So what is Google +1 then?

Its been an exciting few weeks if you are a follower, or a user of Google. Its launched both its Plus One (Google +1) button which allows registered users to both share and recommend websites, along with Google Plus (Google +) which is its brand new social networking offering. Of course this is a natural development in the path of Google as it both reacts to competitors and tries to offer users exactly what they want.

So what is Google +1 then?

The idea of Google + is to help you and friends remember which sites, places or products you may previously have visited. You know the scenario – you previously found a hotel and can’t remember which website you saw it on, well the +1 sign gives a strong signal as to which one it is (its basically a bookmark). The same goes for other people you may know though – again it may be that friends told you about a hotel they previously stayed in, well if they’ve +1’d it then you’ll see that in the Google search results.

Of course that is the theory, in practice it does mean that you need to be logged into your Google account to both see and post these markers – we’ll have to see what kind of update that gets. The nice thing is that you can keep your +1’s personal or public depending upon your approach to privacy and sharing on the internet.

And Google+  Is that any different?

In a word yes. It’s actually an amalgamation of several different Google services including the aforementioned Google +1. Its aim is to be the next big thing in social networking. It features several new buzzwords including Circles – these being the way you structure your relationships. This builds on the concept that actually you maintain different relationships with people in different areas of your life e.g. family, work, friends etc and it is intended to allow you to structure the way you communicate with them accordingly.

It also features Hangouts, which give the power to build an online area where groups (of any sort) can be organised and communicate online. Oh, and the official word from Google itself is that if you are a business or a brand you should wait a little while longer before applying for a Google+ for business account. So don’t go building your company hangout just yet.

Huddles emulate phone texting (txting) but allow conversations between multiple persons, rather than just two like a phone text conversation. Sparks suggests interesting things based upon a search you perform.  Instant Upload is the online photo sharing platform. There are also some signs of a skype like phone service, perhaps based upon the previous Google Chat.

At the moment Google+ is still officially in test mode although uptake has been exceptional this far. No doubt new services will be introduced in the coming weeks prior to a full public launch. Google have also applied to launch this in the Apple App store – something they previously have either not managed to get permission for, or have applied for – a sign of intention with this product no doubt.

What about SEO though?

Well for some time the search engine algorithums have been taking into account activity levels across a range of platforms including social media sites. So in the case of Google+ this is unlikely to be no different and any SEO strategy needs to reflect this. Of course it is likely that Google will place more emphasis on activity on this site than any of the other search engines will. So at this stage it would be very sensible to be planning some activity for your business on Google+ (note the guidance of constructing a business page above) and encouraging friends and family to start +1ing your website.

No, social media isn’t going to change your business

I read this article recently http://www.businessinsider.com/why-i-will-never-ever-hire-a-social-media-expert-2011-5?  and for a short period of time afterwards found myself gloating over the authors rant against the perils of over investing in social media.  You see social media is all the rage, whilst my beloved SEO suddenly seems so old fashioned in comparison.

But actually the author makes a very valid point in this piece, one which can just as easily be applied to SEO – the point being that in isolation these forms of marketing are not suddenly going to change your business. Not without hard work and measurement forming part of what used to be known as the marketing mix to help form a relationship with your customers. Social media (or SEO) are not wonder cures I’m afraid, if you don’t measure them you’ll never understand whether they work or not.

Before you engage in any marketing activity you need to measure it in order to establish an ROI (return on investment) for it.  Fortunately with SEO and PPC it is usually a straightforward process to track ecommerce activity, or enquiries via forms or phone.  Once the data is being collected all that is needed is regular reporting and sensible interpretation.

You also need to understand how social media fit into the marketing mix and be prepared to use good old fashioned methods where necessary. Remember also, a solid social media plan can help your SEO efforts!

The power of Search & Social Media - not convinced?

Read these jaw-dropping stats regarding online usage.Transform Your Marketing

Google Instant Preview is switched on for AdWords PPC Ads

In the last few days Google instant preview has finished being tested and switched on for AdWords PPC Ads. Its too early to say what effect this may have on account stats, but its fair to surmise that with searchers being offered a sneak preview of the landing page prior to clicking thru, this should increase the quality of traffic whilst also decreasing the volume of traffic.

No doubt Google see this as a win-win situation for both searcher and advertiser. More to follow.

Why SEO (Paid and Natural Search) Will Always be key to the Online Marketing Mix

It was reported in the Guardian this week http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/mar/29/facebook-online-advertising-social-media that display advertising in the UK had grown a full 27% in the UK last year. A large percentage of this was attrbuted to Facebook display advertising. The article reported that Facebook UK had made about £100m in ad revenue, whilist the paid for search market had grown by only 8% to £2.35bn

What can we learn from this?

Despite reports to the contrary, Google won’t be panicing too much about the growth of Facebook advertising looking at these figures.  Although this was described as companies jumping on the social media bandwagon, this is actually just display advertising - on a social media site.

Why won’t more advertisers move budget from Google to Facebook?

Search Engine Traffic from SEO is highly targeted - If someone is searching for a “House to Let in Cheltenham” then they are already in the purchase funnel and have expressed a fairly clear interest in your product or service (presuming you are a lettings agent and offer homes in the Cheltenham area). You don’t need to influence them towards it – they ARE ALREADY a potential customer.

Search Engine Traffic from SEO is highly measureable. Every click can be measured and analysed through to an on-site conversion point. To clarify – you can prescribe exactly the term which a customer types in to find your business and advertise on it. This is more exacting than prescribing a potential customer by gender, age or location.

Why advertise on Facebook.

You know your target audience extremelty well and can take advantage of Facebooks excellent geo-demographic targeting.

You are brand building and have allocated budget to brand awareness

Its cheaper per click than Google or Bing or Yahoo.

Adwords PPC & Google Merchant Center link

Google Merchant Center is the latest incarnation of what was formerly known as Google Base. This was a service whereby e-commerce merchants selling products could supply a product feed to Google. When an appropriate search was made, Google would supply product, price & merchant results collectively known as Shopping results in addition to all its other results - below is an example for an iPod Nano  -

Google has recently taken this a step further though and allowed merchants to link their product feed to their PPC Adwords results. There appears to be little control over an optimisation of this link, but in practice it will certainly lift your CTR for any ads getting this assistance. Heres an example below -

To enable this link (assuming you have a Google Merchant Center account) simply navigate to the following section, add your Merchant ID and enable.

New Adwords link to Google Places means you need to be top 3 or nowhere

Recently I posted about how Google Local Places was revamped giving a larger share of screen space to those listings which had optimised their local listings. One of the results of this was that the local places map image was moved to the right of the Google screen, causing Adwords ads from positions 4 onwards to be moved downwards and quite likely resulting in a lower CTR.

This week has seen the upgrading of the link between Adwords ads and the local map - as seen in the image above the number one listing has a blue balloon next to it which is also shown on the map. No doubt this prominent link will cause even highest CTRs for the well optimsed ad(s) within the first three positions. This will also create a further gap in performance between positions three and four- i,e pre and post map making competition for those first three spots more intense..

5 tips for local business to improve online

Google Places is becoming an increasingly important factor in local businesses being found on Google. If you do nothing else then follow these five tips - 

Register your business! It may sound obvious but if you don’t register your business for a Google Places listing places.google.com/business then you are not going to appear in the listings. Worse, it can and increasingly will affect your main website SEO performance,

Build content within the results page. Always remember that search engines love content. This applies to the Places pages - complete all fields, add video, get images uploaded.

Remember your keywords. Don’t forget the keywords you are targeting with your website. If you don’t know what they are then you should! Reuse these words – remember to co-ordinate these activities.

Stay within the guidelines Although sometimes it appears Google doesn’t always apply its own guidelines uniformly, its better to stay within the guidelines than have your listing removed.

Encourage Reviews. No doubt taking its lead from other social media platforms and applying the same principles - Google likes businesses which have been reviewed. Just make sure you aren’t the one submitting them all.

More on Local Search.

Don’t kid yourself with your keyword research.

SEO has acquired a reputation as being some kind of dark art practised only by those willing to bow to the dark side. Of course this is not true; SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) is a skillset like most others which can be learnt and refined over time. Although you may never become an expert and learn skills such as the use of a canonical tag to prevent duplicate content penalties, you can learn the basics fairly quickly and start making some positive changes to your own website.

Over the next few blog posts I’m going to try and run through the SEO basics, at the end of these posts you should be in a position to understand how SEO works and start making change yourself.

The starting point for any SEO project is keyword research. If you don’t get this right then everything that follows is wasted – so pay attention! 

In order to attract visitors to your site you need to consider what search terms or keywords they are likely to type into a search engine in order to find you, or similar. Once you have some ideas then you can use the Google keyword tool (or similar) to generate large lists of similar keywords. 

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

The beauty of a tool like the Google Keyword Tool is it does more than simply offer keyword ideas – it tells you how many times these terms are actually typed into the search engine every month!

Now this is brilliant news! You can look at your list and discard keywords where very few searches are made and focus on ones which have high monthly search volumes. You need to be completely honest with yourself here. Don’t be persuaded to select keywords which aren’t closely related to what you offer just because they have a higher volume of searches. So if you sell high-end bespoke kitchens don’t be tempted to include the keyword ‘cheap kitchens’ just because there are lots of searches every month. – you may get the traffic, but you will NEVER convert these visitors. In fact, all it will do is increase your bounce rate i.e. visitors who arrive and then leave directly from the landing page.

The other important element to remember when using this tool is always to select the Exact Match Type. 

 The tool defaults to broad match type, giving you a wildly overoptimistic volume of searches for each keyword.  There are by default three match types –

Broad Match – include the keyword in any order with other words in front, in-between or afterwards.

 Phrase Match – includes the keyword written exactly in the way typed, but with other words potentially before and afterwards

Exact Match – the keyword written exactly as typed.

Taking the example exact match “VW dealer Cheltenham”  then -

“Best VW dealer in the Cheltenham area” – is a broad match

“Best VW dealer Cheltenham”  - is a phrase match

A more advanced keyword research process would then compare keyword volumes against the competition, looking for high volume searches with low levels of competition - in the vast majority of cases it is likely that you would still choose to focus on the same keywords after this has been completed though.

Armed with this information you can start to think about optimising your site for these keywords.

Changes to Google local search results and what it means to local businesses.

If you thought that getting your business listed on Google Maps (now Google Places) and displaying in the search results was difficult, think again, it’s now become even more of a science. Whereas until recently Google Places results linked were separated from the organic and paid results, not anymore. Now if you want to appear in the local results you need to optimise both your Places listing AND your organic listings.

The biggest effects are –

If you previously didn’t have a website and just used Google Places, your days are numbered – you are going to need your own optimised website.

If you were receiving traffic from directory sites which were already optimised locally, then check carefully their rankings. These sites have been hit hard by these changes and moved down the rankings.

As always with these sorts of changes there are winners as well as losers, those businesses with well optimised sites for local search, along with a carefully created Google Places account have seen their ranking increase. They are also experiencing increased clicks from them due to the greater prominence their listings have in the new style layout.

Google Places becoming more prominent?

Judging by the results we're seeing it looks as though the prominence of Google Places (Local Maps) is rising. As seen below, the listing is now spread across the entire page, including the area formerly taken by Paid Listings -

This extends to when Paid Listings are on the page -

Which pushes Paid listings 4 downwards below the fold, this can only leave us thinking that from a Paid Search perspective it is going to be even more important to be in position 3 and above.

Similarly, Google Places optimisation is going to become more and more important. This may be only a test which a small percentage of users are currently seeing, but at some point don't be surprised to see it implemented at some stage.

Is Google now rotating SERPs positions

Within the specialist press there have been quite a few murmurs about Google starting to rotate positions within the results pages, we've noticed it here but don't see it as a massive problem. Has anyone else noticed it with their results?

The importance of keyword research

Keyword research often seems to get overlooked when talking to clients or even other specialists operating in related fields it seems. Generating traffic and a buzz about a site is one thing, but it's always preferable to deliver higher quality targeted traffic for business. Of course generating referral traffic from a site that is related to your own will generate a certain level of quality traffic, but how about generating quality traffic from search engines?

The keyword research process can be a long and drawn out one and should always be carried out before commencing on an SEO campaign. Sometimes it can take months to get the correct list, test the list and prove the list prior to the next stage of SEO taking place. This has been the case with a couple of recent clients: their business models are both b2b based, one being services the other product led. Both share a long and drawn sales process, which should be taken into consideration at the keyword research stage. The keyword research needs to capture those performing searches who are both looking for the product / service in question and as importantly, at the right stage in the sales process to convert.

Although producing a long and seemingly relevant keyword list can be quite straightforward, it can take time to understand the nuances of industry terminology. This needs to be discussed and debated with the client(s) to try and get inside the head of those performing the searches, would they use professional terminology, or a more laymans approach for example?

The point of this is to deliver quality traffic to the site, which then assists with the on-site conversion, assuming it is a commercial based site.

Click Insight is a Cheltenham SEO Consultancy.

Why a search specialist is becoming so important for local business

Most businesses are now getting to the point where they understand the need to address their visibility online. They've probably heard the term SEO (short for Search Engine Optimisation) and Pay Per Click advertising. They may have noticed that some businesses appear with a map in certain search results. But how does it all tie together and where do you start, to get advice or help?

The reality is that the search landscape is not only complex, its very fast moving. With the massive expotential growth of mobile devices search is changing daily. Search engines are changing (Bing and Yahoo are merging for instance) and users are using different entry points to find information they need. Social Media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Linked In all have a part to play in the search mix.

As a specialist SEO Cheltenham company and it's our job to keep up to date with all these changes. We can analyse your current position and marketplace and then recomend a search strategy that works for you at a budget that works for you.

New SEO

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