Friday, July 29, 2016

SearchCap: AdWords reports, CTR data & Google Maps ads

searchcap-header-v2-scap

Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.

From Search Engine Land:

  • Merkle’s early data on expanded text ad CTRs: Results are mixed
    Jul 29, 2016 by Ginny Marvin

    The agency looked at expanded text ad performance from both brand and non-brand traffic.

  • Excited about Google’s new map ads? You should be!
    Jul 29, 2016 by Will Scott

    Google Maps ads are changing to help local businesses become more visible. Columnist Will Scott discusses the four features you should be most excited about.

  • 9 things most people don’t understand about SEO
    Jul 29, 2016 by John E Lincoln

    New to the world of search engine optimization (SEO)? Columnist John Lincoln explains some things you might not know about this online marketing discipline.

  • Search in Pics: NBA players at Google, Pokemon Go gamers & Google koolaid
    Jul 29, 2016 by Barry Schwartz

    In this week’s Search In Pictures, here are the latest images culled from the web, showing what people eat at the search engine companies, how they play, who they meet, where they speak, what toys they have and more. Google’s Gary Illyes in scary clown mask Source: Twitter Real Google koolaid: Source: Google+ NBA players […]

  • AdWords gains 3 new cross-device attribution reports
    Jul 28, 2016 by Ginny Marvin

    Based on AdWords cross-device conversion data, the new reports show device influence through the full conversion path.

  • Don’t lose track of leads once they pick up the phone
    Jul 28, 2016 by Digital Marketing Depot

    The internet, combined with the rise of mobile devices, has created a telephonic boom. But while measuring online conversions has become standard practice for most businesses, many companies have a conversion blind spot surrounding their inbound phone calls. The solution to this blind spot lies in the application of call intelligence. This white paper from […]

Recent Headlines From Marketing Land, Our Sister Site Dedicated To Internet Marketing:

Search News From Around The Web:

Industry

Local & Maps

Link Building

Searching

SEO

Search Marketing

The post SearchCap: AdWords reports, CTR data & Google Maps ads appeared first on Search Engine Land.



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Merkle’s early data on expanded text ad CTRs: results are mixed

Merkle has released early results on click-through rates of expanded text ads relative to standard text ads in its Q2 Digital Marketing Report. The agency began participating in the expanded text ads beta in April and analyzed the longer ad format’s impact on click-through rate (CTR) across thousands of ad groups.

When Google first announced that expanded text ads (ETAs) were coming, the company touted as much as a 20 percent lift in click-through rates on expanded text ads. Merkle looked at ad performance for non-brand traffic and brand traffic.

For non-brand queries, early results showed expanded text ads drove a 16 percent lift for the median site and ad group on desktop. Mobile phones, however, saw just a 4 percent bump in CTR and tablets an 8 percent increase overall. Merkle added that individual results did vary widely, with several advertisers seeing lower CTRs from expanded texts on non-brand traffic from some devices.

google-expanded-text-ads-nonbrand-ctr-merkle

Source: Merkle

 

On brand traffic, expanded text ad click-through rates were nearly in line with, or slightly worse than, standard text ads.  ETA click-through rates were 4 percent lower than standard text ads on mobile phones, flat on tablet and off one percent on desktop.

google-expanded-text-ads-brand-ctr-merkle

Source: Merkle

 

Merkle points out a few caveats when looking at this data. Little is known about the auction conditions for ETAs, such as how many expanded text ads display on a results page, how often product listing ads showed with expanded text ads and whether there is a difference in the queries that trigger ETAs versus standard ads during this period when both ad formats are running simultaneously. Another thing to note is the frequency and mix of extensions that show with ads can vary significantly with each impression.

ETAs were receiving 47 percent of total impressions in the ad groups in which they were included, Merkle reported. Merkle’s client base skews large retailer.

These are early results, and more analysis will be forthcoming as ETAs are now available to all advertisers, but they raise questions about both the testing environment advertisers are supposed to be making decisions in over the next couple of months, as well as the long-term upside of ETAs. Google has said the key impetus for the new longer format was the idea that giving mobile users more information upfront will give them more confidence to click. With that it’s surprising to see these phone CTR results, and to see desktop outperform phone.

It’s also worth pointing out that distinct mobile (preferred) ad copy is not supported with expanded text ads, meaning the same messaging is served across all devices.

The full Digital Marketing Report includes more on paid and organic search, comparison shopping engines, and display and is available for download (with registration).

The post Merkle’s early data on expanded text ad CTRs: results are mixed appeared first on Search Engine Land.



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Customer Data: The Solution to Lead Generation

More leads, please.

In most companies, it’s an ongoing process to generate interested buyers to your product and services.

We want qualified leads that move effortlessly throughout the sales cycle.

But the problem lies in our preparation. Some of us just don’t have enough information about our prospects.

The CSO Insight study reported that “42 percent of sales reps feel that they don’t have the right information before making a call.”

Use accurate customer data to prepare your team. Knowing key insights can make or break the deal.

Power up your data profile. Leverage it to produce more qualified leads.

Gathering Reliable Data

Based on a Ascend2 study, “35 percent of those surveyed said the biggest barrier to lead generation success is the lack of quality data.” Your data should tell a vivid story of your customer.

To gather reliable data, track anonymous users who visit your website. Watch leads interact with your content via session replays.

Ask for feedback from current customers. Monitor the trends of loyal consumers.

B2B marketers must also “embrace more third party and real-time data sets to really understand buyer’s across the entire customer journey.” For example, that may include using social logins to access a prospect’s profile information.

Data is widely available. Your team must decide which acquisition channels work for your company.

What’s the best way to collect email addresses? Or how can you quickly accumulate customer preferences?

customer-demographics-chart

“Understanding who your customers are and, in turn, what they like, will undoubtedly enable you to increase conversions and sales. Make it easy for your customers to share their data with you, and use that data to keep them engaged with your business,” says Josh George, a senior applications engineer at Lyons Consulting Group.

Know who you’re serving. Collect valid data for better results.

Enhancing Buyer Personas

Get inside your prospects’ minds. Map out your ideal customer to understand their reasons for buying.

But, what’s the point?

Buyer personas are roadmaps to navigating through your prospects’ interests, dislikes, and habits. If you’re aware of their behaviors, your team can create targeted solutions.

“By developing research-based buyer personas, you can create effective, highly targeted marketing campaigns. Each piece of communication ties back to your buyer personas so that every message addresses relevant pain points and positions your software as a viable solution,” states Brie Rangel, Account Strategist at IMPACT.

Knowing the basic demographics of your buyer is a given. Your team’s goal is to dive deeper. Learn your customers’ goals, challenges, and personal story.

Below is an example of a buyer persona for a specific startup founder. The story section offers a complete picture of the prospect, everything from the stage of his product to what he does for fun.

buyer-persona-startup-founder

The role of customer data is to provide accurate information for your buyer personas. You don’t want to waste time selling enterprise-level B2B SaaS software to a B2C startup.

Moreover, inaccurate buyer preferences and habits will leave both the prospect and sales rep frustrated. So, double-check your personas.
Because in the end, your mission is to match your product with a qualified lead. That’s how you bring in sales.

“Use personas to spend more time with qualified leads, because they’re the ones who are most likely to turn into those long-term customers you’re looking for,” says Nicole Dieker, freelance writer and copywriter.

Enhance your buyer personas. Use data to add a face to the customer.

Segmenting Your Audience

After learning your customers distinct behaviors, it’s time to serve those individual needs.
It makes no sense to group everyone together.

If Sally specifically likes apples, why send her emails about oranges and grapefruits? Instead, educate her about the difference between gala apples and pink lady apples.

That’s a mental hurdle for most SaaS teams. We assume if our customers like X; they will definitely love Y. It isn’t always that simple.

Segmentation comes in many shapes and sizes. From geographical to behavioral differences, your customers vary. And it’s up to your team discover how to connect with them.

market-segmentation-approaches

You might consider a city in a particular state or the buyer’s readiness to purchase. Work with your team to develop a goal.

Define your reason for segmentation. Experienced marketing and product leader Doug Goldstein offers the following common segmentation objectives:

  • Create segmented ads & marketing communications
  • Develop differentiated customer servicing & retention strategies
  • Target prospects with the greatest profit potential
  • Optimize your sales-channel mix

Segmentation is impossible without customer data. Add insights derived from analytics to guide how you group prospects.

And don’t be afraid to experiment. Testing is how you’ll discover the right messaging for your sales reps. Plus, it can help you market product information on your site.

“When practicing website optimization, leveraging customer segmentation provides a framework for running intentional, well-hypothesized experiments on your website that drive value,” writes Junan Pang, a solutions architect at Optimizely.

Segment your audience to deliver more personalized and timely experiences. With a segmented list, you’ll be able to target the right services to interested buyers.

Building The Relationship

You can collect the data, create the buyer personas, and segment your audience. But all that data can’t substitute customer relationships.

And that’s where most businesses miss their opportunity.

“[C]ompanies often manage relationships haphazardly and unprofitably, committing blunders that undermine their connections with customers,” states Jill Avery, a senior lecturer at Harvard Business School.

Customer data is intended to facilitate the relationship between the sales rep and the buyer. However, research shows that companies without sophisticated data management tools “derive erroneous results that annoy customers, resulting in a 25 percent reduction in potential revenue gains.”

bad-impressions

Don’t attempt to foster a customer relationship with poor-quality data. If you do, prospects will seek out your competitors.

TechTarget executive editor Lauren Horwitz and SearchCRM site editor Tim Ehrens agree:

“Customer data management often falls to the bottom of the priority list. Organizations get bogged down with more pressing issues, such as cutting costs or keeping daily operations running. But relying on poor-quality customer data almost always frustrates customers — and many of them take their business elsewhere.”

Relationships are built on human-to-human contact. That means being genuinely interested in your buyer’s concerns.

How can you make their lives better? Where can you offer convenience?

And sometimes your product won’t be the solution. Yes, your SaaS service may not be the best option for that particular person.

Sales teams must recognize that it’s okay to remove unqualified prospects from the pipeline. This action should be commended, not frowned upon.

Use customer data as a tool to score leads. Then, gain insight on how to target prospects that matter to your company.

Data shouldn’t supplant the customer relationship. Make the human connection.

Go for the Data

Your team needs qualified leads. Focus on customer data as a solution.

Gather data from reliable sources. Use buyer personas to target your audience. Segment their behavior to create a personalized approach. And focus on building relationships throughout the sales cycle.

Want more leads? Go for the data.

About the Author: Shayla Price lives at the intersection of digital marketing, technology and social responsibility. Connect with her on Twitter @shaylaprice.

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Excited about Google’s new map ads? You should be!

google-maps2-fade-ss-1920

As an avid Google Maps user on both a personal and business level, I’ve often wished for a more interactive and all-inclusive experience. For instance, wouldn’t it be great to get suggestions for options like the closest coffee shop or lunch spot while I’m driving from Point A to Point B? Sure, I could pull over, open up Google and search for these things separately, but who wouldn’t welcome a truly responsive and local experience within Google Maps?

If you’re like me, then Google’s recent announcements for local businesses are good reason to celebrate. These revamped Maps ads are primarily focused on helping local businesses drive more traffic to their physical locations. According to Google, its new Maps ads will help businesses increase their visibility at times when consumers are specifically searching for somewhere to shop or eat.

As a consumer, marketing professional or business owner, why should you be excited about these new Google Maps ads? Because they’re valuable to both consumers and business owners: The new ads will not only help consumers find the businesses they’re looking for, they’ll also get additional information about each business. The ads are designed to give local businesses additional opportunities to feature their brands with the goal of increasing traffic, particularly when consumers are searching on a mobile device.

For example, if a consumer is driving on the freeway following a Google Maps route and desperately needs a caffeine fix, they could look for a “coffee shop near me” in the Google Maps app search bar. A coffee shop that paid to have an ad appear would come up first in the search results list, and its logo would appear on the map in its physical location.

These company logos, also called promoted pins, are one of the most exciting new features. If this isn’t enough to make you jump for joy, please take a few moments to explore in greater detail the following four reasons why Google’s new Maps ads will thrill you.

1. New local search ads

Google’s new local search ads are currently available to advertisers using location extensions in AdWords. These ads will appear on Google Maps for desktop and the Google Maps mobile app. For those of us who work in the marketing world, this is extra exciting, as the Google Maps app alone has over one billion downloads and thus reaches vast numbers of potential consumers.

When users search on Google Maps for desktop, they will see Google Maps ads in the Local Finder above all other map results, this time with purple ad labels. The map also will note these locations with purple pins.

google-maps-local-ads

Similarly, users with the Google Maps mobile app installed will see the purple ad labels and map pins for businesses using local search ads. Like the organic listings, these local ads may include “Call” and “Directions” buttons.

This can be extremely impactful for small businesses that are looking to rank locally for relevant searches but have not been successful in trying to rank organically in local maps results.

2. Promoted Pins

In a recent blog post, Google explained that the primary goal of its Maps changes is to help marketers bring together the digital and physical universes, particularly because location searches on mobile devices have grown an astounding 50 percent more quickly than all other types of mobile searches.

This next part is where you should really get excited. Google is completely optimizing the entire Google Maps adventure with promoted pins, or more simply, company logos that will indicate physical locations on Google Maps for companies that buy ad space. Users will see these pins when they have a Google Map pulled up, when getting directions, and even during navigation while they’re driving. The pins will be designed to be simple and unobtrusive to avoid distracting drivers behind the wheel.

Walgreens Promoted Pins

In the app, ads will show up with distinctive purple ad labels and will be prominently featured in the first spot above organic search results. If you’re searching within Google Maps, no more than two ads with purple ad labels will make it to the top of the results, so getting that top placement is significant.

3. In-store promotions

Now that I’ve established why I’m so excited about promoted pins, let’s take it a step further so you can learn about another user-friendly feature for in-store promotions. With promoted pins, businesses are able to feature specials that are happening right now at that location, displaying the in-store promotion below the logo on the map itself.

For example, the logo for Starbucks could come up while you’re driving, following your on-screen directions, displaying a $1-off coupon. Thinking about how tired you are, you tap on the logo and the business page will come up on the bottom of your screen, displaying coupons, specials or in-store promotions happening right now at that location. The potential to bring in new customers thanks to this feature is unlimited, as the right promotion could easily propel more store visits.

4. Customizable business pages with local inventory

Even better, for advertisers using promoted pins, local business pages can be customized with the same goal to increase physical visits to stores. Consider the potential of having the flexibility to highlight offers towards customers who are in your area and looking for exactly what you sell. Local business pages will still include essential business information such as operating hours, address and phone number, but now they can feature the in-store promotions previously mentioned.

Customizable business pages will also highlight searchable local inventory. Google’s research found one out of every four people will avoid visiting stores when they don’t know if the product they’re looking for is in stock, which propelled them to add this useful feature. So now customized business pages can be set up to allow users to search for items in a store’s inventory. How does this work? Businesses will provide Google with their inventory feed, and customers will be able to do searches of that inventory to determine what is in stock.

Since in-store traffic is the goal of these local maps ads, Google is working to enhance accuracy of tracking store visits conversions using beacons. While currently only available to select businesses (There are certain requirements), they are hoping to be able to allow all advertisers to attribute ad dollars to offline metrics to better determine ROI of online efforts.

So what can you do now while the excitement builds for these changes? If you haven’t already, claim your business page on Google My Business and ensure the information is accurate and complete. Inaccurate information will make it much more difficult for people to act on their shopping instincts and visit a physical location.

Then, set up location extensions for your Google AdWords search campaigns so your ads will be eligible to appear on all Maps results. Until store visit metrics are available for all businesses, the information provided about your location extensions, such as clicks on the “Get Directions” link, can be an indicator of how well your ads are working to drive traffic to your store.

What do you think about the new Google Maps ads? Let me know on social media.

The post Excited about Google’s new map ads? You should be! appeared first on Search Engine Land.



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9 things most people don’t understand about SEO



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Search in Pics: NBA players at Google, Pokemon Go gamers & Google koolaid

In this week’s Search In Pictures, here are the latest images culled from the web, showing what people eat at the search engine companies, how they play, who they meet, where they speak, what toys they have and more.

Google’s Gary Illyes in scary clown mask

Gary Illyes in scary clown mask
Source: Twitter

Real Google koolaid:

Real Google koolaid
Source: Google+

NBA players visit the GooglePlex:

NBA players visit the GooglePlex
Source: Google+

Google row boat inside the Google UK office:

Google row boat inside the Google UK office
Source: Twitter

Googlers John Mueller & Gary Illyes playing Pokemon Go:

google playing Pokemon Go
Source: Twitter

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Thursday, July 28, 2016

AdWords gains 3 new cross-device attribution reports

report-charts-ss-1920

Google is introducing three new reports on cross-device activity along with a reorganization of the Attribution section under the Tools menu in AdWords.

With 6 out of 10 online conversions in the US starting on one device and ending on another, according to a Google/Ipsos study, the new reports are designed to help marketers track cross-device conversion paths, including those that include search ad clicks from more than one device in a conversion path.

The new cross-device activity reports:

  • Devices: an overview of the cross-device activity in your account.
  • Assisting Devices: shows assist levels  and values by each device type — mobile, tablet, desktop.
  • Device Paths: the top conversion paths for visitors that used more than one device before converting.
cross-device-attribution google adwords

You’ll notice in the screenshot example above that the existing conversion, path and click analysis reports are now rolled up under their own sections within the Attribution reporting menu. The new reports and layout will be rolling out over the next several weeks.

With this announcement, Google also released benchmarks on cross-device conversion activity for search campaigns in the United States, Japan, Germany and Great Britain.

The post AdWords gains 3 new cross-device attribution reports appeared first on Search Engine Land.



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Don’t lose track of leads once they pick up the phone

smartphone_analytics-366588536-ss-1920The internet, combined with the rise of mobile devices, has created a telephonic boom. But, while measuring online conversions has become standard practice for most businesses, many companies have a conversion blind spot surrounding their inbound phone calls.

The solution to this blind spot lies in the application of call intelligence.

This white paper from CallTrackingMetrics describes what call intelligence is, why your business needs it and how CallTrackingMetrics takes it even further.

Visit Digital Marketing Depot to download your copy.

The post Don’t lose track of leads once they pick up the phone appeared first on Search Engine Land.



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SearchCap: Google iOS app, Google Search Console export & AdWords characters

searchcap-header-v2-scap

Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.

From Search Engine Land:

Recent Headlines From Marketing Land, Our Sister Site Dedicated To Internet Marketing:

Search News From Around The Web:

Industry

Local & Maps

Link Building

SEO

SEM / Paid Search

The post SearchCap: Google iOS app, Google Search Console export & AdWords characters appeared first on Search Engine Land.



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9 Ways For Marketers To Do Amazing Technical Things Without Knowing Code

As a marketer, you are always looking to do more with less. You may get the sense that technology can help you do better and you’re right. Follow along as I explain exactly how you can harness this force without writing a single line of code.

1. Do A/B Split Tests and Personalization

Visual Website Optimizer and Optimizely that allow you to drag and drop your changes across the website by simply copy and pasting a snippet of code across your website (or getting somebody technical to help you do that). Both tools allow you to customize your website for different types of visitors, and they’ll allow you to run controlled experiments to see which variations of your web pages perform best.
optimizely-set-up-experiment
Optimizely allows you to drag and drop different variations of your web page without any code.

2. Build Landing Pages

Maybe you don’t want to optimize your website – you want to build some new pages. Maybe it’s a new campaign announcing a new product launch, or maybe you’re running an event you want to collect an email waiting list for. Whatever it is, you’ll need a web page that describes what you’re doing, a landing page. Thankfully, you don’t have to build anything in HTML or CSS. You can use drag and drop editors in Unbounce or, if you’re really looking to maximize conversion, marketing-based solutions like Leadpages.

3. Build Entire Websites

Don’t want to stop at just building a web page? Maybe you want to look to build an entire website for a new product. Thankfully, you don’t have to call a web agency to do everything for you at a high price! You can use solutions like Squarespace or Wix to build everything in your website without a line of code. And if you want to get even more customized, grab a theme from Themeforest and learn the basics of WordPress! You’ll soon be building beautiful websites with layers of personalized complexity–without a line of code.

4. Scrape Links, Content and More with Python (but use with caution!)

By downloading Anaconda and using the iPython Notebook contained within, you can use Python scripts and copy + paste the outputs.

The easiest and most powerful use of this is to take links and data from other websites. Be careful though, a lot of websites will have terms of use that prohibit the use of their content. Nevertheless, it might be a good tool to use to get raw data, or to get useful links that point to certain resources. You might, for example, want to get all of the links of your competitors profiled in a certain blog post, or you might want to get all of the links of different services in a directory.

anaconda-python-code

This script above will take all the links from a sample page (in this case the Wikipedia page for the Python language)

Here’s the raw script you can copy + paste in Python 3.5 mode:

from bs4 import BeautifulSoup
import requests
r = requests.get(“http://ift.tt/2ajWVI2;)
soup = BeautifulSoup(r.text,”lxml”)
for link in soup.find_all(‘a’):
print(link.get(‘href’))

5. Send Newsletters and Automate Emails

Email is one of the most effective marketing channels out there, and the best for return on investment. If you can get people coming back by filling their inbox with valuable information, you’ve reached marketing nirvana.

mailchimp-sell-more-stuff

Instead of doing all the messy work coding up HTML-rich emails, you can use the drag & drop and email list capabilities of MailChimp. If you want to automate emails a layer beyond, and take people through an in-depth series of automated emails, you could use a solution like Drip.

6. Get Data

Ever needed to take a quick look at certain data, like the demographic traits of a certain country? Need to source the latest financial data? Look no further than Quandl. You’ll be able to find all sorts of data, from the average age of first marriage for women to life expectancy at birth. Best of all, you can export that data directly in Excel, stepping away from all of the code if you needed.

7. Filter Through Data

Most people think of Google Apps as a great way to collaborate with others, but they don’t know about the full power of this suite of tools. Google built a way for you to add layers of functionality on top of their powerful software, allowing you to do so much more with different types of data. Best of all, you can copy + paste pre-made scripts and benefit from the effects without being technical!

Check to see if your website is online or save all tweets that match a certain hashtag to a spreadsheet. You can do that or a variety of other tasks through scripts that will save you time and money.

most-popular-useful-scripts

Use these scripts for good, not evil.

8. Building Popups and Other Interactive Elements on a Website

Sometimes, you want to add an additional layer of interactivity to a website, whether it’s a popup to highlight a brand new feature, or a walkthrough that will help guide users. Thankfully, with tools like Engage and HelloBar you can add different modals or elements to your website that can help you collect emails, direct traffic elsewhere, or dictate what users should look at in a web page.

kissmetrics-engage-lightbox-on-kissmetrics-blog

9. Dig Deeper into Websites, and See How Your Website Looks in mobile

Most people don’t know about the handy Google Chrome Inspector or its equivalent Firebug on Firefox. While most of the time it is used by developers to spot errors or mock up certain changes in the code, you can use the Inspector to check into the exact URLs of images, and how your website displays on different screen sizes, from iPhones to tablets.

responsive-design-chrome-inspector

The responsive design tool in these inspector tools will allow you to simulate what your website looks like from device-to-device, a crucial need to see if your website is mobile-friendly. This is a factor that’s critically important for websites with mobile traffic, and one that Google uses to rank webpages.

Conclusion

By harnessing technology, you’ll be at the cutting-edge of digital marketing. You won’t even need to learn how to code to get an awesome array of new powers. Save yourself time and money, and make sure you use your new capabilities for good!

About the Author: Roger is a digital marketer who self-taught himself to code but recognizes when code is useful and when it isn’t. He manages Growth for edtech company Springboard, and will often write about new technologies at his own personal blog code(love). You can find him on Twitter.

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How your old content can help with SEO

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As the volume of content on the internet continues to expand at jaw-dropping rates, it’s getting harder and harder to attract an audience.

And yet, publishers and brands are investing heavily on churning out new pages. The Washington Post publishes 1,200 new content assets every day, 500 of which are articles prepared by their in-house editorial team. Across the entire web, according to estimates from Internet Live Stats, over 4.3 million blog posts go up each day. Keeping up with that kind of competition volume is a bit of a non-starter.

What’s more, traffic referred from search, which was once considered to be the most attainable and most effective audience acquisition channel, is likewise becoming harder to attain. Depending on the user’s search term, geolocation and device, Google’s monetized SERPs are likely to aggregate fewer than 10 organic, non-personalized results. Regardless, social media is driving more traffic to content pages than search.

One recent study conducted by Boost the News found that 74 percent of new articles hit their traffic peaks on the same day they’re published, followed by 25 percent the following day.

Long live the king

“Content is king,” as the mantra goes, but where’s the ROI on publishing pages that are basically useless after less than a week? Why do you have to keep feeding fresh meat to the content beast if you’re not going to get anything in return? The answer is that you don’t.

Sure, it’s probably a good idea to publish new material on a regular basis, but don’t forget to also make the most of your older content assets. Regularly update that which is outdated, and upgrade that which is laggardly. Promote and repurpose that which stands the test of time.

By extending your content’s shelf life, you’ll be able to maximize your discoverability, while at the same time giving your investment in these assets a fighting chance at performing. Here’s how.

Determine what assets are ripe for life extension

Start by auditing the content that’s currently up on your site, deciding which pages should be unpublished, updated, upgraded, promoted or repurposed.

If you have old content that’s no longer relevant in any way to your ideal audience, then just go ahead and unpublish it. Content marketing is about quality, and if something isn’t helping you, there is no need to have it live. You don’t need anything unnecessarily slowing down your website and turning off readers.

Content that relates to old products or services that you no longer offer, job listings and previous employee information are some obvious things that can be taken down. Before you delete these unnecessary materials, though, set up 301 redirects so that people who head to the old URLs get forwarded to newer, updated pages with relevant information.

For example, when visitors try to access a job listing that’s no longer open, you can direct them to your updated careers page, where they can learn more about all of your current openings. This allows for longer time on site and can lead to increased brand awareness, trust and loyalty.

Update and upgrade

Spend some time reviewing your page performance metrics from the past. Were there any articles that should have been major performers but never lived up to their potential? Anything that was once a powerhouse, but audience interest dwindled?

Pages like these need your attention. Spend some good hours updating the talking points in your content to reflect the latest trends and information. Research your long-tail keywords and use these phrases organically within the content, to ensure that Google recognizes the usefulness of your page to the people who would benefit from it most.

Add visuals and subheaders to make the page more inviting. Cite some statistics to back up the arguments you make. Quote and link to experts who write about the topic at hand, so you’ll have a chance of obtaining some powerful ego-baited backlinks.

Google’s algorithms favor domains with an ongoing flow of fresh content, but they also favor pages that were published recently. To update your content without sacrificing its seniority benefits, make sure that the new version sits on the same URL as the old.

Using this powerful tactic, one recent experiment yielded a 66-percent lift in organic traffic to old blog posts.

Drive traffic to your evergreen assets

While page views don’t directly impact search rankings, on-site engagement signals can help holistically. By keeping people clicking around your content archives, your bounce rate will plummet, and by promoting your content to new audience members off-site, you’ll effectively also boost your site’s organic social shares, which also indirectly help with SEO.

Use your email list and your social media profiles to promote your best older content. For maximum email click-through performance, set up a series of rich content guides that are specific to topics, and then assign each topic to an audience segment.

Much of your content, particularly text-heavy blog posts or long webinars, can likely be atomized into short-form content optimized for your various social channels. You can create highly engaging graphics on tools like Canva and share content that’s relevant to your specific audiences on each channel. For example, knowing that videos perform well on Facebook, infographics perform well on Pinterest and listicles perform well on Twitter can help you distribute evergreen content with posts that will help maximize engagement.

The best part is, once they’re set up, social posts promoting your evergreen assets can easily be automated for periodic recurrence using an app like Hiplay.

Beyond email and social, CodeFuel offers a solution that helps site visitors discover content that’s both relevant and related. The system curates content for promotion via automated topic tagging, ultimately increasing time on site and giving your evergreen content the attention it deserves. CodeFuel’s metrics also allow you to easily see what content is performing best and where the biggest opportunities are for updating and monetizing pages.

No, repurposing content won’t kill your rankings

Well, it depends. It’s true that Google will penalize duplicate content, so you definitely don’t want to create a new blog post or section on your website with the exact same text or metadata that already appears elsewhere. However, syndicated content, especially when the original has had a chance to get indexed and when syndicated versions include canonical tags, poses zero SEO danger. Google is usually smart enough to recognize the oldest instance as the one that should rank, and it simply ignores the others.

That being said, there are many formats in which you can leverage to atomize your content assets. For example, a section from a text-heavy blog post could be turned into a video, infographic, slide deck or podcast episode. These are great ways to maximize your digital footprint and reach new audiences.

Podcasting is especially powerful in this regard. Since podcasts are favored by on-the-go people who don’t necessarily have time to look at your website or read your blog content, they represent a huge opportunity. All you have to do is record someone reading your old blog posts in a personable way, and you have your first episode. With new tools like Anchor, you can easily record yourself, share your content, and grow your audience.

One of the best examples of content repurposed for multi-platform promotion is Jay Today, an initiative of Convince & Convert’s Jay Baer, who published a short spoken word video, in eight different formats, for 149 episodes before he pulled the plug on it last summer. Each video clip was uploaded to iTunes, Medium, LinkedIn Pulse, Baer’s own blog and more.

Nine lives for your content

Enough with the volume game. It’s time to get serious about maximizing the life cycle of each and every content asset that you produce. Even if you end up publishing fewer new articles as a result of these efforts, you’re likely to still come out ahead.

Focus on quality, and don’t forget the opportunities you can find in your archives. When you think strategically about publishing ROI and repurpose, upgrade and promote your content, the benefits are huge. You’ll spend less on production, improve your SEO rankings and reach new audience members.

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Google reiterates suggested 33 character limit in ETA headlines to avoid truncation

As expanded text ads began rolling out, some advertisers noticed that the new, longer double-headline is sometimes cut off. This can be frustrating and have potential legal ramifications for businesses in highly regulated industries like pharmaceuticals. Here’s an example of a truncated ETA headline:

Google AdWords’ social team responded to the tweet above with a recommendation to keep the combined character count of the two headlines limited to a total of 33 characters to avoid having the second headline truncated.

On Wednesday, Google’s Cassie Hartt has followed up with clarification on this issue on the AdWords Community forum. As many pointed out in that initial Twitter thread, truncation is really about pixels rather than a specific character count. But since ads are based on characters not pixels, to avoid headline truncation Hartt reiterated the recommendation of 33 characters. From Hartt’s post:

Advertisers who must adhere to strict legal or regulatory ad requirements should consider creating headlines with 33 characters or less to ensure all of their ad text shows — even on the smallest devices. These advertisers should also take into consideration the size (and language) of these characters. For example, an ‘M’ takes up more space than an ‘i.’

So, if you’re including compliance-related information in your headlines, or the meaning of your headline changes when truncated, or you just can’t stand seeing your work cut off, it’s probably best to stick with 33 characters.

Hartt added that if the Ad Preview tool shows the full headline, “it generally won’t truncate when served,” and the company still encourages most advertisers to take advantage of the full 60 characters allowed.

The post Google reiterates suggested 33 character limit in ETA headlines to avoid truncation appeared first on Search Engine Land.



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How to download all of your landing pages from Google Search Console via Analytics Edge — and I mean ALL of them!

analytics-edge-gsc-connector-lg

Google Search Console (GSC) is powerful and provides a boatload of data directly from Google. One of my favorite reports in GSC is the Search Analytics report, which enables you to drill into queries that your site ranks for and the landing pages ranking for those queries, then slice and dice that information by device, country, date and more. You can also compare queries, pages, countries and devices by date, which is extremely helpful when diagnosing surges or drops in traffic.

When analyzing websites, I often export data from GSC to Excel for further analysis. For example, when helping companies with website redesigns or CMS migrations, it’s important to have a solid understanding of all landing pages ranking for queries and receiving Google traffic. You can find that data in the Search Analytics reporting by selecting the Pages group. See below.

GSC Pages Grouping

There’s a nifty Download button at the bottom of the report which enables you to export a spreadsheet with your landing page data. That’s great, but I’m about to rain on your parade: The UI in Google Search Console is limited to only one thousand URLs. Yes, just one thousand. That may be enough for some sites, but it’s extremely limiting for many large-scale sites.

GSC 1K Limit

So we’ve got a tricky situation. We have valuable data directly from Google, but we’re handcuffed by not having enough of it (at least to download). What’s an SEO to do?

Solutions for finding more landing page data in Google Search Console

I’ve written in the past about how to hack Google Search Console to get more data from your reports. For example, setting up directories in GSC, which will focus your reporting on URLs located just in those directories. That will help, and it can enable you to find more landing pages in GSC. But it’s not perfect, especially for sites that don’t have categories mapped out as distinct directories. And you’re still limited to one thousand rows of data per directory.

You can also learn how to code and use the Search Console API directly. Just understand that there’s a learning curve involved. Unfortunately, I know many people who have started to dig into the API and then wasted time, never got it to work, and pulled their hair out in frustration. If you have the technical aptitude to code and tap into the API, I recommend doing that. But if you’re looking for a solid solution right out of the box, that might not be your best option. Let’s move on.

So, based on the limitations I listed above, wouldn’t it be nice to have a tool that can easily and seamlessly export all of your landing pages (or queries) from GSC to Excel? And I mean ALL of them. Enter Analytics Edge.

Analytics Edge add-in for Excel: Your Swiss Army knife for GSC and Google Analytics data

In March, I wrote a post explaining how to easily export all of your landing pages from Google Analytics via Analytics Edge. I ended up finding the solution since I work on a lot of large-scale websites and didn’t have an easy way to export bulk reports. Analytics Edge works extremely well when exporting many landing pages from Google Analytics. You can use the Google Analytics Connector for Analytics Edge to work seamlessly with your data.

Well, it wasn’t long before I started testing other “connectors” that Analytics Edge supports. And one is for Google Search Console.

Analytics Edge Connectors

There are several important tasks you can execute by using the connector for Search Console, but I’ll focus on exporting all of your landing pages for this post. I think once you try it out, you’ll be hooked. I know I am… I use it all the time, especially when working with large-scale sites.

Let’s jump in.

How to download all of your landing pages via the Analytics Edge plugin for Excel

1. Download and install the Analytics Edge free or core add-in. There’s a free trial for the core add-in if you wanted to simply test it out. But the free add-in will work as well (just with less functionality). After installing the add-in, you should register it in Excel.

Register Analytics Edge

2. Next, install the Search Console connector by clicking the Manage Connectors button in the menu.

Analytics Edge Manage Connectors

3. Once you install Analytics Edge and the Search Console connector, access the options in the Analytics Edge menu at the top of Excel. Click the Google Search drop-down and select Accounts. This is where you will connect Analytics Edge with the Google account(s) you want to download data from. Go through the process of connecting the Google account you want to work with.

Analytics Edge Menu Accounts

 

Analytics Edge Accounts

4. Now that you’ve connected a Google account to Analytics Edge, click the Google Search drop-down again and select Search Analytics. This will start the wizard for working with the Search Analytics report from GSC. Name the macro whatever you want, and you’ll be taken to the next screen.

Analytics Edge Search Analytics

5. Now pick an account to work with and a specific website. You should see all of the sites you have access to in the list. Also, select the page dimension, since we want to export all landing pages from GSC. Next you can select filters and the date range.

Analytics Edge Options

6. There are three tabs in the report interface. The first is labeled Fields, and we just set that up by selecting the page dimension. If you click the Filters tab, you can filter your report by query, page, country, device and type. You can also limit the number of rows you want to export. For our purposes today, I would leave all blank (but you can focus your export by using these filters in the future.)

Analytics Edge Filters

7. The third tab, labeled Dates, enables you to select the date range for your report. There are some presets available, like “Last 28 Days” and “Last 90 Days,” or you can select a specific date range. Note, GSC data only goes back 90 days. This is a serious limitation, and I know Google is thinking about extending that to one year. There’s no ETA on that yet, so let’s choose “Last 90 Days” to get as much landing page data as possible. Then click Finish to start the export.

Analytics Edge Dates

8. Analytics Edge will export your results, but it will only show a sample of the export in the worksheet highlighted in green (in memory). If all looks good with the sample, then you must “write to worksheet” to see all of the data that was exported. In order to do this, click File, and then Write Worksheet.  Simply enter a name for your new worksheet and click Finish. Boom, check the new worksheet that was created to find all of your landing pages.

Analytics Edge Write Worksheet

If you followed the instructions above, then you are staring at glorious landing page data in its entirety. Not a one-thousand row sample of that data, but the entire enchilada. Awesome, right?

So whether you’re working on a redesign or CMS migration, analyzing an algorithm update or simply archiving Google Search Console data, Analytics Edge makes it easy to export ALL of your data without running into the one-thousand-row limitation.

Bonus: Blow your mind and export queries by landing page

If you’re working with a large-scale website in GSC, then I’m sure you’re eager to use Analytics Edge to seamlessly export all of your top landing pages. But what if I told you there’s another report that could blow your mind?

Using the Search Console connector for Analytics Edge, you can download all queries by landing page. Yes, that means you can quickly pivot that data to have a killer report in Excel listing each landing page, along with each query that the page ranks for. I won’t cover every step in the process as I did above, but I’ll explain the main differences with running the new report below.

First, when choosing settings in the Analytics Edge wizard for the Search Analytics reporting, you should select both the page and query dimensions. That will enable you to export the raw data containing queries by URL.

Analytics Edge Query by Page

One you export the data and “write to worksheet” as I explained earlier in the tutorial, you’ll see all queries by landing page. You’ll notice that the data isn’t organized well, but we can take care of that quickly with a pivot table.

To create a pivot table using our data, click the Insert link in the main menu of Excel, and then Pivot Table. Leave the default options and click OK. The pivot table should be created in a new worksheet.

Pivot Table in Excel

Then select page, query, and then metrics like clicks, impressions, and average position. And boom, you’ll now see each landing page and its associated queries. See below.

Viewing queries by landing page in Excel

Now you’ll have each landing page that is ranking in Google and driving traffic, along with the queries that the page is ranking for. Awesome.

Summary: Don’t settle for 1,000 rows — export all of your landing pages from GSC

Google Search Console contains a powerful set of features and data directly from Google. And the search analytics report within GSC provides a wealth of data regarding queries that are ranking in Google, the pages that rank for those queries and more. But there’s a one-thousand-row limit on exporting from GSC, which is extremely limiting for many larger sites.

That’s why using a tool like Analytics Edge can help liberate your data. With just a few clicks, you can export all of your landing pages. And I mean ALL of them. Have fun.

The post How to download all of your landing pages from Google Search Console via Analytics Edge — and I mean ALL of them! appeared first on Search Engine Land.



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Wednesday, July 27, 2016

Google iOS app gets better listening skills for voice searches & newly added features

Google rolled out a number of new updates to its iOS app today, including the ability to better hear voice searches conducted in noisy environments.

In addition to being a better listener, Google’s iOS app will also save recently visited pages. According to the update notice, tapping on the ‘recents’ icon (found on the top right corner of the homepage, or to the right of the ‘G’ button) will return pages visited during the previous seven days.

Local search results for hotels and gas stations have also been updated. Hotel searches will now include information about amenities like wifi, gym, pool and laundry services, while gas station search results may include gas prices, as shown here:

Google app ios gas prices

There’s also a newly added ‘Forward’ button to move back and forth between pages for better navigation.

The post Google iOS app gets better listening skills for voice searches & newly added features appeared first on Search Engine Land.



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SearchCap: Google political bug, Google PageRank redirects & more

searchcap-header-v2-scap

Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.

From Search Engine Land:

Recent Headlines From Marketing Land, Our Sister Site Dedicated To Internet Marketing:

Search News From Around The Web:

Local & Maps

Link Building

Searching

SEO

SEM / Paid Search

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YP brings search and location data together in “audience cartography”

mobile-smartphone-location-maps-ss-1920

Local search provider YP has introduced a new location data offering it calls “Audience Cartography.” While designed for mobile display (mostly in-app) advertising, the company incorporates local search intent data into the mix of signals it uses for audience targeting.

Here’s how YP describes the new offering:

[A] proprietary methodology powering our Enhanced Mobile Targeting display solution for national brands, using first party search intent and mobile location data to develop unique insights on both target audiences and their actions. These insights make it possible for marketers to refine their targeting efforts across multiple media channels in real-time, leading to more effective mobile marketing campaigns and greater online-to-offline conversions.

Location history (and search) data are combined for audience identification and segmentation. It also enables offline attribution based on a control and exposed methodology. At a high level it resembles other solutions in the market, some of which I previously identified in a post yesterday about a partnership between Cuebiq and Ubimo.

Cuebiq and Ubimo said they had introduced the first real-time offline conversion analysis tool, enabling in-flight campaign/creative optimization. However, others make similar claims, including YP with this offering.

AC-Heat-Map

On the challenging topic of differentiation, YP’s Bill Maslyn said that the combination of online and offline data, including first-party search data, for targeting was unique. The company also points to the way it packages the information for advertisers:

  • Interactive click maps: “allow businesses to zoom in on specific areas close to a store location to show where and how people are interacting with a campaign”
  • Customer store location heat maps: “visualize the location and characteristics of any given audience as a means of expanding targeting opportunities and increasing overall campaign relevancy.”
  • Store visit reports: “calculate total visits to individual stores, helping to more clearly identify campaign effectiveness and account for online-to-offline attribution.”
  • Halo reports: “help businesses understand the residual effects of their digital marketing campaigns.”

Among many issues tied to the announcement, Maslyn and I discussed the strategic and tactical differences between real-time geotargeting vs. audience identification using location for subsequent targeting or “retargeting.” He offered that real-time location targeting was generally not as effective as using location to define audiences based on offline behavior and affinities. “It’s about who, not where,” said Maslyn.

Of course real-time geotargeting and audience targeting are not mutually exclusive and can be combined.

Maslyn added that YP can build lookalike audiences based on audience segments created or established using location and search signals. We also spoke at some length about the accuracy of location data being captured (this is an area of some controversy and contention among providers.) Maslyn told me that YP filters out “roughly 70 percent” of location data signals it collects or sees daily, which are of dubious quality. Other companies make similar statements.

A final and very interesting area of discussion was the use of this type of targeting for awareness compared with direct response advertising. Maslyn said that most of the advertisers he works with, using location data, tend to be focused on direct response (e.g., offers to drive store visits) whereas in general mobile display the spit is more like 50-50 between direct response and awareness, according to Maslyn.

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AdWords Editor updated to support expanded text ads

google-adwords-bigA2-1920-800x450Good news for paid search managers working to get expanded text ads implemented. A day after rolling out expanded text ads globally, Google released an update to AdWords Editor that supports the longer ads.

If you already have AdWords Editor installed, you’ll be prompted to update to version 11.5 the next time you open it. There is a new expanded text ads (ETA)section under Ads in the left navigation, located above the original Text ads setup area. The layout looks like this:

expanded text ads setup adwords editor

Google encourages advertisers to test ETAs against their existing text ads for a period before migrating completely to the new format. However, standard text ads will no longer be accepted after October 26.

Mobile URLs instead of Mobile Preferred Ads

Instead of setting up separate Mobile Preferred ads, ETAs only allow advertisers to set a separate final mobile URL. That means there is no way to create distinct mobile messaging unless you set up separate mobile campaign, which will now be feasible as device bidding rolls out.

If you try to just set a final mobile URL, you’ll get an error telling you to set a final URL.

Other new features in AWE 11.5

In addition to supporting expanded text ads, the new version of AdWords Editor supports:

  1. Better Advanced Search — this isn’t a splashy update, but it’s a big improvement. (This is one area where Bing Ads Editor has out shined AWE.)
  2. Creating and editing structured snippet extensions
  3. Adding and editing mobile app engagement ads for Android apps
  4. The ability to post changes from multiple accounts simultaneously, upload a CSV to multiple accounts or download information from multiple accounts to one CSV file.

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