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Welcome to the ineedhits Search Engine Marketing blog, where we share the latest search engine and online marketing news, releases, industry trends and great DIY tips and advice.

We encourage you to get involved in our blog community - so share your opinions and experiences by leaving comments on our posts.

If you're looking for help with promoting your website - check out our range of affordable search engine marketing services.

Thursday, August 28

Search Experiment Insights from Google!

It seems that Google is not wholly obsessed with algorithm changes and ranking updates; they conduct minor experiments too - on a daily basis.

On the Official Google Blog, Engineer Ben Gomes explains that some of Google's search experiments can be very subtle and they can run up to 200 experiments on Google sites all over the world at any given time.

"Experimentation is a very powerful tool, and we use it very widely to test potential changes to search. At any given time, we run anywhere from 50 to 200 experiments on Google sites all over the world... experimental changes so small that you can barely tell the difference after staring at the page." Gomes says.

Most of the time, experiments with smaller changes are almost never noticed.

For example, can you tell the difference between the two search results pages below?

Ok, times up... did you pick it? For those that didn't, the white space around the first search result has increased. Google thinks this makes the first result in picture 2 slightly more visually prominent. Would you agree?

This is just one example of many experiments to make our searching experience easier and more enjoyable, if you want to check out some more click here.

My question is however, are these small experiments actually valuable? Google seems to think so - "We test almost everything, even things that you would think are so small that we could not possibly care (nor could they possibly matter). In fact, small changes do matter, and we do care."

Google Plays Catch-up, Finally Implements Search Suggest

Earlier this week, Google announced they have finally released their search suggestion feature called Google Suggest. Google Suggest is a tool that helps users find the best search results by providing a dropdown menu of choices based on the text entered by the searcher.

The suggested text is updated while you type and displays the number of results for each suggestion. For example, start entering the text [flower delivery] into the search box and Google suggests the following searches based on the keywords you've already entered. A screenshot is below.

Google claims this will improve searching in a number of ways including:

Helping to formulate queries when parts of the information is missing
Reducing spelling errors by suggesting the correct spelling
Saving time and keystrokes

Google Suggest originally started as a project back in 2004, and has appeared on a number of other Google properties, but never its core search engine. It's also an existing feature of other Google competitors like Yahoo! and Ask.com - so it's about time Google finally released it.

For website owners, it's a very quick SEO tool to do some simple checks on the most popular searches related to a particular keyword, based on the number of results for each suggestion.

Labels: Google Search

Tuesday, August 26

DIY Tip: Create a Custom 404 Page with Google's New Tool

Google has launched a new tool in their Webmaster Tools suite that allows website owners to create custom 404 pages. 404 pages are those that don't exist and therefore return a "not found" error when users try to view them in their web browser.

Visitors can stumble on to a 404 page for many reasons including:

The URL they are entering has been miss spelt.
They have followed an old link to content that has been moved or deleted.
The link they are following has been truncated in an email message etc.

When visitors land on these pages, it's very likely that many of them may just leave because they can't be bothered searching through your website to find the correct URL. To combat this, instead of returning a "File not found" error page, try using Google's "Enhance 404 pages" tool to create a much more useful 404 error page.

The first step is to configure your web server to display your new 404 page. This is usually quite simple but varies for each hosting setup, so please check your server or web host documentation on how to do this.

Once this has been done, visit the "Enhance 404 pages" section in Webmaster tools and copy and paste a javascript snippet into your page. Because this page is designed in HTML, you can also customize the look of the page to match your sites overall design.

Here's how it works, from the Google blog:

Example: Jamie receives the link www.example.com/activities/adventurecruise.html in an email message. Because of formatting due to a bad email client, the URL is truncated to
www.example.com/activities/adventur. As a result it returns a 404 page. With the 404 widget added, however, she could instead see the following:

In addition to attempting to correct the URL, the 404 widget also suggests the following, if available:
a link to the parent subdirectory
a sitemap webpage
site search query suggestions and search box

Google says the feature is currently experimental and they will work on improving it in the meantime. If you've successfully used custom 404 pages on your site, let us know how its impacted your visitors experience!

Labels: Google Webmaster Tools

Google Improves Website Optimizer with New Features

Google have enhanced their website optimizer to allow advertisers to disable low performing ad variations and send the remaining traffic to higher performing ones. Previously, to achieve this, advertisers would have to stop the entire test (and lose all test data), so the improvement is a big timesaver for webmasters.

In case you're unfamiliar with Google website optimizer, it's a tool that allows advertisers to test copy, layout, and images to determine which combination will yield the best results on any given page. To learn more, visit the website optimizer demo.

As mentioned above, website optimizer now features a 'disable' button that removes any low performing page variations and allows for quicker, more actionable test results. Google have also made some other enhancements including:

Updated reporting to indicate when a variation is a high confidence winner. High confidence winners are page combinations that are the most likely to improve conversion over your current page design (see screenshot below).
Offline validation for A/B tests - ensures webmasters have everything tagged correctly for pages that aren't accessible to website optimizer online.

These updates were released by the Google team at Search Engine Strategies conference in San Jose last week. I think they're a great example of how some simple changes can really improve a service offering. If you're using website optimizer and noticed the changes, let us know what you think!

Labels: Google Website Optimizer

Monday, August 25

Google - Verizon Deal Set To Skyrocket Local Search

A union of two titans seems only weeks away, with search giant Google reportedly close to sealing a market changing deal with leading mobile provider Verizon Communications.

While the two companies have seemed to be at loggerheads for most of the year, reports emerged in the Wall Street Journal that the companies were close to a deal which would see Google as the default search service.

The partnership, which would see Google search on the Verizon mobile homepage, would be a major coup for Google. It would provide it with an even bigger stake of the US mobile market (it already carries 61%), and also give it greater scope for driving mobile advertising revenue.

Apparently 13 million of Verizon's mobile internet users (reportedly 36 million in total) use the search services that Google will soon operate.

Google's focus is clearly on the mobile market, with Eric Schmidt reinforcing the strategic direction in a recent interview on CNBC:

"We can make more in mobile than desktop eventually. The reason [is] because the mobile computer is more targeted. Think about it: you carry your phone everywhere, it knows all about you. We can do a very, very targeted ad. Over time, we will make more money for mobile advertising."

For local businesses, the potential of Local Search Engine Marketing is set to skyrocket. With mobile search access becoming increasingly more accessible and faster - consumers aren't waiting to sit at their computers to do their research - they're searching on the go!

Search Engine Tool Faceoff: NEW Yahoo! SiteExplorer vs. Google Webmaster Tools

Yahoo! has unveiled the new and improved version of Yahoo! Site Explorer. Site Explorer is an invaluable tool, "providing site owners with better visibility into how we [Yahoo!] index their websites and what data we use in our search service".

As Priyank Garg from Yahoo! Search explains in the release post:

"We launched a new look and feel for Site Explorer http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/new) that provides a more dynamic interface to accommodate future feature roll-outs. The new interface also includes a new Site Summary page to provide statistics for authenticated sites. On top of this, we're also increasing the number of rules for Dynamic URL Rewriting that you can enter from 3 to 10".

Google has a similar service for webmasters, known as Google Webmaster Tools. We've encouraged all our readers to embrace the Google Webmaster tools for as long as they've been available, as they provide great insights for people concerned with their Google organic listing.

Which set of webmaster tools provides the greatest value to site owners? In reality, both services are valuable additions to your SEO efforts. Here's a quick run-down on the information each set of webmaster tools offers:

With Yahoo! Site Explorer you can:

Find out which of your site's web pages are indexed by Yahoo!.
Discover and track what websites link to your site.
Know what subdomains from your site are known to Yahoo!.
Monitor and manage the feeds you have submitted for that site.
See when the data was last refreshed by our crawlers.
Resubmit the feed to let us know that it has been updated.
Download all 1000 results into a tab-separated value (TSV) file at once (and avoid having to page through the results.)
Learn additional metadata about the URLs from your site in the Yahoo! index, such as language.
Delete URLs that you don't want indexed by Yahoo! Search.
Re-write dynamic URLs to make them easier to index
Report SPAM.

The Google Webmaster Tools let you:

Know which of your web pages are indexed in Google
Uncover which websites are linking to your website (limited view)
Understand what text is used when linking to your site
Validate robots.txt files
Submit and monitor your sites feeds (incl. Subscriber numbers)
Register and update your websites sitemap
Understand the top organic queries for your website
Work out where you feature in the top search results
Find out when your site was last indexed by the Google crawler
Understand issues that Google has uncovered on your site
PLUS...much more

As you can see, both provide impressive levels of site and page level information. If you're a DIY search engine optimizer, then they should both feature in your regular site monitoring and SEO management.

Ideally, you should track your site in both, but if forced to recommend just one - I still feel that Google provides the better insights of the two (except for inbound link numbers). If you haven't checked them out yet, I recommend going site exploring now, if no other reason, to marvel at the information available for FREE!

Another Google Update: AdWords Quality Score

First Google updated the PageRank toolbar, then a Google ranking update and now they have announced the implementation of some improvements to AdWords.

The improvements center around Quality Score, and is based on the feedback that users and advertisers have provided.

Here are the 3 main improvements that Google will implement.

Quality Score will now be more accurate

Quality Score will now be calculated at the time of each search query. This way, AdWords will use the most accurate, specific, and up-to-date performance information when determining whether an ad should be displayed. Your ads will be more likely to show when they're relevant and less likely to show when they're not.

Keywords will no longer be marked 'inactive for search'

All keywords will have the chance to show ads on Google web search and the search network (unless you've paused or deleted them). Keep in mind, however, that keywords previously marked 'inactive for search' are not likely to accrue a great deal of traffic following this change.

'First page bid' will replace 'minimum bid' in your account

Google is replacing minimum bids with a new, more meaningful metric: first page bids. First page bids are an estimate of the bid it would take for your ad to reach the first page of search results on Google web search.

If you would like to learn more about these improvements, click here or visit Google frequently asked questions specifically for these improvements.

Google has advised that advertisers don't need to make any changes to their campaigns and these changes will not affect everyone straight away. The new improvements will only be released to a very small segment of advertisers to begin with, so that Google can get some feedback before launching it to everyone.

Microsoft's Powerset to Revolutionize Search

We first let you in on the news of Microsoft buying Powerset back at the beginning of July, but it now seems that Microsoft has big plans to use Powerset technology to improve advertising in search results and in the process, change the way advertising is done.

Currently, advertisers bid to have their ads shown on search results pages depending upon specific keywords that users type into search engines. But Powerset believes that its natural language processing could change the way ads are displayed and enhance the profitability for all parties involved.

"If people aren't bidding on keywords, and are bidding on concepts, it could completely change the ball game," said Scott Prevost, Powerset's General Manager and Product Director.

However, not everyone is a fan of this new natural language search process. This includes Don Reisinger from Mashable. Here is why Don believes natural language search will not work.

"Keywords may not be fool-proof and may tend to make things more difficult for advertisers, but we can't forget that bidding on them works for one reason: it simplifies a process that is extremely hard to gauge.

In Powerset's scheme, companies need to rely upon the intention of those same people and how well it can guess how they interact with a search engine, regardless of the keywords used.

Trying to guess what people will say, as opposed to what people will include in their query, is extremely difficult. Why try to guess a whole sentence or a structured query when you can pick one word and hope people use it?"

What are your thoughts on this, do you think there is a future in search for natural language processing?

Tuesday, August 19

Google, Yahoo! & Microsoft in Hot Water with India!

The worlds 3 biggest search engines, Google, Yahoo! & Microsoft are about to be caught up in a legal battle with one of the world's biggest countries, India.

India's National Newspaper, The Hindu, has reported that India's Supreme Court issued notices to Google, Yahoo! & Microsoft over the promotion of "sex selection techniques" in its online advertising.

The petition claims that the search engines are in violation of the Preconception and Prenatal Diagnostic Techniques Act, which forbids the sale or advertisement of services that allow parents to pick the sex of their unborn child.

The petitioner of the case, Sabu Mathew George told IDG News Service that "there is a deliberate attempt by these companies to target Indian users with advertisements that claim to help in the selection of a child's sex."

"As activists were able to effectively stop sex selection advertising in the print medium, now Indian and foreign advertisers have moved to the Internet." George said. "Unlike the print medium, Internet search engines allow for very targeted advertising."

Surely, though it should be those that actually purchased the advertising that should be held accountable. Are Google, Yahoo! & Microsoft simply easy and high profile targets to go after? Let us know you thoughts by leaving a comment below.

AOL Gives Up on Search for Social Networking!

Ever wondered if AOL is turning its back on search for social networking? Well, you might not be too far of the mark.

AOL has just confirmed that it has acquired Socialthing!, a lifestreaming service that competes with FriendFeed.

Socialthing! joins the social platforms stable in the AOL People Networks division, which already includes social network Bebo, chat service AIM, ICQ, Goowy and Yedda.

This purchase could be seen as a little risky for AOL, as Socialthing has only existed for 5 months and is still in private beta. However, AOL must have seen something in the company in order to go ahead with the acquisition.

It seems that AOL has come to the realization that they are never going to be able to compete with Google in search, so they have changed tactics. It would appear that they are going to try to become a key player in the social networking space and attempt to capitalize on some of the current online social trends.

So is this a good strategy for AOL? Well, considering that AOL registers less than 5% share of the total searches in the US, you would think that they really need to go down another online path. Let us know your thoughts by leaving a comment below.

Monday, August 18

Daily Search Engine Users SkyRockets 69%

As if you needed more motivation to push ahead with your search engine marketing, a new report by PEW Internet highlights that Search Engines are further entrenching themselves into the daily lives of internet users.

According to the new report, almost 50% of all internet users engage a search engine on a daily basis. That's right - every day!

Daily search engine usage is rapidly approaching daily email usage as the most popular net based activity. Email still stands out as the most common daily online activity, with approx 60% of net users checking their inbox every day!

The key difference is the growth of each. The Pew Internet Project, which started in 2002, reported a growth in daily email users of 15% up to 2008. Search Engine dailer users over the same period grew a remarkable 69% over the same period to 49%.

For advertisers looking to attract potential customers, the demographics of daily search engine users is encouraging. According to the report:

"Those who are using search engines on an average day are more likely to be socially upscale, with at least some college education and incomes over $50,000 per year. They are more likely to be internet users with at least six years of online experience and to have their homes wired for fast internet connections."

At this rate, it's only a matter of time before Search Engine use surpasses Email, and when you consider that there are over 248 million US internet users (as at June 2008) - that's a phenomenal number of people turning to search everyday!

Google Launches Feed Advertising - Advertisers Get Reach and Bloggers Get Revenue

I've ranted about the importance of the blogosphere for years. Vital for reaching new markets, creating valuable SEO content, building your reputation and authority...and on and on.

Well Google has just opened up its AdSense service for Blog Feeds which for many, will provide more reason to enter and remain active in the blogosphere. It also offers advertiser a new way to reach potential customers.

For those of you not familiar with web "feeds", here's wikipedia's definition:

"A web feed (or news feed) is a data format used for providing users with frequently updated content. Content distributors syndicate a web feed, thereby allowing users to subscribe to it. Making a collection of web feeds accessible in one spot is known as aggregation, which is performed by an Internet aggregator. A web feed is also sometimes referred to as a syndicated feed."

As the number of blogs and content providers has ballooned over the years, Feeds have become an important way for users to consume the abundance of information being published online.

Unfortunately, Feeds have also made it harder for publishers to monetize their efforts, as feed users rely on these short snippets to graze over blog posts - removing the need to visit websites to digest information. Less eyeballs to a site = less likelihood of them viewing and clicking on website ads.

Enter Feed Advertising. When Google acquired FeedBurner a while back, many thought that the search giant would be quick to leverage this new advertising inventory - allowing advertisers to hit users while they were scanning feeds.

Well it's take Google longer than expected to open up the feed inventory to the masses, but alas - now AdSense in Feeds is available to all. This gives bloggers and feed providers more ways of monetizing their content and also provides advertisers with another way to reach content consumers.

Will this new feed based AdSense provide content providers with a genuine way of monetizing their efforts. In my opinion, two things work against the model.

People who read feeds are "content scanners". Given the mind set when scanning feeds, which is to quickly identify content worthy of exploring further, I'm not convinced users will be likely to click on ads.
Feed ads are located at the bottom of content snippets. If the snippet is compelling enough, users are likely to click through to the content before reaching the ads. If they've read all the way to the bottom, in most cases, they'll have read enough and move onto the next item in the feed reader.

Now having said that, I have actually clicked through on several ads in Feeds before, so assuming I reflect even some of the feed reading marketplace - there is some scope for advertisers want to tap into this medium.

The key to making the most of advertising in feeds - is compelling ad creative. Creating interesting AdWords ads is always important, but Feed audiences are even less engaged than general searchers...so you have merely milliseconds to capture their attention.

So if you're going to try out Google's new Feed based advertising, my advice is to look at the headlines on all ads - and give them a serious critique.

Think milliseconds and judge for yourself - do your ads spark interest and compel a user to click...if not, it's time for a rework.

If you want to find out more about the new AdSense for Feeds - here's the launch video courtesy of the Inside AdSense blog.

Friday, August 15

Google Reveals Major Elements of their Ranking Algorithm

Google have revealed some important elements of their ranking algorithm and given advice on how to improve your sites positioning in natural search results. The unusual post was made on the French 'Inside AdWords' blog, which is strange considering AdWords listings have nothing to do with natural search. I'm sure posts like this will continue to raise speculation on the connection between paid and natural listings - but that's another story. Lets look at Google's ranking tips:

Google's first tip covers site structure:

Organize your pages with a clear hierarchy and internal links for good navigation. This means structuring your website into major categories, with suitable sub-pages and subcategories under each. Google also recommend using a sitemap.

Use Google Webmaster Tools. These are a free set of tools that are easy to use and can give you information on who links to your site and which queries people are using to find your web pages.

Give your pages titles which are relevant - avoid titles such as "Welcome to my site" or "homepage". For more advice on titles, visit our blog post.

Google's second tip concerns both incoming and outgoing links:

Think about the quality of your incoming links. To increase the popularity of your site, aim to acquire links from other sites with common themes.

The outgoing (external) links from your site also play a role in determining your ranking. When adding a link, ask yourself, "Will this link be useful to my visitors?" or "Will my visitors click this link?". Do not participate in link exchange networks that go against the Google quality guidelines and they will have a negative impact on your ranking.

Google's final and third tip concerns content creation:

It is important to add original content to your site on a regular basis for many different reasons:
o It will encourage visitors to return to your site often
o It will encourage the Google robots to go back to your homepage regularly
and attract more links from other sites.
Think long term. Keep adding original content with a clear structure between your pages for the best results.

So there you have it: Google's insight to improve your ranking in natural search results. Again, I find it confusing this was posted on an AdWords blog, but I'm sure most webmasters will agree this type of advice is too valuable to pass up. If you're site is lacking in any of the above areas, its time to start optimizing!

Take Advantage of the 'Back to School' Traffic Peak

Many webmasters fail to take advantage of seasonal traffic peaks, which are an excellent way to generate new sales and traffic. 'Back to school' searches are happening right now and are the second highest traffic season after Christmas - so it's well worth taking advantage of!

Back to school searches can have a very wide target; from influences (teens and kids) to decision makers (parents and college students). In order to target the most amount of traffic, its best to develop an advertising campaign that speaks to both decision makers and students.

The first step is to modify your ad text. Edit your PPC ads to match the target audience of your campaign. If you're going to target parents, offer back to school discounts and highlight features such as 'Quality' and 'Affordable' which will appeal to this demographic.

On the other hand if you're going after students, be sure to mention phrases like "student discount" or "students save 10%" to attract this type of customer. Also consider expanding your contextual advertising to feature on social networking websites.

The next step would be to expand your keyword list. For example if you were a clothing manufacturer, target terms like "school clothes", "back to school clothing", "back to school supplies" and "back to school bargains". If you don't want to create a new campaign, just add these keywords to your current campaigns.

Finally, don't forget to monitor the changes and see which new areas of your campaign are having the biggest impact. Have a play with some of your campaign settings during the rush to see which combinations generate the best results!