The decision engine has been creating tons of search engines ranking for many of my clients with a lower bounce rate than the other major search engines. Does this mean that Microsoft has succeeded with an advanced algorithm that is superior to Google’s? Or is it a fluke that the bounce rate is visibly lower than the other search engines.
The big question is how do we optimize our websites for Bing? We all want to be ranked at the top of this new search engine, which has the potential to take on the other major search engines.
1. From my observations domain age plays a big role. Bing wants to see websites that are established and have been around for a long period of time.
2. Bing seems to like websites with tons of original content on the landing pages.
3. Make sure your page titles are keyword rich and appropriate for the subject matter. Bing loves titles with keywords searchers are using. Make sure to have a good, unique title for all your websites pages.
4. Unlike other search engines, linking out seems to be favored. This means linking to other sites from your own site is good for ranking. This may show to Bing that your site shares useful information with its users. This is not to say reciprocal linking is good, but linking to sites that your users may deem valuable is a good idea.
5. Sign up for an account with Bing, manage your analytics and start a pay-per-click campaign with them. Their PPC rates are significantly lower than other PPC campaigns because there is not as much competition and keyword dilution occurring. In a few months to a year PPC costs will begin to mimic those of the other search engines, but for now the prices are superb.
Source From: http://www.pandia.com/sew/1966-bing-seo.html
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Google Caffeine: Testing the future Google
Google (GOOG) is testing a new version of Google Websearch at www2.sandbox.google.com, and they want you to give them feedback on the quality of results.
Matt Cutts of Google says:
“The Caffeine update isn’t about making some UI changes here or there. Currently, even power users won’t notice much of a difference at all. This update is primarily under the hood: we’re rewriting the foundation of some of our infrastructure. But some of the search results do change, so we wanted to open up a preview so that power searchers and web developers could give us feedback.”
The Webmaster Central Blog says this about the feedback:
“Do a search at http://www2.sandbox.google.com/ and look on the search results page for a link at the bottom of the page that says “Dissatisfied? Help us improve.” Click on that link, type your feedback in the text box and then include the word caffeine somewhere in the text box.”
The default search is in English. You can change the URL to generate results for other languages. Change these two values:
hl = language
gl = country code
Examples:
German language in Germany: &hl=de&gl=de
http://www2.sandbox.google.com/search?hl=de&gl=de&q=alle+meine+entchen
Spanish language in Mexico: &hl=es&gl=mx
http://www2.sandbox.google.com/search?hl=es&gl=mx&q=de+colores
Include the word “caffeine” somewhere in the feedback.
Face search engine Facesærch (yepp, that’s the way they spell it) has made a search interface called Google Caffeine Compare, which lets you generate two search engine result pages from the same search form, one for Google Caffeine and one for the regular Google Web Search.
Source From: http://www.pandia.com/sew/1969-google-caffeine-testing-the-future-google.html
Matt Cutts of Google says:
“The Caffeine update isn’t about making some UI changes here or there. Currently, even power users won’t notice much of a difference at all. This update is primarily under the hood: we’re rewriting the foundation of some of our infrastructure. But some of the search results do change, so we wanted to open up a preview so that power searchers and web developers could give us feedback.”
The Webmaster Central Blog says this about the feedback:
“Do a search at http://www2.sandbox.google.com/ and look on the search results page for a link at the bottom of the page that says “Dissatisfied? Help us improve.” Click on that link, type your feedback in the text box and then include the word caffeine somewhere in the text box.”
The default search is in English. You can change the URL to generate results for other languages. Change these two values:
hl = language
gl = country code
Examples:
German language in Germany: &hl=de&gl=de
http://www2.sandbox.google.com/search?hl=de&gl=de&q=alle+meine+entchen
Spanish language in Mexico: &hl=es&gl=mx
http://www2.sandbox.google.com/search?hl=es&gl=mx&q=de+colores
Include the word “caffeine” somewhere in the feedback.
Face search engine Facesærch (yepp, that’s the way they spell it) has made a search interface called Google Caffeine Compare, which lets you generate two search engine result pages from the same search form, one for Google Caffeine and one for the regular Google Web Search.
Source From: http://www.pandia.com/sew/1969-google-caffeine-testing-the-future-google.html
Saturday, September 5, 2009
PPC Integration: Integrating PPC with SEO
The number of companies performing SEM in silos is still surprising. They'll hire one agency to do PPC and another to do SEO. Or they'll have an in-house marketer doing PPC, while SEO is delegated to their IT department.
These scenarios aren't inherently bad. They can work very well -- if there's communication between the two. In Part 1, we outlined ways to integrate PPC with e-mail marketing. Today we'll talk about the key information that should be shared when integrating PPC with SEO.
Step 1: Develop a Master Keyword List
In school, we knew we had to do our homework if we wanted to get good grades. It's no different in search marketing.
While the execution of a SEO campaign is very different from the execution of a PPC campaign, keywords are the basis for both. Work with your agency or in-house SEM team to develop a list of key phrases that describe your product or service and are critical to your business.
If you specialize in one or two products or services, the list may be very short. For many e-commerce Web sites, the list will be extremely long. That's OK. If it's important to your business, make sure it's on the master list.
Step 2: Prioritize the List
Now it's time for some down-and-dirty keyword research. There are many free or low-cost keyword tools you can use, including the Google AdWords keyword tool. Pick one and go with it.
The first goal of keyword research is obtaining search volume estimates. You want to make sure you're expending your efforts on the most leveraged terms. Usually these are the terms with the most searches.
The second goal is finding additional variations on the key phrases you've selected. Sometimes the first phrase that comes to your mind isn't the first one to come to the searcher's mind, especially if you're selling a technical product or one that involves insider jargon that the layperson wouldn't know.
Once you have all major keyword variations, and search volume for each, start prioritizing. Sort your list by volume and keyword groups.
For instance, you might want to prioritize keywords around your top-selling product lines. Or you may want to prioritize your most profitable product line, or a new product line. Decide what's most important to your business and put that at the top of the list.
Step 3: Launch your PPC Campaigns
Now, the fun begins. It's time to put that research into practice. You should launch PPC first.
This is quick and relatively easy to do: all you need is your keyword list, ad copy, and a credit card, and ads can be live within a day or two. Also, you'll have greater control over your PPC campaign than you will over a SEO campaign.
While a good SEO can definitely control many facets, ultimately you're at the mercy of the search engines when it comes to ranking, description, PageRank, etc. With PPC, you can control your keywords, bids, ad copy, time of day your ad shows, and many other aspects -- and you can turn the whole thing off with the click of a mouse.
Step 4: Observe and Optimize
Keep close tabs on key PPC metrics such as CTR and conversion rate by keyword, as well as quality score. Tweak your campaign by dialing down losers and boosting winners. The goal here isn't only to gather data, but ideally to get conversions as well!
While your PPC campaign is running, get started on your SEO research. A good place to start is Eric Enge's 60 minute site audit. But don't make any site changes yet. Once you have about 30 days worth of PPC data (the time frame will vary depending on how much traffic your site gets), use this information to determine where to begin SEO. Some options might be:
* Keywords that convert well in PPC for which you'd like to dominate the page by also ranking well in SEO.
* High-volume keywords that are expensive to buy in PPC, but would drive high numbers of conversions from organic traffic.
* Keywords that you'd ultimately like to stop bidding on in PPC and generate traffic solely from organic sources.
* Keywords or groups of keywords that are relevant to your business, but that have a low PPC quality score. Optimizing the landing pages (along with improving PPC campaign structure and ad copy) can often improve your quality score in the process.
* Terms for which competitors outrank you.
There are many other options. The point is, don't guess at this stuff.
Even if your Web site only has 10 pages, SEO can be a daunting task if you don't know where to begin. Use PPC to determine where you can get the biggest impact, and start there.
Source From: http://searchenginewatch.com/3634874
These scenarios aren't inherently bad. They can work very well -- if there's communication between the two. In Part 1, we outlined ways to integrate PPC with e-mail marketing. Today we'll talk about the key information that should be shared when integrating PPC with SEO.
Step 1: Develop a Master Keyword List
In school, we knew we had to do our homework if we wanted to get good grades. It's no different in search marketing.
While the execution of a SEO campaign is very different from the execution of a PPC campaign, keywords are the basis for both. Work with your agency or in-house SEM team to develop a list of key phrases that describe your product or service and are critical to your business.
If you specialize in one or two products or services, the list may be very short. For many e-commerce Web sites, the list will be extremely long. That's OK. If it's important to your business, make sure it's on the master list.
Step 2: Prioritize the List
Now it's time for some down-and-dirty keyword research. There are many free or low-cost keyword tools you can use, including the Google AdWords keyword tool. Pick one and go with it.
The first goal of keyword research is obtaining search volume estimates. You want to make sure you're expending your efforts on the most leveraged terms. Usually these are the terms with the most searches.
The second goal is finding additional variations on the key phrases you've selected. Sometimes the first phrase that comes to your mind isn't the first one to come to the searcher's mind, especially if you're selling a technical product or one that involves insider jargon that the layperson wouldn't know.
Once you have all major keyword variations, and search volume for each, start prioritizing. Sort your list by volume and keyword groups.
For instance, you might want to prioritize keywords around your top-selling product lines. Or you may want to prioritize your most profitable product line, or a new product line. Decide what's most important to your business and put that at the top of the list.
Step 3: Launch your PPC Campaigns
Now, the fun begins. It's time to put that research into practice. You should launch PPC first.
This is quick and relatively easy to do: all you need is your keyword list, ad copy, and a credit card, and ads can be live within a day or two. Also, you'll have greater control over your PPC campaign than you will over a SEO campaign.
While a good SEO can definitely control many facets, ultimately you're at the mercy of the search engines when it comes to ranking, description, PageRank, etc. With PPC, you can control your keywords, bids, ad copy, time of day your ad shows, and many other aspects -- and you can turn the whole thing off with the click of a mouse.
Step 4: Observe and Optimize
Keep close tabs on key PPC metrics such as CTR and conversion rate by keyword, as well as quality score. Tweak your campaign by dialing down losers and boosting winners. The goal here isn't only to gather data, but ideally to get conversions as well!
While your PPC campaign is running, get started on your SEO research. A good place to start is Eric Enge's 60 minute site audit. But don't make any site changes yet. Once you have about 30 days worth of PPC data (the time frame will vary depending on how much traffic your site gets), use this information to determine where to begin SEO. Some options might be:
* Keywords that convert well in PPC for which you'd like to dominate the page by also ranking well in SEO.
* High-volume keywords that are expensive to buy in PPC, but would drive high numbers of conversions from organic traffic.
* Keywords that you'd ultimately like to stop bidding on in PPC and generate traffic solely from organic sources.
* Keywords or groups of keywords that are relevant to your business, but that have a low PPC quality score. Optimizing the landing pages (along with improving PPC campaign structure and ad copy) can often improve your quality score in the process.
* Terms for which competitors outrank you.
There are many other options. The point is, don't guess at this stuff.
Even if your Web site only has 10 pages, SEO can be a daunting task if you don't know where to begin. Use PPC to determine where you can get the biggest impact, and start there.
Source From: http://searchenginewatch.com/3634874
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Google Sponsored Ads Get Closer to Organic Results in SERPs
Have you noticed anything new with the way Google is displaying its paid search ads on its SERPs lately? According to the Periscopix blog, Google may be testing a new layout of its SERPs with the paid search which is used to be located at the far right end of the SERPs now closer to the organic search results. The new SERP layout appeared while James Carswell was using Firefox 3 as he later found out that it is not showing in IE8. I checked it out using Firefox and Safari with both of the browser windows maximized and noticed that indeed the paid search results are closer now to the organic search results. If you have been using Bing lately, this new Google SERP layout is similar with Bing’s SERPs.
This is a screenshot of the Google SERP in both Safari and Firefox:
If indeed Google is rolling out this new SERPs layout, they might raising some issues here specifically in misleading users that the links on the right are actually not sponsored links and are part of the organic search results aside from the probability of users accidentally clicking them.
Source From
http://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-sponsored-ads-get-closer-to-organic-results-in-serps/12354/
This is a screenshot of the Google SERP in both Safari and Firefox:
If indeed Google is rolling out this new SERPs layout, they might raising some issues here specifically in misleading users that the links on the right are actually not sponsored links and are part of the organic search results aside from the probability of users accidentally clicking them.
Source From
http://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-sponsored-ads-get-closer-to-organic-results-in-serps/12354/
AdWords Broad-Session-Based Match Type Results
Google not too long ago added another sort of broad match called “session-based”. This is the AdWords side of personalized search results.
What happens is: searchers continue to see ads based on earlier search queries.
Problem: Irrelevant Searches Within the Same Session
Some AdWords advertisers report fairly irrelevant ads showing up after a searcher has changed the focused of their searches.
You can see what those queries are via the Search Query Report, and you can exclude them with negative keywords, but how could you ever exclude every irrelevant search someone might type in after changing their search focus? You can’t.
Quantifying The Effects of Session-Based Broad Match
Richard Fergie over at the SEOptimise blog wrote up some stats on broad session based match results, but the results I saw recently for a Fuel consulting client (Amazing Wine Club) were quite different in some ways, so I wanted to add to that conversation here
OBSERVATIONS
* The CTR is artificially inflated because it’s based on very unique queries. This is like an ad that temporarily has a 30,000% ROI because it happened to get a sale in its first few clicks- the performance looks better than it really is.
* The CTR comparison is an average per query, not overall, so it’s much higher and similar to the broad-session-based CTR number.
* Conversion rate and cost per conversion differences between Richard’s client and mine are striking. A 91% higher cost per conversion is a major difference. Even though session-based were only 10% of all broad match, AdWords has significantly reduced the ROI of broad-match here.
SUMMARY
The broad-session-based feature, in my opinion, is yet another of the maddening areas where AdWords refuses to give the advertiser full control- whether because it’s a lower priority for them or because it fulfills other organizational or financial goals, the advertiser loses out here.
Source From: http://www.searchenginejournal.com/adwords-broad-session-based-match-type/12891/
What happens is: searchers continue to see ads based on earlier search queries.
Problem: Irrelevant Searches Within the Same Session
Some AdWords advertisers report fairly irrelevant ads showing up after a searcher has changed the focused of their searches.
You can see what those queries are via the Search Query Report, and you can exclude them with negative keywords, but how could you ever exclude every irrelevant search someone might type in after changing their search focus? You can’t.
Quantifying The Effects of Session-Based Broad Match
Richard Fergie over at the SEOptimise blog wrote up some stats on broad session based match results, but the results I saw recently for a Fuel consulting client (Amazing Wine Club) were quite different in some ways, so I wanted to add to that conversation here
OBSERVATIONS
* The CTR is artificially inflated because it’s based on very unique queries. This is like an ad that temporarily has a 30,000% ROI because it happened to get a sale in its first few clicks- the performance looks better than it really is.
* The CTR comparison is an average per query, not overall, so it’s much higher and similar to the broad-session-based CTR number.
* Conversion rate and cost per conversion differences between Richard’s client and mine are striking. A 91% higher cost per conversion is a major difference. Even though session-based were only 10% of all broad match, AdWords has significantly reduced the ROI of broad-match here.
SUMMARY
The broad-session-based feature, in my opinion, is yet another of the maddening areas where AdWords refuses to give the advertiser full control- whether because it’s a lower priority for them or because it fulfills other organizational or financial goals, the advertiser loses out here.
Source From: http://www.searchenginejournal.com/adwords-broad-session-based-match-type/12891/
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