The interface that Google Analytics provided always troubled me. It was clunky, a little counter-intuitive and most definitely ugly. But recently, Google has been taking great steps towards improving their entire look and feel, including Analytics.

Most recently, on the weekend, when I logged in to check on some statistics (between overs in the cricket, as you do), I was inexplicably and weirdly over-joyed at what amounts to an arrangement of pixels. I may need to get out more, but Google’s most recent change to the Analytics UI made me genuinely happy.

Over the course of several months. This:

Became this:

And this:

Became this:

That. That makes me happy.

There are two types of SEO companies to look out for. Firstly, you’ve got the bad apples. These guys know that they can scare you into spending tens of thousands of dollars on overpriced or unnecessary SEO with their stories about how “your competitors are doing SEO right now, they’re going to pass you by!” Secondly, and far more common, are the ignorant kind. They spend zero time on keeping up with the industry, and throw around footer links and heading tags like they’re the new hotness. These SEOs have much better intentions than the bad apples, but unfortunately are generally a greater risk, as they won’t immediately seem so dirty, so your guard won’t be up.

Google spends tens of millions of dollars per year paying some of the world’s smartest software engineers to make its ranking algorithms immune to the effects of webspam. As a result, the old and oft-pushed SEO techniques are nearly ineffective in 2012. In order to ensure that your SEO investment is worthwhile, consider asking your SEO consultant to answer a few simple questions.

If the contents of this blog help just one small business avoid wasting thousands of dollars with a dodgy SEO vendor, we’ll have done a good thing.

1. Are you actually an SEO?

Web Designers are not SEOs. SEOs are not Web Designers. Yes, the two professions are related, kind of like rocket scientists and astronauts. They deal with much of the same jargon and tools. But the knowledge and skill-set are not the same.

If your website designer or developer offers to take care of “that SEO thing” for you as well while they’re at it, I’d recommend you politely decline.

2. Can you guarantee rankings?

If they say yes, run! Any legitimate SEO will explain that nothing is certain when it comes to Google’s search results. With a well-planned SEO strategy in place, ranking improvements are very likely, but no SEO providers are in a position to guarantee anything about the ranking decisions Google is going to make.

We’ve seen algorithm changes like the Panda update, which completely changed the way Google handles duplicate or similar content. This change sent thousands of Rank 1 websites plummeting back to page 20. Many of these websites were probably guaranteed by their SEO provider that they would maintain a first page ranking. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a guarantee they had the authority or knowledge to make.

When offering a service with as many uncertainties and uncontrollables as SEO, a guarantee is a sign of either naivety or dishonesty, both good reasons to steer clear.

3. Are your packages based on the number of keywords?

Many, if not most, SEO providers offer packages which vary based on the quantity of keywords on offer. Although it’s difficult for me to articulately convey in writing, I’ll do my best to explain how completely ridiculous this concept is.

Problem 1: SEO is mostly not keyword-specific.

Most of the cost and difficulty of SEO comes down to improving a bunch of not-particularly-keyword-specific (wow) metrics like domain age, back-links, unique linking domains, unique linking C-Class IP ranges, page-load time, server location, trust, domain authority, page authority, and the oh-mighty PageRank. Whether you’re trying to rank for one search query or 1000 search queries, these things need to be done first.

Problem 2: You’re talking about search queries, not keywords.

Once you’ve done all that, you’ve still got to address one fact that many SEOs tend to gloss over: a keyword isn’t the same thing as a search query. A search query is the string of information entered by a user conducting a search, while a keyword is the entity to which a search query is compared and matched against to assess relevancy. You can’t count on users to enter the exact keyword as the search query.

Keyword: seo company melbourne

Search Queries:

• seo company melbourne
• seo companies in melbourne
• best seo company in melbourne
• seo company melbourne vic
• seo company melb

Completing SEO actions for the above keyword will result in ranking improvements for the search queries listed, as well as thousands of similar queries. The catch is that you can really only optimise a webpage to rank for one “keyword,” or group of similar queries. So when a provider is promising to rank your webpage for 20, 50, or 100 keywords, what is the actual difference in what they’re offering?

The cost difference between achieving ranking for 1 or 100 or even 10,000 search queries should be minimal, as the difference in required effort is usually minimal, as long as they correspond to the same keyword.

When an SEO company offers something like a “20 Keyword Platinum Package,” what they usually mean is that they’ll get you ranking for 20 different search queries, which are generally all related very closely to the one keyword. The problem is, the client doesn’t realise that there’s a difference. If it were marketed honestly, it should be advertised as one keyword.

If your SEO provider offers the ability to rank for more keywords as you pay more money, that thing you’re smelling is something fishy. It’s akin to asking how much a barbecue is going to cost and having the salesperson ask you how many sausages you’d like it to come with. Not really the point, is it?

A genuine SEO provider should vary their quote based on how competitive the requested keywords are and what the timeframe is. Ranking for 1 keyword, “cheap flights” will require thousands of times as much SEO effort as ranking for 50 search queries related to “landscapers in brisbane.” And if it needs to be done by yesterday, that’ll cost.

4. How much of your SEO program is link-building and content strategy?

Realistically, if the answer is anything less than 90%, you’re wasting valuable time. H1s, title tags, keyword density, rel=canonical, alt tags. Yawn. For most common websites, on-site SEO is child’s play and should take a competent web developer less than a few hours to implement. The size of the website isn’t even really that important, as any website bigger than a few pages will be based on a template, meaning most on-site SEO modifications will be variable-based adjustments to the template.

Be cautious of SEOs who claim that “good on-site will get you 80% of the way there.” Uh uh.

5. What is your link-building strategy?

Link building in 2012 is all about high-level link opportunities, business relationships, content strategy, link-bait and viral marketing. The days of blog networks, article spinning, comment spam and directory submissions are over. An SEO campaign is never going to gain any traction these days based on 2008 techniques. Google simply isn’t so easily manipulated these days.

If these techniques form the basis of your provider’s link-building strategy, proceed with caution! Be especially wary of SEO providers peddling “automated directory submissions.”

6. How future-proof are your SEO practices?

Many common SEO techniques fall within search engine guidelines today, but will likely be disregarded or even penalised as algorithm updates are pushed out down the track.

Ask your SEO consultant how well their SEO strategy is distributed across various ranking factors and what their contingencies are for handling a sudden algo-update.

7. Do you own a blog network?

This is important. It’s currently common practice in the SEO industry to construct a complex network of WordPress blogs linked together to form a link network. These blogs are usually sitting on re-claimed expired domains with good PageRank and generally populated with rubbish content churned out for $0.50 per article. Why do they go through the trouble of building these networks? To collect, mask, launder, sculpt and distribute PageRank to their clients websites.

This system is a bit difficult for me to trash, as it works extremely well at the moment. But unless the network is assembled flawlessly, it will be detectable by Google and eventually get manually reviewed and blacklisted. If your website’s rankings are built off the back of a blog network that gets blacklisted after a manual review, you’re gone. Your website will be hanging out back on page 8 before you can say “duplicate content.”

Since I haven’t been planning to write this for a decade, I had to search around Google Images for a while to find screenshots taken over the last 13 years to demonstrate the evolution of the way Google has presented pay-per-click ads to users.

It turns out that most historical screenshots of Google results are the kind taken by SEO and PPC providers for the purposes of overlaying a not-so-subtle arrow and some earth-shattering marketing copy like “YOU COULD BE HERE,” so please excuse any such additions in the images below.

Please note: As some of our more AdWords knowledgable readers will no doubt point out to me, I’ve taken a bit of liberty with the exact dates I’ve given some of Google’s visual changes. They often test new developments for months or years prior to rolling them out globally, so it’s difficult to always pin an exact date on when a change was unveiled.

1999 – Ad Free!

Although the screenshot below contains no ads, I’ve included it to demonstrate a time before Google accepted payment for placement in search results.

1999: AdWords isn’t invented yet!

2000 – Launch

When AdWords was first launched, the ads featured an “Interest Bar” which was basically a representation of that ad’s click-through rate. The upper ad area spanned the entire page width with a light pink background colour, while the side ad area had a light blue box with each ad being contained in a seperate box.

Initially, the entire box containing these new Sponsored Links was clickable, so you didn’t have to aim too well.

2000: “Sponsored Links” make their first appearance in Google search results.

2001 – Testing

The early years of AdWords were very volatile. Google trialled hundreds of variations of how to display the ads to the user. The size, shape, position and colour of these new “Sponsored Links” were seemingly different each time you searched.

Google split-tested ad background colours including blue, green, yellow, gray and pink to find the highest click-through rate.

2002 – More Testing

The top ad-section featuring two different background colours.

Google AdWords appearing in distinct boxes, in contrast to the way the ads have been displayed for the last few years.

Light purple top section including a eBay ad with 46-character headline. I don’t know if this was policy at the time or an exception made for eBay. The current limitation is 35 characters, although Description Line #1 is sometimes added to the blue link of horizontal ads. I’m aware that the search query says “penis puppets.”

2003 – Refinement

No top section, light-gray side section.

Blue and green Sponsored Links in the top section

Yellow background for the top section, ad headline is definitely longer than 35 characters.

Note that prior to the launch of Google Maps, they used to carry a recommendations to visit either Yahoo Maps! or MapQuest.

2004 – Somewhat stable

The dark-blue navigation bar has disappeared and the tabs have relocated to above the search box. In a change likely designed to make the ads seem more like normal search results, the side Sponsored Links are no longer contained within a coloured box.

No more coloured box.

2005

The top-section of Sponsored Links is now restricted to only spanning the left column instead of the entire page-width.

Note the first appearances of a location line (Orlando-Daytona Beach, FL) in the right section.

2006

2007

Descrption lines were not yet limited to 35 characters.

Somewhat festive divider for the right section, featured during the 2007 holiday season.

2008

With significant testing throughout 2007, 2008 saw the first appearances of the infamous 10-Pack of local business listings thrusting itself onto the main search results pages.

Google testing displaying the URL above the description lines in the side section. They don’t widely implement this change until 2012.

2009

Note the appearance of integration with Google Checkout and Google Products

2010

Big changes in 2010 included the appearance of the left-side menu and the new Google Instant to pre-empt a users search intent. Also notable was the decision, towards the end of 2010, to change the description of the advertisements from “Sponsored links” to simply “Ads.” If you built your business on that phrase, 2010 was the year you started to look outdated.

Note the return to the pinkish-purple background colour for the top section.

Note the inclusion of a link to the Google Places page.

2011 – New Interface

In 2011, Google unveiled a completely new look and feel for the search results. For localised searches, this means that the right-side Ads were pushed quite far down to accomodate a Google Map.

Note the stacks of site-links in the ad for 1800 Dentist.

2012

2012 sees the Google results return to their simplistic roots, with many of the extra features more frequently hidden from view

The Google Map has gotten shorter and wider, seemingly to bring the ads back up onto the page. Display URLs are now above the description text.

Note the horizontal site-links in the ad for Advia.com.au

Conclusion

“…we expect that advertising funded search engines will be inherently biased towards the advertisers and away from the needs of the consumers.” – Larry Page & Sergey Brin – quote taken from The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine.

The evolution of Google’s paid-inclusion program demonstrates an on-going effort by Google to strike the almost impossible balance between the user, who is seeking the most relevant search results, and the advertiser, who is seeking a targeted and effective advertising platform.

It’s likely that this struggle to maintain the optimal balance will continue to dictate Google’s design and interface improvements for the next decade.

Here is our round-up of seven of the most recent changes:

1. Cross Language Information Retrieval: this is for queries in a language where limited web contact is available. So. Macedonian, Albanian or Slovak (and about 20 more). Google will translate English language pages into the relevant language and display them in the SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages) on the fly. Not helpful to me but pretty neat.

2. Improved SERP Snippets: As Google gets more intelligent with understanding web page structure, they are more likely to pull and display snippets from relevant content, rather than headers or menus.

3. Better Page Titles: Google has de-emphasized the important of boilerplate links when determining a page’s title. Boilerplate links are those link’s repeated throughout a website, often in the footer, often in tiny font, and often just variations of the same keyword over and over and all pointing at the home page. This will allow Google to display more accurate page titles (since the boilerplate technique is so often used in a spam-like manner).

4. Extended Snippets For Applications: You will now see more details when searching for software and applications in the SERPs. Google has implemented intelligent fields for things like cost and product reviews. This is cool. I like this. I also like when Google tells me who a celebrity is married to or a best guess for the release date of games… but that’s another story.

5. Image Reference Spam Dead: Images that have multiple links or references or are displayed on multiple sites (from those thieving bastards) around the internet will not longer at as a ranking signal.

6. More Recent Results: Google has changed the way the deal with fresh content. A huge chunk of the algorithm now determines when fresh content is news-worthy, or trending, from a variety of signals and therefore allows pages from as recent as 30 minutes ago to rocket to the top of the results if they provide the best match to the query. In other words, Google results are faster and more recent.

7. Refining Official Page Detection: Google has refined the way it detects ‘official’ pages in order to make sure people are getting the most relevant results to their query. This one is tricky, and I’m glad they know what they are doing. This has been the topic of a long-running debate over whether people searching for ‘apple’ might just be looking for apples, rather than the technology giant. Most think the big indicator is do with plural and non-plural queries… but then I’ve seen the search queries in my AdWords search term reports. I’m not so sure a lot of people are entirely cognitive of what they’re typing into that little Google bar… they don’t need an I’m feeling lucky button, their fingers are already feeling quite lucky… Ellipsis.

Don’t freak out from these changes and suddenly make a heap of changes to your website. That’s a pet peeve of mine. When people hear one little thing, and then they grab and run with it to the non-existent finish line without realizing there isn’t even a race on. What I mean is, Google makes over 500 changes to search in a given year. Don’t go chasing the rabbit. All webmasters need to do is follow the Google guidelines and build the best website from a user’s point of view, go after relevant and quality inbound links, and the rest will be fine.

What are Dynamic Search Ads?

When using this feature, Google maintains a fresh index of your website and inventory. When a relevant search occurs, the title of an ad is dynamically generated based on the search query (just like Dynamic Keyword Insertion) and the text of the ad from the most relevant landing page on your website. This ad then enters the search auction as per normal. It will be superseded by any manually created ads that are trigged by the same search query. Theoretically, however, you could just give Google a credit card number, a domain to work with, a CPC bid and some template ad copy and let it go. It seems like something you would want to keep a close eye on. The same way that you would think modern trains practically drive themselves… but you’d be very wrong.

How much control can you exercise over it?

Being a little bit of a control freak, when I first heard of Dynamic Search Ads, I was a little perturbed by something which sounded like a fire and forget free-for-all have-your-way-with-my-credit-card licence-for-Google-to-print-money (too much?). Turns out you actually have a lot of control over the whole system. You can choose to target your whole site or just specific sections or pages within your website. You can narrow these down by product categories, pages which contain certain words, or pages containing certain strings in their URL. And all of the above can be used as negatives to prevent any mishaps.

How do you know what happens when you’re not watching?

You have access to full reporting on all the searches that generated clicks, ad headlines that were dynamically generated, destination pages that matched ads, as well as all the usual suspects (CPC, clicks, impressions, conversions, etc). And you can optimise your campaign in all the old familiar places (the Joker, anyone?)

Does it work?

Google certainly says so. They have been doing limited testing with a handful of agencies and large campaigns. The majority of testers have seen a 5-10% increase in CTR and generally positive ROI. However, it seems to work a lot better for some than others.  Google’s poster boy on this one is ApartmentHomeLiving.com (a US apartment shopping website). It has a large inventory of apartment listings which change on an hourly basis. Lawrence Cotter, the General Manager, stated:

Using Dynamic Search Ads increased conversions by almost 50% with an average cost-per-conversion that’s 73% less than our traditional search ads. Dynamic Search Ads are doing a really good job finding the right searches to tap into, creating good ads, and getting visitors to the most relevant page on our site.

Our thoughts?

This actually sounds awesome. I’m going to recommend several clients trial it immediately. The point about 16% of searches each day being completely new to Google hits home with me. You can never tell what some people are going to type into Google and if by using Dynamic Search Ads you can tap into ‘new’ relevant searches and show them the best possible ad to answer their questions… why the hell not?!

The old: SSL Search was a service you could use. Here: https://encrypted.google.com/

The new: Signed-in users have ALL their searches conducted through SSL.

The meaning: Google Analytics and other web analytics services will no longer report the query terms that the user searched on Google before reaching your website.

The reason: Google states they are doing this to protect your privacy. And it certainly does that. However. Should you choose to click on an ad whilst browsing, that search query data will still be passed to the advertisers. It might not be their intention to have portrayed this double-standard, but that’s exactly what it is, a double-standard. The ‘non-paid advertisers’ get reduced information. The paid advertisers get it all.

The impact: Only a small percentage of overall Google users are signed in when they conduct a search. This would vary incredibly by industry. For instance, I use many of Google’s services and I am signed in all the time. SEOs are mad because they have always felt marginalised by Google. And although Google’s more recent views on SEOs have softened, as evidenced by people like Matt Cutts addressing the community directly, they still feel like this is a slap in the face.

Some choice reactions:

In order of measured to very mad, here are some choice articles on the topic:

• SEOs strike out.
• Google to begin encrypting searches.
• Google invests in privacy for profit.

Our thoughts:

Anything that increases even a portion of privacy on the internet is a good thing.

Based on the results from their trials, users are happier when the pages they’re being directed too are of better quality and relevancy and the pages of lesser quality and relevancy appear less and less in their search results (because they’re being penalised Cost Per Click and budget-wise). So Google is going to start rolling out the changes globally: http://goo.gl/fn0lK

How To Link Webmaster Tools To Google Analytics

Before you can begin playing with your new reports, you need to link Webmaster Tools to Google Analytics.

Here are the steps:

1. Head to your Webmaster Tools home page.
2. Click Manage Site next to the site you want to hook up.
3. And then click Google Analytics property.
4. Select the web property you want to associate with the site and then click Save.

What Reports Do I Get?

You will find three new reports based on the Webmaster Tools data. Google has created a new section for these reports called Search Engine Optimisation (oh Google, you make me laugh) which can be found under the Traffic Sources section in your Analytics Account. These reports are:

• Queries: impressions, clicks, position and CTR info for the top 1,000 daily queries
• Landing Pages: ditto for the top 1,000 daily landing pages
• Geographical Summary: impressions, clicks and CTR by country

Why Are My Numbers Different?

The data from Webmaster Tools may differ to the information from Google Analytics. This can happen for a variety of reasons:

• Google Analytics will not track users who have disabled javascript
• Analytics only tracks visitors to pages which include the Analytics code
• Analytics describes ‘keywords’ as both search engine queries and AdWords queries

More Info

The Google Analytics Blog Post on the new features.

The Help Centre article on linking your accounts.

If you have any trouble linking your Google Analytics and Webmaster Tools, feel free to give us a call. More than happy to help.

Smartphones Are Like Another Limb

At the end of April, Google conducted a webinar which discussed findings on mobile usage of the internet and mobile advertising. The source: “The Mobile Movement: Understanding Smartphone Users,” a study conducted by Ipsos OTX, an independent market research firm, among 5,013 US adult smartphone Internet users at the end of 2010.

General Smartphone Usage: Consumers use smartphones as an extension of their desktop computers and use it as they multi-task and consume other media.

• 81% browse the Internet, 77% search, 68% use an app, and 48% watch videos on their smartphone.
• 72% use their smartphones while consuming other media, with a third while watching TV.
• 93% of smartphone owners use their smartphones while at home.

Action-Oriented Searchers: Mobile search is heavily used to answer questions, find information and take action.

• Search engine websites are the most visited websites with 77%, followed by social networking, retail and video sharing websites.
• Nine out of ten smartphone searches results in an action (purchasing, visiting a business, etc.).
• 24% recommended a brand or product to others as a result of a smartphone search.

Local Information Seekers: Looking for local information is done by virtually all smartphone users and consumers are ready to act on the information they find.

• 95% of smartphone users have looked for local information.
• 88% of these users take action within a day, indicating these are immediate information needs.
• 77% have contacted a business, with 61% calling and 59% visiting the local business.

Shopping From Mobile: Smartphones have become an indispensable shopping tool and are used across channels and throughout the research and decision-making process.

• 79% of smartphone consumers use their phones to help with shopping, from comparing prices, finding more product info to locating a retailer.
• 74% of smartphone shoppers make a purchase, whether online, in-store, or on their phones.
• 70% use their smartphones while in the store, reflecting varied purchase paths that often begin online or on their phones and brings consumers to the store.

Mobile Advertising Effectiveness: Cross-media exposure influences smartphone user behavior and a majority notice mobile ads which leads to taking action on it.

• 71% search on their phones because of an ad exposure, whether from traditional media (68%) to online ads (18%) to mobile ads (27%)
• 82% notice mobile ads, especially mobile display ads and a third notice mobile search ads.
• Half of those who see a mobile ad take action, with 35% visiting a website and 49% making a purchase.

Mobile Quality Score

In AdWords, advertisers who provide a better user experience are rewarded with higher quality scores. The same will soon apply to Mobile Ads. This change was declared imminent after Google’s Webinar “From Why To How” held on the 21st September, 2011.

Advertisers with higher quality scores get a lower cost per click and better ad placement. And who doesn’t want more traffic at a lower cost? But that should not be the only reason to optimise your site for mobile. You don’t want to be driving away potential customers by having a website that is inaccessible or unusable by the platform they choose to browse to it from.

Mobile Landing Page Optimisation

With the introduction of Quality Score to Mobile Ads, mobile landing page optimisation will become a vital facet of your mobile campaigns. Google has offered a few broad suggestions to get started with mobile optimisation:

• Keep your layout simple.
• Design for thumb navigation, not traditional methods.
• Prioritize content.
• Use uniquely mobile features (click to call, etc).
• Make it ever so easy to convert.

Also, the Google Webmaster Blog posted an article on making websites mobile friendly back in February.

We will post further updates as more information becomes available on mobile website optimisation and the impact on mobile ad quality score.

One of the paths Google has taken to achieve this assimilation is to slowly but surely alter the look and feel of the paid ads so that they become indistinguishable from the natural results in all but positioning on the page. And I wonder how long that last bastion of differentiation will survive. Surely not, Google. Surely not.

We have been monitoring this evolution. I have spoken about it before: URLS Appended To Ad Titles. And before that, in February, Google allowed Line 1 of a text ad appearing in the top 3 spots to float up beside the Title, so that it had the extended look of the Title Tags in the natural search results.

This latest change is very interesting. One of the key differences between the paid advertisements on the right hand side and the natural results was the position of the URL in the ad text. Google has now altered the position of the URL so that it matches the naturals. That is to say, the naturals place the URL directly underneath the Title tag component of the listing. Previously, the Adwords ads, on the right hand side of the results, displayed the URL beneath Line 2. Now, Google has set the URL in AdWords ads to display directly underneath their Title as well.

Let’s have a look at some examples.

The Old AdWords Ad Format

The format as of 14th September, 2011 in Australia.

Vs.

The natural results format.

The New AdWords Ad Format

The format as of 15th September, 2011 in Australia.

Vs.

The natural results format.

Conclusion

Not anything mind-blowing! Just another step towards Google potentially integrating paid ads and natural results to the point where they are truly indistinguishable. I don’t think I like that idea.