One of those extras that should always be in a great agency’s offering is having the ability to identify traffic anomalies and act accordingly.

Unexpected events will always occur and no matter how great your search strategy and campaign performance is, when it comes to IT and website usability, errors will always occur and may sometimes go unnoticed until a scheduled weekly report shows a skew in data. Traffic anomalies can be caused by server crashes, power outages, or the booking engine functionality on a website may have some coding errors that cause sharp falls in conversions or key metrics.

You would have specific goals and metrics that are imperative to your online strategy. Google Analytics Intelligence Events can help you monitor these key metrics and alert you when a significant change occurs. For example…

You’re launching a massive one month campaign that will run above the line on TV, outdoor display, radio and, of course, online. With all this mass media noise, website traffic volumes are expected to increase significantly. You are going to start directing all your paid search visitors to the specific campaign page but you are concerned that the campaign page has not been tried and tested. This is a perfect opportunity to create custom alerts with Google Analytics Intelligence events for your key metrics and goals that will identify skews.

Plan for the unplanned

Google Analytics Intelligence is an algorithmic engine that uses different standard deviational changes to generate an alert. This powerful functionality allows you to apply custom alerts on key metrics across all your dimensions and even custom segments. You can instruct the intelligence engine to assess the chosen metric daily, weekly or monthly. In this scenario, you can create an alert that will compare your conversion rate with the same day of the previous week.

Setting up an Alert

1. From the left hand navigation menu expand out the Intelligence Events menu and select the frequency options. In this example, I am setting up an alert that will be monitored daily as below:

2. From the Daily events page, click on the ‘+ Create a Custom Alert’ option as below:

3. Give the alert an appropriate name. In this case, I want the intelligence engine to monitor our conversion rate daily, hence the name ‘conversion rate drop’. When entering the email address for the alert recipient, it is a good idea to add multiple addresses. For example, you might want to include the account team who work on this particular client. Select the appropriate dimension and metrics for the alert. In this case, I want to monitor all traffic sources and our conversion rate. For the condition, I have selected % decrease more than 10% compared to the same day of the previous week. Save the Alert.

Within the first day of the new campaign launch you will be alerted to a drop in conversion rate performance by an email alert, informing you that conversion rates have dropped by 10% as set up above. This allows you to flag the issue to the client where they can escalate it to the web development team. You can advise that all paid traffic is now diverted to the regular landing page in the interim as the campaign page is given a complete usability test. It is later found that the calendar selection functionality was not working on the campaign page. You have just saved significant budget across all channels directing to the culprit landing page.

Aside from the financial saving, just as importantly you have limited the damage to the brand. Imagine a visitor who is ready to convert, but is unable to fulfill their intent. You have perhaps lost a life time ambassador for your brand by creating a negative experience. You have also given competitors a freebie. We cannot prevent errors, but we can certainly take measures to limit the damage and in this case we have limited the damage to one day’s worth of visitors rather than a week, weeks or months.

There are many metrics you can apply alerts to such as visit peaks and troughs, campaign e-commerce revenues, your goals, and we can apply them to specific sources and segments. Another useful alert to set up may be to monitor a sharp drop in visits by x%.

For example, this would identify an overnight site outage and you can apply the alert to different profiles in the Google Analytics account. Again, you can flag the issue and save money by leveraging custom alerts.

So go above and beyond. Take the time to set up custom alerts. We can never prevent the unexpected issues that come with IT but we can implement a strategy for detecting threshold breaches that will limit the damage using Google Analytics Intelligence Events.

The post Leveraging Google Analytics Intelligence Events appeared first on FirstClick Consulting.

Structured data is the new black

If you haven’t already implemented structured data as part of your information architecture model, then the time is now! This year we will see structured data having a greater influence in search engine results pages (SERPs), as schema markup becomes essential in order to grow organic traffic in competitive niches.

Implementing structured markup to your website allows search engines to clearly understand the data on web pages and use this to increase visibility in the SERPs. Having your content and data organised in such a fashion also reaffirms the site architecture and will help verify the quality of your website and protect your rankings if (and when) Google releases their next major algorithm update.

Bye bye anchor text – hello co-citation

The value of keyword orientated anchor text has been on a steady decline in recent times, but 2013 could be the year its influence as a ranking factor reaches the point of no return. Such devaluation will force businesses to place a higher importance on developing an organic online presence, built on the backbone of quality service and brand authority as opposed to over concentration on SEO as a siloed activity.

Another factor which will be attributed to the 2013 demise of anchor text is co occurrence / co-citation. Rand Fishkin from SeoMoz gave a great explanation of co citation in a recent whiteboard Friday post. Essentially, co citation is when you see certain websites ranking for keywords which they haven’t necessarily targeted. This may be because your site or brand has been mentioned numerous times in context with that keyword, but not linked to it. This demonstrates how Google is now using brand association as a ranking factor, and by the end of 2013 there should be numerous comprehensive studies quantifying its influence.

Increased focus on WPO (Website Performance Optimization)

As Google updates become more advanced, we can expect to see WPO having an increased influence on search traffic results. WPO analyses front and back end functionality and focuses on creating a holistically superior website in terms of performance and user experience (UX). We already know that loading time and page speed influence rankings, so with massive increases in mobile search these factors stand to become even more important as mobile devices are often subject to comparatively slower connection rates, which affect site speed and functionality. Consequently, websites with poor site speed performance could eventually be devalued by Google as they offer a lesser UX when viewed on a mobile device.

The decline of Facebook…

Facebook is undisputedly the largest and most influential social media platform on the planet, with over a billion registered users worldwide. But a recent report from SocialBakers found that Facebook user numbers fell in December by 600,000 in the UK and 1.4 million in the US. Although these numbers are relatively small, they must have Mr Zuckerburg slightly concerned when coupled with the fact that the company is yet to experience a significant growth in profits since going public in May 2012. The sheer size of Facebook means it is definitely not going away anytime soon, but 2013 could be a big year for “Facebook fatigue”.

Increase in personalised search

Last year Google rolled out their “Search, plus your world” (SPYW) feature which incorporates personal results (G+ posts & photos) in the SERPs. These personal results are only visible to you when you are logged in to your Google account and can be identified by the blue person icon next to the result. SPYW is only recently beginning to appear in Australian search results, and at present it is unclear whether this is because Google is rolling out the feature in instalments or A/B testing to assess the reaction of the Australian market. One thing is for sure though, search is about to get seriously personal.

If you think you’ve got a hot prediction for the year ahead, post it here!

The post FirstClick’s 2013 SEO predictions appeared first on FirstClick Consulting.

Announcing Google Adwords Enhanced Campaigns

In a nutshell, the new Enhanced Campaigns platform aims to help advertisers manage their search campaigns more effectively across multiple devices, including desktops, laptops, smartphones, tablets, fablets and televisions, without needing separate accounts, report types, ad extensions etc.

Google highlights three main features of the new platform:

1. More powerful campaign management tools
2. Smarter ads with contextual targeting and device optimisation
3. Advanced reporting functionality across multiple conversion types.

Google’s Inside AdWords blog cites a recent study from IPSOS suggesting that up to 90% of multi-device consumers move between devices to complete an online task, reflecting the increasingly complex and connected world we live in. For advertisers, this upgrade will simplify the way they go about targeting connected consumers with ads relevant to where the consumer is, the time of day, and the type of device they’re using. For Google, it will increase the adoption of mobile advertising, help them provide more relevant ads for consumers, and strengthen their position in the mobile market.

Google’s infographic depicts the typical weekend for an Aussie and their mobile device:

Click graphic to view full size

FirstClick is working closely with Google on the transition, and our account managers are booked in for training sessions early next week. At this stage it looks like the migration to Enhanced Campaigns will be optional over the next several weeks, with the intention that all advertisers will be transitioned by mid-2013. For our clients, your account managers will be in touch to discuss this change soon. In the meantime, here are some resources and industry articles covering the announcement:

• http://www.google.com/adwords/enhancedcampaigns/
• http://adwords.blogspot.com.au/2013/02/introducing-enhanced-campaigns.html
• http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2242048/Google-AdWords-New-Enhanced-Campaigns-Connect-Ads-With-Multi-Device-Consumers
• http://searchengineland.com/the-big-adwords-update-enhanced-campaigns-puts-the-focus-on-mobile-147626

The post Google Announces Major Upgrade for Google AdWords appeared first on FirstClick Consulting.

1. Is my ad relevant to the search term?

The most important thing in achieving a high CTR is ensuring your ad copy is relevant to the search term.  The best way to do this is to have granular campaign structure with very tightly knit ad groups and within them, highly targeted and specific ad copy. It is essential to include the keyword in the headline and then if possible within the description lines and display URL.

2. Look at what your competitors are doing

A good starting point when creating SEM ad copy is to see what your direct competitors are doing.  Do a few searches on their brand terms as well as the terms which you are writing ad copy for and make sure that your Unique Selling Points (USPs) are actually unique and excel over your competitors.  There are also a number of competitors tools available that can help you track competitors ad copy on a regular basis. Get in contact with your account manager for more information on this.

3. Understand the Buying Cycle

Consider the five stages in a buying cycle; Awareness, information search, alternative evaluation, purchase decision, and post purchase behaviour. Understand where in the buying cycle your user is and reflect this in your ad copy with specific terms.

For example, if your user is searching using more generic, top funnel keywords, they are most likely to be in the awareness or information search stage.  Reflect this in your ad copy by promoting  comparison information or reviews of the product on your landing page.  It is important that you send your potential customer to a relevant page that provides them with the information they are expecting.  Otherwise, it is likely to result in high bounce rates and a low ROI.

In the evaluation stage,  where the potential customer has already completed several informational searches and is considering specific product options, it is important to highlight your Unique Selling Points (USPs) to provide a reason to continue through to the next stage in the funnel.

In the purchase decision stage, when the prospect has decided to do business with you, you need to provide them with a sense of urgency to seal the deal now.  Promotions, special offers, deals and discounts work very well. For example:

4. Tell Your Customers What You Want Them To Do

Always have a clear call to action in your ad and make it obvious what action you want your customer to complete, whether it is making a purchase, filling out a lead form or picking up a phone and calling. Keep it simple and direct is best.

5. Test, Test and More Testing

It is often difficult to identify which USPs, call to actions or headlines will generate the best results straight away so the best way to incrementally increase your CTR and ROI is to continuously test different variations of ad copy simultaneously. It is important to take a highly structured approach to testing and only choose to test one variable at a time. It’s also important to make sure your data is statistically significant and consider conversion rates as well as CTR.

For example, test the following two against each other to determine which description line 1 performs better:

If the second variation performed better with  significant data, then the next step would be to create a new ad that tests the call to action in description line 2, for example:

Some variables that you can also test include:

• Call to actions
• The placement of the call to action
• Description lines – synonyms, adjectives
• Headlines
• Urgency messaging – including or excluding end dates
• Display URLs
• Different USPs

Ad copy optimisation is an ongoing process that requires continued methodical testing with significant data sets.  You only have 25 – 35 – 35 characters and a display URL to work with so you need learn how to make your ads concise and effective in driving ROI.

By following the 5 steps outlined above, you will be well on your way to a successful and rewarding SEM campaign!

The post The Best In Ad Copy – How to Write Winning Ad Copy That Sells appeared first on FirstClick Consulting.

What Exactly Is It?

Authorship markup is Google’s method of attributing content to original authors. Posts with author markup code successfully implemented appear with a verified author’s photo next to the article in the search engine results pages (see below).

Author markup example

Also provided in the markup is a link to the authors Google+ profile, the number of Google circles the author is in and also a link to additional content from the author.

Why Should You Bother?

• Higher Visibility – The addition of the author photo and name increases visibility of content in the search engine results page from a visual perspective. This can lead to a higher click through rate and subsequent increase in organic traffic.
• Absolute Ownership – By adding authorship markup to your posts you are verifying yourself to Google as the article owner of that piece of content and preventing anyone gaining credit for your work. So, if a competitor or rogue website does copy your work, they are unlikely to receive SEO benefit from the article and may be subject to duplicate content penalties from Google.
• Personified Social Exposure – The synergy which authorship mark up has with Google+ promotes the chances of gaining +1′s (Google’s version of a ‘like’) and can increase social engagement levels for each piece of content. Additionally, the display of a direct link to the author’s Google+ page personifies each post by adding a ‘human’ element which can help convey trust to a visitor. This can in turn push more traffic to your companies Google+ page, leading to increased branding exposure, social audience and overall reach.
• Build a Digital Identity – By taking ownership of regular high quality content, you can develop the author/content relationship of contributors and take advantage of its authority. It is believed that Google will eventually use this information to establish an ‘Author rank’ metric for the content you have produced which could in turn affect how your articles rank in search engine results based on the type of content published. E.g., A financial institution can establish itself as a publisher of high quality financial content and enforce credibility in that vertical.

How Do I Set It Up?

The 2 most popular ways to implement authorship markup are the 3-link method and the 2-link method.

3-Link Method

The 3-Link method should be used if your website has individual biography pages for all authors. The content pages link back to these author bio pages which links to the authors Google+ account to complete the verification process.  Consider creating author biography pages if you haven’t already as these will create a linking space to each author’s article catalogue which can improve pageviews, user experience and overall engagement.

The key assumptions for this method are;

• The website contains an author biography page, located on the same domain as the pages which are linking to it.
• The content pages are linked directly to the author biography page using the authors name as anchor text.

1. Create Google+ profiles for each contributor – make sure the main photo is a clear facial head shot. View this guide to setting up G+ profiles for instructions.

2. Each author bio page must link directly to their Google+ account, so add a link using the anchor text “Google+” (remove the quotation marks), and also add the rel=me anchor tag attribute.  Include the authors own Google+ URL, so that the code snippet looks something like this;

<a href="https://plus.google.com/1234567891011121314" rel="me">Google+</a>

3. Edit each content page so that the current link back to the author bio page includes the rel=author anchor tag attribute. Add in the URL to the author biography page so the link snippet looks like this;

<a href="{Authors_Bio_Page_URL}" rel="author">Name of Author</a>

4. Go to the author’s Google+ profile, click on “Edit Profile“, then “Other Profiles”

5. Select “Add custom link“, fill in an appropriate label and the URL of the author biography page.

6. Now click “Save” then “Done Editing” and you should be good to go.

2-Link Method

If your website doesn’t have individual author bio pages then the most effective method to implement authorship markup in terms of cost and speed is to use the 2-link method. This entails using boilerplate author bio snippets at the end of each post to validate authorship.

1. Create Google+ profile for each contributor – make sure the main photo is a clear facial head shot. View this guide to setting up G+ profiles for instructions.

2. In each author’s biography snippet add a link to the authors Google + page using the anchor text “Google+” (without the quotation marks).

E.g.,  if your Google+ URL is https://plus.google.com/12345678910111213/, add the code:

<a href="https://plus.google.com/12345678910111213?rel=author">Google+</a>

3. In your Google+ profile, click on “Edit Profile“, then “Contributor To“.

4. Now click “Add a custom link” then add the website name where your content is published and the full URL of the sites home page.

5. Click “Save“, then “Done Editing“.

How Do I Know It’s Actually Working?

The final step is to check if your authorship markup code is working properly, a task which is made simple thanks to Google’s structured data testing tool.

1. Visit Google’s rich snippet testing tool
2. Enter the URL of a page containing the content you wish to check and click “Preview“
3. Analyse the results for errors

Congratulations! You have now “Google” staked your claim.  Rest assured that from now on you will have complete ownership of your entire digital content portfolio (with significantly increased exposure)!

The post Experience The Benefits of Google Authorship Markup appeared first on FirstClick Consulting.

In August 2011 Google released a new reporting format, Multi-Channel Funnels, which applies a multiple touch-point model to give percentage values to all traffic channels that contributed to a completed goal (within a 30 day period).

However, before we jump into Multi-Channel Funnels, we must first understand how they differ from standard reporting within Google Analytics. Within Standard Reporting, direct traffic (i.e., medium='none') does NOT overwrite any value that is set within the ‘utmccn‘ cookie, meaning that if a visitor initially visits a website via an organic search, then comes back again but directly types the web address in, the second visit is still tracked as an organic search visit.

Within Multi-Channel Funnels however direct traffic is counted as a traffic channel and thus is tracked as such. To illustrate the difference we can see below a significant difference in completed goals (Standard Reporting) vs. last interaction conversions (Multi-Channel Funnels).

Figure 1 – Standard Reporting – Goal Completions

Figure 2 – Multi-Channel Reporting

Below is a video from Google which gives a basic explanation of Multi-Channel Funnels and it’s value:

Working with Multi-Channel Funnels

Right, now we know the difference between the data we are able to see within Standard Reporting and Multi-Channel Funnels, what do we do with it?

The amazing ability of Multi-Channel Funnels is the multiple applications we can use it for, below are a couple of examples of how we can leverage the data within the reports to help better drive optimised marketing budgets to maximise their respective channels’ ROI.

Gaining greater insights by using Custom SegmentsMulti-Channel Funnel reports have the super awesome power of being able to create your own custom Channel Groupings, similar to Custom Segments in Standard Reporting. As such, it is a must to create your own Custom Groupings for Brand and Non-Brand search keyword traffic.

To create your own Custom Groupings for Brand and Non-Brand search traffic, select the Channel Groupings menu > Create a custom Channel Grouping, then simply follow the example below, replacing the ‘brand keywords’ with your own websites brand terms.

Figure 3 – Create Custom Groupings

Figure 4 – Brand Custom Group

Figure 5 – Non-Brand Keyword Group

Ok, you have your groups set up, what is the data telling you? Well when we plot the two new groupings against each other, in this example, we can see that on weekends Non-Brand keywords outperform Branded keywords in conversions. From this we may be able to further improve the performance of non-brand keywords by focusing on the type of keywords converting and lowering spend across brand terms.

Figure 6 – Brand VS Non-Brand Conversions

Determine True Value of Traffic Channels

The true power of Multi-Channel Funnels lies within the ‘Assisted’ conversions metric, this will enable us Digital Analysts to associate value with traffic channels from which First-Touch and Last-Touch attributions will not give it. As an example, let’s create the following conversion segment:

Figure 7 – Organic Search Assisted Segment

Using this segment we are able to see exactly how the Organic Search assisted conversions works with all the other traffic channels.

Figure 8 – Organic search assisted with 186 additional conversions

Closing Thoughts

Considering Google Analytics is a free tool for anyone to use, it has introduced a great function within Multi Channel Funnels; that enables smarter marketing decisions. I know I will be spending many hours hunched over my laptop following the elusive trail which we refer to as the purchase funnel.

The post Introduction to Multi-Channel Funnels within Google Analytics appeared first on FirstClick Consulting.

A Picture Says A Thousand Words right? Whoever came up with this cliche probably did so well before the days of Google, because there are many images out there that aren’t saying a single word. In the online world this means missed opportunities.

So for today’s class we’re going back to basics, as understanding images and their correct use is a must for anyone who has an online presence.

What is image optimisation?

Image optimisation is just a fancy term for making sure your images can be understood by Search Engines (like Google, Bing and Yahoo). It also refers to image speed; ensuring your page load time is kept to a minimum.

Why does it matter?

Reducing the quantity and size of images loading on a page can result in quicker page speed for visitors (including search engines). Since the loading time of a page can have an impact on ranking, providing a faster experience can help deliver more traffic to your site and potentially more money in your pocket.

How it all works

Let’s take an example of a jewellery website with a product page of a Big Blue Ring:

Now let’s assume that on this particular page the code for this ‘ring image’ is:

<img src="http://www.jewellerysite.com/images/4561817618.jpg" width="" height="" alt="" title= "" />

This image has not been optimised as several of the values (between the “” marks) are empty. Don’t be afraid if you don’t understand the snippet above; the point of this post is to ensure you have a good understanding of this code by the time you reach the end.

What follows below is an introduction to each attribute within the image code shown above:

img src

• What it is:

  The ‘src‘ (Source) informs the browser where an image is located within your site. For our example the img src is http://www.jewellerysite.com /images/4561817618.jpg. Although changing the location of images within your website may be difficult (it’s best practice to keep all images in a single directory for ease of maintenance) what we can change here is the ‘file name’ of this image.

• Why it matters:

  Google has stated that in instances where an ‘alt attribute’ (discussed further down) has been left blank it will take the file name (in this instance 4561817618.jpg) to identify and describe the image. In our example Google will label our image as ‘4561817618‘ which is not on a person’s top 10 list of words to type into Google. By changing the file name to something descriptive such as ‘Big Blue Ring’ we give ourselves a far better chance of being found by people searching for this particular product.

  Vanessa Fox refers to an interesting finding in her book ‘Marketing in the Age of Google‘, where an eye scanning study revealed that people tend to skim down to ‘image results’ first, when they appear in the Search Engine Display Results, they then look at the ‘text listing’ immediately below these images before shifting their attention back to the top of the page.

  

• What makes a good img src?

  Anything thats as short and descriptive as possible. Ideally we’d like our img src to read: img src="http://www.jewellerysite.com/images/big-blue-ring.jpg" where all ‘images’ are in one directory directly beneath the root directory. But let’s say in this instance it’s not possible. Ensuring a descriptive file name is still a good win. Making sure the file name of the image itself reads ‘big-blue-ring.jpg‘ would suffice.

  When naming files ensure you use hyphens to separate words; it tends to have a slight advantage in Google. Don’t use spaces as these make the file name unreadable. Hence our new img src will now become: img src="http://www.jewellerysite.com/images/big-blue-ring.jpg"

Width and height

• What it is:

  These attributes inform web browsers of the size of your image before it is loaded. For our example the ‘width‘ and ‘height‘ attributes are blank.

• Why it matters:

  When a webpage is loaded, a browser will download elements of that page (such as images, text, logos etc.). If you define the width and height of all images, your browser can start rendering the page even before these images are downloaded.

  Defining the width and height of an image therefore helps webpages load faster.

• How to fix it:

  In this example all we need to do is include the image dimensions measured in pixels. So this part of the code becomes: width="589" height="502".

Alt Attribute

• What it is:

  In our example the ‘alt attribute’ (alt="") is left blank. The Alternate text attribute is important as it serves 3 primary purposes:

  1. It tells Search Engines what the image is (in our case a ‘Big Blue Ring’)
  2. It displays text to viewers when an image fails to load
  3. It acts as the ‘Anchor Text’ when an image is linked.
• Why it matters:

  Having an Alt Attribute will help to ensure your image is indexed appropriately within Google’s Image search results so people searching for your product have a greater chance of coming across it.

  It also ensures that when an image fails to load your customers can still see the significance of that image. The picture below shows our Big Blue Ring failing to load, but the user can still see it is a picture of a Big Blue Ring which is on sale.

  

• What makes a good Alt Attribute?

  The best Alt Attributes are those which are as short and descriptive as possible. In our example the Alt Attribute will become: alt="Big Blue Ring". Avoid unnaturally adding keywords to images on a page. E.g., don’t add ‘buy rings online’ to your brand logo as this can be deemed as ‘keyword stuffing’ resulting in lower rankings.

Title Attribute

• What it is:

  The title attribute is displayed when a user ‘hovers’ their mouse over an image. For our example the ‘title’ attribute (title="") is left blank.

• Why it matters:

  This one has more to do with ‘user experience’ than anything else. As a general rule of thumb I always like to include a Title Attribute because I believe if Search Engines can see the description of an image it’s only fair that people can as well.

• What makes a good Title Attribute?

  It’s usually best to make the ‘Alt Attribute’ and ‘Title Attribute’ the same as one could argue it’s misleading to tell Search Engines one thing and users another. So this part of our code becomes: title="Big Blue Ring".

  So after all of that our new image code on this page becomes:
  <img src="http://www.jewellerysite.com/images/big-blue-ring.jpg" width="589" height="502" alt="Big Blue Ring" title= "Big Blue Ring" />

So, now you know the basics of Image Optimisation and have an understanding of the image code, why it matters and how to make it work for your site.

If you’re like me and consistently have an unquenched thirst for knowledge, I suggest reading further into subject areas such as selecting the best file type for images , CSS Sprites  and Image Sitemaps.

The post Image Optimisation – images indexed correctly and loading faster appeared first on FirstClick Consulting.

In 2012, we have seen a range of betas come to market. As the year rapidly comes to an end, it’s a great time to step back and review what changes have the most potential to help your business, so here are five worth exploring:

1) Remarketing in Search

The development of retargeting on the display network has been hugely beneficial for all types of businesses. Now with the introduction of a new tool; Retargeting in Search, the benefits of remarketing can be leveraged within SERPs.

It allows your business to develop unique search strategies based on if a user has been to your site and how they have interacted with it.  Get creative, and think how you can use this knowledge to tailor your bidding, adapt ad copy and identify broader keywords that may normally be out of reach.

2) Remarketing with Google Analytics

An exciting development that not only allows management of remarketing lists within Google Analytics, but can help your brand become more advanced in remarketing efforts.

Remarketing with Analytics allows you to create sophisticated lists based on familiar Google Analytics metrics such as pages viewed, how the visitor found your site (traffic source), location, time on site and goal completions. It’s still early days, but thebusiness options are plentiful, so get planning and get testing!

It’s definitely worth finding out more about remarketing with Google Analytics.

3) Product Listing Ads

With Christmas around the corner, Product Listings Ads (PLA) are a must for any ecommerce website. PLAs create a more engaging user experience by displaying richer product information, such as product images and price within paid search results.

Although, these campaigns don’t require keywords or text, it’s still critical to spend some time ensuring the campaign structure is optimal and an appropriate bid management strategy is in place. For example, start by having your best-selling products in their own ad group/s and elevate their bids to ensure they gain prominence.

Find out more about Product Listing Ads.

4) Enhanced Sitelinks

Gaining more real estate at no extra cost is a no brainer. Enhanced sitelinks were rolled out globally in September and provides businesses with a greater opportunity to stand out from the crowd. To trigger these extensions ensures your campaign has multiple active ads in your account with the same landing page URLs as your sitelinks.

Again, worth a read on Enhanced Sitelinks to find out how your brand can benefit.

5) Bid-per-Call

Yet to reach the sunny shores of Australia, it’s an exciting prospect.  Bid-per-call allows you to use unique Google forwarding numbers within your search ads, providing a quick and easy way for your customers to “connect instantly”. As being a unique number, it also allows detailed call reporting within the Adwords interface.

Further to this, you can set a separate maximum bid that you are willing to pay for phone calls, which is great if you know a phone call is more valuable than a click, allowing you to bid higher and gain greater prominence on the page. Bid-per-call is definitely one to look out for in the New Year.

That’s our top five for 2012. If you’d like to chat to us about how we can help your brand implement them, get in touch. What new features/betas are you most excited by?

The post Five SEM Betas Your Organisation Needs to Know About appeared first on FirstClick Consulting.

However, staff in the offshore call centre all the way through to the CEO, are becoming more important in maintaining a strong brand presence at the head of Google search results.

It’s time for some internal Internet Marketing training. So, who within your organisation needs to be educated in Search Marketing and to what extent?

The PR and Marketing Team

PR and Marketing are typically responsible for production of the majority of the onsite and distributed content for any brand.  With three out of four people starting their product research with an online search query, it’s critical that the content produced by the marketing team is organic search friendly.

Making content search friendly is far easier in 2012 than it was five years ago.  Search engines now have solid understandings of semantics, thus keyword density and repetition is not such an issue.  Content still needs to be constructed in a search friendly manner, including the target keyword near the beginning and, if possible, within the title.  Larger organisations often provide on-the-job SEO training to their content teams emphasising the importance of writing for search.

The IT Department

What’s the difference between a 301 and 302 redirect? What’s the difference between relative and absolute URLs?  For an SEO consultant, one could generate top three rankings and a year-end bonus, the other could land your site in the middle of the second page.

When it comes to enterprise SEO, there is fierce competition in the website development queue.  Implementing search friendly recommendations can sometimes fall in a long line behind day-to-day IT issues.

IT departments are increasingly busy, however time should be invested in educating IT that Search could be critical to the company’s survival.  In 2012, a one-man-band that ranks first on Google can put a company with 30 years of industry experience out of business.

IT departments typically don’t need to be involved in the day-to-day aspects of Search, but there will be occasional requests when time is of the essence.  During this period the IT Department need to be thought of as a critical component of the marketing team rather than the guys at the tech support desk.

Senior Management

I was once told that I could keep my client’s management team happy if they see, “graphs that go up and to the right”.  As penetration and consumption rates of traditional above the line media options decline, it’s the performance and demand-side media options, including Search, that are generating the impressive year-on-year growth.

The problem is that some senior managers began their careers in an era where they could, “spend a couple of million and see how it goes”.  Back then, consumption of television advertising was at an all time high and branding was the order of the day.  Now however, TV advertising is often fast forwarded through.

Search Marketing, on the other hand, captures audiences at the ‘moment of relevance’ – while they’re actually searching for the suite of products and services that your company offers – leading to significantly higher conversion rates, brand recognition and ultimately measureable ROI. Typically a proportion of senior management’s remuneration is based upon business performance, it should be an easy sell to invest in pre-qualified and demand side media.

The Call Centre

Knowing how people find your business has always been of critical importance.  The often overlooked advantage of Search is in improving overall business efficiency.  By providing clear and concise customer support information online, we can avoid a large number of inbound calls to our call centres.

Similar to the sales channel, the call centre team should attempt to solicit the search query that triggered the call.  Then, working with the search and content teams, content should be generated and published to the website in a FAQ format.  In future, those calls could be avoided, improving call centre efficiency and reducing the number of operators required.  PayPal has successfully implemented this technique; by asking visitors a number of questions onsite before giving access to a specific phone number, they can reduce overall call volume while streamlining the user’s online experience.

The Design Department

There’s no point in having a beautiful website if no one can see it.  While web designers are getting better at the basics of search friendly design occasionally they still produce elements, structures and layouts which are impossible for search engines to digest.

Flash and JavaScript based navigation are the most common issues that are introduced by design departments.  A basic litmus test for website useability beyond design is turning off JavaScript and Flash in your browser and attempting to negotiate your sites content.  If you fail to reach key pages, it’s likely the search engine spiders will too and that will directly impact search rankings and traffic.

So there you have it – a glimpse into who in the organisation really should be educated on Search Marketing to ensure you are achieving the best results possible. Have you taken your internal teams through Search or is Search an enigma to them? The more they know, the better. Book in that Internet Marketing training session ASAP and create some internal search experts.

The post Who in your Business Needs to be Educated in Search? appeared first on FirstClick Consulting.

How Human Behaviours Alter Consumer Habits

Consumer buying behaviour is often divided into 4 categories:

• Impulse – no research
• Routine or Programmed – frequently purchased, little research
• Limited Decision – occasional purchases, some research
• Extensive or Complex Decision – high involvement purchases with lots of research.

When consumers go through these buying decisions, they’re further influenced by additional factors:

• Personal –  age, occupation, economic situation, lifestyle and life cycle position
• Psychological –  consumer’s wants, which are influenced by motivating factors, perceptions, beliefs, attitudes and learnings, and basic human needs, which include physiological needs, safety, love and belonging, self-esteem and self-actualisation
• Social – social class and role in the household (who is dominant and holds the buying power)
• Cultural – The values, ideas and attitudes generally accepted by the consumer’s society. An individual’s culture and sub-culture, which determine many factors including where people travel, live, what they eat and what they wear.

And ultimately, all of these factors are influenced by the world around us. For example, when a popular television show features a specific product, for example, sales of that product can skyrocket. Or a change in the seasons causes consumers to change the items and information they seek out online.

The effects aren’t always as direct as the previous example, however. For example, in 2009 more Australian babies were born in October than in any other month. Therefore, it’s safe to assume the search for and purchase of baby related products and information would increase around this time.

How Holidays and the Seasons Change Search Behaviours

Seasons, holidays and the traditions they trigger can have a profound effect on consumer’s search behaviour and consequently your business. For some, seasonal changes can directly affect sales. For example, consumers are more likely to buy warm jackets in winter. In the month before school starts, the sale of individually packaged juices and snacks might increase.

Other times, the effects can be more indirect. For example, the start of university might trigger an increase in decorating supplies and home items. Why? Empty nesters will be redecorating rooms that are now empty and students on their own for the first time need items to furnish their new homes.

Autumn is the busiest season for home sales. Considering the popularity of October as a birth month, it’s possible that pregnancy triggers the need to create a more permanent home. This requires further investigation, but it’s certainly an indirect trend to watch.

Geography and the passing of time can also create holiday trends. Last Christmas, Google pinpointed important dates that ecommerce sites should prepare for by adjusting their paid search and SEO campaigns:

• The last day Australians can order items from overseas and still have guaranteed delivery before Christmas
• The day users perform the most mobile searches in search of physical store locations
• The last day to order online from Australian sites to guarantee Christmas delivery
• Boxing day sales.

This year for the first time is the “Click Frenzy” Online 24 Hour Mega Sale. Retailers should prepare for an influx of searches on key items and add keyword variations to ensure an online presence for this great retail opportunity.

By increasing ad spending around key Christmas dates, and emphasising the time message and urgency in the ads, you could dramatically increase sales. And in many instances, Christmas shopping makes up a significant portion of a company’s annual sales.

According to Nielsen, the National Retail Federation and ZippyCart, the holidays are expected to trigger increases in a number of product sales online. In 2010 for example, these included a 9% increase in online gift card sales and an 8% increase in toys and tech products.

Google also notices regular trends around the holiday season. For example, searches for ereaders have more than doubled for the last three years in the months leading up to Christmas. Searches for winter boots, however, don’t begin to increase until January and peak in May at more than four times January’s numbers.

How to Identify Seasonal and Holiday Related Changes

Before you can identify trends, you need to profile your target audience. This profile should include:

• Demographic Variables – education, occupation and income as well as socioeconomic status, age, gender, and race
• Psychographic Variables – Your target audience’s lifestyle, personality, morals, values and attitude
• Geographic Variables – Climate, population, topographic details, location, etc
• Consumer Behaviour Traits – The amount of decision making power, benefits and values most important to the individual, as well as brand loyalty levels, usage rates, etc
• Visitor Statistics – Frequency, duration and profit value of their visits.

Next, profile the industry. Look at your analytics and identify trends. Determine the popular styles and types of information/products/services. Assess your competitor’s habits and record any other insights that may be of use to you.

Armed with this information, you can segment your audience into specific groups:

• Product/service types
• Geographic regions
• Demographics
• Psychographics
• Sales channels
• Branches, departments, sales representatives, etc.

And monitor for trends such as an increase/decrease in:

• Customers
• Visits, visit duration, pages viewed
• Profits and sales
• Customer churn rates.

With a set of suspected trends, you can compare them to the seasons, holidays and historical data to identify regular seasonal trends.

How to Use These Changes to Your Advantage

Because you know when the trends occur, and which products/services sell better during which seasons, you can adjust your SEO and PPC campaigns accordingly. For example, if you know that blue teddy bears sell the best in the months leading up to Christmas, increase the spending on blue teddy bear keywords during this time and reduce the spending when sales decrease.

If you don’t normally purchase ads, you might consider purchasing them for specific terms around certain dates. For instance, you might buy ads for items such as beach balls and flags just before Australia Day or for plush toys prior to Valentine’s Day.

Even if you don’t sell products or services that match a specific seasonal trend, you can still take advantage of this knowledge by promoting related ones. For example, if you sell baby clothes, you might want to target those who have recently purchased a cot or books on pregnancy. To get the consumer’s attention while they’re in a buying mood, you might even consider purchasing PPC ads  for baby items that appear in Gmail when he or she receives conformation or their thank you email.

Remarketing or retargeting can also be extremely helpful. For example, you can remind previous customers of specific dates, recommend gifts that complement gifts they’ve already purchased, or encourage them to buy gifts from you again by offering incentives.

To have successful SEO, PPC and marketing campaigns, you need to go far beyond just optimising for the right keywords. You need to have a thorough knowledge of your industry and target audience and be prepared to adapt to any trends or changes in buyer behaviour like those triggered by the seasons.

To read more about how FirstClick uses seasonality insights in their strategic marketing focus on business ROI, click here.

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