PPC Data Provides Real Time Keyword Evaluation

Advertising tools that rely on PPC such as Google’s AdWords are popular with search engine marketers because they provide excellent data with a few customizations to your keywords and tracking settings. Google recently started pulling SEO keyword data which makes PPC all the more important for testing. PPC provides full visitor detail and is 100% accurate.

Use PPC Results to Refocus Website SEO Efforts

As you review your SEO and PPC results and gather a refined keyword list, you’ll now have some excellent tools you can use to improve the SEO capabilities of your website. Ray Comstock writes at Search Engine Watch about four key factors to review on your website in light of your SEO and PPC reports:

1. Page Meta Data optimized around targeted keywords
2. Previously optimized pages that need re-working
3. Pages with duplicate content, page titles, meta data
4. Additional content segments that need to be added to the site

You’ll need to evaluate which changes to your website will bring the greatest return and whether you have the time to invest in these updates. However, at the very least be sure that your page meta data is optimized (Learn how to improve your meta data here).

Identify Opportunities for Business Growth and Clarity

Based on PPC results, consider refining your overall business strategy to focus on the elements that customers find most attractive. Larry Stream writes at the internet marketing blog Word Stream, “By getting a PPC campaign off the ground, you can learn how much actual traffic you can expect, get a feel for how relevant searchers and Google consider your content for your keyword lists, and most importantly: find out if building content for a list of keywords will be profitable.”

If certain products and pages on your website receive the most traffic from your campaigns, you can use your SEO and PPC reports to capitalize on additional revenue opportunities.

Cut Back on Future AdWord Costs

Use PPC informed SEO to limit the number of PPC campaigns you need to pay for. Melanie Mitchell of Digitas suggests, “Based on the SEO performance, identify areas where you could refine the match type to phrase or exact without hurting campaign goals. By refining match types you can bring the media cost down and potentially invest back into the campaign.” In fact, many marketers  have found that improved SEO rankings make it possible to cut back on PPC campaigns since they can accomplish their goals more effectively with better user-targeted content that is informed by PPC data.

Use SEO to Refine Your AdWord Performance

The referring words generated in your SEO statistics can be tested in your PPC campaigns in order to broaden your reach. One of the keys to effective SEO is to optimize more than the top keywords. You need to also look for the long tail of keywords where you can gain an edge on the competition. SEO will help you find the terms that are worth testing in a PPC campaign.

Create an Integrated Search Marketing Program

The key to making PPC work more effectively for your business, you’ll need to set up an integrated search marketing program. Paul Burani writes at Web Liquid that it includes the following four elements:

1. Dedicate 1 hr./week to studying site analytics
2. Evaluate all ad copy on CPA basis (not CTR)
3. Begin planning an editorial calendar
4. Have a presence on social media sites

This guest post is written by Lior Levin, a marketing strategist for a company that provides a to-do list tool for business, and who also works for a company that specializes in psd to xhtml service.

Make It Valuable

Don’t just write content for the sake of getting a link. Write content that people will want to share with others in their social circle because it provides valuable information of some sort.  Don’t hesitate to ask the opinions of friends or colleagues to get ideas about what readers would be interested in hearing about.

Make It Relevant

Even if you have created potentially valuable content, it won’t mean much if it’s not relevant to the target audience you’re writing to. Before you reach out to bloggers for guest posts, make sure your topics are interesting and relevant to what their readers want to see. Don’t reach out to just any blog just because a lot of people follow it—do some research about some of their most popular topics to see if it fits with what you want to write about.

Use Authority

If there’s one thing you want to avoid when creating content for guest posts, it’s discrediting yourself. Whether writing in first person or not, be sure that your content always carries an authoritative voice for the topic you’re writing about. Don’t give readers a reason to ignore what you are writing about right off the bat. Always choose a topic that you have a broad knowledge base in and are confident in writing about.

Utilizing guest blog posting as a link building strategy can take some time to develop. It may take longer than you think to reach out to and build relationships with bloggers that are willing to use your guest post. However, persistence typically pays off in this arena, and you could end up with several high-quality, useful links.

Surprise! Social correlates with SEO

SEOmoz recently released the 2011 Search Engine Rankings Factors Study that analyzes data from more than 10,000 Google results and factors in the opinions of about 130 of the world’s top SEOs. While this study covers an array of in-depth information about ranking factors, one section that was particularly interesting to me was the Page Level Social Metrics Correlated Data. This graph shows a surprisingly high correlation between Facebook shares and summed activity in relation to ranking on search engines.

While SEOmoz makes it very clear in their follow-up post that these results show correlation, not causation, it still does bring up an interesting point. According to this data, Facebook shares and overall visibility may be even more valuable than activity on Twitter, contradictory to the data of opinions from top SEOs.

Good content is the key; it’s always been the key

So why exactly is this trend happening with Google search results? While I don’t claim to have the exact answer, in my opinion, there seems to be a logical reason to what this data is showing. Think of it this way: what does it take for you to “share” something with all of your Facebook friends? For me at least, any link I share on Facebook is considered valuable enough that I want my friends to see it or read about it. This situation is a bit different than “liking” a page to follow it for information or good deals. But wouldn’t a Facebook share in essence be the same as tweeting that same information? Possibly so, but maybe Facebook shares are deemed more influential because there tends to be a lower volume of activity, placing more value on each individual share.

Because the Google algorithm is so complex, no one will probably ever know the exact reason for Facebook shares and activity outranking Twitter. While we may not know why, we can clearly see that it’s important.

So what are the takeaways from all of this?

• Don’t forget about Facebook—it’s valuable for both your direct and organic search volume. Keep your presence on Twitter, of course, but make sure you find a decent balance between the two.
• Take the time to make your content awesome. Whether it’s in the form of an article, blog post, deal, etc., if people like your content enough, they won’t hesitate to share it with their friends.

When you start advertising on AdWords, you will get some basic data, including impressions, clicks, click through rate, CPC, and several other pieces of data that are all great if, and I mean IF, you are tracking conversions, too. One of the greatest things about marketing online is the ability to track the effectiveness of your marketing efforts. But if the tracking isn’t in place, all you can do is make a guess at what is or isn’t working. Let me remind you: just because you are getting clicks on your ads doesn’t mean people are buying what you are selling. You have to dig much deeper than that.

When you decide you want to start marketing online, you need to consider all the channels that people will use to reach you. For example, if your ad is leading them to a page with a phone number, how are you going to track the phone call to a sale? Consider a form on your website. Are you going to track form fills and sales? I hope so. The problem I often run into is the tracking hits a dead end before a sale can be attributed to it. What is the value in that?

Things to consider…

• Can you put tracking codes on your website? (hopefully, this isn’t a problem)
• How are you tracking phone numbers?
• How are you tracking form fills?
• Can you tie phone calls or form fills to a sale?

If your online marketing can’t tie a lead to a sale, it’s likely that you will wonder how effective it really is and eventually stop your campaign. Conversely, if you have set up tracking right from the start, you will know how effective and awesome marketing online can be. It makes it easy to justify spending more of your marketing budget when you know it exactly how valuable it really is.

Google with me…

Google is constantly testing new pieces of their algorithm, constantly trying to provide better results to the end user. I see these related search results as yet another test and possible change to help refine that algorithm and search results, as well as gain better insight as to how people query (correlating the original search phrase to what they clicked next can give great statistical data to help further refine SERPs).  My observation is that the top results on the first page for “road bike” are somewhat linked to what items show up in many of the results of the “brands” and “stores” related search results. For example, of the first page results for “road bike”, 5 of the websites also show up in the related searches results. It also appears that major brands that may not show on the first page are also showing up here.  Interestingly enough however, when I search “road bike brands”, the results do not correlate to the “brands” showing up in the related search results when searching just “road bike”. So where Google is actually pulling this information from seems a bit unknown, but it does reflect some of the major brands in the industry. (The same thing happens when I search “road bike stores” and compare it to the related search results found when I search “road bike” – no good correlation)

What is also interesting is that when one of these related search results is clicked, it doesn’t take you directly to say Trek, it gives you the search results for “Trek road bike”. This also leads me to believe that Google is doing some heavy statistical analysis of the click paths to figure out better pathways and results to give users.

Showing up in the Related Search Results?

Good question. Best bet at this point from the information and deductive reasoning that I can come up with is to have a great SEO strategy in place that is not just generally focused on one keyword. The more expansively focused (meaning long tail), aged, and serious your SEO strategy, the more likely you will be considered a major player in that industry, and possibly the more likely Google will be to include you in these related search results. At this point it looks like you’ve got to be an REI or an Amazon to be considered.

How fast are you?

I would recommend looking at how fast your site currently loads. There are many free tools out there such as webpagetest.org or tools.pingdom.com. If the site loads in under four seconds, I wouldn’t worry too much about it; you’re faster than about 80% of the sites on the web. Even 5-7 seconds isn’t too bad (personally I would improve), though it is crucial to consider what type of connection you are testing with vs. what type of connection most of your traffic is coming from (information typically found in analytics under visitors). What type of connection your users are coming from will help you understand what type of experience they are having on your site. Slow load times lead to lower page views and higher bounce rates, which ultimately leads to less conversions and moola in your pocket. Any improvements help, so if you can make it faster…I say do it.

Image cache

A basic alteration to the .htaccess that can improve load times greatly is altering the image cache values. This is done depending on what type of server you are on, and the following is for an apache server:

ExpiresActive On

ExpiresByType image/gif “now plus 9 years”

ExpiresByType image/png “now plus 9 years”

ExpiresByType image/jpeg “now plus 9 years”

ExpiresByType image/x-icon “now plus 9 years”

This is a basic implementation that should help improve the load time of most sites, improving SEO and user experience.

Rankings are earned

My nerdy SEO brain locked into this, and I thought – perfect SEO lesson. Too often I talk to people who want to optimize for something they are not. People want to optimize for a location that is far from them, or a keyword that doesn’t accurately reflect what they do. Basic SEO tip #1…be who you are (cue “who are you” by the who running through my brain now).

From a conversion standpoint, trying to trick people is the easiest way to kill your conversion rates. Also, Google’s premise is to return the most accurate results to the searcher. Immense resources are spent refining the SERP’s, improving Google’s (and apparently barnacle Bing’s) credibility and the searchers trust in Google’s ability to answer their questions. How annoying it is to search for a dentist in Seattle and find results 50 miles away, or even 15? As Google refines their algorithms (especially their local search), it will be increasingly better at weeding out the irrelevant. Focus on being relevant to your market. Your conversion rates will be better and marketing dollars more effectively spent.

However, I did want to share my experience with one of my locally based business websites and one of my “national” business website and their respective rankings for local keywords.

Local Business Website: Higher Local Rankings

Before the change to Google’s algorithm about six weeks ago, my Utah wedding photography business, OneTakePhotography.com, was on the second (and third) SERPs for many local keywords, such as “family photographer Orem.” I wasn’t really focusing on these local keywords, as I was more interested in going for Utah-based keywords.

Likewise, the One Take Photography Google Places listing was on the fourth page and beyond for all of the local keywords I was tracking (i.e., keywords related wedding photography, bridals, engagements, family portraits, etc.).

However, shortly after the algorithm change, One Take’s listing in Google places jumped to the first page for many local keywords. Here are a few examples below.

Another interesting, semi-related item that I discovered is that the keyword ranking for “Utah family photography” jumped from the third SERP to the first SERP (#9). Also, the home page used to be the one ranking organically, but now it is the ‘family photography tag’ URL (the page that yields results from the website blog for family photo sessions).

National Business Website: Lower Local Rankings

As I’ve mentioned before on this blog, I own an editing and ghostwriter service at Wordszilla.com. I only target national, broad-search keywords for this website as a whole, but I did (for fun) semi-optimize some elements on the contact page with city and state, since I do base the business in Utah.

Again, I know any Utah-based writing/editing keywords don’t have search volume nor did I expect any traffic, but that contact page did rank #2 on Google for those Utah and Orem keywords.

However, after the local search algorithm change, do you know where that page ranks now? Yup, you’re right: it doesn’t. Fell out of the top 10 SERPs.

A Few Highlights and Conclusions

From my not-too-in-depth-yet-semi-interesting analysis, it seems that my findings are pretty much in line with what other SEOs have experienced or supposed about local search:

• Having a business (wedding photographer) in the actual location (Salt Lake City) will help to boost your website ranking/Google Places listing for a local keyword (e.g., Salt Lake City wedding photographer), instead of having a business just near a targeted city (i.e., having a business address in Orem and trying to rank for keywords in Salt Lake City will be more difficult).
• If you have both a website and Google Places listing with matching contact information, it will help their respective rankings in Google. Likewise, at least for my Wordszilla website, it seems that there is some correlation between not trying to have a webpage rank for a local keyword and not having a Google Places listing (i.e., your webpage might drop in rankings).

I’m sure there are others that have noticed changes in their rankings, traffic, and other analytics. What have you found? Please share your experiences in the comments section.

Sometimes I hear the sound of crickets when I stumble across certain blogs written by small business owners. At first glance, the content is good, thorough, and up-to-date, but the page rank is 0 and there are a dozen signs leading me to believe that no one reads this blog. What is a blogger to do? Simple! Adopt a simple, 5-minute SEO routine that will gradually turn into a habit over time. Following an SEO routine will increase the chances of your blog finding luck in search engine results, and in turn increase traffic to your site.

Place one keyword in the title.

Even if you’ve done zero keyword research, you probably already know your business’ top keywords. Search engines love relevant titles (and so do searchers). So instead of the title “New Store Opened in Salem, Massachusetts!” write “New Candy Store Opened in Boston, Massachusetts!” Think of a blog post as a press release. After all, your goal is to draw new visitors to the site, right? Write each title as if your reader has never heard about your company before.

Trim your URL.

Though WordPress automatically generates a URL from your title, it’s wise to trim the title down to the bare essentials. For example, a blog post called “5 Yummy Candy Gift Baskets for the Christmas Season” could be trimmed to candystoreblog.com/5-candy-gift-baskets-for-christmas.

Weave the keyword two or three times through the body.

Once you’ve finished writing your content, go back and see where you can sprinkle relevant keywords. Four times is probably the maximum amount of times you should mention a keyword; anything over that will look like spam to search engines and to your readers.

Optimize your pictures.

Because search engines can’t understand visuals, alt text is the major factor in crawling images. Provide alt text for each image that is relevant (think of alt text as a keyword for your picture). Image title is important in that it sometimes plays a part in the URL of your image. For instance, entering the image title “chocolate kiss” on WordPress will result in an image link that looks like candystoreblog.com/2010/10/chocolate-kiss.jpg. Compare this to keeping the original file name of Img_244.jpg, which will result in the URL candystoreblog.com/2010/10/Img_244.jpg, which isn’t search engine –friendly.

Tag it.

Tags help fellow candy-loving blog readers find their way to your candy store blog, and they also help search engines index your site. When you tag a blog post as candy secrets, a page will be created that looks like candystoreblog.com/tag/candysecrets. It will contain links to all posts you’ve tagged with candy secrets. If you have several posts on that topic, Google may view your site as knowledgeable.

It’s easy to begin an SEO routine for blogging, and results can show up within a few weeks. The trick is to stick with the routine in order to optimize as many blog posts as you write. Don’t let that good content go to waste!

Google is Huge on Local

Geo targeting in AdWords and local maps listings for businesses are just a couple of the examples of products that Google has created entirely for the local market. Google loves local!

So imagine my surprise when I open up Google’s new keyword tool to run some local keywords and see that the new tool has flipped the opposite way – not only does it favor national keyterms, but it eschews geo qualifiers.

A Few Examples

Take, for instance, the keyword Utah home theater. When you used to search it on the old keyword tool, your results would recognize that the geo qualifier ‘Utah’ was necessary to the query, and it would only show you keywords with Utah in them. That made sense because if I’m searching for home theater systems in Utah, I’m not going to change my mind and decide that New York is also a perfectly good place to get a home theater system.

Now for that query, this is the output:

Notice how, of the 8 keywords included in this sample, only 3 of them have the geo qualifier ‘Utah’ in them? (Also note that two of them are duplicates.) Two out of eight ain’t bad – isn’t that how the song goes? It’s actually much lower because none of the next 50 contain the geo qualifier.

Don’t think that this was a fluke search – the keyword Utah home automation isn’t any better:

At least here you can see that Google is taking the geo qualifier ‘Utah’ a bit more seriously, but look at the keywords it recommends. Home builders? New homes? It feels like we’re doing keyword research using the Google wonder wheel – not exactly the experience I’m looking for in a keyword tool.

Now I can understand that Google makes much more money off the national keywords so they obviously want to push people to bid on more competitive words. The conflict comes into play because Google also has an obligation to their searchers and advertisers to provide the most relevant ads. This tool may trick some locally-focused n00b into bidding nationally on a keyword like ‘smart home automation’, but they’re going to lose that customer when they see their month’s marketing budget fly out the window.

A Plea to Google

Google, I’m sure you have your reasons for switching over to the new tool. I also know we SEOs were doing a lot of complaining about the accuracy of the old tool’s numbers. The fact of the matter is that the new tool is awful at giving localized results. Either develop the new tool to the level of the old one, or give us the legacy tool for those who prefer it.