Google Continues It's Rampage On December 17th

If you are familiar at all with search engine optimization, you probably know that the last couple of years have brought some major changes to the industry.  Google has not only accelerated their updates to their algorithms, but they are also making bigger splashes with them as well.  This recent, as of yet unknown, algorithm update on December 17th, 2013 is no different.

As the head of the SEO department here at Foremost Media I often find myself seeing these changes the very day they happen across the data we collect from our many clients' rankings.  For instance, many SEO's out there keep repeating the mantra that "nobody noticed" when the new Google Humingbird algorithm was released a month before it was announced in September (It was implemented on August 20th).  Well, they do not speak for Foremost Media.  I can tell you at the end of August we were all noticing MAJOR rank volatility and were wondering what was going on.  Now, I can tell you that another major update just occurred on December 17th.  This time, I figured I better get out ahead of it before the internet starts buzzing with SEO's claiming that nobody noticed.

Whenever I suspect an update is occurring I check Mozcast.  Mozcast does a great job at telling us when something is going on.  While you can't tell WHAT is going on specifically, you can tell when volatility is up.  Well, it was up very heavily on December 17th.  In addition, on the same day, Foremost Media watched as rankings across a half dozen clients dropped for a couple select terms each.  We aren't talking your standard two or three position drops either.  We are talking about two or three pages. So, what happened?  We started digging.

Mozcast showed that on December 17th, this update caused exact match domain influence to drop a little, but heavily increased both partial match domain influence and diversity.  The first thing we noticed was that for about a dozen clients or so, we were seeing major rank declines for just a couple of keywords, usually isolated by topic.  It wasn't all bad news.  There was a little upswing, and in the case of one client their rankings skyrocketed.  So, the most obvious question from looking at this data was, "Were the terms that dropped, terms that were ranking do to an exact match URL?  The answer?  No.  There was no correlation.  Some were EMD, but some were also PMD or no match at all.  The interesting thing was that every drop was for an interior page of a site, whereas the client who got a big boost got that boost on the home page only.  Coincidence?  It could be.  I don't have enough data to tell for sure.  Let's look further...

Naturally, there are a lot of factors here.  However, If EMD became extremely volatile, that usual means (simplistically) on some level they are either increasing/decreasing the effectiveness of EMD/PMD, or the end result of their change was EMD volatility.  Since it doesn't appear that I can substantiate the former, let's look at the latter.  What could cause EMD volatility?  Well, while the most obvious cause is usually an alteration of EMD/PMD influence over rankings, it could be that the net result of whatever the change was is simply something that causes diversity in domain names and weakens EMD.  At this point, I am on a wild goose chase because there are many things that could correlate with EMD domain names.  I am inclined to think though that Google is still after spammers.  So, I will start to look in that direction.

So, naturally I took to looking at the link profiles of every page that dropped.  I am pleased to say that their profiles were all very weak.  Why am I pleased?  Because I am hoping this indicates that increasing the strength of the profile will help bring the rankings back to normal.  On the other hand, this opens another Pandora's box.  Since there was not direct correlation with any of the pages that dropped regarding partial or exact match domains, but the profiles were very weak, either Google is analyzing the page and matching it with the link profile in a new way, or this is all about the link profile.  I think it is the latter, and here's why...

At Foremost Media we use a number of very sophisticated tools that helps us with on-page optimization.  We have a very high success rate with these tools and in every case, my tools are telling me that the pages are still very well optimized.  So, I am inclined to say that this update has something to do with back link authority and how it is calculated.  It may have something to do with "Hummingbird", mainly because even with the declines in rankings traffic did not decline as a result (though the holidays made that harder to determine).  This might indicate that while the term we were tracking decreased, they gained equally in another term we were not tracking.

Of course, I could be completely off base.  Algorithm changes don't occur in a vacuum and the "butterfly effect" exists heavily in the sea of the web.  There are so many factors involved that it is very difficult to guess with any accuracy what the algorithm update actually was unless we are told.  Chances are, we will know in a month or so.  In the mean time, I will keep crunching data because I enjoy it.  I also didn't see anyone else actually trying to tackle the issue at this point with any meaningful data.  So take all this with a grain of salt, and please let me know if you have anything to share regarding this update (Nfitzgerald@foremostmedia.com).  If you're an SEO and you are reading this, know that the sky is not falling and SEO is not "dead".  This isn't the first time a major update has caused some havoc and it won't be the last.  Rankings will return and we will will continue to learn how to please the almighty Google for our clients' sakes.

Update:  We ran an experiment by changing some links that we had control over to a couple of pages on some affected sites, for the exact match terms.  We found that by either eliminating the link with the exact match or changing the destination of the link to the home page of the site, instead of the page of the site, almost completely reversed the rank drop.  In this case, it almost appears that this could be some sort of Penguin refresh or update with the way it is behaving.

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I need another social media network like I need a hole in my head- Thanks Google Plus

There are a lot of folks out there that say Google+ can't compete against established social media giants like Facebook and Twitter and at first glance that appears to be true. But I'm here to tell you that Google+ is here to stay and now is the time to start using it. As a busy marketer you may not like the idea of yet another social media network to update but below are 2 reasons I think you should consider it:

1. Authorship - If you use Google regularly I'm sure you've seen those little head shots next to search results. Below is an example of one that comes up for our company. Bottom line is adding Google Plus authorship tags to your content can result in better visibility on the search engines. A recent article from Search Engine Watch reported that Matt Cutts from Google even stated we have “seen authorship becoming more and more important when it comes to search results and visibility in those results.”
   
   
   
   
2. Better visibility for brand searches -  Not long ago a Google search for Foremost Media would return our website, Facebook page and LinkedIn profile which was all good stuff but you also would see pay per click adds above and to the right of our native search results.  With a good Google+ company page our brand is now able to dominate the entire top of fold search results for Foremost Media on Google.  See the screen shot below:

   

   Google Search Results for Foremost Media

   
   

Don't forget to add us to your Google Plus circles!

Upadate 9/2/14  It's amazing how quickly things change in the world of internet marketing.   Google ended its three-year experiment with Google Authorship yesterday, but the use of Author Rank to improve search results will continue.  http://searchengineland.com/google-authorship-dead-author-rank-202254

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The latest buzz in the online marketing industry has been around Google's announcement last month that they had changed their algorithm to "Hummingbird".

What is Google's Algorithm?

Google, as well as other search engines, have a code and a list of things they look for to determine which sites should rank for which terms. Robots crawl sites to determine how well they fit into the requirements. There are over 400 different criteria that are looked for to determine where a site ranks for a key phrase. 

Since the beginning, Google has been making modifications to this algorithm in order to improve their results and deter spammers. The Penguin and Panda updates are a couple of major modifications Google has made to the algorithm in recent history. Both of these updates simply made changes to the algorithm that was already in place. "Hummingbird", however, is an entirely new algorithm that has replaced the old one. 

Why did Google change to Hummingbird?

Google has said that the main goal of this new algorithm is to make the search engines more human friendly. They want to be able to answer complex questions and respond to more conversational searches.

One of the other major changes Hummingbird has made is to include the Google Knowledge Graph in their search results. The goal is to instantly give searches the answers they're looking for. For example, if someone was typed in "how many calories are in an apple?" Google now answers the questions right away and provides information about apples in the upper right hand corner of the screen.

This type of result is now showing up for a wide variety of searches including comparison searches, general animal/food/event searches and more. To see more on what is showing up in the search results try some of the following searches: "poodle vs yorkie", "nfl schedule", or "beer". 

What does this mean for rankings and SEO?

Hummingbird replaced the old algorithm over a month ago and so far rankings have not been drastically affected. It appears that all of the same factors are still important to ranking well and not much has changed. 

However, the algorithm is changing the way 90% of searches will appear. The biggest affect of the algorithm change for businesses will be the amount of clicks that are going to be lost due to the knowledge graph information. Sites that were previously getting a lot of traffic for searches like "calories in an apple" or "dogs" are now going to see significant drops in the number of clicks they're getting. Viewers will no longer need to go to websites to get the information they need.

Because of this loss in organic traffic it's going to be more important than ever to start finding new ways to get viewers to your site. Having a great content marketing strategy is going to become more and more necessary as things keep changing. Providing viewers with information and advice they can't easily find elsewhere is going to be extremely important in order to help maintain traffic. Social media and other online advertising plans will also be helpful.

As can be seen by Hummingbird, Google is certainly beginning to make changes that are affecting businesses drastically. It's important to keep an eye on the changes that are being made and to take a proactive approach to ensure that your business keeps seeing sustainable growth.

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Pinterest Will Soon Allow Advertising

CEO of Pinterest, Ben Silbermann, announced the other day that Pinterest is going to start promoting paid pins in the future. Last week, Silbermann put up a blog post and sent emails to all Pinterest users informing them that Pinterest is going to begin using "promoted pins". They are not accepting payment for advertisements yet, but simply testing the waters first to see what will work best and what the user response is. These promoted pins will begin appearing in search results and category feeds at first and according to Silbermann they will be unique based on each user's behavior history.

Pinterest seems to be playing this up as a way to help keep users satisfied, even though it is clear that their goal is to finally start making big money off of their 46 million visitors (ComScore, 2013). In an effort to help users accept the change Silbermann opened his post by making an emotional appeal and talking about how he and his child have fun together because of Pinterest. He then said that he knows users use Pinterest in the same way and it would be a shame to see the site go. Then, attempting to make readers happy, he also highlighted that Pinterest is determined not to have banner ads because he knows users don't like them. He makes it seems like they are doing this satisfy users, but in reality it's been proven that integrated advertisements are much more successful than banner ads (AdRoll, 2013). He also stated that the ads will be tasteful and relevant, and that they are interested in hearing feedback about the promoted pins. 

As of right now, it seems that Pinterest advertising could have major benefits to many e-commerce businesses and will help companies get their products seen. It is clear that Pinterest is taking this step with caution to avoid losing their growing number of users. Only time will tell whether these advertisement will be successful in helping users find things they are interested in or if it will scare users off.

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Google Stabs Business In The Back

If you do a lot of web surfing, you probably have seen Microsoft's Ads that say "Don't get Scroogled".  "Scroogled", of course, being a derogatory term for "Google".  Naturally, Microsoft is trying to gain market share in the search business, but I am starting to think they are on to something.  Google has made a move recently that they are pushing as "good things" to the general public, but I suspect are anything but.

If you have been advertising in Google Adwords, you probably noticed that in late July, Google forced everyone into their "enhanced campaigns".  Now, on the surface, this can almost seem like a good thing.  "Enhanced campaigns" provide automatically mobile optimized support for your ads.  In the past, mobile advertising was a bit more difficult for the average business owner.  Now, the mobile side will pretty much just happen as a result of you creating an ad.  Actually, you will be forced into mobile advertising.  So, this sounds like a good thing, right?  Well, not really.  While there are workarounds (we will talk about these later), advertisers are being forced into advertising on mobile compatibility with the auto-upgrade feature.  How is it good for Google?  You need to remember that Adwords is a big auction house.  People bid on keywords and essentially fight for ad space.  What do you think happens when millions of new ads flood the mobile and tablet advertising market?  Starting to see the big picture?  Yes, that's right.  Google makes more money.  Now, making money isn't a bad thing.  So, why am I claiming they "stabbed business in the back"?  Because along with the push to mobile to make Google more money, they raised business's costs and threw some of their money out the window.

The push for enhanced campaigns begins with Google creating automatic bid adjustments based on information it has about what other people are doing in the marketplace that are advertising similarly to you.  Does this mean it is the best thing for you?  No.  Every business and marketing strategy is different, naturally.  What it does do though is it forces the less savvy advertisers into a position of being forced into advertising on mobile.  Mobile can be good for businesses, but mostly for business to consumer purchases.  For Business to business advertisers, it typically doesn't perform as well.  So, many "B to B" companies are now advertising on platforms that are relatively ineffective for them because they are not savvy to the changes, and pretty much just throwing money out the window (or to Google).  The other issue with this is based on all of our client data.  Around the time that Google forced the push, our clients had a spike in their average cost per click of five to seven cents per click.  From everything we can tell, this was entirely a market adjustment and has not entirely ceased.  While we can make adjustments for our clients, you can't completely beat the marketplace.  So, everyone's ads just became more expensive, reducing everyone's return on investment.  So, what can you do?

1.  Enhanced campaigns allow for you to make manual bid adjustments based on device.  If tablet advertising is no good for you, adjust the bid adjustment for tablet advertising by -100%.  This will effectively shut it off.

2.  Also, make sure DO NOT pay too much attention to the "bid simulator" feature.  It is ball park at best, but is almost never correct.

3.  Use the bid adjustment feature to target geographies and demographics better.  In other words, if you find that your ads perform better in a certain state, increase the bid adjustment for that particular state and reduce the bid adjustment for poorly performing states.  Do the same for demographics.

4.  Take advantage of the advanced calling features if mobile is good for.

5.  Google will always tell you to use sitelinks, but they are not always good.  They are always attempting to increase click through rate.  This is not always a good thing.  An ad can effectively screen out bad clicks if worded correctly.  So, CTR is not always reactant of ROI.  So, pay attention to your conversion rates and determine what your true cost per conversion is.  Then, determine how increasing your CTR may effect ROI.  If you believe it will, then use some of the sitelink features to increase the ROI.  

6.  Look at alternative ad platforms.  Bing ads is good, though they certainly make it harder to work on then Adwords as the tools aren't as advanced.  The Yahoo Network is another alternative.  If you do your homework, you can find some great direct opportunities with banners on nice vertical sites.

The last alternative is that you can hire a professional search engine marketer.  I know, I know.  It sounds like a pitch.  Here's the issue though.  If you don't, chances are that you will spend more money in campaign inefficiencies that it would have cost you to hire someone in the first place.  Especially, if you are spending $600 or more per month already.  Essentially, in those cases you are getting someone to manage your ads for free.  At Foremost Media, our average client has sees a reduction in the average cost per click of almost 50%.  So do the math, and if you can afford it, hire a professional.

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Put Some Sizzle In Your Business Blog- 10 Tips From Foremost Media

A business blog should strike the right balance between information and promotion. Blogs should answer questions, be interesting, discuss trends – the good and the bad – and dispense tidbits about your company and what you can do.

It should be an extension of your marketing strategy and it needs to pack enough pizzazz to keep readers coming back. And, it should be a done on a regular basis.

Here are 10 tips to put some sizzle in your blog:

1. Write “how-to” articles. They put you out there as an expert and give the consumer confidence in your business. Include a tip list; they punch up an article by giving information in short readable pieces. If you are having trouble getting started – think of the most common question a consumer or potential customer might have and answer it.
2. Use an event in the news as a jumping off point. Does that event affect your customers or will it have an impact on your business? Is there a myth or scam circulating on the internet or social media that concerns your business or the industry – write about it.
3. Keep posts timely – don’t write about winter car care concerns in the beginning of summer or talk about spring spruce-ups in October.
4. Start a debate - A friendly debate about a product or business policy shows you are willing to discuss all sides of an issue. It also can demonstrate your knowledge and dedication to your business or craft.
5. Go multi-media – use a slide show to demonstrate something or how about a podcast? Make a video showing a step-by-step creation of a product. Use humor – but use it wisely – off color jokes or making fun of a business competitor is never a good idea.
6. Get People Talking- Generate a buzz about something coming up by writing a “sneak peek” post. As an added bonus, it will keep intrigued readers coming back.
7. Use graphics and fact lists. Posts containing graphics, fact lists and polls with results are great for generating shares on Facebook as well as on other social networking sites.
8. Interview customers and share customer feedback. Testimonials and success stories connect you with your audience.
9. Talk about charity work or volunteer work. Profile an employee who is very involved in charity work. Make staff profiles a regular feature because they give a human aspect to your company.
10. Reward your readers – offer a product giveaway to blog readers or promote a new service or product to blog readers before the general public.

Google

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Email Marketing Outperforming Social for Driving Sales

Email marketing is simply the most cost-effective digital marketing channel for your business.

That's not really news to us, but we always like to see data to back it up. Wired has a nice look at some new data released by Custora, a predictive analytics platform.

The report shows that while social channels get all the hype, "it’s a relatively antique tech that appears to be far more important for selling stuff online. . . Over the past four years, online retailers have quadrupled the rate of customers acquired through email."

The number of customers earned through Facebook has stayed small and flat and Twitter, meanwhile, doesn't register at all, according to the report.

Customers acquired through email opt-in are also more valuable — they buy more and more often. Organic search and paid search scored higher than email, according to the Custora data.

In late 2012, Bloomberg noted all the reasons email simply can't be beat for retailers.

What does it all mean? Social channels such as Facebook and Twitter definitely have a place in your marketing toolkit. But when it comes to earning new customers and driving revenue for your business, email remains a top digital channel and one whose power seems only to grow.

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