Google’s Unnatural Links Messages: The Shot Heard 'round the SEO World?

Perhaps you have received, or know someone who has received, this dreaded “unnatural links” message from Google:



There has been a lot of speculation about the messages. Are they part of a Google plan to get publishers to reveal bad links that Google isn't able to detect on its own? Hard to say.

At the recent Brighton SEO conference, on Friday the 13th of all days, Google UK's Pierre Far indicated that the messages were manually generated.

Given the report that more than 1 million websites received this message, that is pretty frightening stuff. One million manually applied messages? Chances are that this results from algorithms flagging potential suspects and then some human examination prior for validation purposes to sending the messages.

How many of your link building tactics will withstand human examination? Will a human be fooled by a spam post like this one?



Even though this particular post is better than the average machine-generated content, it doesn’t pass human review. Sadly, you can easily find these types of posts by poking around with random garbage search queries...Read More

More Advertisers Flocking to Facebook Despite Rising Ad Costs [Report]

Over the past year, the cost of Facebook Ads has increased in just about every way possible, with CPM, CPC, and Cost per Fan all up from Q1 2011. Even so, Facebook is earning more from Marketplace ads, says TBG Digital’s Q1 2012 Global Facebook Advertising Report.


Costs per click are up 23 percent across the five territories evaluated by TBG: Canada, France, Germany, UK, and US. Advertisers in France saw the biggest CPC jump, with Q1 2012 rates 35 percent higher YoY. TBG hypothesizes that an imbalance in Facebook ads supply and demand could be driving the increasing CPCs.

Because TBG uses confidential data from 235 clients in 190 countries, actual CPC values have been removed from the chart. These figures, however, reflect data collected from over 268 billion impressions served in the five countries indicated above.



On average, CPMs (cost per thousand impressions) rose 41 percent over the same quarter last year, an increase of 15 percent since Q4 2011.

Engagement actually dropped in the same period; CTRs (click through rates) fell 6 percent, on average, from the previous quarter. Marketers in France were the hardest hit, seeing a 13 percent decline in ad engagement, while in the US, it fell 8 percent...Reade More

Top 3 Excuses For Not Switching to the New Google Analytics – Debunked

It's been nearly a year since Google made the new Google Analytics available to everyone. While it can seem less intuitive up-front, there are many new features only available with the new version, like the incredible social reports. And yet, many haven’t made the complete jump into the new Google Analytics.

Are you like many who keep delaying the switch to the “new” Google Analytics layout? If so, you aren't alone. People aren’t switching for several reasons – even my colleagues and trusted network of veteran SEOs.

Here's a list of three of the most common excuses for not switching and my counter arguments against them.

”I Can’t Find the Reports...”

 

People complain that all the reports have moved and it’s too hard to find them. If this is one of your excuses, don’t worry.

Luckily, Google remembered its roots when rolling out the new version of Analytics. Right above the side navigation is a search box.

Start typing the name of a report in the search box and Google will suggest reports for you. Whenever you can't figure out under which heading your report now lives, you have search.



Go a step further: Search integration goes farther than searching for reports. If you manage multiple accounts and even more profiles, search can help you quickly find not only the account you’re looking for, but the individual profile attached to an account, as well.

 

”I Can’t Save Reports as PDFs”

 

This excuse is no longer valid. Exports to PDF format are back.

Like most things Google, it’s labeled as being in beta. But it’s right there, under the Export icon/menu at the top of each report. You can export comma-separated values (CSV), tab-separated values (TSV, TSV for Excel), or PDF...Read More

A Beginner’s Guide to Paid Search

As a beginner in the paid search realm, learning the ins and outs of the digital marketing industry takes some time. However, sitting in on A Beginner’s Guide to Paid Search, a presentation by Lisa Raehsler, Big Click Co. founder, at SES New York helped aspiring paid search marketers guidance on how to get up to speed in the most succinct manner possible.

Kick-Starting a Successful Paid Search Advertising Program

Paid search advertising offers the chance to pay (by the click) for visibility on major search engines such as Google, Bing, and Yahoo when people search for terms related to the product or service that website is selling. These ads, typically known as pay-per-click (PPC) ads, can appear above, to the right of, or beneath the organic (also known as natural or algorithmic) search results.

Before diving headfirst into a strategy, marketers must identify main goals for the account. Is the sale/purchase the most important aspect of the site? Is it persuading a lead? Would you include a link that would allow visitors to subscribe? And also, are you going to track your page views?

The account structure is organized into campaigns, which are then separated into ad groups that combine ads with their respective keywords. It is best practice to have your account campaign structures mirror the website itself in order to budget and report effectively. These campaigns should revolve around a funnel structure that illustrates how searches are general in the beginning, but gradually getting more defined as visitors are moving closer to making a purchase.

Disparate ad groups and keywords in one campaign under one budget can cause your account to perform poorly. Raehsler’s presentation is coherently divided into best practices and optimization strategies for keywords, budgets/bids, ads, targeting, retargeting, and tracking.

Keywords

Best Practices

It is best practice to test keywords in various match types and to make sure you always have a well-developed negative keyword list. You can generate keyword ideas from the keyword tool in Google AdWords, or the Google Insights tool for suggestions and related searches. Reviewing query reports and web analytics is a must when you are trying to maintain accuracy.

There are various keyword match types that must be taken into consideration when inputting – broad matches, broad match modifiers (using plus signs), phrase matches (using parenthesis), exact matches (using brackets), and negative matches are some of the various types out there. You must also go back and review the aforementioned funnel to strategize some general and/or specific keyword match types that makes the most sense depending on the level in the funnel you are at.

Optimization

To devise the most optimal set of keywords, they must be scrutinized on a regular basis depending on the size of your campaign.

Are the keywords too general? Constantly review click-through rates (CTR) and conversion rates, and remove anything that is too general with lots of impressions and low CTR (or less than 1 percent) and/or a poor conversion rate.

Do you have low quality score? Sort and filter through by low quality score and no conversions. Check out the keywords, ads, and the corresponding landing page to see if they correlate. Create various filters for specific keyword conditions and work on the CTR by making your ad copy as directly related to the keyword as possible.

Again, you must always review all aspects of your campaign... Read More

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How SEO & PPC Can Help Build Your Email Marketing List

The biggest driver of leads for the B2B marketer? Fifty-seven percent of those surveyed by BtoB Magazine said email marketing was the online channel that contributed the most qualified leads to their businesses, according to a recent eMarketer article.



While social media and PPC (SEO was conspicuously missing from the survey) were also top lead sources, this type of logic rings true for many of the B2B organizations we work with as well. Website search presence undoubtedly brings lead opportunities into the sales funnel, but email invitations for more qualified content strategies such as webinars, events, and trade shows are likely to close the deal as well.

It’s difficult to teach an old dog new tricks. The eMarketer article indicates that 59 percent of those surveyed view lead generation as their greatest online marketing challenge. With that pressure in mind, it’s also difficult to move away from the strategies that continue to work well.

Instead of bucking the trend, B2B search engine marketers should work toward aligning their goals with what has worked well for their organizations. In this case, building the email marketing database.
Here are three practical steps tying SEO and PPC initiatives to the continued development of the email marketing list.

Make Email Subscription a Conversion Benchmark

There are several potential metrics B2B marketers can use to benchmark an SEO program. While B2B organizations naturally gravitate to the desire to acquire sales ready leads, search engine marketers need to lead the effort in developing a spectrum of lead opportunities from an SEO program.
While email subscription will probably not lead to an immediately qualified sales prospect, setting goals in coordination with email acquisition sets the stage for more effective conversion attribution in SEO campaign evaluation.

Measurements to consider:

• Growth in overall email information and the quality of email address details
• Conversion rate of email acquisition at the page level and by keyword strategies

Create More Visibility to Email Subscriptions in Page Templates

Landing page optimization is a critical component of any search engine marketing initiative. Consider supporting primary conversion goals with an opportunity to acquire email subscriptions as well. Places B2B search engine marketers could consider optimizing for email as a secondary conversion include:

• Below the primary form submission
• In utility navigation
• Confirmation page messaging

Places where email subscription could be considered a primary conversion opportunity include:

• Blog and blog post navigational stream
• Social media assets
• As additional correspondence in email and traditional marketing collateral
• Mobile applications

Contact AdWords About the Communication Extensions Beta

Not widely adopted and hard to find in terms of (ironic) communication, the AdWords communications extension beta could become another way to drive email registrations for the B2B organization.
Via this support thread on Google AdWords:

“Currently, the communication extentions are tested by the team on a small portion of selected accounts. However, if you’d like to participate in beta testings, you need to email/call the support team, provide details about your account and submit it. ”     Read more...