IBM and T-Mobile tied for first place overall in a study that analyzes search engine optimization practices, but brands still have much to learn when it comes to link building, according to a Covario study released Wednesday. The Covario study taps into the company's SEO Audit Score technology to measure high-tech advertisers, from zero to 100, on how well their Web sites were optimized between April and May 2011, for the keywords that define their product categories. Perfect scores for both content quality and technical optimization with search engines drove IBM's high score. Sharing top honors, T-Mobile demonstrated "outstanding" link-building performance, coming in 30 points higher than the link average. It's not clear how much clout that distinction holds -- considering that Arnel Leyva, Covario director of product marketing, said most companies earned a letter grade audit score no better than a C. "Linking is still very difficult," Leyva said. "You can automate just so much, and the rest is based on relationship building." Dell's SEO Audit Score came in one point lower than the score shared by IBM and T-Mobile. Although Dell just barely missed being part of a three-way tie for the top SEO Audit Score across all categories, it achieves "link-royalty" status with the highest Link Audit Score, doubling all the other advertisers except for T-Mobile. Although not a big surprise, it's important to note that Dell built its business by instilling Internet-driven efficiencies across its organization. Marketers can buy relationships and links, but Google will eventually identify that practice and ding the brand. The older, more established companies can lean on their brand recognition for support and links, whereas the Internet-age companies need to work harder and smarter. The report breaks into segments ranging from software to computers, HDTV to smartphones, printers to video game software and more. The majority of Web sites assessed in the study had between tens of thousands to more than 1 million external inbound links. The volume of links did not necessarily translate into higher search rankings. Scores were determined by content quality, technical optimization, and linking techniques. Linking strategies between "old-guard" and "new-guard" technology companies proved the most interesting. The linking strength for the old-guard software companies, such as IBM and Microsoft, resides in content and technical factors. Companies that came up through the "Internet age," such as T-Mobile and Dell, are more social and do well with linking techniques. The Covario SEO Audit Score Industry Rankings relies on the company's SEO Audit Score to provide a measurement of how bellwether companies in various industries achieve brand awareness through organic search, how they fare against competitors, and the ones making an effort to do well. Of note: 25% of the 35 well-known companies selected to participate in this survey are Covario clients. The technology behind the SEO audit and Covario SEO Audit Score analyzes the top 100 links linked to the top 10 URLs for any keyword in all languages across the major search engines. It cross-references the URLs to determine the ones shared most. These become link hubs and the ones determined to hold the most clout.
From mobile to social and beyond, Google released a dizzying array of tools, products and services in the first three days of this week. Aside from the social network Google+, each floated to the surface with little fanfare, but made a major splash as they appeared. On Wednesday, Google launched Mobile Sites landing pages, a free tool that helps marketers without coding experience build professional mobile landing page in minutes. The tool aims to support marketers attempting to reach the more than half of all Americans who will own smartphones by the end of 2011. Today, 61% of mobile users are not likely to go a mobile site they had trouble accessing from their phone, and 40% go to a competitor's site, according to a recent Google study. Also, the company also rolled out a social plug-in to track in Google Analytics. The goal is to help Web site owners see how visitors to their site share content using social plug-ins such as +1, and Facebook Like buttons. The +1 metric tool shows marketers how the social buttons influence traffic coming to a Web site. A Search Impact report looks at organic traffic, rather than paid-search campaigns. The Activity report shows the number of times the page has been +1ed. And the Audience report shows aggregate geographic and demographic information about the Google users who clicked on the +1 sign. On Tuesday, aside from Google+, the engine introduced wdyl.com, as in "What do you love?" When Google asks the question, answer by typing the word(s) into the search box and click on "search." The wdyl site then presents query results in 20 widgets containing Google's different types of searches, from news to YouTube to blogs to Picasa for photos. The site made a debut with little fanfare, along with Google Swiffy, which converts Flash SWF files to HTML5, allowing users to reuse Flash content on devices without a Flash player such as iPhones and iPads.
Two weeks ago, in a column about attribution models, Gord Hotchkiss cited John Yi's bowling and pinball analogies for marketing. That got me thinkingL "How many sports analogies can I come up with for marketing?" The answer: 152. Too easy. So I asked myself, "How many sports analogies can I come up with for SEM?" The answer: 10. 1.No Limit Hold 'Em. I won't get into the rigmarole over whether or not poker's a sport. These guys may not look like athletes, but tell that to their pocketbooks. No comment about the physique of your average search geek nor typical compensation -- but I will say there's quite a lot that No Limit Texas Hold 'Em and SEM have in common. Per Wikipedia, in Hold 'Em "the objective of winning players is not to win every individual hand, but rather to make mathematically and psychologically correct decisions regarding when and how much to bet, raise, call or fold. By making such decisions, winning poker players can maximize their expected gain on each round of betting, thereby increasing their long-term winnings." The same goes for PPC bidding. Only amateurs make "all-in" decisions on individual keyword auctions. The pros take into account entire keyword portfolios (counting the outs) as well as historical performance (previous hands) to model expected performance (calculating the odds) and react to competitive pressures (reading the tells). And, in poker and search, sometimes you just have to ask yourself, "Am I feeling lucky?" 2. Ultimate Fighting Championship. In UFC, it's a fight to the finish and nearly anything goes. You can punch. You can kick. But no biting. Sorry, Iron Mike, you wouldn't last in the octagon. Same goes in SEO. For any given query, there can be only one winner. And, when it comes to link-building, nearly anything goes. You can beg. You can bait. But no buying. Sorry, JC Penney. And then there's the ultimate SEO PPC battle. It's like Shamrock-Gracie. Or, perhaps, Tortoise-Hare. 3. Decathlon. This Olympic event consists of 10 individual events, with the winner based on combined performance. So, too, with SEM, there's no one specific tactic you can deploy to catapult -- or, shall I say, shot-put -- your way to the top of the SERP. You've got to compete in keyword selection, ad grouping, match typing, title and description writing, landing page relevancy, budget setting, bid management, KPI reporting, A/B testing, and cross-channel attribution. And that's just PPC. There are hundreds of SEO ranking factors you have to consider and master when going for the gold. 4. Baseball. Steve Ballmer favors the baseball analogy when talking about how Microsoft is competing in the search space. He's often said that we're in the early innings. Methinks -- that was for you, Rob -- the tortoise and hare analogy works here, too, with Bing gaining search query share every month since launch until this past June. 5. Quidditch. In JK Rowling's magical game, chasers fly around trying to shoot the quaffle across the pitch and into the goal. Meanwhile, seekers try to capture the golden snitch while beaters fire bludgers left and right. What in Hogwarts does all this have to do with SEM? Work with me here... In SEM, marketers scurry around trying to get their listings on the first page and into the top spot. Meanwhile, the search engines try to deliver the one perfect result, while webmasters fire off signals left and right. As for Potter's secret weapon in the battle against Voldemort? Well, it ain't no magic wand. 6. Croquet. In this *cough* sport, you use a mallet to hit balls through hoops and get extra shots if you hit your opponent's ball out of the way. In SEM, we're always looking for new ways to bump our competitors. The question is, what to do when you're up against a cheater? Now that's what I call a sticky wicket! 7. Bocce. While we're rolling on grass, here's another one for ya. Bocce requires you to toss your ball closest to the jack, knocking out all others in the path. Seems like an appropriate metaphor for SEM or any form of marketing in which you're trying to get your message through all that commercial noise to reach your target audience. Now if only Father Guido Sarducci had cut a video revealing the secrets of SEM! 8. Volleyball. Bump. Set. Spike. Hopefully that's what your conversion reports look like! 9. Thumb-Wrestling. OK, I'm really getting desperate -- but bear with me here. There's no more stripped-down version of wrestling than a good old-fashioned thumb war. You can have the buffest bod, but when push comes to shove -- or grip comes to grip -- you have to rely on your thumb to do the heavy lifting... and pinning. Now think about SEM. There's no more stripped-down version of marketing. You can have the biggest brand, but on a SERP you have to rely on your text to capture the click. And if you really want to isolate the variables, try this on for size. 10. Soccer. Soccer -- or football, as the rest of the world knows it -- is the most popular game on the planet. Just like soccer, SEM goes by different names. Search Engine Marketing. Search Marketing. Pay Per Click. Search Engine Optimization. And, just like soccer, SEM is the most popular form of digital marketing on the planet. They key to soccer is endurance. And endurance is the key to SEM as well. In SEM, you have to endure a frantic pace, tough competition, rule changes -- do pandas wear snoods? -- and even governmentinterference. But in the end, it's all worth it! Just make sure you set the right goooooooooooooooooooooooaaaaaaaal!
Some time back, Google AdWords launched "ad extensions," a variety of additional text (and sometimes images) that appear along with your ads that appear on Google. Over time, Google has greatly expanded the ad extensions offerings to include: · Location Extensions · Product Extensions · Ad Sitelinks · Call Extensions Google claims that using ad extensions can greatly enhance click-through rate and ad engagement. In the case of ad sitelinks, for instance, Google claims that advertisers can realize a 30% improvement in CTR, and my own testing with clients has shown that to be true as well, with advertisers recognizing a 25%-30% bump in CTR. While ad sitelinks provide advertisers with additional ways to gain both visibility and clicks from their ads, what are the challenges of using ad sitelinks -- and how can you address them? Challenge 1: They Don't Show Consistently or Often Enough One of the greatest challenge in using ad extensions is that they aren't always generated with your ad and don't appear as often as you might like. Part of the problem is that Google's quality score expectation can be pretty high to display certain ad extensions, like ad sitelinks. Google requires a high quality score on the ad itself to show ad sitelinks (possibly as high as 7/10). Additionally, the ad must appear in above the organic results, meaning that it typically must be in the top three ad positions, minimum. Also, Google requires that the destination URLs for the sitelinks point to a page within the website itself - not necessarily a separate landing page. Solution The solution here is all about quality score, which can be a tough nut to crack. Follow best practices in quality score to ensure you optimize it as best possible. Since the sitelink destination URLs need to point to pages within your website itself, be sure that your website has a clear path to conversion. Consider adding a form or highly visible button to each page of your website to make the conversion path clear, which in turn may also help increase conversions of organic search visitors. Challenge 2: Consistency in Content One other challenge of ad extensions is the consistency in the content that's showing in your ad. In the case of ad sitelinks, for instance, advertisers can enter up to ten sitelinks for an ad, in order of preferred priority. Then Google chooses up to four sitelinks to show with the ad. However, Google may not use your sitelinks in the priority you requested. Because you, as the advertiser, do not know exactly which ad sitelinks were shown, it's challenging to test various sitelinks (and versions of sitelink copy) to see which generate the highest conversion rate. Solution While we can't necessarily force Google to change its ways and allow advertisers more control over the consistency of how the ad extensions are displayed, we can still do some basic testing using Google Analytics and destination URL tagging. You still won't be able to tell which sitelink has the highest CTR because Google only shows impression and CTR statistics for the full set of sitelinks, not individual ones. Nor will you know exactly what order the sitelinks were in, so you won't be able to tell if one sitelink position performs better than another. However, you can at least measure conversion rate by appending each ad sitelink with a unique variable appended to the end, such as http://www.abc.com/?sitelink=def. Here's how: 1. After you've tagged each of your ad sitelinks with a unique URL variable, create a custom report in Google AdWords. 2. In your custom report, choose campaigns as the top level dimension, then landing page as the drill down dimension. This will allow you to examine data specific to each campaign. Select unique page views as the metric and save the report. 3. When viewing the report, under advanced segments, choose paid search traffic and visits with conversions. 4. Finally, click on an individual campaign to drill down and see the landing pages for that campaign and their conversion metrics. If you use a backend CRM system or other type of tracking, such as Salesforce.com, Eloqua, or other marketing automation, ecommerce or CRM tools, you should also capture the variable and put it into the conversion record in that system. This way, you can see directly through reports in those systems as well as gauge the effectiveness of sitelinks on conversion, which ultimately is the most important metric to most advertisers. Is It All Worth It? Anything that can help you extend your visibility in a sea of advertisers is, in my opinion, worth trying. And since ad sitelinks don't cost any more but can help you generate a higher CTR, you should definitely give them a try. Just be aware that there are challenges to ad sitelink serving and measurement -- and accommodate as you can.