your ad to appear only for a query that precisely matches an existing keyword within your account. An Exact Match term won’t appear if any additional terms or letters appear before, in between or after the search query. Exact Match is the most precise method for targeting your keywords; however this means it will also deliver the lowest impression volumes.

Negative Match: Arguably the most important Match Type, Negative Match ensures your ad doesn’t appear against any queries that contain the specified term. This is a great way to avoid matching against irrelevant or inappropriate search queries.

Quality Score: Quality Score is a measure used by Google to help determine the most relevant ad to a search query which in turn helps determine in what position your ad could appear on the SERP. It is closely tied to performance in that a high Quality Score will generally mean your keyword will show ads in higher positions and at a lower cost than competitors in positions below you.

Factors that influence Quality Score include:

• Historical CTR of a keyword and matched ad
• Account history, measured by looking at CTR of all keywords and ads in an account
• Historical CTR of the display URL’s in an ad group
• Landing Page quality/relevancy
• Keyword to Ad Copy relevancy
• Further ‘black box’ relevancy measures

Bids:  A bid refers to the maximum amount you are willing to pay for a user to click on your ad (Max CPC). Default bids are set at the Ad Group level and individual keyword bids over rule the default settings. Setting bids at the individual keyword level is important to ensure each keyword is working at its most efficient level.

Head Terms: Head Terms refer to the handful of keywords that tend to deliver the highest number of impressions. They are generally highly competitive as key category/product terms, i.e. ‘credit cards’, ‘cheap flights’, ‘car insurance’. Head terms are important in the brand awareness and research phase of the purchase funnel.

Long Tail: Long Tail terms make up the more specific, highly targeted but low volume keywords of an account. These are generally terms such as specific product attributes or make and model numbers i.e. ‘sony bravia hx925 series’ or ‘sending a package from Brisbane to Latvia via air freight’

Hopefully this quick guide has helped get your head around the basics of paid search. For more AdWords best practice house-keeping tips, be sure to visit this earlier post by Alex!

As a recent arrival to these sunny shores (I didn’t know you had rain in Australia until the other week), and with the advent of Winter I thought it appropriate to blog about the importance of Good House Keeping.  I am not going to prattle on about the latest trends in kitchens or fleecy knickers, rather the importance of regularly reviewing SEM accounts in order to update, refresh and stay abreast of the latest innovations, trends and technology.

We have all had Search Engine accounts which have been inherited from previous agencies or direct from clients.  It could be a question from the TV show Who wants to be a Millionaire?  Do you:-

1. Work with the existing account in the hope that it will perform okay?
2. Make a few changes to match types, targeting or Ad creative which you know will work wonders as per client x?
3. Be brave and start brand new accounts, knowing you will lose accrued Quality Score?
4. Perform a full and detailed account restructure to incorporate SEM best practice and the latest engine releases/beta tests?

Be honest, how would you answer the above?

I have seen too many accounts where additional campaigns, ad groups or keywords are quickly bolted onto existing structures, with no thought given to future account requirements or growth.  Initially, although more effort s is required to fully restructure an account, the benefits can be substantial.

Why restructure an SEM engine account?

Some potential reasons for initiating an account re-structure:-

• To create better theming within ad groups
• To incorporate additional product lines/keywords
• Refresh of ad creative, to better reflect product offering and be more bespoke to ad group
• To improve quality score
• Account structure may no longer reflect current website navigation
• To aid budget management
• To isolate high volume/high converting terms
• To improve CTR
• To offer differing targeting options in terms of device, network or location
• Loss of quality score at keyword and account level, if starting from scratch
• Reduction in traffic volume due to changes in bids or change of keyword match type
• Subsequent loss of coverage and conversions!

What are the potential risks in restructuring accounts?

Best approach to take

I am not saying that “my way” is the best way, however this is how I often approach the restructuring of an existing account, although as we know, no two clients are the same:-

• Review of client’s website to check top-level navigation and product level categories
• Check with client for any planned website changes, additions or landing page changes
• Blank piece of paper
• Plan out the ideal account structure.  More blank paper and move to Excel
• Review existing structure to identify traffic driving terms, what is working and what is not working.  Remember individual engines and account-size limitations!
• Obtain client buy-in/sign-off
• Review and make necessary changes
• Implement, launch, review and adjust as necessary

Campaigns

The majority of targeting options are always set at the campaign level, along with budgeting options, so it is important to have these set up correctly from the outset.  A quick re-cap of basic settings:

• Set location and language targeting accordingly
• Which devices are you targeting?  Split out Mobile from desktop targeting, particularly for branded campaigns
• Have separate Search and Display campaigns.  Performance is different and budget allocation will be easier.  Do you want to opt into the Search Partner network for Google/target the complete Google Display network for example?
• Think about how many ad groups will sit within the campaign.  Which themes or products are most popular?  Consider these points when allocating budgets at the campaign level
• Remember start and end dates, delivery options, scheduling and ad delivery options
• Don’t just copy search campaigns over to display, as the audiences are different and ad group theming/keyword match types may need changing
• The same goes for campaigns targeting desktops and mobiles.  Query length is generally shorter for mobile searches, compared to those from desktop users

Site Links

Site Links are a great way to improve Clickthrough rates, promote/utilize different offers and landing pages.   These are added via the ad extensions tab within the Adwords interface.  Up to 4 additional links can be shown at any given time, although the likelihood of a link displaying depends on a number of factors:-

• Ad position needs to be in one of the top positions above the search results
• Sitelinks URLs have to direct users to pages that form part of your main website
• Ads need to have a high Quality Score

Remember that these work for mobile target campaigns too.

Ad Groups

We all love a cliché however in this instance it is true.  Ad groups should be tightly-themed and different for Search vs. Display campaigns.  Don’t go overboard on the total number of ad groups per campaign.  High-traffic terms should occupy individual ad group or campaign.

Keywords

Be tactical and bid at a keyword level.  Don’t have extremes of bid prices within the same ad group. Consider setting up a seed campaign/ad group with broad match terms.  Set-up a second campaign/ad group with terms on exact or phrase match, and be sure to add exact negatives into the original seed group/campaign.

Regularly check search query reports and move new terms to the secondary campaign/ad group, with the same terms as negatives to the seeded group.

Landing Pages

Websites evolve.  There may be more appropriate candidate landing pages, since the campaign was first built, so regularly check that you are utilizing the best-possible page for the given ad group/keyword.

Ad Text Creative

These are your “Client’s shop front” and as such need to entice users to interact with the brand.   To be honest, this is the part of the job, which enjoy the most.   Don’t just copy the competition:-

• Be original
• Theme in with website messaging and any offline collateral
• Be promo/product specific where appropriate
• Highlight USPs
• Check spelling, punctuation and language…are you on-brand?

Since starting at Outrider, I have instigated a number of account re-structures and the benefits have been substantial both in terms of increased traffic generation, improved performance and client satisfaction.

So next time you have a new product to launch or an additional ad group to create, stop and think: Where should this sit?

We would love to hear your thoughts!

The purchase path has evolved – the consumer now has more avenues at their fingertips than ever before, where they can research, price compare, discover new brands and much, much more. In our dynamic industry what does this mean – for us, our clients, for your brand and more importantly for the customer & their behaviours? Where and how does Search fit in?

What’s the true impact of Search and Social?

The latest study released from GroupM Search and comScore in February 2011, details the interplay of Search & Social Media in the purchase path consumers take. This study is a follow-up to a similar study conducted in 2009 (The Influenced: Social Media, Search and the Interplay of Consideration and Consumption). The 2009 study was the first of its kind to associate the influence Social Media was having on Search.

The first study examined the process by which the consumer arrived at a purchase based on the purchase funnel. The 2011 study took a deeper look at consumer behavior & motivation associated with purchase decisions – who ultimately purchased and converted online in the electronics, telecommunications & consumer packaged goods (CPG) categories.

In regards to moving a consumer towards a conversion the 2011 study found that a causal relationship exists between search and social media. The study also clearly indicates that search plays a dominant role in establishing a consumer’s consideration set at the beginning of the purchase process. Furthermore, category blogs and earned social media (in the form of user reviews) are very influential and sought out by consumers to solidify & finalise their purchasing decisions.

Highlights from 2011 GroupM Study:

• Nearly 60% of cases that end in a purchase begin with search

• 40% of consumers who use search in their path to purchase are motivated to use social media to further their decision making process.
• 46% of consumers who use social media in their purchase pathway are driven to use search to expand their knowledge about their likely purchase
• Top motivation of consumers to use social media in their purchase process is to get other people’s opinion (31%)
• 28% of consumers said social media plays a valuable role in helping them become more aware of new brands & products [and helped] eliminate brands from consideration for 30% of consumers
• The path to purchase is 60 and 57 days respectively from the first touch point, with up to 11 measured digital steps from start to finish

Highlights from 2009 GroupM Study:

• 50% increase in paid search CTR when consumers were exposed to both influenced social media and paid search
• Brand’s influenced social media and paid search programs are 2.8 times more likely to search for brand products compared to users only using paid search
• Consumers exposed to influenced social and paid search exhibit 223% heavier search behaviour than consumers exposed to paid alone
• 50% of social media exposed searchers search daily for product terms compared to 33% of non-exposed searchers
• In organic search, consumers searching on brand product terms who have been exposed to a brand’s social marketing campaign are 2.4 times more likely to click on organic links lead­ing to the advertiser’s site than the average user seeing a brand’s paid search ad alone

To dive deeper into either of these studies please go to our Whitepapers Section or visit GroupM Search Research.

Google announced this week that they had released a new open beta in the UK and Canadian markets for ‘modified broad’ match.  To me this is good news.  The launch of expanded broad match almost two years ago brought some definite problems for well built conversion-focused campaigns.  Yes, expanded broad match allows Google to capture terms you haven’t considered, but it also had some interesting matches.  We had one example where a brand term in one of our accounts was matching to a very generic head term – blowing out the brand reporting & CPC, & more importantly having our ads show on something we definitely didn’t want to target.

We resolved that by lowering our max CPC significantly, running multiple match types and reviewing negatives, but it does need ongoing careful consideration.

Broad match is fantastic for:

• A new account launch where it enables you to capture terms you may not have considered in your research (as much as we’d all like our research to be all-encompassing, there will always be new ideas in search query reports)
• When running multiple match types to cast a ‘wider net’ on an ongoing basis, as long as search query reports are routinely checked, useful terms included in the account and irrelevant terms added as negatives
• People are typing in longer and longer search terms and it can be next to impossible to include every single combination in your account

The new modified broad match proposes to allow you ‘greater reach than phrase match and more control than broad match’ according to Google’s blog on Tuesday.   Their handy diagram explains…

Source: Google Adwords Blog:  New keyword targeting feature for advertisers in the UK and Canada

Whilst our colleagues in Canada and the UK will have the first chance to play with this, it should offer a slightly more controlled broad match experience and we look forward to testing it here.

We all know that Yahoo and Google are the leading search engines in the world. We all know as agencies using these search engines there would be trial and error as to how we should run our campaigns for our clients.

All of you may agree that however we set up our campaigns in English for clients, everything from keywords to creative, match type and negatives must be relevant to the product or services. Same applies in a foreign language like Chinese, Japanese and Korean etc.

However you may challenge me if I was to run campaigns in Yahoo or Google using English keywords with foreign language creative such as Chinese, Japanese etc. You will tell me that it will have poor click-through-rate (CTR) because it lacks search relevance? It confuses the consumer because of the language barrier?

Logical as it sounds. I refuse to believe it. Reason being is, if you are to run your Google or Yahoo campaigns in Japan, for example, and consumers are searching in English keywords and find your ads in Japanese there’s a good chance the consumer will understand it. Okay, so how do we prove that? Well there is only one way to find out and that is to trial out the strategy as I have proposed.

I have a client who sells English-language products in 3 different regions in the Asia Pacific; Hong Kong, Japan and South Korea.

When faced with a volume challenge (how to generate more sales), we debated the value of testing the above theory.  On one hand, quality score may suffer.  On the other hand, couldn’t we assume consumers using a specific search engine have a higher propensity of being able to read that language? (For local language creative displayed against English keywords).  And, seeing as the products are in English, couldn’t we assume that if we targeted foreign-language keywords with English creative, we’d still attract qualified consumers?

The second question interested us more, as it obviously opens up more volume potential.

To confuse matters, the two major search engines in these regions (Yahoo! And Google) disagree on what they allow (given in both instances that the landing page is in English): Google will allow English-language creative against foreign-language search terms and Yahoo! will allow foreign-language creative against English-language search terms.

In both instances our landing pages were in English exclusively.

Okay now, this is the part where I cross my fingers.

And the results reveal…

In Google, 2 of the 3 territories showed a higher CTR for English ads displayed against foreign keywords (as opposed to English ads on English keywords).  However conversion rates did not follow, with only one territory (Japan) showing any decent volume uplift.  This could suggest that consumers searching in foreign languages are not as ready to purchase English-language products; however it can drive considerable interest and brand / product consideration.

In Yahoo, only one territory showed a stronger CTR for local-language ads on English-language search terms (Korea); however they did drive a considerable portion of total sales – more than half of the total on average. So, more people clicked through in English language ads, however more again signed up via the local-language ads. How does logic work sometimes?!

Conclusion:

• More work needs to be done to test these theories, and we’ll try to run as statistically-sound test as possible in the near future
• There are some positive results in both instances, however the Google approach showed greater consistency in results across markets
• You can drive more brand and traffic volume targeting local-language keywords with English-language creative, but be aware of conversion limitations
• Given a landing page in English, Google will allow you to target English-language creative to local-language keywords, whilst Yahoo! will allow you to target foreign-language creative to English keywords.
• Some countries may be more comfortable with, and have greater use of, the English language, as some may not.
• You can determine where you should spend your search money and see growth within your client’s business.
• Overall it can work for you depending on the product & how quickly you can monitor which country and strategy is driving the conversions. Not only that, it can definitely benefit your search by covering more traffic than with one language alone.

It was announced earlier this week that Google launched their sales funnel tracking product.  This is a positive move in the right direction because there has been complete industry reliance on last click data to optimise search campaigns. Put simply, this new data will allow brands to monitor the entire consumer search journey from research to purchase. Moreover, it will also provide insights into the length of time from first to last click and thus further inform us on the entire sales cycle.

Outrider and GroupM Search proprietary research shows that “assist” keywords play a crucial role in the success of a campaign but failure to purchase these provides a competitor a distinct advantage by not being present on these keyword impressions. These insights together with the launch of Google search funnel will provide a new and interesting way to effectively invest our client’s budgets.

To date approaches such as portfolio bid management has leveraged last click wins – analysing the ROI of each keyword and not looking at the role these “assist” keywords play in a paid search campaign. Yes, your overall impression share might drop along with Paid search ROI at the expense of overall conversion search volumes. This might be acceptable to some clients if they are convinced that search operates in total isolation.

But more importantly, has the lost opportunity to optimise the entire media mix, including search, been discussed with clients? E.g. If we drive consumers to search from offline activity can we refine our overall media spend and ultimately achieve cost efficiencies across the entire media investment versus treating each media channel in isolation? Search is still more efficient than traditional media so why not take advantage of the consumer intent generated via search campaigns and minimise wastage of offline media?

As search continues to be the lynchpin of the overall media mix it will become increasingly importantly that budget is allocated to fund “assist” search terms otherwise competitors will leverage your offline media investment and happily intercept search traffic if you are not present.

The Google sales funnel fails to include SEO and thus is limiting. Outrider data shows that there is an interplay between SEO/SEM and consumers will click on either paid or organic search listings as long as the copy is relevant.

To that end, as technology vendors continue to invest in complete path analysis, integrating display and search, marketers will ultimately become the beneficiaries of more insights and only then will we see a dramatic shift of budgets from traditional media to digital.

While every year for the past five has been heralded ‘the year of mobile’, will 2010 take the crown?  I don’t think it’s quite time yet, but it is time we all sat up & took notice of how consumers are using search on mobile phones.

There are two ways to target paid search ads to consumers using mobiles:

1. Users on WAP-enabled mobile phones (eg BlackBerry and the host of internet-enabled standard handsets)

2. Users on smart phones with full internet browsers (eg iPhone)

Given WAPs stabilisation &/or decline I’m going to focus on high-end devices with a full web browser.

Your AdWords campaign automatically opts you in to target mobile devices with full browsers, however there are some key differences in the ads being displayed:

• Mobile device search results show 2 paid ads at the top of the page, followed by approximately 10 organic results & snippets, followed by 2 to 3 paid ads at the bottom.
• If you utilise the full character limit allowed (the same as desktop search), your ad will actually fit over 4 lines rather than 3, hence pushing your competitors further down the page.

Given a rank of 1 – 2 is much more critical on a mobile platform to ensure visibility and share of voice, slightly different optimisation techniques should be applied.  We recommend setting up a unique campaign targeting the mobile platforms, which enables you to employ the most appropriate optimisation strategies, utilise your creative character limits, send consumers to a mobile-device-friendly landing page (WAP or no flash!), and also importantly target your creative message to consumers on the move.

Whilst search volumes on mobile devices are still small (less than 1% of desktop from the data we’ve seen), they are growing.  Google Australia has outlined some impressive growth charts over the recent Christmas period.  Now we can only wait for telco providers to make data plans more accessible, and search will be revolutionised!

Oh, and if you are targeting mobile devices from the one Google AdWords campaign you can now see a breakdown of traffic by device (desktop v. mobile); go to Filters and views > Segment by > Device.

It was announced by ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) this week that International Domain Names (IDNs) are to be made available by early to mid 2010. IDNs will allow for registration of domain names that do not use the latin alphabet, instead using local language characters, for example Chinese or Arabic. ICANN chairman Peter Dengate Thrush described the new system as “the biggest technical change to the Internet since it was created four decades ago”.

Some countries, such as China and Thailand, have already introduced workarounds that allow computer users to enter web addresses in their own language. However, these were not internationally approved and do not work on all computers. Support for 100,000 international characters would make traditional keyboards insufficient input devices for accessing the entire Internet.

The impact of this change on the SEO industry has the potential to be significantly concerning, particularly in the Asia-Pacific region. The change shouldn’t affect search campaigns where a site owner is solely interested in Australian traffic, however it may add an extra layer of complexity to strategies if a website is trying to capture traffic from the countries that end up embracing IDNs.

One of the most talked about concerns with IDNs is the new angle that will be made available to scammers and fraudsters. Phishing is a form of Internet fraud that aims to steal valuable information such as credit cards, social security numbers, user IDs and passwords from unsuspecting internet users. Anti-Phishing Working Group reported this month that non-Latin characters could help phishers spoof legitimate websites with similar characters. For example, a phishing website set up to mimic the online payment website paypal.com could use a Cyrillic “a” instead of an ASCII “a,” making it a technically different web address but similar enough to fool users. So far at least, phishers have not been using such tricks at a high frequency, but the proliferation of new international web addresses could present the opportunity. Site security factors heavily in search engine ranking algorithms, and this may become an even more important factor as malware injections become more feasible.

The ICANN has stated on their website that ccTLDs (country code top level domains eg. com.au for Australia) will be available to the governments of countries who wish to use languages based on scripts other than Latin. This is significant as it’s generally agreed that having a local ccTLD will have a positive impact in search engine rankings in that country.

In order to attain strong rankings in a particular region, not only is it important that your content targets that region in the correct language, but also link building strategies should be conducted in the target language. It is likely that this change will cause the internet to become more highly segregated, and websites utilising new IDNs will not (initially at least) have as many natural linking sources as other latin-character based websites.

Google Webmaster Tools and Analytics are two great resources for webmasters to track diagnostic issues and monitor user activity on your site, but whether Google opens their services up to non-latin character based websites remains to be seen.

We would love to hear others thoughts on this change – how do you feel it will impact on search, or the web in general?

Resources:
http://www.icann.org
http://en.wikipedia.org
http://searchengineland.com
http://www.ethioplanet.com
http://www.internetnews.com

On the 6th of October, GroupM Search, comScore and M80 revealed their study on how Social Media plays an intertwined role with search marketing, predominately in the Paid Search arena. The purpose of this study was to explore the connection between social media and its influences on search behaviour. Evidently the results from the research unveiled a dramatic correlation, whereby influenced brands discovered through social media saw a positive impact on their paid search activity, including lower-funnel searches (long tail searches) and increased paid search click-through-rates (CTR).

To put the whole study into a little more perspective, GroupM and the team looked at the background and opportunities between Social Media and Search to identify synergies. The plan was to explore:

• When consumers are exposed to social media and influenced social media, are they more likely to search, and, when they do, more likely to engage?

• Does social media exposure influence search behaviour by driving search queries further down the purchase funnel where consumers are more likely to convert?

• Is there a synergy between influenced social media and search marketing that drives better performance than search only?

Based on these explorations, some of the key findings discovered were as follows:

• Consumers who are exposed to brands influenced by social media and paid search advertising are 2.8x more likely to search for that brand’s products in comparison to users who only saw the brand through paid search.

• 50% CTR increase for paid search when consumers were exposed to influenced social media and paid search.

• Searches related to a brand’s product name saw a CTR increase from 4.5% to 11.8% when users were exposed to both influenced social media and paid search around a brand.

• In organic search, consumers searching for a brand related keyword, who also has exposure through a branded social marketing campaign, are 2.4x more likely to click on organic result.

• Consumers exposed to both a brand’s influenced social media and paid search, spent almost 3x more time online than the average consumer.

However, one of the primary findings the study revealed is that social media expo¬sure is correlated with lower-funnel search behaviour.

In addition to these key findings, there are additional results discovered through this study. If you want to check out the whole research, visit our Outrider US blog, SearchFuel, where you can download the Interplay of Influenced Social Media and Search white paper.

Finally, I thought I’d end with a quote taken from the study.

“It is this ability to influence discovery that signals the single largest shift in how brands and consumers will engage going forward, and represents a significant opportunity for brands to play an active, but natural role in the social space.”

We all know paid search is a great direct-response mechanism.  We can very effectively place a product right in front of a consumer at the precise time they’re looking for a solution.  But what about effecting consideration further up the funnel?

There’s been lots of discussion about search being able to brand-build as well.  For me this is a moot point.  Having your brand appear against highly related searches time and time again will most definitely build your brand.  We’ve done work with various clients where restricting the broader terms in a campaign has resulted in reduced brand searches (and also seen brand searches grow as we’ve expanded campaigns).

However both these elements are very much pull strategies: how many advertisers use paid search to create a need in the first place?

Creating a need is what advertising agencies spend lots of time and money trying to fine tune – how to communicate to a consumer that they must buy your product because right here is a solution to that problem you may or may not have considered.

Needs-creation is prevalent across all other media – a quick trip to the homepage of smh.com.au asks me to save a life, to end my meal with a desert and coffee, to create a photo book or get a better interest rate.

Search can be used in the same way.  Sure, CTR won’t be as high & this can affect quality score but as long as both you and the client are aware that these particular terms are working to a different metric then search is a valid and cost-effective tool in driving early consideration for a product or brand.