On 1st June 2012, Google announced that it would retire Google website optimizer (GWO) on Aug 1st 2012. GWO was a free website optimization tool that allowed webmasters to improve conversion rate and user experience.
Google Analytics Content Experiments has replaced Google website optimizer. Here are some difference between Google Website Optimizer and GA Content Experiments
We have been running a few tests to find out what makes the visitors click links, inside and below an article. When you have tools to measure user engagement at page level, make use of them. You will be surprised to learn that lot of your assumptions are wrong. It hurts but this is going to be one of the best learning experiences.
For example, we were under the impression that use of Brand Names in anchor text is going to boost click through rate. Let us take two examples for our test (although this was not the tests, we used similar branding vs. non-branding links).
No matter what Google tells about negative SEO, it does work. Competitors have cleverly used negative SEO to outrank genuine quality sites. Yeah..Yeah. Google has justified the penguin update and have said that negative SEO has little impact on well-known brands. The impact has been for scrapper sites and sites that used Black Hat SEO techniques.
Google Knowledge graph has changed information presentation for users. Search has always been a function of presenting webpage based on search query. Google has made a revolutionary step in changing how search takes place. Instead of the users repeating the search queries, Google has become more intelligent with Knowledge graph.
What has changed with knowledge graph?
It is a known fact that web users don’t read an article in its entirety. They will only read the article after skimming through the information and finding key phrases in the heading and sub-heading that are related to their problem. The skimming doesn’t stop at the text level. Web users will also sub-consciously evaluate visual cues (trust symbols, button colour, button shape and web template) to figure out whether the page is relevant in solving their problem.
Google URL shortener (Goo.gl) is just like bit.ly. You can access information about referrers, countries of visitors that have clicked your URL, Browser type and Platforms used by your visitor with the Goo.gl URL. But like in bit.ly links, the information would be public and can be accessed by other users having a Goo.gl account.
Google’s AdWords keyword Grouper allows marketers to group thousands of keywords according to common themes. This will save your precious time manually grouping keywords according to various themes. Please note that this process is not error free. You have to double check the campaign and remove duplicate and irrelevant ad groups.
Steps for Keyword Grouping
1) Download Google AdWords Editor for Desktop
If you are wondering whether it is important to submit your website to Bing Search Engine, here are some statistics:
1) According to the latest comscore report, Bing overtook Yahoo as the second largest search engine in Jan 2012 with 15.1% market share
2) According to Compete’s Jan 2012 report, Bing’s growth in US markets has been steady with the growth rate reaching 16.3%
With advanced segmentation, it has become easier to track visits from various campaign in Google Analytics. But marketers and agencies still use utm_source, utm_campaign and utm_medium to track click through of urls
What is the difference between utm_source, utm_campaign and utm_medium?
If you have been running your Ads in Google AdWords and have received numerous impressions and clicks, this is the right time to enable enhanced CPC. With enhanced CPC, Google will determine the bid rate for you. Based on previous clicks and conversions, Google will increase your bid or lower your bid for better and worse performing keywords. Remember, the bid variation is based on conversion and not click through rate.
The 1x1 pixel image was introduced in Email newsletter Campaign Services during a time when Email clients like MS Outlook downloaded images by default. But since MS Outlook 2007, images are disabled by default. The open rate that you see in your Email Campaign Analytic Dashboard might not be entirely accurate.
How Does Email Marketing Service track Open Rate?
Google Search team has announced a change in Algorithm that would impact websites with high Ad/Content ratio. According to the Search Team, this tweak would allow sites that are content rich to rank better than sites that have too many ads above the fold.
URL (Uniform Resource Locator) allows web users to access the webpage, documents or any other resources hosted in your server. How should the urls be structured for blog sites with 40 pages, 1000s of pages or e-commerce site with over 10000 pages? The answer is each type of blog has a different way of presenting its unique page to the user. More than the bots being able to figure out what your webpage is about, it is important that you structure your web urls for your visitors. Here are some best practices:
Bing has introduced a new feature in its Webmasters tool – Mark-up Validator. If you are worried whether your website follows the standard coding and mark-up conventions, visit the crawl section in Bing’s webmasters tool.
1) At the far right you will see the Mark-up Validator
2) Enter your website url/or the url of a popular site
The great thing about Search Engines, especially Google Search Engine is that you can get the intent of the search with Keyword Research and monitoring tools. You don’t have to guess what your prospects are searching for. There are six categories of searches:
Social Media has evolved from a niche tool to a widely adopted communication media for brands, customers and prospects. Search Engines are using clicks from social media links as one of the ranking signals that decides how your web page rank for certain keywords. It is important that you see the value of social media beyond SEO.
Why should you use Social Media?
Conversion – the one metric that make sense to all publishers and internet marketers. But often we forget to monitor the path, actions and behaviours that led to the conversion. The small steps that eventually led to conversion are called Micro-Conversions.
Qualitative Micro Conversions: Micro Conversions can be broadly categorized based on the visitor’s action. Actions that doesn’t directly contribute to your revenue but which would eventually lead to revenue generation are called Qualitative Micro-Conversions.
For Google Adwords Campaign, it is important to target the right location and language.
Location: When you place your Ads, you can target all countries and territories or you can choose the region/country or city. To select the region/country/city:
1) Click Create New Campaign
2) Give a Name for the Campaign
3) Under Locations and Languages, there is a section for Location.
4) Pick “Let me Choose”, option
Meta Description is the text snippet that is visible just below the title of your page in Search Results. Although Google has announced in 2009, that Google’s algorithm doesn’t take into consideration the meta description and meta keywords for ranking each page, meta-description is important to improve your click through rate in SERPs.
Most Businesses hire conversion rate experts to get a lift in sales in the short-term. The expert while providing the services forgets to convince the Business Owner that the conversion rate optimization is not a short-term activity. It should be integrated into all Business processes. You should do conversion rate optimization(CRO) to:
1) Learn