This week Google has announced a few new twists for marketers who use its AdWords advertising program.

One allows marketers an opportunity to re-engage visitors who clicked-through to their site but left with out converting. The other helps marketers understand how visitors interact with the ads they have placed on Google.com prior to committing a conversion. AdWords Remarketing and Search Funnels in brief:

AdWords Remarketing

• analogous to what other providers call retargeting
• allows an opportunity to re-engage with visitors who clicked on an ad, did not convert, and then visited another site on the Google Content Network
• multiple Remarketing campaigns can run simultaneously

Of the two announcements, this is the one that I’m the most excited to. Just to paint the picture simply, I’ll leverage the example from the AdWords blog:

Here’s an example of how it works. Let’s say you’re a basketball team with tickets that you want to sell. You can put a piece of code on the tickets page of your website, which will let you later show relevant ticket ads (such as last minute discounts) to everyone who has visited that page, as they subsequently browse sites in the Google Content Network. In addition to your own site, you can also remarket to users who visited your YouTube brand channel or clicked your YouTube homepage ad.

You can also run a number of remarketing campaigns at the same time. For example, you could offer discount game tickets to users who’ve previously visited your tickets page, advertise VIP hospitality packages to users who clicked on your “How to get to the arena” page, and advertise a sale on team merchandise to users who previously visited your YouTube brand channel.

There’s a lot of opportunity here, and I can’t wait to do some real-world tests.

AdWords Retargeting is alive and kicking, patiently waiting for you to tinker with it in the AdWords Dashboard.

AdWords Search Funnels

• shows user interaction with AdWords advertisers ads over time
• creates relationships between views, clicks and conversions
• provides the following new reports in the AdWords dashboard: Top Conversions, Search Funnels, Assisted Conversions, First and Last Click Analysis, Time Lag, and Path Length

So, in short, Search Funnels provides a much broader view of how users are exposed to and interact with AdWords Ads overtime leading up to conversions.

Search Funnels sounded relatively tame to me until I watched the explanatory video in the post on the AdWords blog.

A lot of the data sounds good. Maybe the person who does the Google product geek-to-human translation was on sabbatical when the video was pulled together. Learn more about AdWords Funnels on the AdWords Blog. Search Funnels are available in the AdWords Dashboard.

Which of these will have more impact on your future AdWords marketing activities?

Originally posted on the online marketing blog of Terralever’s Scott McAndrew.

Social Media Shapes Perceptions About You as an Employer

The warnings for any job seeker are loud and clear: be careful what you post because companies are scouring your social sites, from LinkedIn to Facebook to YouTube, digging up any and all information they can to ensure that they are hiring quality, reputable talent. Those pictures of you doing a keg stand at your alma matter’s football homecoming game, or of you riding the subway in your underwear in the most recent Improv Everywhere No Pants Subway Ride may come back to bite you in the butt, no pun intended.

We’ve heard the messages targeted to job seekers several times and we’ll likely hear them several more times because they are worth repeating. But the message we don’t hear so often is one targeted to companies looking to hire savvy new talent.

You Google job candidates before hiring. Has it occurred to you that those candidates are doing that same thing to you?

If you’re a business, I’ve got a homework assignment for you. Yes, homework. As the evening draws to a close with the kids long since in bed and thoughts of following suit dancing through your head, sit down with your laptop. Switch the television channel to whatever network is playing reruns of your favorite comedy or crank up whatever tunes you bump when no one else is listening. Don’t crank it up too loudly though (remember, the kids are sleeping). Take another drink from your half-finished beer, fire up Google’s mighty search engine, and type your company name into that little box in the center of the screen.

Does your website come up first? If you’ve optimized your site properly, it should. What comes up next? With the increasing authority being given to social sites, you’ll likely find Facebook, Twitter and other social sites showing prominently above the fold.

One by one, search the social networks where your company has a presence. Look at your profiles and reflect on what they say about you. What does your brand stand for? How do you treat your customers? Do you have personality? Do you have soul? Look at the people talking with you and about you on these sites and other social sites, including blogs. Who are they? What are they saying? Does the content and tone of these conversations appeal the type of talent you want working for you?

How you participate in social media should be rooted in strategy developed around your business objectives, but don’t underestimate the potential for shaping perceptions about you as an employer. Even something as simple as an around the office photo album on Facebook can give job seekers a feel for the company’s culture, from how the office is laid out and how people dress to whether you place higher value on conformity or individuality.

Finish the last of your beer, and answer me this: What about your social presence makes today’s job seekers want to work for you?

Today Google delivered a much-anticipated new product announcement for a new social networking platform by the name of Google Buzz. Their strategy looks to, rather than build off of their investment with Orkut, to build new social network platform as an extension of Gmail. Interesting approach, and most likely a necessary departure based on the lack of Orkut’s success globally against Facebook. A few initial thoughts on what I saw and what it means:

• While using the popularity of Gmail as a great launching point was most likely Google’s best strategy for rapid user adoption and a good start for building my social graph within Buzz, I wonder if it’ll be enough. For those hardcore Google users that use Gmail as a primary email provider or Google Talk as a primary chat client, I have no doubt that Buzz will be an easy, natural addition to their Google experience.  For the rest of the world (including me) who don’t use either of those services as a primary method of communication, I’m left to manually build my social graph within Facebook. That’s a big ask considering users’ investments in building and maintaining these social graphs in environments such as Facebook, Twitter & LinkedIn.
• I wonder what this means for the future of Orkut. Granted, Orkut never had the legs to compete with Facebook globally, but it did have success in a few international environments such as India and Brazil. A social product launch with no reference to Orkut doesn’t bode well for continued innovation with that platform.
• As is typical for a product announcement and demonstration, we didn’t get enough detail on core social topics such as privacy or integration options. While an open, social web is everyone’s goal, when considering the portability of both a user’s social graph and privacy preferences this conversation rapidly becomes complex. It’ll be interesting to see what’s under the hood here with Buzz.
• Completely and conspicuously absent from the announcement, demos and q&a were any sort of integration with any other social platform such as Twitter, Facebook, blog platforms, etc. For all the criticism Facebook gets for being a walled-in environment, they’ve done a great job of enabling integration with these platforms and providing a platform that can effectively integrate with anything. Google chose to launch only with integrations with Google products such as Gmail, Google Chat, Picasa and YouTube, which is curious for an announcement claiming to be the most open social web platform possible.
• What I found to be the most intriguing was the integration of locally aware information with Google Maps and their mobile offering. With their ongoing investments in Google Maps and Google Local, Google has been the defacto standard for local data worldwide. Using this investment to their advantage to instantly create the most locally-aware social platform was a savvy and powerful move. It effectively makes services such as Brightkite obsolete over time and pushes services such as FourSquare and Gowalla deeper into a mobile-game niche.
• Also noticeably absent was any reference to how this will effect Google search engine results. As with most things SEO related I’m sure we’ll be left to discover those effects on our own and it’s something we’ll have a keen eye on in the coming weeks and months.

Again these are a few, off the cuff thoughts on Buzz, I’m sure I’ll have more in 3 minutes when I can actually play with it. I’d be interested in your opinion on Buzz and what it means to the evolution of the social web. Comment here with what you’ve got!

It’s a new year, a new beginning, a new leaf, which means plenty of new opportunities for your web site and online marketing program. By this time, I am sure you have made your own personal resolution list for 2010, but have you taken the time to make one for you web site? To help you get rolling, I put together a list of key strategies for you to consider.

PPC
1.    Test New Ads – Try out new ad variations, it can never hurt to test out something new and fresh.
2.    Update Landing Pages – If you don’t already have customized PPC landing pages, now is a perfect time to implement them. If you are already utilizing them, analyze your results and make modifications accordingly.

On-Site SEO
1.    Rewrite Title Tags – When was the last time you updated your title tags? My guess is that they could use a little refresh, especially if you have added new products, services, and/or offerings.
2.    Fix broken links/URLs by 301 redirecting them to relevant new pages.

Link Building – Set Monthly Goals
1.    Identify X number of link opportunities per month.
2.    Send X number of link requests per month.
3.    Create X number of new pieces of “link worthy” content a month.

Blog  – Set Weekly Goals
1.    Blog X number of times a week.
2.    Comment on X number of relevant blogs per week.

Social Media – Set Daily Goals
1.    Participate consistently, but don’t force it. Tweet & post when you have something to share, not just for the sake of getting something posted.
2.    Ensure your profile bios are optimized to their full potential.

Email Marketing– Set Monthly Goals
1.    Develop a campaign calendar for the year.
2.    Commit to sending X number of emails per month.
3.    A/B split test your campaigns and messaging.

Analytics
1.    Commit to spending X number of hours per week digging into your analytics.
2.    Analyze the bounce rate for the top 20 landing/entry pages of your web site.
3.    Identify and analyze your biggest abandonment pages and modify them for success.

Tools – Test Out New Tools
If you don’t already have a solid list of online marketing tools to help in your efforts, below are a few of my favorites free tools you can check out:

1.    SEOBook ‘s Backlink Analyzer
2.    SEOmoz’s LinkScape
3.    SpyFu
4.    Google Webmaster Tools

Set goals for your web site and online marketing program. Monitor the success of each of them and then modify the tactics based on the results you see. A resolution list is a perfect starting point. And with a little strategy and planning, your web site is bound to be a success!

Does local search matter? was originally posted on Scott McAndrew’s blog on September 8th 2009

Seen that map on the first page of search results accompanied with a one or a handful of businesses after performing a search on Google, Bing or Yahoo?  Those results are considered to be “local search” results, displaying companies whose products or services align with what the Internet searcher is looking for.

Localized search results appear on search engines search results pages if…

• An individual business is explicitly searched for: “Apple Computer in Cupertino”
• Local intent is expressed by the visitor explicitly when searching for a product or service: “Pizza in Boston, MA”
• Although not explicitly expressed, local intent is assumed, based on the nature of the query itself: “Car wash”

Which business listings appear depends upon a long list of factors (suitable for a post of its own).

How much does having a listing there for a business matter?  The short answer: A lot, assuming that your business provides a product or service locally from a physical location (or several locations).  Keep reading if you’re interested in the long answer.

How many searches are we talking about?

Estimates vary by source on how many searches have local intent.  Those on the lower end of the range cite 20% and those on the higher side generally fall between 30 and 40%.  Calculating how many actual searches that equates to pushes us to numbers which challenge conventional understanding.

Recent ComScore data indicates that in May of this year 14.3 billion core searches were made in the United States.  I’ll forgo doing the math and just assume that we can all agree that local search represents a highly compelling number of searches.

How do user’s interact with a page of search results?

Sometimes images speak louder than words, so let’s start there.  Does the graphic below look familiar?

If you haven’t seen it before it’s a visual depiction of Google users’ attention from an eye-tracking study performed by Enquiro in 2005.  The area of most interest lies in the triangular area at the top left-hand side of the page.  Results from other search engine’s also follow suit.  That triangular area (often referred to as Google’s Golden Triangle) is also precisely where localized search results generally appear (they also occasionally appear further down the search results page).

This image (and the study that it emerged from) are at least a few years old, but it tends to hold true.  Subsequent studies by Google have revealed a similar pattern, even when additional distractions, such as images, are added to the mix.  If anything, its likely that the addition of a map image which accompanies local listings positively influences the attention given they receive.

Do they take any action?

All of this is for not if the Internet searcher doesn’t take action, regardless of the reason.  Recent third-party research provides a strong case for local listings.  There are several studies out there, the following statistics are from a publicly available ComScore/TMP local search study conducted last year:

• The information provided online isn’t lagging offline information.  Users are pleased with what they find, whether their search is offline, online or on a mobile phone, with 9 out of 10 searchers stating they ultimately found what they needed.
• Search engines have become the primary stand-alone source for local business information, ranking higher than the print White or Yellow Pages or websites specifically focused on localized or niche listings.
• After performing a local search the majority of consumers (more than 70%) chose to contact the business (or businesses) offline by telephone or an in-person visit.

That last statistic might be the most compelling of all, connecting that online activity to tangible, offline business.  Conclusion?  If you provide a service or product locally, put local search high on you to-do list for your marketing and advertising and take advantage of this opportunity!

Digg, the popular social bookmarking site, announced this week on their blog that they are incorporating the nofollow tag (rel=”nofollow”) to external links they don’t trust, with the goal of reducing spam.

When submitting to Digg there are really two goals. One is to make it to the front page which will in turn drive a lot of traffic. And by making it to the front page your story is most likely to become very popular and people will want to link to it, which in turn garners a lot of links to your site. These are both great things for your site and from an SEO perspective, the links are golden.

The problem for Digg is that even if a story does not become popular on Digg, the link coming from Digg itself offers some weight to the spammy URL in a search engine crawler’s eyes. The bottom line here is that Digg will no longer pass link juice on to just any link, the downside maybe that legitimate links, in addition to the spammy ones,  may also not get any link love from Digg from now on.

Digg’s blog stated that the nofollow tag will be included on user profiles, comments and unpopular posts, but they made no mention on how popular a link had to be to have the nofollow tag removed.

“We’ve added rel=”nofollow” to any external link that we’re not sure we can vouch for. This includes all external links from comments, user profiles and story pages below a certain threshold of popularity.”

It will be interesting to watch how the rule is implemented over time and see what links Digg deems as trustworthy. The change may mean less link love from Digg but there is no doubt it will provide a better user experience for the Digg community by weeding out the spammers.

Originally published May 13th, 2009 to www.onlinemarketingperformance.com

Today Google rolled out changes to its flagship product: web search.  The changes are clearly aimed at facilitating the searcher’s ability to find what they are looking for and find it in short order.  If you’re a search engine optimization (SEO) practitioner, your world is about to get more interesting.  For the rest of the planet, what can be expected from Google search results just got a whole lot better.  What’s new?

The updates include Search Options and enhanced search results featuring microformats for content such as reviews.

Search Options

Search Options allows the user to quickly refine search results by providing additional context to the search being made.  After making a query, a user has several options to further clarify or modify their search results, including:

• Refining results to videos, forums or reviews
• Specifying the time frame from which to display results
• The ability to augment search results with images from the sites returned
• Lengthening the amount of copy shown for each result
• Showing related search phrases
• Displaying related topics to the subject searched upon (”Wonder Wheel”)
• Viewing results on a timeline

The options above are available when viewing “all results.”  As criteria are applied, the user’s scenario changes.  For example, if the searcher specifies video results only, the options change, removing criteria which is not relevant, but adding other opportunities, like the ability to specify the duration of the videos displayed.

Search Result, Snippets and Microformats

In search results, Google is now also returning different information depending upon the the context of the information searched upon.  In Google’s words:

We call the set of information we return with each result a “snippet,” and today we are announcing that some of our snippets are going to get richer. These “rich snippets” extract and show more useful information from web pages than the preview text that you are used to seeing.

The example which Google provides shows a restaurant search in which the results display star ratings of a result right in the search result listing (as opposed to needing to go to a review site).  Snippets fundamentally change the function of search results.  How and what information to display regarding a particular topic or result is unclear, but what is clear is that this will be a feature which continually evolves.  Google’s blog posting continues to explain the role of Google and the community in defining the feature:

We can’t provide these snippets on our own, so we hope that web publishers will help us by adopting microformats or RDFa standards to mark up their HTML and bring this structured data to the surface. This will help people better understand the information you have on your page so they can spend more time there and less on Google. We will be rolling this feature out gradually to ensure that the quality of Google’s search results stays high.

These new enhancements to Google Search are highly significant; the most significant changes since Universal Search was introduced.

The impact to the Google searcher are clear: Search just got better.  What impact will this have on the SEO community?

While most of us don’t need to worry about our ships being hijacked by bands of rogue pirates on the sea, a more subtle form of hijacking has been happening online for some time that should concern you. You see, a different sort of pirate exists out there that has been hijacking companies’ Google Local listings. Getting to the point, here’s a random example I recently found:

A Great Reputation

El Novillero is a nice, family-run restaurant that’s been serving up great Mexican food to those in the Sacramento area for going on 39 years. As you’d expect from a business that’s had success across four decades they have a great reputation in the community and a strong customer base. Here’s where the pirates enter the story: say I’m searching for “mexican restaurant sacramento” one night looking for a new place for some tacos. When I perform this search, the returned results from Google look like this:

At first glance, a great set of options for Mexican food across Sacramento. Upon further examination, however, take a look at entry “C” for our friends at El Novillero. The name looks right, but the link for El Novillero is pointed to www.247locksmithsacramento.com. If you were to look deeper you’ll find that although the name of the restaurant is correct, someone (presumably working on behalf of this locksmith lead generation business) has changed the address for the restaurant in Google and provided further local content that has nothing to do with burritos and sopapillas. In fact, Google is publishing a location that’s over 3 miles from the actual restaurant’s location. Obviously, this is “no bueno” for El Novillero’s prospects of finding new customers via Google.

What’s in it for the Pirates?

So why do these Internet Pirates do this? That’s easy. Local search is emerging as a fantastic way for generating leads for people that provide services within a specific region. In 2008 Google started leading with local search results for industries and key phrases that demonstrated local intent, effectively displacing the natural search order that had been in place for years. Beyond this shift, savvy Internet Marketers know that local search demonstrates intent to purchase like few other mediums available. In a 2008 report done for TMP Directional Marketing comScore found that 71% of people who performed a local search followed up with either a phone call or visiting the business in-person. While it may not seem to make much sense to see a locksmith hijack search results for a Mexican restaurant, this view should make their intent more clear:

The “B” result in this listing looks to be a legitimate locksmith business, it’s actually the hijacked listing for El Novillero. In fact, clicking on the reviews link for this listing takes you to a set of reviews for the fine service and food at El Novillero, not for the locksmith. Safe Auto Car Lockout probably doesn’t really have a physical presence in Sacramento and in hijacking poor El Novillero’s listing they’ve both given themselves a free local listing and they’ve gained 22 reviews, a key factor in how results are ranked in local search results. Score one for the dirty Internet Pirates.

Super. How Does One Reclaim their Local Listing?

So how does El Novillero get out of this bind? The good news is that all is not lost. No need for elaborate negotiations or servicing ransom requests. Google provides businesses a tool for reclaiming their local listing via the Google Local Business Center. In here you can enter your business’s location and go through a simple verification process that ensures you are who you say you are. It will take a bit of time to set the record straight for your local profile within Google, but it will be well worth the wait.

I’ve been working with a couple of 501(c)(3) non-profits in the past few weeks and found myself contemplating how to help them with their search engine marketing.

I immediately cut out pay-per-click as an option as hard costs aren’t something I can defer for them. But, pay-per-click kept creeping back up as an attractive solution.

Between the two charities I had needs that PPC is uniquely qualified to fill:

• Seasonal/annual promotional needs
  For infrequent or season needs PPC provides an attractive alternative to SEO.
• Immediate presence needs
  One thing you can’t do with SEO is get immediate placement. PPC? Absolutely.
• Competitive term evaluation
  PPC is great for evaluating the effectiveness of highly competive keywords prior to adding them to an organic SEO program

Well, after a few Google searches I was pleased to find that while I couldn’t defer the cost of PPC advertising, Google might.

If you’re a 501(c)(3) status non-profit Google might be willing to help you with your marketing efforts. How? With a Google Grant for AdWords advertising. Google says that the average organization receives just over $300/month of benefit. Actual grant amounts appear to be higher; I’m assuming relevance, cost-per-click and regional issues keep the cost far below upper thresholds for most recipients.

Interested? Here’s a few links to get you started:

• New to Google AdWords?
  If you aren’t familiar with Google AdWords ads, learn more about them on Google’s AdWords homepage. There’s also a brief overview on the Google Grants homepage.
• Google AdWords Grants Information
  There’s a great overview of what’s available on the Google Grants homepage. If you have questions or want to learn more, check out the Google Grants Blog or Google Grants Help.
• Apply
  The application form couldn’t be more straightforward!

I’ll be applying for Google Grants for AdWords for two non-profits early in the new year. If you’ve applied please do share your (positive or negative) experiences. I’ll be sure to report back on ours.

Originally posted on Scott McAndrew’s online marketing blog.