A review of day 1 at SMX Advanced London (part 4)

Posted on June 6, 2011 by Andy Miller

In my previous three blog posts I have been discussing the key sessions from day 1 of SMX Advanced London on Monday 16th May. Today’s blog post discusses some new features and tools to use when advertising on Google AdWords’ Display Network. Key points highlighted in this post were in the Best Practises with Google’s New Ad Features session, from Biren Kalaria, Sales Development Manager, YouTube & Display, Google UK.

The Google AdWords Display Network

The industry average click through rate (CTR) of display ads on the Internet is 0.07%; Google’s data on their Display Network records a 0.45% CTR. This is a higher average than we have experienced, but potentially possible with a very small, highly targeted campaign.

Biren Kalaria discussed tools that are available or coming soon:

1.Contextual targeting tools
a. Available now, great tool for quickly generating comprehensive display targeted campaigns

2. Interest Category Marketing
a. Allowing advertisers to reach a demographic based on their interests, i.e. travel enthusiasts, sports fan, etc.
b. This product should be released this quarter, and will give the ability to advertise to 800-1000 custom demographic segments

3. Demographic Targeting
a. The first iteration of the tool will allow you to target male/female audience specifically in the Display Network
b. The second iteration of the tool will allow age targeting

4. “Similar Users”
a. This will allow you to extend the reach of your remarketing campaigns by allowing you to reach demographically “similar users” to those on your remarketing list

5. Audience Insights
a. This will provide top level insight reporting on the people within your remarketing lists. This information will enable you to scale marketing campaigns, and uncover new opportunities
b. Biren hoped the tool would be available before the end of Q3

Google’s display network offers a relatively cheap opportunity to gain more traffic. In previous years, the lack of control or tools when advertising on Google’s display network made activity uncontrollable and untargeted. The tools now in place and those coming later this year will allow further control and enable more specific targeting of users.

Well, this is the last in my series of blogs posts discussing key points made at SMX Advanced; I hope you have found them informative. Please tweet me @Amelia_Pratt if you want to discuss any topics raised.

A review of day 1 at SMX Advanced London (part 2)

Posted on May 25, 2011 by Andy Miller

Following on from my last post, I am running through hot topics discussed on day 1 at SMX Advanced in London. In my last post I discussed the Remarketing For Fun and Profit session.

Today I will discuss the Best Practises With adCenter For Bing & Yahoo session with Jonathan Beeston European client services director at Efficient Frontier, Colm Bracken Lead Search Media Analyst at Microsoft, Matt Lawson VP Marketing at Marin Software and Jon Myers Head of Account Management at Yahoo!

The key topic discussed in this session was how to get your Yahoo Search Marketing & Microsoft adCenter accounts ready for the “transition”, when Microsoft adCenter will run advertising on both Bing and Yahoo.

Uploading Google campaigns to Yahoo & Microsoft
Throughout this session there was on-going debate on whether you should upload a Google campaign to Yahoo and Microsoft, or whether you should create bespoke campaigns for each engine. John Myers, Colm Bracken and Jonathan Beeston were of the opinion that you should create bespoke campaigns. However, I agreed more with Matt Lawson that it’s fine to initially upload the Google campaign to Yahoo/Microsoft to start off with. You should then go on to optimise each engine separately and make full use of each engine’s different tools and opportunities, i.e match type bidding in adCenter. This is especially in-light of Yahoo & Microsoft’s small % market share.

Colm Bracken advised that before the transition, you should transfer your Yahoo Search Marketing campaign to Microsoft adCenter. However, since there are so many differences between Yahoo and Microsoft’s editorial guidelines & PPC implementations this seems like a unnecessary complication and too lengthy a process. I would suggest simply uploading your Google campaign to Microsoft, as their specifications, naming conventions and policies are more alike. As cited above, it is then best to use adCenter’s unique tools to optimise the adCenter campaign s specifically.

Interesting Nuggets of Information
Yahoo & Bing audiences are 41% more likely to convert than the average UK searcher, and 47% more likely to buy online. Conversion rates are likely to be higher on Yahoo & Microsoft as they tend to show less search queries than Google, therefore generate fewer impressions.

In Leapfrogg’s experience we have found Bing audiences to be significantly more likely to convert, with higher conversion rates than Google. Yahoo audiences, however, are often lower quality, and have lower conversion rates than Google. Post Yahoo & Microsoft transition data from the US has indicated that many of Yahoo’s lower quality “search partners” had been removed, therefore we hope that the conversions rates will become higher, and more in-line with adCenter’s.

In response to how Bing was going to gain market share, Colm Bracken cited Microsoft’s upcoming partnerships with Facebook, Nokia and Skype.

In the next blog post I will discuss key points from the Best Practises with Google’s New Ad Features session .

The changing face of how we search (and what it means for the future of SEO)

Posted on January 24, 2011 by Ben Potter

Reading last weeks Sunday Times, I came across a fascinating article about the developments in in-car technology; developments that I believe will represent new and exciting challenges for search marketers in the future.

The new Audi A8, for example will have a navigation system with Google Earth and Google search capability built into its ‘digital cockpit’ for drivers.

The Prius V hybrid that is due to launch later this year, will include Toyota’s Entune System. This will allow drivers and passengers to search the web and buy cinema tickets or reserve tables at restaurants, for example; all controlled by voice or text.

This ability to search from within a car’s cockpit represents one way in which the physical act of searching is changing. Consider the methods by which you can search in 2011; on your mobile phone, on a tablet computer such as the iPad, via your television and now from within the comfort of your car. Whilst most of these still rely on the traditional browser-based search experience, a driver’s method of searching will need to be quite different. In this case, voice activated search will become more prominent; search results might also be relayed back to the driver by the same means.

What is really interesting (and exciting) is how the discipline of search engine optimisation (SEO) will need to need to adapt and evolve to such advances in technology. In much the same way as the growth in smart phone technology has seen the need for marketers to create mobile enabled websites and applications; will we see something similar with in-car technology? Will search marketers need to create and optimise content for in-car search systems? At the very least, it will heighten the importance of claiming and maintaining local search listings (Google Places, for example) as car parks, restaurants, hotels and cinema listings will be high on the list of priorities for drivers.

For me, one thing is abundantly clear; if SEO’s are creating and optimising content in a wider range of formats, and for a wider range of platforms and devices, this is far removed from the notion of optimising for search engines in the traditional sense (browser based). Indeed, the term SEO might become redundant. In my view, it is already dated; it fails to represent the blurring lines with other disciplines such as social media, and most problematically it has a major reputation issue.

And it is this reputation issue that makes SEO such an easy target for doubters, the ignorant and the odd attention seeker with regular claims that SEO is dead (or dying). The advances in car technology, in my view, represent how they could not be further from the truth.

Granted, SEO, as a term to adequately describe what SEO actually entails (and what it will entail in the future), may be dying. But as long as people ARE searching, there will always be a need for search marketers to create content, optimise that content, and ensure it is visible on the platforms and devices where consumers expect to be able to find it.

And in that much, SEO is very much alive…it just needs a re-brand to reflect the very different world we live in now compared to when the term was coined in the mid 1990’s!

What we’ve learnt in 2010 (and what we look forward to in 2011)

Posted on December 23, 2010 by Ben Potter

With contributions from various members of the Leapfrogg team, we take a look back at what we’ve learnt this year in digital marketing and online retail. We also look forward to 2011; what we’ll be keeping an eye on and how we expect 2010’s developments to evolve.

Google continues to innovate but at what cost?

Leapfrogg’s natural search team, Suzanne and Ben Adam, comment on the significant changes Google has made to both its back end architecture and search experience:

“2010 saw Google roll out its new indexing system, ‘caffeine’, which updates their search index on a continuous basis and therefore should provide more up to date results to users. The Mayday update, placed more emphasis on authority sites for long tail searches. Sites that create fresh, useful, original content, in a range of formats (i.e. images, video) and optimise for long tail searches will benefit most from these updates. These are good practices that we’ve been advocating for many years so from our point of view the changes have had little impact on the recommendations we make to clients.

The typical Google searcher would probably understand little of ‘caffeine’ and ‘Mayday’ but 2010 has seen an unprecedented number of changes to Google’s search engine results page (SERP) that certainly would not have gone unnoticed, most notably Instant Search, Previews, the somewhat pointless blue arrows, and Google Places.

In 2011, it will be interesting to see if the increasingly cluttered Google results page turns users off OR will the changes to back end architecture counter this by reducing the amount of spam and therefore making search results more relevant and fresh? With Bing increasingly offering a viable alternative to Google, will we see users jump ship? Or is ‘Googling’ just too synonymous with the act of searching in the mindset of most search engine users? 2011 is shaping up to be a pivotal year in the search engine wars, not to mention the threat posed by the big social networks, such as Facebook”.

The growing influence of social signals on search engine rankings

Social Media and Content Executive, James Mortimer, comments on the continued convergence of search and social:

“2010 has seen Google and Bing confirm that tweets and Facebook ‘likes’ have an influence on search rankings. In 2011, I expect to see the continued convergence of search and social. This will demand that companies take a much more holistic view of SEO; an approach where traditional activities, such as keyword optimisation and link building are combined with more contemporary tactics in social media marketing, an approach we’ve been advocating for a long time. I am sure more and more companies will adopt this more holistic approach now that the major search engines have confirmed a direct relationship between search engine rankings and social media activity, particularly on Twitter.

If, as suspected, one of the factors the search engines focus on is the number of followers on Twitter, will we see an increase in the use of auto-following tools to artificially inflate followers? Personally, I refuse to follow anybody who has an unnatural looking Twitter profile (i.e. following 23,984 people with almost the same number following them back!) but will the search engines be able to spot this kind of activity?

The importance of having a local ‘footprint’

Analyst, Andy, and Client Services Director, Greg, have been paying particular attention to the growing importance of local search:

“In October, Google updated how it displays local search results; they are no longer restricted to a specific section at the top of the SERP. Instead, local results on Google are now integrated into the main ‘natural’ listings. With Google placing more and more emphasis on local listings, we expect 2011 will see an increase in online shoppers entering phrases such as “designer dresses” and being served results that includes listings for nearby retail stores (regardless of whether they use a location term within their search query).

What we find most interesting about this change is the potential impact it has on retailers without physical stores, for example ASOS. Herein lies a somewhat ironic dilemma for online retailers in 2011 – an online brand could start to suffer in the search results because it DOESN’T have a physical store(s)”. Do not be suprised to see brands that have traditionally traded online, for example ASOS and Amazon, develop some form of high street presence in 2011 (note; this will not be necessarily be purely as a result of Google’s change to local listings).

Joining the dots

Paid search manager, Amelia, saw huge benefits in the use of software and advanced tracking tools to measure the success of multi-channel marketing campaigns:

The growth in mobile highlights the key challenge faced by brands; ¾ of consumers use two or more channels to browse, research & purchase products. Not only does this demand that brands have a presence where consumers expect them to be (online, mobile, the high street and so on) but it makes analysis and optimisation of the path to sale absolutely essential. We’ve really seen the value of investing in software to better understand the user journey. The ability to measure the first click to the final sale visit (whether this is online or in-store) is crucial when evaluating the returns from digital marketing activity. We have been amazed with some of the insights we have found when looking at sale journeys, particularly for retailers where the path to sale is more likely to involve a number of channels over a period of time. Seeing the overall sale path journey enables us to quantify the success of specific keywords which contribute to sales via brand terms or via different traffic sources”.

The year mobile finally took off

MD, Rosie, comments on how the year when brands finally saw some measurable returns from mobile commerce:

“It seems that every year, for as long as I can remember, analysts have claimed that ‘this will be the year mobile commerce’ takes off. Well 2010 might just be the year that this claim was finally justified. Smart phone adoption still represents a relatively small percentage of the overall market, however, the number of people subscribing to smart phones this year has been significant enough for a number of brands to finally see tangible benefits of investing in mobile enabled websites and applications.

2011 will see this trend continue as more and more brands learn from the early adopters and invest in mobile commerce. However, it is vital that marketers understand the difference between the conventional browser and mobile experience. With mobile, there is an even greater emphasis to give people exactly what they want as smaller screens make it difficult for functionality, such as dynamic merchandising, to work effectively. Keeping things simple will be key to success for mobile websites and applications”.

Don’t run before you can walk

Head of Social Media and Content, Lucy comments on the need to ensure tactical execution is linked back to commercial objectives:

“Everyone seems to have embraced Twitter and Facebook this year, but we’ve sometimes pushed back on briefs because we didn’t believe social media was really going to deliver to a brands commercial objectives. It’s all too easy to jump on the social media bandwagon. However, when a marketing team has limited budget, often the more tried and tested direct marketing or more quantifiable and measurable link building and online PR activity can be proven to deliver more.

Although we love it when our brands want to experiment, we always need to ensure campaigns deliver to the bottom line. If you’re selling to a target audience that isn’t highly active in social media, then sometimes it is not the right medium to use. But even if it is, we very much advocate that clients get the basics right before they start investing in social media, for example. Very much a case of learning to walk before you run”.

Agencies need to evolve

Sales and Marketing Director, Ben, comments on how the role digital agencies need to take with their clients:

“In 2010, I’ve seen a noticeable shift in what clients expect from their agency partners. Clients are looking for much more than tactical delivery…and so they should. We’ve really seen the value of more closely aligning digital strategies to a client’s commercial objectives and completely changed the language we use to communicate with prospects and clients as a result.

It highlights to me how the SEO industry needs to evolve in 2011 beginning with a rebrand. SEO is a dated term that fails to represent the remit of the job undertaken by forward thinking agencies. The convergence of search and social, the need to be creating useful and unique content, and the strategic and analytical value added by an agency is much more than SEO. In 2011, I’d like to see less emphasis on somewhat dated language such as ‘rankings’, and especially those agencies still making ‘guarantees’, to instead focus on messaging that more closely reflects the landscape and the expectations of clients”.

What were you key lessons from 2010? What are you going to be keeping a close on in 2011? We’d love to hear from you?

Help! Why is my average cost per click increasing in AdWords?

Posted on September 14, 2010 by Andy Miller

With the announcement of Google Instant sweeping across the industry well, instantly (pardon the pun!) over the last few days, I want to cover something else equally as important that has been grabbing our attention recently: rising click costs in Google Adwords, otherwise known as CPCs (cost per clicks).

Our analysis has shown that since May, many of our clients’, across multiple sectors, have seen average CPCs increasing month on month. Why is this? Well, amongst other factors, the price you pay for a click will strongly depend on the competition for the keyword you are targeting. With this in mind, here are some factors which we feel may explain the rise in CPCs we have seen over recent months.

The end of the recession?

Many advertisers will have reduced their ad spend or cut it completely when the recession hit the UK. In turn, competition for paid ad placement is likely to have reduced. However, as we come out of recession and business starts to pick up again, many companies will be releasing budget and ploughing it back into paid search. As this channel offers almost instant search engine positioning with full control and maximum flexibility, it is the ideal tool for nervous businesses wishing to dip their toes back into search.

This is perhaps leading to greater competition and takes me nicely on to the next point…

Aggressive bidding strategies

Due to greater competition in the search auctions, companies may be forced to adopt aggressive bidding strategies in order to remain competitive and get in to the top positions for high converting search terms. This can result in bidding wars from advertisers, therefore increasing click charges across the board.

Summer promotions

Another possible explanation for the increase in CPCs is that many of our clients, operating in retail for example, run summer promotions or sales. With paid search being the ideal platform to run such promotions, many companies will be taking advantage of this – also leading to extra competition during recent months.

So, how do I remain competitive?

If the trend of increasing CPCs continues then advertisers (especially smaller businesses) will have to get a lot smarter if paid search is to remain a viable tool. Focusing on the cost per conversion for each keyword will be paramount in deciding the price you are willing to pay for each term. Small to medium sized businesses may also have to switch focus to long tail search terms as bigger brands with deeper pockets dominate the listings for the more generic, and therefore highly competitive terms.

There are many other ways to remain competitive as CPCs increase. Tools such as Conversion Optimiser will use your conversion tracking data with the aim of delivering more conversions at a lower cost. Ad Scheduling also allows you to adjust bids on certain days of the week or times of the day when conversions are usually at their highest. There are many other ways but I’ll save these for a later blog post!

Will Google Instant affect my CPCs?

As Google Instant has only been live for a few days (to those in the UK it is only available for Google account holders who are logged in), it is still very early to say what impact it may have on paid search. Over the coming weeks and months advertisers should keep a watchful eye on any unusual shifts in impressions and click-through rates (CTRs). A drop in the CTR could negatively impact quality scores, thus potentally leading to higher CPCs.

I’d love to hear if any other AdWords advertisers have experienced similar increases in their CPCs over the past few months. Please leave any comments below.

Google Instant – can everyone keep calm please?

Posted on September 9, 2010 by Ben Potter

No doubt you have heard about Google’s latest innovation in search; Google Instant. The basic premise is that Google predicts what you’re searching for in much the same way as the Google Suggest feature. The difference is that the actual results for the query are displayed and indeed change as you type.

The first thing to note is that this feature is currently only available to UK searchers who are logged into their Google account. I, for one, would love to know how the % of Google users in the UK who actually have an account and therefore how many people outside the search industry, at this stage, are aware of the change…probably very few. So before you panic about the potential impact of Instant, remember that the average Google user does not have a Google account and at this point of time would not have a clue what Google Instant is!

Anyway, to see it in action, check out the video below:

Speculation is rife as to the impact this will have on SEO. Many of the usual culprits are coming out of he woodwork to claim ‘Instant is the death of SEO’ (yawn!). I’m not going to spend time regurgitating what is being hotly debated elsewhere. Instead, I want to provide a very simple assessment of what we feel Instant means for SEO; in our view, very little. It is certainly not the death of SEO. People are still searching and Google needs to deliver relevant results. Whilst this is the case, there will always be a need for good SEO in some form…period.

Therefore, the basic principles of SEO remain unchanged; create well designed, intuitive and content rich websites TARGETED AT USERS NOT SEARCH ENGINES. Build quality links from relevant websites. Create content your target audience will find of value and market this content to the websites they frequent, and so on.

The only fundamental difference we can see is the behaviour of searchers. Search journeys may be longer because users will be interrupted by keywords and phrases they may not have considered or in fact are completely off-topic. Alternatively, generic searches may decrease in favour of longer tail phrases as people keep typing and refining their search until they see the most relevant results page. For those who have been optimising for both generic and long tail terms this won’t be an issue.

So in conclusion, Google Instant is certainly an interesting and snazzy update to the Google search experience but will it change the face of SEO? – I doubt it.

So with that ladies and gentlemen of search; keep calm and carry on!

How multichannel retailers can benefit from Google’s new search results layout

Posted on June 7, 2010 by Rosie Freshwater

If you’ve been searching on Google in the last couple of weeks you may have noticed some changes to the layout of the search results page. Google has launched its new advanced search layout and there are plenty of snazzy things you can do with your search results, some of which were available before but perhaps tucked away and therefore you may not have known about them.

There are plenty of great blog posts (like this one from @dannysullivan) that run you through the different options available and how to use them. However, we thought we would focus on some of the main functions that benefit retailers and how they can use them to improve on their multichannel marketing efforts.

First let’s have a look at the new column on the left where all these lovely new tools sit.

If we conduct a search for “designer handbags” this is the page of results we get.

For a while now Google has incorporated a number of different media types, such as images and video, into their natural search results (this is called Universal Search in Google’s case or blended search elsewhere). Google’s new look search results page now includes a very useful list of search options on the left hand side making it easy to refine your search according to images, blog posts, news, video and so on.

Once you have refined your search, to view video results only for example, you are presented with a further set of options in the lower part of the left hand column to refine your results still further. In the case of video, you can refine by length, quality and source (amongst others).

We believe this added functionality presents a number of opportunities for multichannel retailers, namely to:

Increase brand & product visibility to shoppers
Find influential people to review and talk about products
Find and engage with customers
Research hot topics to help shape a social search strategy
Help measure the impact of your marketing efforts and tweak accordingly

Let’s look at each of these in turn:

Increase brand & product visibility to shoppers

Consumers are becoming far more sophisticated in how they search for products online. The new layout from Google will facilitate this and retailers need to be aware of the areas where they must be prominent by presenting relevant content:

Images
Although image search has been a large part of the Google experience for a while now the more prominent advanced search option opens up opportunities to increase the visibility of your products to engaged searchers.

As you can see, a search for “designer handbags” now brings up the normal page of results but with a whole new bunch of refined searches in the left hand column. You can now refine by size, type of image, and even colour.

By creating great imagery in the first instance and then optimising it accordingly, this is a great opportunity for retailers to have their products featuring for a wider range of targeted searches. Make sure your product images are named according to the type of image (i.e. photo, drawing, etc) and include other details, such as colour.

e.g. /red-d&g-tote-designer-handbag.jpg

The more well optimised imagery you have on your site, the more exposure your products will get within image search. And as retailers will only be too well aware, when prospects are shopping online, especially for higher ticket items, great imagery can have a significant impact on conversion rates.

Video
Video is a further extension of good imagery and allows a higher level of engagement with customers. Product demonstrations or showing the product in a real life situation, such as catwalk style clips for clothing, can have a dramatic impact on conversion rates. And with a more prominent position on the search results page, and numerous options to refine video results, we should see more searchers viewing more videos on the search engines.

With the rise of YouTube and social media it’s been increasingly important to get involved in creating video content for the past few years. Now that Google has opened up its video results it is even more so.

Again, make sure you are optimising your video properly whether you are putting it on your site or on channels such as YouTube.

Maps The maps results option in the new layout shows Google Local Search results overlaid on a map. Therefore those looking to buy a product in a particular location can find the nearest store stocking that item. This has huge potential for retailers, especially as so few currently appear to have local business listings for their stores, optimised with their key products. Look at the results when we conduct our search for “designer handbags”:

Regardless of product range or number of stores there is huge potential in setting up and optimising Google Local Listings to ensure you are visible to regional shoppers, and importantly those searching on smart phones using mapping applications.

Find influential people to review and talk products

As search marketing and PR have converged, an essential component of a successful digital marketing strategy for retailers is engaging with ‘influencers’. In other words, bloggers, journalists, twitterers and owners of Facebook groups whose opinions, comments and product reviews can have a significant bearing on a retailers sales, brand visibility and reputation, as well as search engine rankings (every review can generate a link to a brands site).

There are two sections of the new advanced search layout that we think can help retailers in their search for those all important influencers.

Blogs
Using this advanced search feature, when searching for product related keywords, will yield a list of bloggers most relevant to those products i.e. those people that appear to be most active in talking about, designer handbags, for example:

This gives the retailer a great starting point to select the bloggers they should be building relationships with. It may be that a retailer sends their latest product as an exclusive for the blogger to review, perhaps offer some useful content or ask if they could have a guest blog slot. By building these relationships it gains the retailer extra visibility, traffic and perhaps even a link or two!

The refined search options include ‘by timeframe’ so bloggers can be approached who have been talking about the retailers type of products in the last few days, making this search option fantastic for identifying those talking about the latest trends and topics (particularly relevant to fashion).

Updates
The ‘updates’ section in the advanced search results shows what’s happening on social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook. These networks are highly relevant to retailers as many of their prospects and customers will be active in talking about, sharing and reviewing their latest purchases. Like bloggers and journalists, individual customers can also have an influencing affect over their friends, colleagues and peers.

Using the updates results section retailers can look through the list of people mentioning their specific products, or similar products, and what they are saying about them. They can then click through to visit relevant Twitter or Facebook profiles to see how many followers/fans/friends they have to determine their level of influence.

Engaging with prospects and customers across social media channels, in an open and public way, can lead to a positive mention of a particular product which will be seen by all the influencers followers. In addition to this, updates from networks such as Twitter, are increasingly being featured in search results, and in real-time, so regular mentions of a retailers brand or products in these spaces will start to have more and more impact on their search engine visibility.

Engage with customers

There are 2 areas of the new layout that retailers can utilise to engage on a one on one basis with customers:

Updates
This section as we have mentioned previously not only allows a retailer to research influential people who are talking about their products but also allows them to engage directly with them.

This great blog post by Danny Sullivan shows that by searching using terms such as “anyone know + key product” it will show all of the updates from people likely to be asking questions about those products. In turn, the retailer can answer those questions publicly therefore engaging with a customer or prospect, whilst also demonstrating to anyone else who might see that conversation that they are personable and care about the individual customer.

Discussions
In exactly the same way as an update search, the discussions search will show discussions happening in forums across the web related to particular products. This, again, is a great opportunity for retailers to get involved where their target audience is hanging out and provide the answers to their questions in a completely transparent manner. Be informative but friendly and the added brand visibility, loyalty and back links could have a dramatic affect on sales.

In the example below we have used the “anyone know” search again.

Again, there are a number of refined searches that can be used to filter by time and length of discussion, for example. Retailers should utilise these to make sure the discussions they get involved with are timely and on topic.

Research hot topics for a social search strategy

Central to the success of a digital marketing strategy for retailers is creating great content, in a wide variety of formats.

Creating useful content aimed at prospects and customers increases time spent on site, conversion rates, brand visibility, loyalty and search engine visibility. But how do retailers decide the type and format of content that will be most useful to their audience?

They use Google advanced search features, such as News and Updates of course!

News
Retailers will know the key products they want to create content around (the ones that yield the most sales and/or best margins). Using relevant search terms within the News section of Google search gives great insight into what is being written around those products at the moment and by who, as well as further insight into changes in the retailers industry that might affect core customers.

Retailers should look at what is being said within the online publications that their target market would read. If there is talk about “designer handbags being stolen” then write a guide to keeping expensive accessories safe or insuring against theft. If there is a key celebrity endorsing a certain handbag then write a blog post about how a particular range would suit the outfits they wear.

Again the search can be refined by date so retailers know they are writing about hot topics.

Updates
Researching using updates can give great insight and ideas to help shape a content strategy.

A key piece of information is the time line at the top of the page which shows peaks and troughs in mentions of a certain product. Retailers can therefore plan to release fresh content around a certain product at the time where activity online is at it’s highest. Strike while the iron is hot!

See the impact of marketing efforts and tweak accordingly
The Update tool is also extremely useful to measure the impact that a marketing campaign is having on brand mentions and conversation online.

The example below shows the conversation around the Burberry “Art of the Trench” campaign. It combines Facebook and Twitter updates and shows what people think of the campaign and the way they are engaging. Burberry can use this data to tweak the campaign to address any issues people have with it and focus the content around the campaign to fit with the language their target audience are using to talk about it.

As the updates are in real time, using these search filters can give an instant picture of online sentiment surrounding a campaign as it is launched to allow tweaking for better engagement and results.

Retailers can find the people who are evangelising about the campaign, engage with them and get the message spread further, deal with any confusion others may have about how to get involved and tweak the optimisation of content according to the language people are using online.

This type of response tracking works equally well with other types of marketing material likely to form part of a multichannel marketing strategy. Just sent out a catalogue? Then check what people are saying online. Are they happy to have received it, what do they think of the layout and so on?

Or perhaps track people’s immediate response to a new advertising campaign, such as this search for ‘M and S’.

Summary

We have only really touched the surface here on the opportunities offered to retailers with the new layout from Google. We have not even mentioned Google Shopping Search!

As mentioned before many of these options for search have been around for a while but many people using Google will not have been utilising them. Now they are right there in front of the customers eye retailers should be working hard to ensure their digital marketing efforts tie in with them.

The additional research tools offered are absolutely free! Any retailer who can’t afford sophisticated buzz monitoring and social media research tools should view Google’s added functionality as a viable alternative.

A beginners guide to: real time search (part 2)

Posted on May 17, 2010 by admin

Last time I introduced you to the concept of real-time search. In this second installment I look at how you need to adapt your search marketing efforts to take full advantage of this potentially game-changing development. Although it’s early days for real-time search all the signs are that it will become an increasingly important part of how search engines deliver highly relevant and newsworthy information to users. Therefore, the winners will be those online marketers that adapt early.

I’m going to begin by looking at the sources search engines use to populate their real-time search results because naturally that leads to the activities you need to incorporate into your online strategy.

While Bing currently concentrates on Twitter as its primary source of real-time information, Google includes sources such as Google News links, Google Blog Search links, Google Buzz posts, as well as Jaiku, FriendFeed, Identi.ca, MySpace and Facebook fan page updates.

With most, if not all of these sites having a social element to them, the introduction of real time search reinforces the importance of a well-thought out content and social media strategy to complement ‘traditional’ SEO efforts. On this basis, I recommend you consider the following action points, not only to take advantage of real-time search, but also to widen your reach and engage directly with your target audience:

Set up accounts or profiles across the above websites even if you do not plan on using them quite yet. By doing so, you are at least taking ownership of those accounts under your brand name (before somebody else does!)

If you are going to use one social network to take advantage of real time search in the short term, choose Twitter and establish a strategy for its use (assuming it is relevant to your target audience)

Develop a robust content strategy. Success in social media, and therefore real-time search, is dictated by the quality and relevancy of the information you publish whether this is 140 character tweet or a video masterpiece. To help…

…invest in buzz monitoring software. Not only can you monitor where your brand name is being mentioned online but you can also monitor hot topics to see if they are relevant to your brand or line of business. This in turn will help you shape the content you create and in what format. Getting involved in the most newsworthy conversations makes it more likely you will gain visibility in the search results

Once you have created relevant content consider the most appropriate channels by which it can be pushed out. For example, press releases are likely to feature in Google News so ensure you create and distribute them using the right tools when appropriate

Get blogging; consider how you can publish regular blog posts relevant to your business / industry. The steady stream of fresh, newsworthy content, particularly in response to the major changes / events/ developments in your market place will, in time, ensure your target audience favours you as a source of up to date and valuable information. Search engines may well begin to so the same

Ensure that all of the above is keyword driven. Integrate targeted keywords into your content, utilising hashtags where relevant

The efforts described above will inevitably require additional internal resource. However, the relationship between search, social media and content demands that brands take a more holistic approach to their search engine optimisation efforts. With social media activity having an increasing influence on search engine performance brands cannot afford to sit on the sidelines of social media.

Conclusion

In recent months I’ve introduced you to the latest developments shaping how search engines display their results. What I hope this highlights is that search engines are in a constant state of flux as they seek to provide the most relevant results to their users.

What we must do in instances such as these is to remain clear-headed and focused on making sure that the innovations in question do not catch us out. We must therefore be innovative ourselves. Change can be good as long as you know how to tackle it. With that in mind, keep your eyes peeled for regular updates and advice.

Leapfrogg

The digital marketing agency for premium brands and retailers

Category Archives: Search engines