The History Of Google Search In 6 Minutes!

Google recently posted this very interesting video on their official blog talking about the past, present and future of their search engine. Some very informative viewing!

Google Plus Review

Here at SponsoredLinx, we pride ourselves on being at the forefront of the internet marketing industry, offering advice to our clients on optimising their websites through AdWords, SEO and Google Advertising Management.  There is no doubt a lot of opposing information for businesses and what is the best way for them to market themselves online. The latest talk is all based around Google’s yet to be launched platform, Google Plus. Business owners are wondering whether this just another scam – all hype and no real results?  Here is the low-down on Google Plus, the way we see it.

Google Plus is really exciting for the internet marketing industry as it’s the first time that social media and search are integrated into the one platform. The potential in this has been recognised by the 20 million subscribers who have already caught on.

Some of the key benefits of Google Plus is the ability to separate “friends” into different groups, and then target the groups, or “circles” as they are known, with posts.  Facebook does not allow users to segregate our different friendship groups, with the only option being setting up a business page specifically for professional contacts, which offers reduced functionality.

As well as being cleaner and easier to navigate, other key advantages are the ability for users to “like” search results and then recommend these to friends, as well as the ability to search for new “friends” via Google, and not only within the social media platform itself.

This integration with a search platform has other enormous benefits for businesses by consolidating their web presence and furthering SEO rankings at the same time. In addition, Google Plus is also introducing entirely new concepts, such as Google Hangouts, where users can share real-time photos and video content online, and Google Sparks, a function that delivers internet content that may be of interest direct to your account.

There is no doubt that there was a gap in the market for a platform that integrates all of these key business and personal portals in the one place and this is it. Businesses and private users should welcome this concept with enthusiasm.

Improve your website’s Conversion Rate

Your website is, in a sense, your businesses frontline sales consultant, or at least it should be treated that way. Think about this: when you are talking to a sales consultant, what two things must be true for you to purchase off of them?

1. You trust this sales consultant. The consultant is honest, has no agenda and genuinely has your best interests at heart.

2. You like this sales consultant and he/she doesn’t frustrate you. You get along with the consultant on a personal level, reinforcing the fact that he/she isn’t all about the sale, but they are friendly and are actively trying his/her best not to inconvenience you.

These two things are just as important factors on your website, especially when it comes to improving website conversion rates.

So what are some things you can look at doing to improve your websites performance?

Obviously the best way to improve your sites conversion rate is to make a change and test and measure the response. However, certain changes can be risky and potentially harmful to the sites conversion goals.

There are so many low risk changes you can make on your site that have been proven to improve conversion rates in many cases. Some things to consider:

1. Are all elements on your site necessary? If not, remove them.

As a rule of thumb, the easier a site is on the eyes and the easier it is to navigate through the better. You don’t want to distract your visitor with confusing navigation and pointless elements competing for attention. Essentially, cluttered sites with confusing navigation will lose the visitors attention when the site really needs to be capturing it!

A good place to start looking for pointless elements is in your form elements.

People hate to fill out forms, so why make them fill out a long and convoluted form? Is all the information you’re requesting absolutely necessary or helpful to your goals? If not, remove it and your conversion rate will likely improve.

A good example of an often pointless form field is when you’re user is asked to divulge their gender. Is this helpful for you to know? Is it necessary to know? It could be. You may create targeted email marketing campaigns based on gender, or you want to know for future reference the ratio of male to female customers, and so on.

Obviously if there are no forms on your site, or you’re already asking for the bare minimum information, you need to start looking at other areas of your site instead.

Do you have too many calls to action? Do you have links that direct people away from your sites sale funnel? Are there distracting visual elements that don’t re-enforce the content of your site? All these things can lower conversion rates.

2. Do any of your pages take too long to load?

These days when it comes to websites, people have an attention span of between 4 and 7 seconds. If it takes a site longer than this to load, the bounce rate is probably going to be fairly high.

Recent studies have shown a distinct relationship between page load times and abandonment rates, as you can see in the following diagram:

In the same studies, it has shown that even a page load delay of one second can result in a 7% decrease in site conversions.

To put this into perspective: if an e-commerce site is making $100,000 revenue per day, a one second page load delay can potentially lose the business $2.5 million in sales revenue per annum!

So you can see how something so tiny can have a major negative impact on a business. In addition to this, users are less likely to return to a site if the page load time was too long and the user didn’t have a genuinely pleasant experience on your site, Google even now uses page load times as a contributing factor in determining your rankings on the Google AdWords System.

So there is simply no downside to improving the speed of you website! It may not send your conversions through the roof, but it’s certainly a step in the right direction.

3. Are you capitalising on your ‘Thank you’ page?

So your sites visitor has successfully navigated through your sales funnel and has now made an action; be that they made a purchase or submitted a form. The page that appears after this action, the ‘Thank you’ page, is an opportunity for further conversions that is often overlooked by businesses.

Fair enough that the visitor has already completed your sites goal, but you are going to want to start facilitating future conversions by providing some sort of follow up action that further engages your new client. Adding another call to action on this page is a good way to go.

Some engaging calls to action you could consider offering are:

• Sign up for a newsletter
• Follow us on Twitter/Facebook
• Share our offer with your friends
• Provide a discount coupon for the next visit etc.

Any call to action is better than simply saying ‘Thank you’. Having no call to action gives the user only one option to complete at the end of the transaction, which is to close the browser and terminate the interaction.
4. Have you got blocks of text instead of bullet points?

No one enjoys reading long paragraphs of text, so why would you include them in your site? The bigger the block of text and the more convoluted it is, the more of a negative impact it’s going to have on your website’s ability to convert traffic into sales.

Bullet points are a great way to get your most important content easily seen and read by your sites users. Other reasons why bullet points can be more effective than large blocks of text are:

• Listing a product or services benefits and features with bullet points is more effective than a block of text since each point is distinctly separated and listed
• Special formatting will stand out much more in bullet points than in a block of text
• Bullet points are far easier to scan that paragraphs, which is excellent because you need to be capturing people’s attention quickly!

The pages on your site you should look at reviewing are those pages with wordy product or service descriptions, lengthy FAQs, verbose About Us pages and so on. Anywhere that’s easy to go overboard while elaborating on the content.

5. Are you using your Google Analytics for further insights?

Most times you look through your analytics with the goal of improving your conversion rate; it’s likely you are going to uncover at least one actionable improvement!

When looking at your analytics for ways to improve conversion rates, some areas to pay attention to are:

• Which pages have the highest bounce rates and why?
• What are the main differences between pages with a low bounce rate and those with a high one?
• Out of your top keywords used to find your site, which ones have the lowest conversion rates? Is it worth continuing with these keywords?

Your site’s analytics have the potential to be full of information that can help you to improve your site’s conversions! Taking the time for some basic analysis on page performance will almost always result in at least one insight that will improve your site’s bottom line.

Keyword length and its effects on your Google AdWords results

The relationship between keyword phrase length and % of traffic share is a relationship that needs to be taken into consideration when running a Google AdWords account. Studies have shown a direct relationship between keyword length and % of traffic share, as seen in this graph:

As you can see, two-worded keyword phrases have 44% of total traffic, whereas four-worded keyword phrases only have 3% of total traffic. Is this enough data for you to decide which keyword length is the best for your campaign? No it’s not!

There is a direct relationship between keyword length and a keywords conversion rate, as shows in this graph:

As you can see, four-worded keyword phrases tend to convert about 38% of total traffic, whereas two-worded keyword phrases only convert 15% of total traffic.

So, what would a better option be?

1. Use two-worded keywords which have 44% of total traffic but only a 15% conversion rate
   OR;
2. Use a four-worded keyword which has 3% of total traffic but a 38% conversion rate??

Well I suppose that depends on the CPC!!

As you can see by the graph above, keyword phrases containing 3 words have typically cheaper CPCs than keyword phrases containing only 1 keyword. This is regardless of the average position.

So as you can see, there are several factors that should be considered when deciding to use either long-tail keywords (3 or more keywords in the keyword phrase) or short-tail keywords, they are:

• How much traffic does the keyword bring?
• How much of that keywords traffic will convert?

AND;

• How much would the traffic cost (CPC)?
• Is the cost of this traffic outweighed by the amount of profits to be made?

Google Instant Preview Tool: Changing the way we view our Search Engine Results

Over time Google has been making steady improvements to their search results, with the goal to make selecting a good and relevant website easier for Google users. Google is now using more image based snapshots in the search results; this feature is known as Google Instant Preview.

Click here for example

In November 2010, Google introduced Google Instant Preview. What this means is Google users are able to see a small magnifying glass next to the Organic search results; this magnifying glass provides a graphic overview of a search result and highlights the most

relevant sections of the website. The Instant Preview tool is now able to be used for paid Google ads, giving the searcher the ability to preview the sites’ landing page to see if its content matches what they were searching for.

By allowing users to preview your site prior to clicking on it means that you should be receiving a lot more qualified traffic now. This is because users now have a visual way to compare all the search results quickly, meaning they can decide their best choice a lot faster. The most relevant content on the sites will also be hi

ghlighted in the preview in orange, so the user is going to be able to see, before clicking, if the website is going to provide relevant data to their search. This places a lot more importance on making sure your landing page is aesthetically and contextually appealing.

Instant Preview clicks aren’t charged to your AdWords account. As per normal, you will only receive a charge when your actual ad is clicked on and the user is directed through to your landing page.

Independent companies have been running tests to see what the effects of this change have been having for Google AdWords Advertisers. Tests have found that Google users who use the Instant Preview feature have typically been at least 5% more satisfied with their search results.

More accurate traffic estimates in Google’s Keyword Tool

Google has announced that they have updated the Google algorithm used to estimate traffic in the Google Keywords Tool, AdWords Traffic Estimator and on the Keywords Tab. This change, effective immediately and globally, will provide users with more accurate statistics for estimated clicks, costs and position.

This is going to be useful for businesses that are using this tool to determine whether or not they ought to use potential keywords in their campaign. It’s also going to allow users to make a more informed decision over keyword bids and budget amount, and whether it’s an appropriate cost.

Next time you are using the Keywords Tool, choose a keyword to put into the account and track the traffic it brings in. If the ROI is strong, continue the process with other keywords. However, sometimes the cost of using the keyword will not be worth the return it brings, this new algorithm change will give you far more accurate representation of a keywords potential cost, click etc.

Top reasons you should be using SEO

With so many options available for attracting more visitors to your website, how do you know which method to use? I guess it depends on where your customers are searching for you. Are they looking on Facebook, Google and Yahoo? One thing everyone knows for sure is that Google is the market leader in Search Engines right now, logging roughly 2 billion searches a day; that’s roughly 300 million people each and every day! So why any business wouldn’t be taking advantage of this is beyond me.

SEO is the process of getting your website more visibility online. In other words, it is the process of getting your website into the top positions of the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs). This process however, can be time consuming, tedious, and if done incorrectly it can be a complete waste of time and money. So why would you choose SEO over another method of online promotion or a PPC (Pay Per Click) model, such as Google AdWords? Well ultimately you want to use them both in tandem for ultimate results, though this isn’t always a practical option. So here are a few different reasons you would choose SEO over a PPC Advertising model:

Everybody is Googling It

Search engines in general, especially Google, are now the first way people are investigating products, services and businesses in general; with so many people using Google every day, it makes sense as a business to try and target these people.

In a recent survey, 91% of respondents said that they prefer to use the organic search results over the paid advertisements when looking to purchase a new product or service. Even if a potential customer heard about you through a referral, chances are they will still go online to find out what you offer and if it fits in with their needs. So that’s why you want to make sure you have a strong online presence.

Customers are always looking for better deals

Even clients who have been loyal to an organization for years will still occasionally jump online and compare you to your competitors, to ensure they are receiving the best value of course. Now picture this; you have done no SEO work recently, you’re in a competitive industry and I’m a long time client online having a look at other service providers. I Google the keywords I find most pertaining to your core business. But I can’t find you in my search results, but I can see your main competitor offers the same services at a cheaper price! I can see this because they’re on the first page of the Google results page, and where are you? Nowhere to be seen! You just lost a long term client.

If you are in a competitive industry, it would make sense to hire a professional SEO expert to maintain and improve your visibility on the Search Engine Results Pages, agree? The last thing you want to happen is the above scenario, so don’t allow it! Make sure you appear high in the organic search results, so you don’t ever lose a client because they couldn’t find you or what you do best on Google!

Be viewed as the leading authority in your field

Think about this for a minute: who do you think is probably going to be viewed as the leader, the authority of an industry? Is it going to be that business that’s appearing on the 3^rd or 4^th page of the Google Search results? Or is it going to be that business that’s appearing on the 3^rd or 4^th position on Google? Probably the latter. So it pays to be up the top.

Research shows that roughly 36% of search users believed that companies whose websites appear top of the search results were the leaders of that field (iProspect / Jupiter Research 2006). Also, only about 8% of search users even look past the 3^rd page of results!

Being viewed as the leader of your field is a powerful way to make more sales and profits. Having people believe that because you are top of the list of Google Search Results, you must also be the top of your game, is going to be exceptionally beneficial to your bottom line.

Long term solution vs. Short term solution

Even though it’s a good idea to have both your SEO and PPC Advertising campaigns working together, there are distinct advantages to having one over the other.

PPC Advertising, for instance, is better at providing short term solutions for companies. If you have a new product and you want to increase its awareness, PPC Advertising would be the better option as results are instant. Or if you had a holiday specific product you wanted to promote, SEO wouldn’t be the way to go as it takes far too long to work.

Because the traffic that comes from Organic search results is typically cheaper and of higher quality than with paid advertising, it makes sense to focus on creating a long term approach to your SEO. Having an ever increasing web presence has a roll on effect to the other areas of your business, IE the easier you are to find on Google at any given time, then the easier it is for someone to make a purchase or enquiry, then it becomes infinitely easier for you to convert this traffic into sales.

Cost Effective

Search Engine Marketing (SEO) and PPC Advertising (EG Google AdWords) are both cheaper forms of advertising than traditional methods, such as TVCs, Newspaper spreads, Paper drops etc; and they can both bring results in faster than these traditional methods, in many cases.

Various studies have shown that the Cost per acquisition (CPA) for SEO and PPC Advertising are equal to or lower than a company’s typical CPA from other marketing avenues (between 40%-43% of interviewed businesses agree with statement according to Hubspot).

The only possible downside here is that more often than not, the conversion rates for PPC Advertising are slightly higher than that for Organic Search Results.

Trust

Currently it appears that there is a trend developing where more and more people are starting to trust the results of the Organic Search Results above those of the paid searches, even though paid searches are far more targeted.

When looking to buy a product or service online 91% of people said they preferred using natural search engine results (Tamar 2008 Search Attitude Report). The same survey also found that 31% of people actively choose natural search results over paid search results as they trust search engines to give them the most relevant results.

With all this in mind, you should now see the value behind having SEO for your website. It’s undeniable that the potential for growth through Google is enormous; and any smart business owner would be taking advantage of this monopoly in the marketplace.

Having a professional team of staff working alongside your business goals to develop and promote your website through SEO (in conjunction with other advertising streams) is the sure fire way to ensure the growth of your business.

New privacy requirements for Google AdWords Advertisers

From May 17^th 2011, Google will be introducing new policy guidelines for many of their advertisers. Now, if you are to advertise on AdWords, you need to ensure you are safeguarding users’ personal and financial details if you collect them on your website.

These new requirements are going to affect businesses that request some sort of online payment (i.e. e-commerce sites) and those sites that collect financial and/or personal information from the sites users. The new privacy requirements are to maintain Google’s goal of providing a “safe, fair and trusted” AdWords marketplace, and if Google finds a non-compliant advertiser, their ads and/or account will be suspended.

The three new rules will require that advertiser’s websites contain:

1. A valid SSL connection when collecting payments and/or certain financial/personal information. SSL (Secure Socket Layer) is a technology for encrypting sensitive data travelling between the site visitor’s web browser and the company’s website servers. This protects the users’ security of their sensitive data, such as their account details, passwords etc. Web addresses that are secured with SSL will appear as https: as opposed to http.

2. A privacy policy that is available to website visitors that is easily accessible before any information is collected. This policy must clearly describe how any personal information collected is going to be used.
3. Lastly, if the personal information is to be used for marketing purposes or if there is going to be ongoing communication, there needs to be a clear guideline on how to opt-out of receiving further communications in the privacy policy.

How to choose a good AdWords Management company.

Over the last couple of years there has been a boom in Pay Per Click Advertising (such as Google AdWords). This boom has since led to the sudden appearance of many companies offering Google AdWords Management, most of which appear to be staffed by people with as much knowledge of Google AdWords as you, potentially less! Some people are practically doing their training on your AdWords accounts, and so at your expense.

In saying that though, many companies simply don’t have the expertise, nor do they have the time to train themselves up in effective Google AdWords strategies, and so they are outsourcing to management companies instead. Other companies are still wary though, and with good reason. So with all this uncertainty as to who to trust; is there a company out there who can do a better job looking after your AdWords account than you? Absolutely! It’s simply a matter of being able to pick the right one from the crowd.

Having your Pay Per Click AdWords account managed is going to ensure that you gain the most benefits and return from your account, and there are some very good professionals out there who can manage your AdWords account effectively.

The trick to choosing an AdWords management company is to weed out of all the bad companies from the good. You can do this simply by asking the potential Google AdWords management company a few simple questions:

Is the person who will be managing your account a Qualified Professional?

For individuals wanting to sell their services in AdWords management, Google offers a training program to become accredited as a Google AdWords Professional. This does not necessarily mean they’re going to be management experts, but it shows that they understand the mechanics of managing accounts and have made the professional commitment to learn.

If the company advises you that the manager is a Qualified Professional, ensure that there is an image on they can show you to that effect, it’s typically made available for viewing online.

Just be aware that just because the management company claims to be an AdWords Qualified Company, it doesn’t necessarily mean the account manager will be accredited. So be sure to ask!

Is there a minimum period of time you will need to stay signed up to that company for?

Many AdWords Management companies are offering people long term contracts. This should be an automatic red flag!

A lot of AdWords companies know that a lot of the work they will be doing for you is going to be up front and not necessarily continuous, so they ensure you stay with them by locking you into a contract. In other words, they are probably not confident in the results they can actually get you.

The only reason anyone should stay with a management company is if they are actually delivering value and bringing you that strong return. So ask yourself: Are you getting more return than what it’s costing to have the account managed? You should have answered YES!

If you’re one of the unlucky few and answered NO, perhaps it’s time to take your business elsewhere. Be mindful though, it can often take a few months before the real value of management becomes apparent, and your AdWords Account Manager should have told you so upfront. However, your account manager should be able to demonstrate that they are having a positive impact on your account even after 6 – 8 weeks.

Will they tell you what’s happening on your account?

Many AdWords companies don’t actually tell their customers what’s going to happen on their accounts, nor do they let them log in to the account and monitor changes etc (known as ‘shielding’ the account). Though this is probably unethical, it’s not considered illegal.

A good management company will tell you what they plan to do on your account, vague comments about reducing costs per click or fine-tuning your keywords doesn’t really tell you anything.

Even if they haven’t seen your account yet, they should at least be able to tell you the steps their going to take in figuring out the best action plan for your account.

Always make sure you are going to be kept in the loop at all times.

Have they asked you anything about your business?

This isn’t something you should make sure they do, but rather it’s something you should simply listen out for.

If they don’t ask you anything about your business before getting to work on your AdWords account, you should start hearing those warning bells in your head. How is anyone going to be able to write you a compelling ad, or better yet, attract the right audience to your site if they have no idea about the intricacies of your business?

If you ask all these questions, you should easily be able to figure the good from the bad and make a good business move to lead you down the path of AdWords success.

How a PPC Advertising campaign can leverage your SEO Strategies.

Many business experts have been saying for a while now that for best visibility/growth etc you need to diversify your online advertising strategies. Sure, putting all your proverbial eggs into one basket does mean you will be able to commit more of your time to getting results but it also means you’re going to be missing out entirely on traffic and potential clients from other sources.

But with so many options now like Google AdWords (PPC Advertising), Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), Facebook, Twitter and so many more, who’s to say which option is the best option? And if there is no one best way, how can you get your strategies working together? What you want to do is use more than one strategy; each assisting the other.

Most people these days are focusing on fuelling their PPC Advertising (through Google AdWords mostly, but now also through Facebook) and their SEO strategies. This is fair enough as these two services have been proven to be successful. But as with anything, there are still kinks to work out. For instance, how do you know if the keywords you’re targeting for your SEO campaign are actually attracting traffic that’s going to convert? Have you got your sites’ meta descriptions working so that not only are you ranking highly on the organic search results, but you’re also converting that extra traffic? Your PPC Advertising, if used strategically, will help you achieve these common goals.

PPC Advertising can be invaluable for new or existing SEO campaigns. This is due to the enormous insight into keywords vs conversion rates that it can give. Capitalizing on these insights is the way to go to get the most from your SEO.

One of the main issues people have when using SEO, is trying to determine which keywords to target. Of course you wouldn’t want to target keywords that aren’t going to convert, but how can you tell? Sure, the Google Keyword Tool can give you an idea as to the volume of traffic a keyword can bring, but not the conversion potential.

The results you get during a PPC Advertising campaign can be used directly in your SEO strategies. Keywords in a PPC Campaign that have had a good volume of traffic, a high click through rate and a good conversion rate are probably going to have similarly successful results in the organic search results. So it would be smart to target some, or all, of these keywords in your SEO, subsequently eliminating any need for guess work.

As simple as this technique sounds, there are still ways that it can go wrong. For example, if your PPC Campaign is being looked after in-house and your SEO has been outsourced, there may not be enough communication between companies to leverage your PPC Campaign to get better SEO results, or they may simply not be aware of the technique. If you are in this situation, either start your SEO in-house or outsource your PPC account as well.

The biggest challenge to using paid search data effectively for SEO may be uncovering that data in the first place, so don’t be shy in approaching your in-house or external provider of PPC services for the information that can be used to improve the performance of your optimization efforts.