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Archive for the ‘Google’ Category

Last week, our team attended the Nonprofit Technology Conference in Minneapolis! We are posting our recaps and resources from the conference over on the Tendenci website. For The SEM Blog, we’ve included some tools from speaker Justin Cutroni of Google. Justin presented on Google for Nonprofits and Smart Data.

NTC Team

The Schipul/Tendenci team at NTC 2013!

Analytics tools for nonprofits (really any organization can benefit from these tools!):

1. Cross Domain Tracking

Many sites we work with (including our own!) is made up of multiple domains. The multiple domains can be tricky with reporting because reports falsely list bounces and referrals as people go from one internal site to another. This can be explained… but it is not always clear from just looking at a single report.

The solution: Cross Domain Tracking from Google Analytics

Google Analytics Cross Domain Tracking

2. The Measurement Protocol

You can track anything in Google Analytics now. The Google Analytics Measurement Protocol allows developers to make HTTP requests to send raw user interaction data directly to Google Analytics servers. This allows developers to measure how users interact with their business from almost any environment. Developers can then use the Measurement Protocol to: Measure user activity in new environments, tie online to offline behavior, and send data from both the web and server.

It even has structure for financial data, for instance: &tr=50.00 // Transaction revenue. &ts=32.00 // Transaction shipping. &tt=12.00 // Transaction tax.

Learn More on Google’s Developer Documentation

3. Link Tagging

Google URL tagging it is really powerful to mix the protocol data with campaign data. You can then filter your analytics data by campaign passed through a link tag. Powerful stuff!

Learn more about Google Analytics URL Builder for an example of how the variables would be added

More Nonprofit Technology Conference Recaps!

Check out our other recaps and resources from the Nonprofit Technology Conference!

Google has done a fantastic job of putting Matt Cutts out there as the face of the web spam team – and he is also the face who delivers updates about Google’s work and algorithm updates to the web at large.

Matt Cutts is the Face of Google Algorithm Updates

Matt Cutts addressing the SEO world about alogirthm updates on Google’s YouTube Channel GoogleWebmastersHelp

The crowd at the “How to Ranke Better in Search” #bingle panel at SXSW was reflective of the presenters’ reputations. The other panelist was Duane Forrester of Bing – whose specific role is product manager of Bing Webmaster Tools, and the panel was moderated by Search Engine Land’s Danny Sullivan. I was seated in the crowd of overflow seating so I technically didn’t see the presenters, but I could hear the conversation and watch what they were displaying on their computer screens (see pic below).

Matt Cutts SXSW Panel Overflow Seating

Matt Cutts SXSW Panel Packed House! Shot: Overflow Seating

The session format was a Q&A panel where audience members could ask the questions and drive the topics.  Below were my biggest takeaways:

1. Social Signals are Growing in Importance

Social Signals (aka how links and shares from Social Media profiles affect your site’s authority) have had an effect on search results when a user is logged in to Google for some time now. If you or your friends have shared or liked content (particularly on Google+) – that content is more likely to rise to the top of the page. One of my favorite quotes of the panel was from Matt on these personalized results:

“There are a lot of people whose bosses think they rank number one because the boss is always logged in seeing personalized results” - Matt Cutts, Google

Matt confirmed that over time we are going to see social signals play more of a role when logged out as well.

This is already most noticeable with the rel=”author” tag which attaches your Google+ profile to content you’ve created and adds your profile photo next to the content in search results. In the panel, Matt confirmed that content with this author photo next to it does consistently see a higher CTR.

How to: Link your content to a Google+ profile using rel=”author”

2. Start Using Schema.org

Schema.org is a system of tags that webmasters can use to markup their pages in a universal way recognized by the major search engines. Google and Bing both praised the value of incorporating these Schema.org tags to help the search engines better crawl and understand the content on your website – and indicated that this will become even more important in the future.

From Duane - Schema data does not affect rankings directly; it is used to help the search engines understand the site and its content.

Google and Bing are still testing how users respond to showing schema markup in SERPs – so you may see it show in search results only sometimes for now.

How to: Getting Started with Schema.org

More Resources: Getting the Most out of Schema.org Microformats (from SEOMoz)

3. Quality Content Wins

This is something Google has been hammering home with their recent algorithm updates. It’s not exactly new, but I wanted to mention it because of how much both Google and Bing emphasized this point during the panel. At the end of the day – Quality Content wins online. Quality Content means better placement in search, better engagement, and better conversions.

“Our job is to consistently wow people with search results”Duane Forrester, Bing

More: Google Guidance on What Defines “Quality Content” 

4. Don’t Rely on Press Releases for SEO

Press Releases are key for communicating to traditional media, but Matt confirmed that Google has downgraded the value of press releases for SEO recently, so you should not rely on that content to boost your SEO on its own.

“We haven’t really trusted press releases since 2006″ – Matt Cutts, Google

5. Google Isn’t Too Worried About Facebook Graph Search as a Competitor

There has been a lot of buzz about Facebook’s Graph Search tool. One audience member asked straight up if Google is worried about Facebook Graph Search as a competitor. Mat’s reply – not right now, but he can definitely see a potential over time.

6. For Ecommerce Sites, Reputation Matters to SEO

Google also confirmed that they are working on an update for 2013 that will try to incorporate a merchant’s reputation into their ranking for e-commerce sites specifically. The catalyst to this has been poor sites ranking well because of an increase in links from bad press. Google is trying to get smarter about determining which of those links are “good press” vs “bad press.”

7. Google (Still) Hates Spam

Matt is head of Google’s Spam team so naturally he spent time discussing some of the team’s latest spam updates. Within the How Search Works site, Google has launched a site that shows real time screenshots of websites being discovered and dinged by Google:

Real Time Spam Screenshots from Google

Real Time Spam Screenshots from Google

More Resources: Google’s “How Search Works” Resource Library

What other SEO takeaways did you see at SXSW? Share them here!

ASAP Utilities: One Tool to Rule Them All

posted by Melissa Bregar
Thursday, June 7, 2012

4 ASAP Utility functions that will make you love Excel even more…

As a senior production manager at PPC Associates, I spend a great deal of my day working in Microsoft Excel, whether that be manipulating data for reporting or prepping an upload sheet to load into AdWords Editor (Google AdWords’ offline editing program). When you’re dealing with thousands of rows of data that needs to be formatted for a client or uploaded into an account, accuracy and efficiency become vital.

In Excel, there are literally thousands of tools, formulas and shortcuts that can be used to your advantage when managing your PPC campaigns; some have already have been explained by my colleague, Laura Rodnitzky. However, within Excel, ASAP Utilities (which can be downloaded for free, here), is an add-in that works as a supplement to your preexisting tools and formulas and can enhance your Excel capabilities. Here are some of the ASAP Utilities’ most helpful tools for managing your AdWords data:

1.       Advanced character remove or replace

This utility allows you to remove or replace advanced characters, some of which Excel does not allow you to change. In Excel, when using the Find/Replace function, the question mark is used to signify all data within a cell, which prohibits you from being able to isolate a question mark and deleting it. However, with ASAP Utilities, you can remove or replace a question mark.

Advanced character remove or replace example

a.  In Excel, highlight the cells that contain the question marks.

ASAP Utilities in Excel

b.  In the “Text” section of ASAP Utilities, click “10. Advanced character remove or replace.”

c.  Select the appropriate symbol – in this example, the question mark – then fill in the “Replace each selected character with:” box with a symbol that is not represented in the URL string. Replacing the question mark will allow us to then use the Find/Replace function in the next step. For this example, we chose the dollar sign. Then click “OK” and “Close.”

ASAP Utilities -Advanced character remove / replace

d. The question mark within the urls should now be a dollar sign. Use the Find/Replace function to find “$*” and replace with nothing. In Excel, * represents all data that is left in the cell (similar to the ?). This will allow you to delete all tracking, along with the dollar sign.

Use the Find/Replace function to find “$*”

Advanced character remove or replace example

2.       Performing Calculations on Selected Data

This utility allows you to perform a specific calculation on a selected range or data. It is most commonly used for calculating new bids. Instead of setting up a new formula juxtaposed with the original bid (Max CPC/CPM) to perform the calculation, this utility lets you update the original data. Note that this can also be done quickly in AdWords Editor, but if the keywords/ad groups can’t be isolated easily in AWE, this is the fastest way to update your bids.

Adjusting Bids example

a. In Excel, select the data to apply the calculation to.

b. In the “Formulas” section of ASAP Utilities, click “2. Apply formula/calculation to selected cells…”.

Apply formula/calculation to selected cells

c. Create the formula, and then select “OK.”

Performing Calculations on Selected Data example

3.       Delete leading, trailing or excessive spaces

This utility allows you to delete any extra spaces before or after text, as well as extra spaces between tokens (excluding single spaces). The Excel Trim Function, which is located under Excel Tools and Functions, can also be used to eliminate unwanted spaces. However, depending on the format of the data, the Trim Function does not always delete these spaces, whereas the ASAP Utility will work on all types of data. This utility is most commonly used for deleting unwanted extra spaces in keywords, ad groups or ads before uploading into AdWords Editor.

a. In Excel, highlight the cells that contain extra spaces.

Delete leading, trailing or excessive spaces example 1

b. In the “Text” section, click “9. Delete leading, trailing and excessive spaces”.

Delete leading, trailing and excessive spaces

4.       Insert before and/or after each cell in your selection

This utility allows you to prepend or append data to a cell or range of data, which can be helpful when creating keywords with a broad match modified match type where a “+” must be prepended to each token in the keyword. The simple Find/Replace Excel function allows you to insert a “+” for all tokens by simply finding a space and replacing with a space and “+”. However, we can’t add a “+” at the beginning of a cell, in front of the first token, because Excel will then view the data as a formula, and will show an error. Similar to Excel’s Concatenate Function, we can prepend a “+” to the first token without receiving a formula error.  However with ASAP Utilities you can prepend data to the cell itself, instead of creating a new cell to add in the “+”.

a. Select the cells that you want to prepend or append data to.

b. In the “Text” section, click “1. Insert before and/or after each cell in your selection” and fill in the “add before” and/or “add after”. In this example the “+” is added to “add before”. Make sure to check the “Example” section to verify the data looks accurate, and then push “OK”.

Insert before and/or after each cell in your selection example

 

Ex Prepended "+"

Insert before and/or after each cell in your selection example 2

 

There are hundreds of other utilities within ASAP, all of which can be used to make your work in Excel a more efficient and user-friendly experience. I highly encourage anyone who uses Excel to manage their PPC campaigns to take advantage of this free utility and to start exploring all of its possibilities.

Guest Blogger:

Melissa Bregar - Senior Production Manager for PPC Associates Melissa Bregar is a Senior Production Manager for PPC Associates, a digital marketing firm with offices in the Bay Area and downtown Chicago.

Adwords, Simplified; Quality Scores, Not So Much …

posted by dtankersley
Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Adwords are surprisingly complicated – a side effect of having LOTS of user options and the TON of data google collects and crunches to optimize user experience (ie, the likelihood of internet searchers to quickly find relevant ads).

 Infographic by pulpmedia: Awesomely Accessible Lesson in the Basics of Adwords

1) What you pay (CostPerClick) depends on:

* [how much you bid]

* [Quality Score of your ad] – this itself is way complicated – see below

* [Adrank of advertiser in lower rank position]

2) Two Tactics to optimize your Adwords:

2.1) Test Your Ad Copy:

2.1.1) Always have at least 2 ad variations; eg, “Blue Shoes for Sale” and “For Sale: Blue Shoes”. Google will test out your ads’ performance and help you use the higher performing ad copy, so you want at least 2 at a time for testing purposes.

2.1.2) Analyze the data. Pulpmedia suggests experimenting with different metrics: One ad might have slightly higher CTR (click through rate) but significantly lower CVR (conversion rate).

2.2) 3 Easy Bidding Strategies:

2.2.1) Pause Keywords for 30 days when Impressions > 200 and CTR < 1%

2.2.2) Pause Text Ads for 30 dyas when Impressions > 200 and CTR < 1%

2.2.3) Raise max CPC to first page bid estimate for 30 days when Average Position > 1.8 and Quality Factor < 4.

How does Google AdWords work? - infographic
Infographic by Pulpmedia Online Marketing

 Quality Scores: Not Simple

There simply isn’t a way to dumb-down Quality Scores: they comprise a set of relationships between many variables, each of which is more or less complex in its own right. That said, PPC Hero makes a valiant, effective effort in his/her(?) Ultimate Guide to Adwords Quality Score.

This guide provides counsel on no less than seven types of Quality Scores. Below is my distillation of this opus.

1. Account-Level QS* is based on how well your entire account – all keywords and ads – have performed in the past.

Contributing Metrics:

* High CTR

* High QS for your keywords

* Older accounts have more data, so will have higher QS than newer ones

Actionable:

* Some people argue that you should Delete low QS keywords, others say to Pause them

* PPC Hero advises you to consider the search volume you get with these words before deleting – if you add them back in after deletion, Google counts them as “duplicates”

2. Ad Group QS is the average ad score within a single ad group.

Contributing Metric: Each individual Ad’s QSs

Actionable: Find Ads with the lowest CTR in the group and rewrite them

3. Keyword-Level QS is based on how well your ads do in search queries that are an exact match to your keyword. It is a number from 1-10, 10 being the best.

Contributing Metrics: 

* At first Keyword QS is based on the keyword’s performance history on Google.com

* After your keyword has appeared enough times in searches (ie, after it achieves “a significant number of impressions in your account”) it will be based on CTR for queries that were an exact match.

Actionables:

* If your impression share is low (impression share = [Number of times your ad appeared/ Number of times your ad was eligible to appear]), increase your bid or daily budget amount

* Broaden your match types or add broad match keywords. Eg, in Advanced Options select “broad match” instead of “exact match”, or change your keyword from “Patio Furniture” to “Outdoor Furniture”

 4. Ad-Level QS is the score for individual ads within an ad group and is determined primarily by CTR.

Contributing Metrics: CTR

Actionable: If you have low CTR for a lot of ads, DKI (Dynamic Keyword Insertion) shows the exact query of the user within your ad, typically increasing CTR.

 5. Landing Page QS* influences your keyword QS, even though there is no official QS for Landing Pages.

Contributing Metric: Good, relevant content

6. Display Network QS is a bit mysterious but seems to reflect numerous metrics that generally indicate ad quality
Contributing Metrics:
* Ad historical performance
* Ad relevance to the site and ad group keywords
* Landing page quality
Actionables:
* Test different ad types (images versus text)
* If you have low CTR relative to competing ads, try using site and category exclusions and negative keywords for search matches
7. Mobile QS* again, not explicit metric, and google claims to calculate QS without considering device platform. But since distance between user and business location influences QS, separating your campaigns by mobile may reveal fruitful and divergent trends.
Contributing Metric: User distance from vendor
Actionable: Create separate campaigns by platform device, to see if some ads are more effective on different types of platforms
If you’re still reading, it’s time to pack up, head off and start tweaking your Adwords Campaigns!