For those of you who read my posts regularly, you’ll know that I speak a lot about Google. And in particular, I speak a lot about an upcoming algorithm update being made by Google called “Caffeine.” Well, it would appear that this update may be starting to hit. Chris Crum from Web Pro News wrote an article today titled “Has Google Really Begun Changing How It Indexes The Web?” A fair question in which Chris responded that yes “it appears that more people are now seeing the effects from Caffeine out in the wild.” Chris went on to showcase several instances where it does indeed appear that Caffeine is changing things for his clients. We were curious too, so we took a look at about 10 of our current clients, however, and surprisingly did not notice anything unusual either way in regards to their rankings. In fact, most of our clients have remained consistent throughout the past few months. We know that Google announced that Caffeine would hit sometime after the holiday in an effort to keep webmasters sane and not disrupt holiday business. However, it is unclear whether or not this update has happened yet or if it is happening perhaps it is not yet widespread. In any case, we know for sure it is coming..so buckle up…it’s gonna be an interesting ride.
Posts Tagged ‘google’
It’s Caffeine Time…Or Is It?
Tuesday, January 26th, 2010
Google Social Search
Thursday, January 21st, 2010Turns out, you can take your network with you. Check out Google Social Search and you’ll see what I mean. Google Social Search is a new concept at Google (currently in beta) that allows you to easily find online content written by people you know along side your regular search results. So if, for example, a friend of your has blogged about a specific subject when you search you will see their social media content integrated into Google’s normal listings. This is NOT personalized search, which is already happening on Google but an experiment that combines search and social media elements. The obvious reason behind this is that you will trust the opinions of your network more that you trust content from people you don’t know. Makes great sense and something we look forward to seeing develop. We fully expect that social search will not be a trend and will indeed be a sign of things to come.
Bing Increases Market Share
Friday, January 8th, 2010Surprising to no-one except for me apparently, Bing.com has increased it’s share of the search engine market to 10.3%. Just a few short days ago, in fact, I predicted that Google’s market share was going to increase this year at the expense of Bing and Yahoo! Instead it appears that Bing is eating away at both Google and Yahoo’s share! Google still has a healthy 72% of the market and their market share has not dropped much, maybe a point or two. Still Bing’s increases have me wondering…why? Why is Bing so popular now? True, Bing.com’s ad campaign last year’s was brilliant and steered the engine in the proper direction but to see increases month after month is surprising. Google is still the engine that people use and, by and large, many online marketers do NOT use Bing.com for advertising purposes. However, with a 10% share, I believe that we all may need to rethink that strategy. We love Google but we also love the fact that Google may finally have some competition so that we can have some advertising alternatives for our clients. In this case, competition is healthy, very healthy, and I look forward to the battle ahead this coming year.
How Google Personalization Will Change SEO
Thursday, December 24th, 2009Below is a list of ways that Google personalization is changing search engine optimization today:
• Everybody now sees different Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) based on their searching patterns making measuring a consistent ranking no longer possible.
• Content development simply for increased page count and link building no longer has as much influence on your site’s rank.
• People who visit their own sites are getting the wrong impression that their sites are ranking well in the SERPs and are stopping SEO services.
Other ways that Google personalization are changing optimization are listed below:
• People who visit their competitor’s sites are getting the wrong impression that their sites AREN’T ranking well in the SERPs and are blaming their SEO company.
• Search spam is starting to get filtered out as people, by and large, do not revisit spammy pages.
• Fresh content is becoming essential for rankings, as new pages stand out in someone’s personalized SERPs and are getting searchers to come back to your site. Social media content is now critical and is being done at increased levels.
Pay Per Click is also changing as a result of Google Personalization:
• PPC is becoming more popular as people find natural rankings too difficult to achieve and are abandoning it.
To be clear, Google personalization is a “game-changer” but it does not impact the most important aspect of Search Engine Optimization i.e. having a good website. Keep in mind that SEO never has nor ever will be just about your SERP ranking. Optimization is about improving your site so that it can perform better. Think about good usability, professional web design, and targeted on-point messaging, and you’ll see where Google is heading. With personalization everybody wins. Searchers get better, more relevant results and website owners that engage in search engine optimization will get better performing websites and thus better returns on their marketing investments.
To read more about Google personalization, please visit Google @ http://www.google.com/support/accounts/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=54068
Personalized Search and SEO
Monday, December 21st, 2009Google’s personalized search has been around since 2005 but two weeks ago it was released to ALL Google searchers, whether they are logged into a Google account or not. This is a real game-changer and means that a searcher’s results will now vary from other searcher’s results (even if searching for the same terms). Your results will be dependent on your searching history, preferences, geo-location, IP address, and other factors. The goal for Google, of course, is increased relevancy for its users and with personalization they hit the mark. People that search for “jaguar the car”, for example, will be shown “jaguar the car” results instead of “jaguar the animal” results. Increased relevancy equates to better results; and better results equates to happier Google users.
Happier Google users, however, does not necessarily equate to happy search engine optimizers. In fact, personalization now drastically changes how we now must go about optimizing your website. Since there will no longer be a uniform way of tracking results (since ranking results will vary depending on the user), optimization tactics must now rely on building better websites instead of the handful of tricks like link buying that were used for the sole purposes of manipulating the search engines. While the practice of SEO is not dead, many of the practices of the trade like link buying will soon be rendered ineffective. Website optimization will belong to web marketers, web designers, and web developers not the hundreds of so-called SEO experts that cracked the Google algorithm and learned that the only way to the top was via buying links. I imagine a shake-up of sorts to come as former SEO people get out of the game and the Industry is given to professionals who understand the dynamics of building a good website and serving up an experience that meets the needs of your target market/audience.
Google Caffeine: What It May Mean To You
Monday, December 7th, 2009Google Caffeine, the “Next Generation” Search Engine from Google is coming soon. With it comes faster speeds for searchers but if you own a website do expect a likely change in your rankings to occur and perhaps a significant change to the way you currently optimize your website. While many of us were able to preview the “overhauled” engine this summer during beta, the test left us with many more questions than answers. Surely we knew that this new Google algorithm would prefer sites that loaded quickly but what about the other factors that have been a staple of website optimization for the past five years, or so? While we have still questions, we believe that there will be some major changes with this update that will once again level the playing field for everyone competing in this space. Below are some thoughts to the way the Google Caffeine update will change the SEO landscape for you:
- Site speed: They call it Google “Caffeine” for a reason. Sites that are fast and load quickly will tend to rank higher than those that don’t.
- More emphasis on on-page factors: Because every yahoo on the planet went and bought their way to the top by purchasing links, this new update will reward the small percent of people that played it straight. This update will favor factors such as good page design, proper meta tags, keyword density, low bounce rates, etc. Pages with broken links, links to bad neighborhoods, and poor page quality will not rank high any longer.
- Quality unique content: This, ultimately, will be the most important ingredient of a page and is another reason why on-page blogging should be at the top of everyone’s weekly to-do-lists.
- Number of social bookmarks: A page eventually will rank on its own merits by the number of social bookmarks it receives. There is going to be an increasing importance on social networking and lets say, how many tweets or del-icio-us votes a certain page gets before it can rank highly on Google.
A final word: It’s only speculation but the word on the street is that Google will finally be placing less importance on linking with the Google Caffeine update. Google is none to happy with the inequities that linking has had on their search engine results. Link building is a multi-billion dollar Industry and has literally changed the optimization Industry overnight. While Google has long since stated their displeasure for link buying, link buyers have generally enjoyed better rankings than those that don’t. ..that is hopefully until now.
Google Caffeine is supposed to launch sometime after the holidays. In the past, Google made updates to their algorithms during the holidays and many webmasters who depend on their rankings were impacted greatly. We will all be curious to see how this update will change the game plan for millions of website owners and search engine marketers alike.
If you witness anything strange with your results, please feel free to call us at 619-270-8155 to discuss. Until then, happy holidays and good luck to all!
The Future Of Search
Friday, November 13th, 2009The Future Of Search
Every day, it seems, we in the Online Marketing Industry ponder the same question…where is this thing going? What is the future of search? If you’ve been around as many years as I have, this age-old-question never gets tired. In fact, the constant change and the unknowing is likely why many of us got into search in the first place. Those who guessed right over the years (link bulders, content writers, bloggers, reputation managers) have built tremendous businesses for themselves. Others have maintained and grown their SEO companies, one client at a time. Either way, our Industry continues to thrive on the education and understanding of how search works and how can it improve over time.
So, where is this going? Well, if you believe Google CEO, Eric Schmidt, the search engines (if they had their way) would “connect straight to your brain” so they would know exactly what you intended when you searched. Of course, this is a joke, but the point being that the holy grail of search is to give the user one exactly right answer to a query. That is a lofty goal but a goal nonetheless set by the top search engine – so if there is any indication on where this thing may be going – consider this as the proper direction.
When looking at some of the recent advances in search results being made by Bing and Yahoo!, you can see positive strides being made towards making this goal a reality (and really giving the user the exact right result to their query). Yahoo! Search now offers Search History, Related Search, and Search Monkey results in their left hand channel, as well as Yahoo! Travel (a top portal site) information such a hotels, flights, maps, and restaurant guides.
Bing, of course, is the first so-called “decision” engine and had already incorporated these types of feature sets into their SERPS. All these enhancements are meant to provide users with better, more relevant results and a more personalized experienced- the same goal of the future that Eric Schmidt from Google shared above. Interestingly enough, this approach seems to be working. Bing’s share of market increased from 8% to 9.2% last month.
So, what is the future of search? It likely will include more personalization and a better understanding of what you mean when you type (search contextual web). Will it take the form of what we currently see today? Chances are likely that the way we see results will change, as it’s been changing rapidly these past few years. Keep in mind, moble search is coming and coming fast…
Maybe the name signifies a true wake up call but on August 10th, 2009 Google announced it will be launching changes to it’s search engine algorithm with it’s soon-to-launch “Caffeine” update. This update will be geared to compete more effectively with Social Media sites that provide “real-time search”, an important feature already employed at effectively Twitter and currently in-the-works at Facebook. Real-time search will allow searchers to obtain information as it happens, something the major search engines have always been very ineffective at providing. The true goal of the “Caffeine” update is to indexing content faster, something Google already does fairly quickly. According to the Google Webmaster Central Team, this update is “the first step in a process that will let us push the envelope on size, indexing speed, accuracy, comprehensiveness and other dimensions”. Google is still testing the “Caffeine” update but look for it to roll out soon.
On another note, Google is now randomly experimenting with “bread crumbs” in their search engine results pages (SERPS). Bread crumbs, just like on e-commerce sites, provide links that help users know exactly what page they are on and gives them an ability to find their way back home. These are showing up randomly in the SERPS but look for a more aggressive roll out in the near future. This is an exciting feature set that will provide extra value to searchers. Way to go Google on this one!
For Best ROI, SEO Is Still Your Clear Winner
Wednesday, July 22nd, 2009It is not news that marketing budgets have been severely cut this year and that even paid search marketing allocations are in a slump. What is news, however, is the realization by companies that the so-called “free” search engine marketing program, i.e. search engine optimization, is returning large dividends for companies that are engaging in it. Because of the recession, companies have been forced to look at alternatives to their online marketing programs and, naturally, SEO becomes a lot more interesting now as it can be a low risk, high reward proposition in most cases.
Still, it amazes us that most people have balked at the costs or have not yet signed up for optimization services – even a decade after most people figured out that people, by and large, prefer organic listings over paid ones. The last statistic I read was that the organic listings get clicked over 80% of the time, whereas the paid ones only get 20%. This may be even higher now, as people have started to “get” that “paid listings” are from advertisers… and most people distrust or are skeptical of advertising.
To get your site optimized, you will need to begin with your website. What, we call – ‘on-page’ optimization. Included in these services is keyword research, selection, and assignment, meta tag development, content optimization, image optimization, URL optimization, site submissions, code optimization and several other key factors that will ensure that the search engines can find your site and properly index all of the pages of your site. For most Industries these days, however, on-page optimization is not enough to obtain and sustain rankings. The field has become too competitive and now even the smallest competitor is starting to figure the on-page part out.
Off-page optimization is now the quintessential component to a successful SEO program. In particular, the main question to ask is how “popular” is your site outside of your site? Included in off-page services are link building activities, social media marketing, online PR, directory inclusion, and many other factors critical to your success. There is also an “x factor” with optimization that may include the age of your domain and the length of commitment to your domain. If it all sounds greek to you, you can engage a company like ours to help you get through it all.
Eventually, I believe that all sites soon will be on-page optimized. Meaning, most people will eventually have all of the right keywords and codes in place to be found by the engines. What that means is that there is a huge opportunity in off-page optimization and the sooner you start engaging in those activities, the sooner you can create a gap between you and your nearest competitor.
SEO still represents the best Internet Marketing program because of the large ROI potential it represents. Even with all of the hype surrounding social media marketing, there is still no better way to get new customers than to meet them when they are ‘actively” seacrhing for your service in a search engine. Google is your new Yellow Pages and if you are not visibile in Google, you are missing the point of online marketing.
Google’s Conversion Optimizer: Proceed With Caution
Thursday, July 16th, 2009Every once in a while, a new featureis announced by the Google team that helps improve the experience and the results you get through the Google AdWords Pay Per Click Advertising Console. Recently, in fact, Google started implementing a new user interface that allows their advertisers to more easily, more readily, and more efficiently manage their campaigns. This, in fact, has been a very positive change (although the new interface takes a lot of getting used to after so many years working with the old platform).
Google Conversion Optimizer, on the other hand, has not been something that seems to be working for a lot of advertisers. A recent google search for ‘google conversion optimizer review’ brings up a number of web posts, blogs and case studies that do not exactly paint the optional service in a very positive light. Below are quick links to a few of those reviews.
http://www.webmasterworld.com/google_adwords/3858558.htm
http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/AdWords/thread?tid=1b46b2064debcd8c&hl=en
http://www.marketingmorgan.com/ppc/google-adwords-campaign-optimizer-review/
Google Conversion Optimizer has been in beta testing since 2007. Now, released to all advertisers that qualify, it represents a chance to bid on a “cost per action” versus a “cost per click”. In theory, this is all great but what happens in reality? My own results over the past few weeks for a client did not perform well at all. In fact, our cost per conversion went from less than $20 per conversion to over $35 per conversion. Obviously, not a good thing for me or my client. I have now turned the service off.
How does Conversion Optimizer work? The Conversion Optimizer is an AdWords feature that uses your AdWords Conversion Tracking data to get you more conversions at a lower cost. It optimizes your placement in each ad auction to avoid unprofitable clicks and gets you as many profitable clicks as possible. To begin using the Conversion Optimizer, you must have AdWords Conversion tracking enabled, and your campaign must have received at least 30 conversions in the last 30 days. Also, the campaign must have been receiving conversions at a similar rate for at least a few days.
The “Conversion Optimizer” option is a tempting one… and Google does its best to make sure you know that your ad group is “eligible” for this option. Instead of taking the bait, however, you are better served perhaps working with the proven Google Website Optimizer, which in essence allows you to take better control of your landing page experiences. This truly is a better way of managing your conversions anyhow. True marketing and testing of headlines, offers, photos, etc. should always give you a better lift than trying to do it from the acquisition side. In other words, the “post-click” environment (landing page) is always more important than the “pre-click” environment (traffic) in my humble opinion.
Still, optimizing both pre-click and post-click environments are important tasks to the overall scheme of things and that is precisely what makes Conversion Optimizer something that should make sense to all advertisers that qualify…but just a word of warning to all… proceed with caution ! There are better ways to optimize your traffic, including key word analysis, analytic review, and writing better, more targeted ads. If you don’t heed my advice…well, you’ve been warned.
