Interface

The new look and feel of Google bodes a more modern and powerful overall search engine. Apart from the obvious and well publicised logo update, Google have implemented a variety of new search tools and filters on the left which cater to the needs of the evolved, modern day search engine user.  This has been dubbed “Universal Search”.

Users can now more easily filter and customise their searches based on the specific media or service they are looking for. Sure this has been available in a different form in the past but Google is now cementing these advanced search filters as one of the cornerstones of their search interface. The universal search toolbar now also provides a variety of extra search tools such as timeline and context specific searches to name a few.

But universal search has yet another trick up its sleeve. This is the ability of users to sort search results based on how often a website has been updated. This means users can now access the latest fresh content without the hassle of having to trawl through a list of outdated  results. Basically, universal search has made it even easier for users to switch between filters and views of the same search query in order to retrieve search results that are more applicable to their needs.

Finally, another notable new addition to the Google tool belt is Google Squared. This fascinating tool allows users to search for a product, category, service or any other entity and compare the results in a detailed matrix of information (in real time!). It’s just another helpful innovation from the good people at Google. Try it out for yourself here: http://www.google.com/squared.

Algorithm

As most search engine optimisation specialists would be aware, Google’s new search algorithm ‘Caffeine’ has changed the way in which Google looks at your website content. Google is now able to crawl a huge range of internet content (including video, music, news and social media) – faster and more reliably than it ever has before. This has enabled Google to understand the content and deliver a rich experience to the users in an array of new types of relevant and up to date search results.

With Google’s intelligence ever increasing, it has now become more important than ever to use reliable, white hat SEO techniques in order to achieve great search engine rankings as Google is  becoming more and more adept at differentiating between real content and spam/scam SEO work. For more information on how Google Caffeine may affect your business, read Andrew Knight’s article – What is Google Caffeine?

Self-absorbed, coddled, selfish, over-confident, arrogant, and accused of suffering from a deep epidemic of narcissism, Gen Y’s are constantly battered and bruised from those of earlier generations.

However, in the world of digital marketing it is Gen Y’s that are the cornerstone of our ever-expanding business; offering professional and cutting edge advice while showing our clients real results.

Here’s why:

• For starters, Gen Y’s are techy. Sure many Gen X’s and Baby Boomers are relatively active in the digital space, but Gen Y’s have shown older generations massive time-saving tech shortcuts that increase their productivity.
• Gen Y’s speak digital as their first language. They sleep with their iPhone under the pillow, are searching the net whilst watching TV, and are usually involved in 5-10 asynchronous conversations at any given time of the day.  This convergence of media, technology and communication  has unwittingly bred a generation of very capable multi-taskers and digital natives. They can take in huge amounts of information and filter out what is most useful to THEM. It’s no wonder that they are the most digitally targeted marketing segment. Which leads to my next point…
• They’re sponges. Some of us might see facebook, or just surfing the net as a mere pass time. However, these guys are communicating and absorbing a wide range of information from various sources.  If your business is looking to delve into the murky waters of Social Media, do you know what social media channels and strategies are right for your business? We rely on the Gen Y’s in our office to provide extensive advice on how your company can capitalise on  the social media boom through social media marketing and promotion.
• They’re natural Googlers. Gen Y’s have been using the internet for as long as they can remember. They rely on it for information and use it to source the most up-to-date products. They will rarely go beyond the first page of Google searches; therefore SEO & SEM is imperative when attempting to target them. And due to Gen Y emerging as the largest demographic in Australia (with 4.67million of them floating around), Reload Media understands your business is likely interested in a slice of the Gen Y pie! We have Gen Y SEO & SEM specialists who know how to effectively target Gen Y’s and take your online presence to the next level.
• They buzz! Gen Y’s are switched on and full of energy. They provide a company with that much needed positive momentum that uplifts everyone in the room. Is your business currently running on empty? Maybe you need a Gen Y to come in and add some spark.
• Opportunity drives them. Some of the biggest complaints people have about Gen Y’s are that:

1. They don’t have the patience to stay at one job for long enough,
2. They will inevitably leave and work overseas, and
3. That they expect to reach the top immediately.

This simply isn’t true. However, we have found that, by simply offering Gen Y’s a Gen Y working environment and presenting them with actual responsibility and trust to grow your business, they will relish the opportunity and exceed your expectations.

• They’re not into 9-5. They’re more 24/7. Shoot a Gen Y an email at 11pm and I would bet my bottom dollar that you’ll get a quick reply. They are not phased about putting in extra time to get the job done. Our Gen Y staff members put endless hours in to ensure our clients get industry leading service.
• Finally, Gen Y’s are adaptable. They thrive on change and learning a plethora of new information. Just ask a Gen Y to learn something new and report the findings to you and they’ll enthusiastically jump on it.

So if you’re still unsure about Gen Y’s, then you should employ one and witness the momentum they can add to your business given the right mix of responsibility and opportunity. In digital marketing, we depend on their natural digital expertise in order to keep up to date with the latest trends and maximise our clients results. This is what makes us the leader in search optimisation and internet marketing that we are today.

As a business owner who employs Gen Y’s, I know firsthand how efficient they can be given the right motivation and working atmosphere.

As a matter of fact, a Gen Y is writing this article for me right now… Now that’s efficiency!

Google’s Caffeine has actually been in effect for the past 6 months but wasn’t officially released until last month. You may have noticed minor changes to Google during this period such as videos from YouTube to regular updated news stories being included in the search results, though Caffeine was still being refined.

Before Caffeine, Google’s indexing system was based on layers. Some layers were refreshed faster than others while the main layer would be updated every couple of weeks. However, to refresh a layer of Google’s old index, Google would have to analyse the web in its entirety, which meant a significant delay between finding a page and making it appear within their index. With Caffeine, Google can now analyse the web in small portions and update their search index on a more constant basis, allowing new information and websites to be added into their index faster than ever.

Google has expressed Caffeine was built for both the near future and beyond, allowing it to scale with the addition of new information whilst delivering a whole wide range of websites, videos, tweets and much more quicker.

By being able to control the maximum cost-per-click for every keyword, this puts advertisers in a position where they are able to monitor the profitability of every keyword they are targeting.

Search engine ads are one of the most trackable marketing activities available, and if you’re running some sort of eCommerce environment then you have the potential to track the exact return on investment (ROI) each keyword is bringing.

However, this degree of reporting can lead to misinterpretation of what is a “good” keyword and what is a poor keyword.

At the basic level, a decent Analytics setup will allow you to determine that for every $1 you put into AdWords, you are getting $X back. Clever operators will have this set up for each individual keyword.

However, relying just on ROI can be a big mistake. Let’s take the following example.

Keyword #1 – “widgets brisbane”

• ROI = $4.50
• Monthly Spend = $300

Keyword #2 – “widgets sydney”

• ROI = $2.80
• Monthly Spend = $700

From the above example, we can see that “widgets brisbane” is a better performing keyword. Therefore, if you only had $1000 in total monthly budget, you would spend all of it on Brisbane (presuming of course there’s enough traffic to use that much). However, if your budgets are flexible and you can spend more if you want, then would you turn off the Sydney keyword?

The answer is no. ROI is just one factor you need to consider. The other is profit. The Brisbane keyword makes $1,050 profit per month (300 x 4.50 – 300) while the Sydney keyword makes $1,260 profit (700 x 2.8 – 700).

Turning off the Sydney keyword would make your business worse off. Obviously you should also consider the profit-margin on the actual widget itself when calculating these figures.

Now most people when faced with the above scenario, would obviously choose to leave both keywords turned on, but for some reason when this scenario is expanded to hundreds of keywords, rational profit-maximising thinking tends to go out the window.

Let’s say an AdWords’ advertiser is spending $1000 per month across hundreds of keywords, and is getting about $5000 back (a $5 ROI). Based on this good performance, the advertiser decides to increase their budget to $2000 per month, which in turn lifts the revenue to about $9000 (a $4.50 ROI).

Looking purely at the ROI figures would lead an advertiser to incorrectly assume the increase in budget has not worked, and they might drop it back. However, looking at the profit figure clearly shows monthly profit rising from $4000 to $7000.

One of the questions we are commonly asked is “why does my ROI drop when I increase my budget?”

The reason behind this is actually tied to the economic principle of the low-hanging-fruit. The low-hanging-fruit principle basically explains that in business, there are some sales that are easier to get than others, like the low hanging fruit on a fruit tree is easier to reach.

In an AdWords context, a low-hanging-fruit keyword would be something like “buy online widgets now.” If a user types this into Google, it’s likely that they already have their credit card out of their wallet and are ready to purchase. These longer, more specific keywords are also often cheaper to bid on than generic terms.

By contrast, a user searching “widgets” is not a low-hanging-fruit. This term is highly generic and it’s going to take a good salesperson (in this case a website) to convince this person that now is the right time to buy.

Essentially, this is why ROI drops when you increase your budget. The AdWords’ algorithm has a built in “low-hanging-fruit” factor that shows higher performing keywords more often, meaning when you increase your budget, you’re starting to reach for the fruit higher up on the tree.

The lesson here is that the way to assess how your AdWords’ campaigns are performing is to find the point (budget amount) where total profit is maximised, not where ROI is maximised. This simple mistake could be costing your business thousands in lost sales.

In this article we will look into how a local business can benefit from SEO and what steps you have to take in order to conquer the market and have the edge over your competitors.

The trend of potential users looking to the internet for a specific product or service is increasing rapidly, and therefore it’s important that local businesses ensure their website is optimised for search engine queries.

So how can you make your website important to the search engines and attract more traffic? Professional SEO services can be expensive, particularly if you’re a small business.

The answer is to optimise your site for geo-targeted keywords. A geo-targeted keyword is a keyword that only targets a specific location, eg: “hairdresser Toowong” or “Chinese restaurant Southbank.” The idea being that users who search these types of terms are more highly qualified leads and more likely to turn into paying customers.

By optimising in this way, you’re essentially allowing the search engines themselves to act as a filter whereby only high quality traffic is directed to your site.

Research into search trends is showing that this type of approach, particularly in industries where locality is important (eg: home services, dining, etc), is proving to be a very profitable way to cost-effectively drive more traffic from the search engines.

Search Engine Optimisation (more commonly known as SEO) is a method which involves a variety of techniques to alter a website’s natural position in the search engine results pages (SERPs), image search, local search and/or video search to help improve its web presence and ultimately increase its traffic volume.

Do I need SEO?

As more businesses and companies incorporate SEO into their digital marketing strategy today, it’s recommended to consider SEO into yours, especially if you are targeting consumers online. Gone are the days of finding your business or company in the Yellow Pages or newspaper and expecting a positive return on investment (ROI). More and more are making the switch online for reading, learning and interacting via a wide range of systems with search engines being one of the most used today.

Why SEO?

SEO is the key to opening the door to new customers you may have never found through traditional marketing while ensuring a competitive edge over your competition and building credibility online. SEO can complement other marketing efforts (online and/or offline) such as search engine marketing (SEM) to effectively allow promotion of your website in more places than one.

How long does SEO take?

SEO is considered a long term strategy as there are various external variables such as search engine algorithms and industry competition which impact on how a website ranks in the search engine results pages (SERPs), not to mention SEO differs from direct advertising such as Television Advertising or Search Engine Marketing (SEM) which gain high volume in a very short period. View more on How long does SEO take.

Where do I start?

Anyone can practise SEO after a few hours of learning and see results; though true SEO is comprised of extensive knowledge, continuous effort and a variety of techniques. However, if you would like to begin the process of SEO for your website, please read our SEO Checklist to ensure your website is SEO ready and search engine friendly.

Alternatively, you can look at using a professional SEO company like Reload Media.

So why do you need to advertise on these terms as well?

Consider this – What if by relying solely on your organic search listing, you may in fact be turning some of your potential customers away?

Below are our top 8 reasons why bidding on your company name is an effective search engine marketing strategy that can help increase conversions, ROI and your brand presence on the web.

1. Attention, Interest, Desire, AdWords

It is important to remember that Google AdWords clickers are different to Google Organic Search Result clickers as they are generally at a different stage of the consumer decision making process. We have found that, in many cases, users who click on the organic search results are more likely to be in the research or ‘interest’ stage of the buying process, whereas users who click on sponsored links (like Google AdWords), are more likely to be purchase ready customers.  If you don’t have an active ad catching these purchase ready consumers, your competitors may be winning customers who are in fact searching for you!

2. Because Your Competitors Are

Under most circumstances, your competitors are allowed to bid on your branded keywords. You can submit a copyright infringement request to Google for some more specific brand terms but there is no guarantee this will go through. Depending upon local advertising regulations, competitors are generally allowed to use your brand name in their ads (through ‘comparative advertising’) so it is important that you compete in this advertising space if your competitors already are. Do a Google search now and check if there is anyone else advertising on your brand terms!

3. It’s Cheap

A common misconception is that bidding on your company name is a waste of your PPC advertising budget because your website is already in the organic search results for free. This is simply not true. Using your company name as a keyword is actually a cost effective method to ensure you maintain a very high click through rate at a very low cost per click. Brand terms are generally much cheaper than other keywords in your industry vertical (depending on how competitive your industry and how specific your brand terms are). The benefits of running a brand terms campaign often outweigh the  extremely small costs involved in doing so.

4. Increases Campaign Quality Score

The high click through rate that advertising on your brand terms receives will help boost the position of your ads in your other ad groups by increasing the overall click through rate of your account and, therefore, increasing your overall quality score.

5. Control Your Message

AdWords ads offer personality for your brand where you can feature your latest products, promotions or brand messages. The personalised ad text gives you the opportunity to control the message so you can communicate directly with your customer. This engages the customer by offering more relevant information and landing pages. Your ads may even attract more clicks than your organic results. For example, if you are an ice cream store running an offline advertising campaign that promotes a free ice cream for all customers who download a special online coupon in the month of June, an integrated AdWords strategy would allow you to capture users searching on your brand terms and send them directly to your coupon landing page or micro-site whilst reinforcing the offline advertising messages in the AdWords ads themselves.

6. Website Relevance

AdWords can boost sales for your business by capturing the market segment in ‘buying mode’ and ensuring these users are quickly directed to the most relevant page in your website, bypassing your home or other irrelevant pages that may frustrate or confuse buyers.

7. Misspelling Your Company Name

If your business name is not well known or difficult to spell, bidding on likely misspellings ensures your company name, and the users intended search, is listed.

8. Increase Your Online Branding and Search Engine Real Estate

If your business has an organic search listing (or listings) and an AdWords ad when a user types in your company name, then your business occupies more physical space on the Google search page. The more physical space you occupy, the more visible your website.

All these factors are why we generally recommend bidding on your own company name in AdWords.

Google TV – Watch The Overview

There are a multitude of topics and issues that could be discussed in relation to the announcement of Google TV.  As a keen Google advertiser myself, however, I would like to concentrate on just one – the shift in thinking that may occur amongst advertisers if Google’s ambition to combine the internet with traditional television is successful.

Although many other companies have attempted to marry these two beasts in the past (Apple TV, Boxee, TiVo etc), none have yet achieved the ‘Holy Grail’ result – widespread adoption of and acceptance of tv/internet integration. Although to most advertisers, this integration has always been the obvious next step in television advertising, until now, there hasn’t really been a platform on offer that smoothly integrates the television and internet into one, seamless media experience.

Enter Google into the equation and the traditional television advertising landscape begins to look a little different. Google, who already have a wildly successful online advertising platform in Google AdWords, will no doubt be looking at integrating their AdWords system into Google TV. Even at this point in time, Google already have a Google TV interface within their AdWords console which allows advertisers to upload TV ads to be viewed by current Google TV owners.

Google TV + AdWords

But consider some other future possibilities for a moment…

If Google TV is a success, we may see a new generation of direct response advertising in traditional TV ads.

Imagine a Domino’s TV ad which allows you to click on an AdWords coupon that then takes you to a HD ordering page designed specifically for TVs.

Or an ad for a new song or movie that takes the user directly to a website where they can buy and download that media onto their television.

What is most exciting about this fundamental shift in the way television advertising may soon be provided is that it will now allow a once passive medium to become an extremely active, engaging and (even more) powerful advertising tool.

Only time will tell if Google’s new television platform will gain widespread acceptance but, for now, as a Google Advertiser, I can only sit and think giddily about the future possibilities for online advertising through television.

What do you think about Google TV and the future of TV advertising? Feel free to comment and discuss!

301 Redirect - A method used to redirect permanently moved websites from an old URL to a new URL.

Algorithm - A mathematical formula used to rank web pages in the search engines. Algorithms are constantly changing to display the most relevant website results for users.

Authority - The credibility of your site in the search engines. A combination of high quality SEO, domain age, links and good content can help build a site’s overall authority.

CMS – Stands for ‘Content Management System,’ which allows users to easily update a site’s content through an easy editor.

Domain Age - The age that your site has been in existence. An old site can be ‘trusted’ more in the search engines, which can contribute your site’s authority.

Footer Links - Internal text-based links that are placed at the bottom of a page and links to other internal web pages.

Freshness Bonus – Occurs when new content is regularly added to your site. This attracts the attention of search engines, and can improve the possibility of the search engines crawling your site more frequently. And if it’s interesting, people will be crawling to read it too!

FTP – Stands for ‘File Transfer Protocol,’ which is a method of transferring local data to web servers and vice versa.

Geo-targeting - Geo-targeting is the process of making your keywords targeted to a geographic region. This is a good strategy to implement for your keywords, particularly if your site is competing in a competitive and established digital marketplace. Geo-targeted keywords (eg SEO Brisbane), can provide more relevancy for your site and it also usually means your users are more ‘purchase-ready.’

Google PageRank - Also simply known as PR, PageRank is a metric, on a scale of 0-10, for ranking a page based on its quality and quantity of links. PageRank was a primary factor on which Google’s algorithm was based.

Keyword - A word or term that your target market types into a search engine to find your website. Keywords can be generic, branded, long-tailed and/or geo-targeted. They should be selected based on your consumers’ mindset, relevant to the content on your site and how competitive your industry is.

Link Building – The action of getting other websites to link back to yours.

Meta Tags - Includes the meta title, meta keyword and meta description text that is inserted into the code of your site’s pages. The meta title and description for your site may appear on the search engines results pages (SERPs).

Referrals - Are those visitors that arrive at your site via a link from a third-party page. Link building can increase site referrals.

SERPs – Search Engine Results Page.

Title Tag - Title tags are inserted in the code of your site’s pages and appear at the top of your web browser. Title tags are important for SEO and should be unique to each page.

Website – Hopefully you’ve got this one covered!

In the last post, we explored how to convert international visitors into paying customers.

Now that you’ve got that sorted, let’s look at how to drive quality traffic to your site.

Although there are number of ways to direct international traffic to your website (international search engine optimisation, offline marketing and international public relations to name a few), Google AdWords remains one of the most effective and efficient mediums with regards to testing the validity of new markets.

AdWords allows businesses to very quickly dip their toes into the waters of just about every market in the world at very little cost. Furthermore, businesses can just as quickly pull out of these markets if said waters start to get a little rough.

The next four steps in this guide will therefore concentrate on how to successfully set up an international Google AdWords campaign for the purpose of generating international traffic.

Eeni Meeni Minee Moe

• Choose your markets based on website and market trends. Have you noticed sales coming through any countries in particular in Google Analytics?
• Test only 1-2 markets at a time.
• Take cultural considerations into mind. For example, if you are exporting wine, how does your new market perceive alcohol?
• Take exporting issues into consideration. How will your product be taxed?

I’ll have what they’re having

• Use the Google Ad Preview tool to test if and how your competitors are advertising in your chosen market/s.
• How will you create a magnetic advertising message that will break through the clutter in this new market?
• What lessons can you learn from your competitors in this market place?

Tis’ the season?

• Do you have a seasonal product? If so, figure out what season your market is in.
• Remember that your time scheduling will also need to be altered in an international market if your ads aren’t set to run at all times.

Watch Your Language!

• Consider whether you should be advertising in multiple languages. Be careful however as multiple languages can sometimes bring in double the traffic on broad terms. If this is the case, you may have trouble deciphering which negatives to add to your campaigns!

Even though AdWords will work very effectively to kick start your international traffic, it’s important to make sure you’ve got the whole OIMP sorted!