The ever increasing list of features and changes to Google AdWords doesn’t look like it’ll get shorter anytime soon with the recent release of a “related to” section in the sponsored search results.

When certain broad phrases are used in the search engine, not only do adverts from the websites bidding on those keywords appear, but below them other adverts that Google believes are related to the search are now also being shown:

What does this mean to Pay Per Click advertisers? If you don’t bid on broad match keywords then not much, other than more competitors will now appear within the results. According to Google the adverts are being served on “relevant broad match keywords”, so make use of your negative keywords if you don’t want your ads to show within the “related to” section.

Google has built its success on providing people with relevant results to specific keywords that they search with. While this experiment may at first seem like a ittle change, it's another step away from Google being a search engine and another where it tries to interpret what person really mean. With these new "related to" AdWords enhancements and other recent changes at Google, we are in for an interesting time.

If you run a Pay Per Click account and would like an experienced Pay Per Click consultant to go over these changes with you then call Liberty on 029 2076 6467. 

It is no secret that Google is growing from strength to strength, not only improving its own search engine but also investing in video (YouTube), blogging (Blogger), browsers (Chrome), mobile phones (Android) and so much more.

In an editorial piece, The New York Times makes the argument that Google - in a position to place its fingers in many pies and look after its own invested interests - could potentially manipulate its own search results to its advantage, showing its own interests above those of the competition.

Whether Google decides to play completely fair or help itself is a contentious issue. Revealing its algorithm will force Google to do the former and play fair. This piece offers some possible solutions:

"Some early suggestions for how to accomplish [a fair editorial policy] include having Google explain with some specified level of detail the editorial policy that guides its tweaks. Another would be to give some government commission the power to look at those tweaks."

It is true that revealing elements of Google's secretive algorithm would clear this. For example, if YouTube were to rank higher than other video-sharing websites, it would be noticeable whether the ranking appears naturally or forced by Google.

However, there could be other wider implications of revealing the algorithm. Google's success so far is because its algorithm is a secret. Even so, as Search Engine Land's Danny Sullivan points out in his take on the New York Times piece:

"Google constantly speaks at search marketing and other events to answer questions about how they list sites and how to improve coverage... Google is constantly giving interviews about its algorithm..."

Although the algorithm is a secret, Google helps webmasters, not by telling them outright what the algorithm is, but by telling them how they can help themselves with regards to how the algorithm operates, and why it displays the search results it does.

After all, what if everyone knew the algorithm? Google's Marissa Mayer explains (originally printed in the Financial Times but reproduced on Google's Public Policy Blog):

"If search engines were forced to disclose their algorithms and not just the signals they use, or worse, if they had to use a standardised algorithm, spammers would certainly use that knowledge to game the system, making the results suspect ."

We are reminded of an incident last year when a Google search for "ugg boots" displayed seven spam/fraud websites within the first page (top ten) results. In this instance, the websites used suspect, black hat SEO techniques to get to the top of Google for that keyword. Surely revealing the algorithm would only encourage such practices - both good and bad; white hat, black hat and everything in between - affecting the quality of the search engine results shown, and in turn damaging Google's reputation as (mostly) showing the most natural, "neutral" results. Otherwise, Google would have to invest much more heavily in moderating the results and weeding out those websites manipulating the algorithm, which is likely to be a larger number if the way Google operates is disclosed.

All of this is without even considering governmental intervention, as mentioned in the second half of the above quote from the New York Times piece. Some of the bigger sceptics on the WebmasterWorld forum have expressed their fears that, amongst other things, the government may suggest changes to the algorithm from which they themselves could benefit.

Whatever the outcome, although Danny Sullivan believes the First Amendment and the fact that Yahoo survived a similar incident will save Google from such a fate, it will be interesting to see what - if anything - transpires, whether such action would be seen as a necessity as Google continues to grow and dominate the search engine world as well as other industries.

Liberty went ahead and invested in an iPad this week, partly to improve the team productivity when out of the office and partly to show off. After using it for a few days it looks like it's only really good for trying to impress technophobic clients.

Right now, for search engine marketers it's a very disappointing tool, and here's why...

1. No decent SEO apps - Only one or two exist right now and they are nothing compared to what we are used to on the iPhone. Simple things like source code analysis and ranking tracking aren't available yet.

2. No AdWords access - Safari keeps crashing when you try to do anything within the pay per click system, meaning all that account management work we had planned to squeeze in between meetings and when travelling isn't going to be happening.

3. No browser SEO plug-ins - Without Firefox we can't enjoy all of the tools that make our job easier. Everything, from checking links to viewing code, has to be done the long way.

4. No keyword tool access - As with point 2, Safari falls over when trying to use the Google keyword tool, so keyword research is one more thing that either has to be done in the office or on a laptop/net book

5. No flash - Flash may be the enemy of most search engine marketers, but it's nice to be able to view videos that are not on YouTube. Right now we can't see a lot of SEO training videos that we subscribe to, such as the SEOmoz whiteboard Fridays. And we like our whiteboard Fridays.

A lot of these should be ironed out and improved over the coming months, but if you work in Internet marketing and are planning on using an iPad for business, then we advise you to save your cash for the time being.

P.S. Don't get us started on the lack of tethering to an iPhone.

One of the most common questions we are asked by our clients is “What kind of clicks can I expect when I am in position 1?” Another is “How many more clicks will I get at the top of the page, compared to the bottom?” Valid questions when choosing to employ an SEO firm and ones we’ve struggled to answer, until now.

We’ve spent some time this month and put our heads together to conduct a little research that we hope goes someway to answering these questions. As you surely know, page 1 on Google is the much revered promised land of Search Engine Optimisation, but did you know that by battling your way to the first position, your site could enjoy three times the traffic that a competitor in 3rd place receives?

We compared Click Through Rates for a dozen of our retained SEO clients by looking at their Google Adwords data, their Google Analytics data and our ranking tracking software. We compared traffic levels against where they were in the search results month on month for each keyword and the results averaged out as:

As you can see, there are drastic differences between the click through rates you can expect if your site shows at top of the Google rankings on page 1, or if you are somewhere in mid-table or towards the bottom of the page. Our research shows that if your organisation finds itself as rank 1, you can expect just over 51% of all people searching on that term to visit your website. This then falls quite dramatically...

Position 1 = 51.4%
Position 2 = 27.4%
Position 3 = 16.8%
Position 4 = 12.7%
Position 5 = 10.8%
Position 6 = 8.3%
Position 7 = 6.6%
Position 8 = 6.2%
Position 9 = 5.3%
Position 10 = 4.8%

Interestingly, the difference between the listings ‘below the fold’ (i.e. the lower half of the page that you often have to scroll down to) is quite small. Perhaps people click the first listing impulsively but when they get down to the second half of the page, take the time to read through the lower listings?

If you are carrying out SEO work or want to appear at the top of the search engines then hopefully this gives you an idea of what to expect. Compare these figures with the search volumes found on the Google keyword suggestion tool and you will have an idea of the visitor levels your site will receive.

Please bear in mind that whilst we ran this for a dozen sites, that’s still quite a small number and if we had the time or resources then we would have done more. Also, the figures varied quite widely depending on the market and the type of keywords involved.

Your CTR will obviously depend on how compelling your listing is in the search results, so spend time to ensure keywords are included within your page titles, meta descriptions and the URL (if possible), as these are the three things that users see in the search results. Also try and include words that will enhance CTR, such as “free trial”, “low cost”, “high quality” or whatever works for your target market.

A SURPRISING trend has come to light as the internet continues to develop. Retailers that succeed online are rarely the same as the successful giants found on the high street. Conversely, in our city and town centres we visit familiar shops with long established brands whose digital presence are often significantly newer, smaller and – crucially – a lot more profitable.

Well over a decade ago when online shopping began in earnest, the vast majority of businesses at the forefront of their offline markets concentrated on where they were doing well, and perhaps failed to see the possibilities for the future. These days, when shopping for clothes on the high street, Top Shop and Marks & Spencer remain omnipresent, with an established footing in almost every city. But online, it’s ASOS.com and Net-A-Porter that shoppers prefer.

So why is it that Play.com and Amazon sit comfortably at the top of the ecommerce pile, enjoying huge market share, while Zavvi, which was formerly Virgin, went out of business in very quick time, and HMV’s foray into the online world in no way reflects its dominance of the high street?

The online and offline markets differ greatly. Many of these large, established, offline giants stumbled into the world of online retail assuming the transition would be simple. This has been far from the case. Offline businesses often have to push their message onto consumers and convince them of their need for such products, and convince them to visit stores in order to prove they are the best-placed supplier. The internet features a ready-made market and, so long as your business is at the top of the search engines for popular search terms, you can capture the individuals already interested in your offering.

In reality, it is often a lot less expensive and less risky to attract business via the web than it is in the physical world. Yet many firms really struggle to capture an online audience which is anywhere near as profitable as what they are used to. This is usually down to the adaptability and attitude of the management.

Not only are different skills needed to succeed in ecommerce, but a different attitude is key. Many offline businesses simply do not set themselves up to win online. Trying to transfer traditional customer service approaches and pricing onto the web just doesn’t work. While a consumer might be willing to pay more to browse around a department store and receive one-on-one service, more often than not, on the internet, they want lowest cost and quickest delivery. So long as your website looks reputable and you appear in the search engine results, or are well positioned within the social media networks, you will start carving up a share of the market.

The other factor holding these bricks and mortar organisations back is their ability to change direction quickly. Decision makers within the large retailers are often slower to adapt to new consumer trends, which simply doesn’t work in the digital world. This isn’t completely their fault as an online store can open a new department in a matter of days or even hours, but how long would it take for Marks & Spencer to open up a section of brand new products in just one of its stores? Whereas a 50% off sale can be orchestrated within hours and start impacting profits almost immediately online, a high street retailer has to plan such events well in advance and can’t produce the point of sale items and advertising campaigns in such a short timescale.

There is hope for the traditional retailers and a way they can fight back – by combining their offline brand power with the new online marketing strategies.

The advantage that offline retailers have over new internet start-ups is existing marketing budgets and recognisable brands. Where they fail is to put these two together in the same way as an online marketer would. If they were to fight their internet competitors on their own turf – the search engines – and price themselves more competitively they would be able to use their brand recognition to not only attract a far greater share of traffic, but also convert a lot more of it too. If this were to happen, then it wouldn’t take long for the lists of most popular internet retailers to start filling up with brands that we’ve recognised for decades.

Article originally published on WalesHome.org: http://waleshome.org/2010/06/why-do-high-street-giants-stumble-online/

Howells Solicitors is one of the five largest law firms in Wales, specialising in residential and commercial property conveyancing as well as various legal services for businesses and individuals. The firm approached Liberty at the end of 2009 to discuss how we could help them become a market leader online.

The problem

Howells was not appearing on the first page of the search engines for any of its keywords and was receiving very little website traffic. The number of enquiries being generated by the site was only a couple a month and this needed to improve dramatically.

The solution

We offered an intensive online marketing strategy which included:

- Pay Per Click adverts on Google AdWords
- SEO copywriting, where we re-wrote sections of their site to better incorporate keywords
- Inbound links were built to their site from other legal resources
- Google Local listings were set up for their five offices

The result

Within a few days their site started climbing the search engines and within a month traffic had more than doubled. The website can now be found on the front page of Google for hundreds of local keywords, including “solicitors Cardiff” and “Solicitors South Wales” but also many national terms, such as “commercial lease solicitor” and “lease solicitors”.

These results, along with a controlled Pay Per Click spend have meant that now, six months on, traffic is still rising each month and there are numerous online enquiries each day.

Testimonial

“From working closely with the team at Liberty Marketing, we have found that Search Engine Optimisation is a brilliant tool for increasing our enquiries and a lot more cost effective than previous print campaigns that we have undertaken. We specialise in several legal areas of law and have found that Liberty can deliver enquiries to us through our website in all areas. We also have the ability to target specific areas that we would like to concentrate on with minimum fuss. The website is now a brilliant tool to use to gain business.”

Tristan Lewis, Business Development Manager, Howells Solicitors

On the official Google blog there is a new announcement that the Beta version of an encrypted Google search is ready for use by general web users.

In a nutshell, by visiting https://www.google.com (rather than http://www.google.com) an encrypted connection is put in place which means third parties are not able to see the search terms you use and search results you view.

Immediate differences between the standard and more secure versions of Google are highlighted in the blog post: “The service includes a modified logo to help indicate that you’re searching using SSL and that you may encounter a somewhat different Google search experience, but as always, remember to check the start of the address bar for “https” and your browser lock indicators: Today’s release comes with a “beta” label for a few reasons. First, it currently covers only the core Google web search product. To help avoid misunderstanding, when you search using SSL, you won’t see links to offerings like Image Search and Maps that, for the most part, don’t support SSL at this time. Also, since SSL connections require additional time to set up the encryption between your browser and the remote web server, your experience with search over SSL might be slightly slower than your regular Google search experience. What won’t change is that you will still get the same great search results.”

The article also states “Google will still maintain search data to improve your search quality and to provide better service. Searching over SSL doesn’t reduce the data sent to Google — it only hides that data from third parties who seek it. And clicking on any of the web results, including Google universal search results for unsupported services like Google Images, could take you out of SSL mode. Our hope is that more websites and services will add support for SSL to help create a better and more consistent experience for you.”

This has been implemented after Google suffered recent criticism over data security when it collected information from open Wi-Fi connections. How the general public will react to encrypted Google search and how large the uptake will be is anyone's guess, though it is easy to see, even within a day of release, that this will make life more challenging for website owners and search engine marketers.

Early tests show that in the website analytics data, the referrer field isn’t complete when vistors come from the https version of Google. This means that the more people use encrypted search, the less you know about where they came from and the keywords used to bring them to your site.

It looks like Google has listened to recent feedback that many Pay Per Click account managers, including ourselves, have passed on regarding the quality of broad match in AdWords. For a while now we have been concerned with the way Google uses broad match keywords as many clients have been appearing for totally unrelated terms, due to Google believing the words were related. An example being a Solicitor client of ours bidding on the broad match keywords “immigration lawyer” and appearing for the search query “homeoffice”.

In the interest of only exposing clients to traffic that is relevant, we have started shying away from broad match and sticking more with “phrase” and [exact] match terms. Either that or spend half our time adding in scores of negative keywords. This might not be needed now, as Google has announced the introduction of ‘modified broad match’ on its blog, here.

By placing a + sign in front of the words, you can now tell AdWords to only show your advert for very closely related searches. The blog post states that “close variants include misspellings, singular/plural forms, abbreviations and acronyms, and stemmings (like “floor” and “flooring”). Synonyms (like “quick” and “fast”) and related searches (like “flowers” and “tulips”) aren't considered close variants”.

This is a big step in the right direction and something we look forward to working with.

In the first case of its kind, a UK citizen has just been fined £1000 after one of his tweets landed him in hot water.

Back in January, upon hearing the news that Robin Hood Airport was closing due to snow, angry Twitter user, Paul Chambers vented his anger by posting: "C**p! Robin Hood airport is closed. You've got a week and a bit to get your s**t together, otherwise I'm blowing the airport sky high!!"

Whilst the airport themselves didn’t take the joke seriously, the police did and this week he was fined £1,000 due to the post being "grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character”.

On top of the fine, Mr Chambers was given a criminal record and also had his computer confiscated. This hasn’t stopped him using the micro-blogging site as since he has commented on the judgment with "I'd like to thank the CPS (Crown Prosecution Service) for their level-best efforts in f**king up the life of an ordinary citizen. I love Britain."

Mr Chambers is now considering launching an appeal, something which other Twitterers, including well known user Steven Fry, have said they would help fund.

The growth of Liberty Marketing over the past few months has been so dramatic that we have brought in another new member of staff. The latest recruit is Nathan Jeans, whose primary responsibilities will be SEO copywriting, article creation and press release distribution.

With a business and marketing degree and a postgraduate diploma in newspaper journalism to his name, Nathan promises to have an interesting mixture of skills that will really benefit Liberty and its clients. Having worked most recently as a freelance writer, Nathan has produced articles for The Guardian and The National Geographic, as well as countless articles for numerous sport magazines, where football, cricket and darts were particularly well received. When not working, Nathan particularly enjoys partaking in the afore mentioned sports, with the exception of cricket, where apparently his technique lets him down!

Managing director, Gareth Morgan commented, “We are delighted to have Nathan onboard. I have worked with dozens of external copywriters over the past few years, but it’s great to actually have someone in-house who can get to know the ins and outs of the company and our clients, and produce copy that represents the ethos and professionalism we have here at Liberty. I have had a good look at his past work and am very impressed by its creative and personable nature. I really do see a lot of good things ahead for the future.”