Originally published on eCommerceConsulting here on 06/13/2014
Conversational search
is here to stay. Nothing confirms this more than Google launching the
most comprehensive changes to their search algorithm in years with their
late 2013 release of Hummingbird.
This should be prompting some big questions all across your ecommerce
business’ organization, and if it hasn’t, you need to change that now.
These voice search queries affect all of your search channels,
especially search engine optimization (SEO) and paid search (PPC)
strategies. Now, the big questions I keep hearing from different search
marketers across the ecommerce landscape are “What do I need to do for
this?”, “What processes do I need to redefine or modify?”, what are some
key areas of my website where I can build conversational language?” and
“How does this change the way I think about my content and keyword
targeting?”. Let’s just dive right in then.
EXAMPLE: User A wants to search for a new set of golf clubs with some
specific qualifications. With a more traditional typed search method,
their search might look something like this: “new pink golf clubs
intermediate skill full set womens”. This same query as a spoken search
this may look quite a bit different but have the same goal: “find me a
full set of new pink women’s golf clubs for sale that would be perfect
for a intermediate level golfer”. When we type searches, we
automatically omit a variety of keywords, and the ordering of the
keywords may not always have a smooth, cognitive flow. When we speak the
same query, the opposite often is true, and additional keyword values
like “a,” “for” and “me” make it into the query string. This results in
additional phraseology entering a query that traditionally would have
been omitted, so Google now tries to analyze and derive the intention of
a query, not just the query’s content.
In paid search, this can lead to misses on exact and phrase match
keywords in your program. While your broad match campaigns may cover
this, you may be missing additional context of a searcher’s inquiry and
may not present the best ad copy and subsequent landing page experience
to these voice search
queries. This could affect the proper qualifying of intention for a
user’s query and have a tangible influence on things like conversion
rates, click-through rates, onsite engagement metrics and more. Make
sure your search agency has a strategy for developing keyword campaigns
that not only target typed queries, but also take into consideration
conversational search queries. This may include solidly developed
tail-term keyword expansions and an even more hands-on approach to broad
match term management and analysis.
The same effects can be occurring within your SEO strategy. Your page
content may not take into consideration conversational phrasing, and
this is particularly important with solutions-based queries since search
marketers are typically focused on describing the product or service
with less content specific to the problems the product or service may be
a solution for. Also, many companies like to format description copy
into succinct bullet-points, which can lead to truncated copy formats.
With the increase in voice search, content writers need to think more
about how they would discuss the product and the solutions it provides
rather than most efficiently describing the product itself. This will
put an increased emphasis on the frequently asked questions (FAQs)
portions of your website, so you will need to ensure that these areas –
particularly on a retail site – are structured to support specific
products or product lines. Re-audit your FAQ content and make sure it is
conversational in nature; make sure the questions and answers are
formatted in a verbal response format.
We are interacting more often with our computers and other devices as
if they were people, and frequently we interact with them more than
other humans. As this trend
continues, it is not surprising that search engines, much like our
day-to-day technology devices, will evolve to accommodate this type of
interaction. Search marketers need diversify our perceptions of how
people are looking for what it is we market. So, start thinking about
not only the keywords people use to search, but also the way they would
do it verbally.
To wrap up, here is a simple way to get started on measuring your
conversational search targeting. Simply ask an unprepared merchant “what
problem does this product solve for a consumer and why would they want
it?” and listen to the response… record it even. Then compare the
content written about it and evaluate how much overlap there is. My
guess is that you will find some hidden gems missing from the content
and, in particular, your search strategies around that product. Evolve
that one product’s content, add some additional long tail-term targeting
adgroups for that product, use the merchant’s language in your ads and
see what the results are.
So, go on and get started. Choose a product or service that performs
in the middle of the pack in your SEM channels and see what
conversationally based content can add. You should end up pleasantly
surprised by the results this testing can shed light on.
Monday, July 27, 2015
Tag Management Systems: What To Look For And Evaluate In A TMS
Published on eCommerceConsulting.com here on 03/17/2014
Tag Management Systems (TMS) are here to stay, but what is it that really makes them worthwhile to an organization? What should you look for when going through the request for proposal (RFP) process and why? What questions should you be answering to determine if a TMS is truly needed by your organization at this time?
From an overview perspective, a TMS can be worthwhile to an organization for several reasons:
Tag Management Systems (TMS) are here to stay, but what is it that really makes them worthwhile to an organization? What should you look for when going through the request for proposal (RFP) process and why? What questions should you be answering to determine if a TMS is truly needed by your organization at this time?
From an overview perspective, a TMS can be worthwhile to an organization for several reasons:
- Efficiency in Managing Vendor Tagging – Marketing asks for lots of tags, but many times they end up being part of the general IT queue, which can mean delays of weeks to months for a new vendor tag to go live. Having a TMS with the proper processes built around it will alleviate this gridlock and offer more marketing flexibility, for testing both vendors and additional opportunities with existing vendors or services.
- Site Speed Improvements – This is probably one of the largest reasons we hear people looking at adding a TMS to their infrastructure; however, this should be considered secondary to any internal efficiency benefits, especially given that most tags have now been updated to be synchronous.
- 3rd Party Cookie Opt-Out Compliance – This became the big deal and what brought companies like Tag Man to the US and prompted additional growth for companies like Ensighten. The EU had voted in stronger digital privacy regulations, and this prompted at least two proposals in the US that mirrored the EU regulations.
- Multi-Channel Data Consolidation – This has become the basis for more than one multi-channel attribution modeling solution. Being able to see the various channel paths and their sequencing is a key ingredient to building robust attribution models that can truly show where to expand investments and where not to. The data seen by a TMS can be used to feed your own internal model or power a vendor supplied attribution model such as those used by companies like Visual IQ.
- Rules-Based Tag Firing Protocols – As marketers, we like to determine when and where we fire certain tags, as well as the rules that determine which tags should fire for the vendor attribution. This can have direct cost benefits to an organization’s bottom line; there is nothing worse than paying multiple fees for the same transaction and a TMS can provide the flexibility to create rules determining when to suppress a tag from firing based on the sequence of a user’s interaction with multiple channels.
- Technological Compatibility – I’ve actually been bitten by this one (much to my chagrin) and so I am listing this one as the top evaluation point. Sometimes the way a TMS is coded to work can cause the need to create workarounds for things like script collisions. Without a detailed evaluation of how the TMS code works, you can end up with a bloated integration adding days, weeks or even months to the go-live date. So, make sure you have the right technical teammates as part of your vendor evaluation team during the RFP, and that they are getting the detailed information they need from the potential vendor. DO NOT select a vendor without this key evaluation step.
- Vendor Training – When digging into the specifics with potential vendors, make sure they provide a detailed training plan for your team members who that will have the day-to-day management of the TMS. The training becomes crucial for driving the efficiency benefits that a TMS provides and allows for the proper creation of the various supporting processes you need internally. Ideally, your organization should be able to deploy tags in at least half the time it took using your normal process.
- Vendor Support – This is a huge value for any vendor, but even more important considering the amount of technical integration that a TMS may require. Keep in mind that – due to personnel changes – your organization will look different from year to year. Make sure the vendor will support you during these transitions as well as provide day-to-day support regarding tag set-up questions and assistance.
- Process Building – As it is often a necessity to quickly get tags live, in many cases with little to no IT involvement (i.e., marketing vendor testing), what safety processes should be built into the go-live process? A good TMS vendor should already have models they can recommend based on experience with successful clients. Review these with the whole team (marketing and IT) in order to make sure you have a process that works for your organization. This should involve some testing levels for a tag to go live to safeguard against any issues with other tags or, worse yet, issues with the website in general.
- Vendor Infrastructure – This cannot be understated. Any vendor solution is only as good as the vendor’s infrastructure when supporting the areas in which you do business. Ask questions up front to avoid surprises. What are their typical up times? Do they do detailed performance monitoring, not only globally, but also at the individual client level? Can that monitoring be synced up with your internal site monitoring tools? How much caching do they do? What do they use as their content distribution network (CDN), and are the node structures of the CDN right for your organization? Dig deep here, and leverage the expertise available in your IT department to get solid answers and evaluations of those answers.
- What is the Organization’s Employee Turnover? – This is the most commonly overlooked question for any RFP. A vendor that can keep their employees and has a reputation of internal promotion and detailed training is crucial to any vendor-client relationship. This is a big enough deal that many clients will want to build a clause into the contract requiring notification of team changes.
- Will this solution speed up my time to market for vendor tagging?
- Do I have the internal structure to take advantage of the potential process efficiency gains?
- Am I in (or planning to) enter markets that require me to comply with 3rd party cookie opt-out functionality (e.g., the EU)?
- What are my benchmark request times, and will the proposed TMS beat them?
- Am I finding myself paying multiple CPAs on individual orders due to a lack of defined tag firing rules?
- Does my organization have plans to build a true, multi-channel attribution modeling system, and can the TMS provide the cookie stack consolidation necessary to contribute to it?
SEO Tools: Use the Tools You Already Have First
Published on eCommerceConsulting.com here on 02/13/2014
Now this is a scenario I’m sure most SEO and SEM Managers have seen: their organization buys a great, powerful SEO tool but finds they end up barely using it. Often the application itself gets the blame, but this is a sign the utility was bought prior to the company actually being ready to use it. So, the key is to use the options you have and get yourself into a position to extend the utilities in your toolbox, not simply to have lots of them that are barely used.
Of course, the most common SEO utilities everyone should have actually cost nothing at all: your Google and Bing webmaster tool accounts. These are great resources that every site has available, although frequently they overlooked and not truly put to use. Until you have really made use of the very rich data Google and Bing provide, you will not be able to make efficient and full use of other, costlier applications.
Other free tools to consider are FireBug for Firefox, PageSpeed and other similar applications. These allow you to dig into the technical side in addition to the signals coming from your webmaster accounts. Combined, these software solutions provide a lot of guidance on where to concentrate your foundational SEO-building efforts.
There are still more SEO tools available to your SEM team. How about your paid search data? What keywords are you bidding on that convert best, and what pages do they link to? Are those keywords even making the list for that certain page? If not, here is yet another unused component of your corporate SEO toolbox, and this one you actually pay for.
Ok, so let’s say you are already maximizing all 3 of these types of tools. Your webmaster accounts literally show you gold stars when you log into them, and FireBug, PageSpeed, etc., tell you that you have the fastest site on the web and the cleanest code imaginable. Are you ready to buy a really fancy tool now? Maybe, but wait, there’s more to evaluate first.
Now it is time to truly use your own investigation skills and really dig in before determining you want that fancy SEO Ferrari. For instance, have you been using advanced searches on Google and really taken a look at what Google has on your website? I’ll be honest, one of my favorite things is to pull up a company’s robots.txt file, choose a blocked value and then do a Google query of “site:<URL> inurl:<blocked value>” in order to see what is in the index and/or supplemental index that should not be. There are a ton of these advanced search options that can identify — and often define — new SEO improvement projects, and the best part is Google is showing you your leak areas right on Google itself. These are just some of the Google advanced search options all SEO people should have used at some point. Not only can these give you great information about your site, but they can also be used to identify weaknesses in your competitors’ SEO foundation and, like GI Joe said “knowing is half the battle.”
Obviously SEO is an ongoing task in every smart organization; that is why I call it “The Tortoise” of search. We all want the best SEO and the prestige and traffic and sales that come from it. However, when it comes to buying a fancy tool, ask yourself and your SEM team, “Are we maximizing those we already have?” If the answer is no or – worse yet — the answer is a shrug of the shoulders, don’t buy that fancy tool yet and save those dollars for making more dollars. Shoot, add what the utility would cost per month to an employee reward fund or to your paid search budget as a keyword testing fund. At the end of the day, your dollar will go further that way than spending it on a application your organization is not quite ready for.
Now go dig into those tools you may have forgotten that you have. Once they all give you gold stars, then go buy that Ferrari that will take you to the next level…that is, if you still actually need it.
Now this is a scenario I’m sure most SEO and SEM Managers have seen: their organization buys a great, powerful SEO tool but finds they end up barely using it. Often the application itself gets the blame, but this is a sign the utility was bought prior to the company actually being ready to use it. So, the key is to use the options you have and get yourself into a position to extend the utilities in your toolbox, not simply to have lots of them that are barely used.
Of course, the most common SEO utilities everyone should have actually cost nothing at all: your Google and Bing webmaster tool accounts. These are great resources that every site has available, although frequently they overlooked and not truly put to use. Until you have really made use of the very rich data Google and Bing provide, you will not be able to make efficient and full use of other, costlier applications.
Other free tools to consider are FireBug for Firefox, PageSpeed and other similar applications. These allow you to dig into the technical side in addition to the signals coming from your webmaster accounts. Combined, these software solutions provide a lot of guidance on where to concentrate your foundational SEO-building efforts.
There are still more SEO tools available to your SEM team. How about your paid search data? What keywords are you bidding on that convert best, and what pages do they link to? Are those keywords even making the list for that certain page? If not, here is yet another unused component of your corporate SEO toolbox, and this one you actually pay for.
Ok, so let’s say you are already maximizing all 3 of these types of tools. Your webmaster accounts literally show you gold stars when you log into them, and FireBug, PageSpeed, etc., tell you that you have the fastest site on the web and the cleanest code imaginable. Are you ready to buy a really fancy tool now? Maybe, but wait, there’s more to evaluate first.
Now it is time to truly use your own investigation skills and really dig in before determining you want that fancy SEO Ferrari. For instance, have you been using advanced searches on Google and really taken a look at what Google has on your website? I’ll be honest, one of my favorite things is to pull up a company’s robots.txt file, choose a blocked value and then do a Google query of “site:<URL> inurl:<blocked value>” in order to see what is in the index and/or supplemental index that should not be. There are a ton of these advanced search options that can identify — and often define — new SEO improvement projects, and the best part is Google is showing you your leak areas right on Google itself. These are just some of the Google advanced search options all SEO people should have used at some point. Not only can these give you great information about your site, but they can also be used to identify weaknesses in your competitors’ SEO foundation and, like GI Joe said “knowing is half the battle.”
Obviously SEO is an ongoing task in every smart organization; that is why I call it “The Tortoise” of search. We all want the best SEO and the prestige and traffic and sales that come from it. However, when it comes to buying a fancy tool, ask yourself and your SEM team, “Are we maximizing those we already have?” If the answer is no or – worse yet — the answer is a shrug of the shoulders, don’t buy that fancy tool yet and save those dollars for making more dollars. Shoot, add what the utility would cost per month to an employee reward fund or to your paid search budget as a keyword testing fund. At the end of the day, your dollar will go further that way than spending it on a application your organization is not quite ready for.
Now go dig into those tools you may have forgotten that you have. Once they all give you gold stars, then go buy that Ferrari that will take you to the next level…that is, if you still actually need it.
Paid Search: Setting Your Trademark PPC Keyword Net
Originally published on eCommerceConsulting.com here on 01/28/2014
Your trademark terms and brand name are crucial to your company. You may even hire lawyers to defend and protect them from interlopers. Essentially, your trademarks are your identity, and that includes your domain name. Now, I’m sure you do some paid search targeting around your trademarks in order to protect them from poachers, but do you also protect your trademark in other situations? Do you use your trademark paid search to create a retargeting effort for users looking to return to you? If not, you should, and here is how to go about setting up your trademark net.
When people begin a search, they do so in the hope of finding what they are looking for and where they want to buy it. This could look something like this:
1st search – “cake pan”
After this, the user will refine their search as they learn more information about what they may specifically want:
2nd search – “deep cake pan 8 inches”
3rd search – “round deep cake pan 8 inches”
Ok, now the user knows what they want, but from where? Well, chances are they came across several places to purchase it, but which did they choose?
4th search – “williams sonoma round deep cake pan 8 inches”
Now, Williams-Sonoma could pay the larger click cost for the keyword “round deep cake pan 8 inches” or they could have set up a trademark net keyword campaign and be catching this search with a trademark in the mix and paying a fraction of the click cost vs. having the non-branded term trigger the ad– or worse, a generic trademark ad that links the user to the homepage. Not only that, they could present additional options using sitelinks specific to cake pan shoppers based on data from their very own website and cake pan merchandiser. These sitelinks could be top brands like “OXO 8” Cake Pans” or “Stoneware Cake Pans” or related goods like “Top Rated Cake Spatulas” or “Cake Recipes for 8” Pans”. Picture a robust trademark long tail ad like this:
This ad not only provides the user additional options, but saves the
customer time to find the specific product and saves the organization
budget since this was specifically a branded search terms. To boot, by
using the sitelinks intelligently, this ad not only calls out a
top-selling brand, but also content and a potential add-on item, all
directly from one search ad.
Now, you may say, “They should already have high SEO rank for a search like that.” You’d be right. The bigger question is “Who else is bidding on these terms that will push the Williams-Sonoma SEO listing down the page?” and “Will the SEO listing provide additional options for the customer AND expose their targeted content AND a cross-sell?” Ok, think about it now…
Would there be other brands’ paid ads showing up all over the page? Yes, several.
Did the organic listings provide all the additional content made available by the example ad shown above? No, just a few different cake pan category pages. So the class on the “Essentials of Baking & Pastry” and the recipes for cakes that use a round cake pan are not exposed to the potential customer.
The essentials of a really good trademark net paid search campaign can be made pretty simple:
Create many micro trademark campaigns that combine your trademark with various category and product keywords.
Your trademark terms and brand name are crucial to your company. You may even hire lawyers to defend and protect them from interlopers. Essentially, your trademarks are your identity, and that includes your domain name. Now, I’m sure you do some paid search targeting around your trademarks in order to protect them from poachers, but do you also protect your trademark in other situations? Do you use your trademark paid search to create a retargeting effort for users looking to return to you? If not, you should, and here is how to go about setting up your trademark net.
When people begin a search, they do so in the hope of finding what they are looking for and where they want to buy it. This could look something like this:
1st search – “cake pan”
After this, the user will refine their search as they learn more information about what they may specifically want:
2nd search – “deep cake pan 8 inches”
3rd search – “round deep cake pan 8 inches”
Ok, now the user knows what they want, but from where? Well, chances are they came across several places to purchase it, but which did they choose?
4th search – “williams sonoma round deep cake pan 8 inches”
Now, Williams-Sonoma could pay the larger click cost for the keyword “round deep cake pan 8 inches” or they could have set up a trademark net keyword campaign and be catching this search with a trademark in the mix and paying a fraction of the click cost vs. having the non-branded term trigger the ad– or worse, a generic trademark ad that links the user to the homepage. Not only that, they could present additional options using sitelinks specific to cake pan shoppers based on data from their very own website and cake pan merchandiser. These sitelinks could be top brands like “OXO 8” Cake Pans” or “Stoneware Cake Pans” or related goods like “Top Rated Cake Spatulas” or “Cake Recipes for 8” Pans”. Picture a robust trademark long tail ad like this:
Round 8-Inch Cake Pans
Check out all of our great 8-inch
Cake pan options. Williams-Sonoma.
Williams-Sonoma.com/Cake–Pan
OXO Cake Pans Stoneware Cake Pans
Round Pan Cake Recipes Top Rated Cake Spatulas
Now, you may say, “They should already have high SEO rank for a search like that.” You’d be right. The bigger question is “Who else is bidding on these terms that will push the Williams-Sonoma SEO listing down the page?” and “Will the SEO listing provide additional options for the customer AND expose their targeted content AND a cross-sell?” Ok, think about it now…
Would there be other brands’ paid ads showing up all over the page? Yes, several.
Did the organic listings provide all the additional content made available by the example ad shown above? No, just a few different cake pan category pages. So the class on the “Essentials of Baking & Pastry” and the recipes for cakes that use a round cake pan are not exposed to the potential customer.
The essentials of a really good trademark net paid search campaign can be made pretty simple:
Create many micro trademark campaigns that combine your trademark with various category and product keywords.
- Add synergistic sitelinks to these campaigns based on the product or product line presented with the trademark.
- Consider additional content that could be exposed AND be helpful to a potential customer.
- Write these ads as if they are a retargeting touch to the searcher, since chances are they are.
- Set the max bids for these keywords higher than your generic trademark or generic keyword counter-parts, since, thanks to your ownership of the trademark, what you will pay will be a much lower click cost.
- Use Exact match and Phrase match types, as these will provide more data in the long run and may make it easier to identify new affinity trends.
- Make sure your sitelinks have detailed tracking so you can use this data to inform future content and cross-sell options. (Also, this is just a great way to use PPC to test complementary content that can be used to better your SEO).
- Launch it.
SEO is “The Tortoise”
Originally published on eCommerceConsulting.com here on 01/13/2014
This is part 2 of the Tortoise (SEO) and the Hare (PPC) analogy. SEO is definitely the Tortoise as steady forward progress and persistence will take this channel to the front of a successful and mature search marketing strategy. The key is to remember that, unlike the story, these 2 facets of a successful search marketing strategy must be used together and, for the best success, they need to inform each other.
Rule #1 is that SEO is a long haul channel. If you expect instant results and gratification, you should just concentrate on paid search and let SEO happen organically, as you will end up with better results in the long-run than if you are making excessive changes. Now, if you are in for the lucrative, long-term win that is proper SEO, just remember these 3 things: Be Patient. Be Foundational. Don’t Panic.
Start with a consistent strategy and objective. Remember that SEO isn’t about being #1 on a specific keyword, but having a good position on many strategic keywords and maintaining a hold on those positions once you have them. The real keywords and phrases that matter depend on what you’re selling, how diverse a market you serve and, at the end of the day, the keywords that convert the best for your company. If you sell thousands of diverse products, paying lone attention to 10 keywords is probably not the best thing to do. Even if you only sell a hundred products, all within the same use sphere, you still need to develop a coverage array of keywords that truly matter to your brand, thus creating the goal terms based on the best converting keywords from your highly organized paid search program. This ensures you are pursuing keywords that result in sales, not just traffic.
As your website grows and evolves, this will inevitably result in projects, many of which will be specifically focused on the following areas: SEO improvements, usability, conversion increases and data gathering. When looking specifically at any project, stop and ask the question, what is the real goal? Often I find that when asking others this question, the answer almost always has to do with performance, and usually focuses on improving conversion rates. Honestly, all four of the areas I mentioned above should be a considered part of every website change. Thinking this way will keep you focused on the foundation of the website vs. improvements for the sake of change. Always be foundational in your projects and remember that almost any time you make technology changes to your website, you will be affecting SEO one way or the other. Find that one person in your organization with a strong foothold in technology and SEO and get that person engaged early in projects.
So, now you are thinking about the diversity of keywords that mean something to your brand AND keeping your website’s foundation strong and focused. Great. Now remember this: If your SEO measurements show fast growth, be skeptical and dig in. SEO, as mentioned before, should be a long haul channel; fast gains typically mean something could become a problem down the road (just ask anyone who bought lots of links a year or so ago). Sure, sometimes the progress will be faster or result in better than expected progress, but always be skeptical. Focus on ‘white hat’ SEO practices like clean and simple URLs, quality informative copy, thoughtful internal cross-linking and, in general, usability. In the long run, this will put you at the top of results for searches that matter and drive that beautiful thing called conversion rates. After all, is it better to have a 1000 visits who convert at 1% in a week or a 1000 visits converting at 5% over 2 weeks because you rank on the right keywords, not just the “big” keywords? Keep the foundation in focus and keep it strong for the right kind of results.
So, what else besides the right state of mind do you need in order to build a top class SEO program? What remains to be done is to find the right people, build the right processes, foster the right relationships and use your data. The right people can be found for a price and sometimes that is an in-house person, other times a consultant or even an agency. The key is that once you find them, support them with streamlined processes and make sure that ALL the right people are working together. If your SEO team is lacking an IT counterpart, then projects will not go smoothly. Foster these relationships and promote cross-departmental interactions. Not only will this make sure the correct people are planning, vetting and designing projects, but it will also mean that you have the best people to design the processes that will be necessary for the long haul…remember, SEO is The Tortoise.
The final piece is data. SEO is about keywords and which keywords are most valuable from the perspective of multiple KPIs, including traffic available and conversion rates. Now, if you have a mature paid search program, you don’t have to look far for this data, which you already have in spades. Strategically use your paid search data to inform your SEO decisions, and you will end up with a win/win situation. Paid search will become more efficient due to better user interaction, and SEO rank will grow on keywords that really matter. This will lead to a proper overall SEM strategy.
In short, always remember that slow and steady SEO combined with a nimble, flexible and robust paid search program will truly create a serious SEM strategy. Build the right culture around the total search picture and it will be unstoppable and will not put you at risk of penalty from the likes of Google. Let the Hare carry the Tortoise, but finish with the Hare and the Tortoise hand-in-hand and leaving your competition gawking.
This is part 2 of the Tortoise (SEO) and the Hare (PPC) analogy. SEO is definitely the Tortoise as steady forward progress and persistence will take this channel to the front of a successful and mature search marketing strategy. The key is to remember that, unlike the story, these 2 facets of a successful search marketing strategy must be used together and, for the best success, they need to inform each other.
Rule #1 is that SEO is a long haul channel. If you expect instant results and gratification, you should just concentrate on paid search and let SEO happen organically, as you will end up with better results in the long-run than if you are making excessive changes. Now, if you are in for the lucrative, long-term win that is proper SEO, just remember these 3 things: Be Patient. Be Foundational. Don’t Panic.
Start with a consistent strategy and objective. Remember that SEO isn’t about being #1 on a specific keyword, but having a good position on many strategic keywords and maintaining a hold on those positions once you have them. The real keywords and phrases that matter depend on what you’re selling, how diverse a market you serve and, at the end of the day, the keywords that convert the best for your company. If you sell thousands of diverse products, paying lone attention to 10 keywords is probably not the best thing to do. Even if you only sell a hundred products, all within the same use sphere, you still need to develop a coverage array of keywords that truly matter to your brand, thus creating the goal terms based on the best converting keywords from your highly organized paid search program. This ensures you are pursuing keywords that result in sales, not just traffic.
As your website grows and evolves, this will inevitably result in projects, many of which will be specifically focused on the following areas: SEO improvements, usability, conversion increases and data gathering. When looking specifically at any project, stop and ask the question, what is the real goal? Often I find that when asking others this question, the answer almost always has to do with performance, and usually focuses on improving conversion rates. Honestly, all four of the areas I mentioned above should be a considered part of every website change. Thinking this way will keep you focused on the foundation of the website vs. improvements for the sake of change. Always be foundational in your projects and remember that almost any time you make technology changes to your website, you will be affecting SEO one way or the other. Find that one person in your organization with a strong foothold in technology and SEO and get that person engaged early in projects.
So, now you are thinking about the diversity of keywords that mean something to your brand AND keeping your website’s foundation strong and focused. Great. Now remember this: If your SEO measurements show fast growth, be skeptical and dig in. SEO, as mentioned before, should be a long haul channel; fast gains typically mean something could become a problem down the road (just ask anyone who bought lots of links a year or so ago). Sure, sometimes the progress will be faster or result in better than expected progress, but always be skeptical. Focus on ‘white hat’ SEO practices like clean and simple URLs, quality informative copy, thoughtful internal cross-linking and, in general, usability. In the long run, this will put you at the top of results for searches that matter and drive that beautiful thing called conversion rates. After all, is it better to have a 1000 visits who convert at 1% in a week or a 1000 visits converting at 5% over 2 weeks because you rank on the right keywords, not just the “big” keywords? Keep the foundation in focus and keep it strong for the right kind of results.
So, what else besides the right state of mind do you need in order to build a top class SEO program? What remains to be done is to find the right people, build the right processes, foster the right relationships and use your data. The right people can be found for a price and sometimes that is an in-house person, other times a consultant or even an agency. The key is that once you find them, support them with streamlined processes and make sure that ALL the right people are working together. If your SEO team is lacking an IT counterpart, then projects will not go smoothly. Foster these relationships and promote cross-departmental interactions. Not only will this make sure the correct people are planning, vetting and designing projects, but it will also mean that you have the best people to design the processes that will be necessary for the long haul…remember, SEO is The Tortoise.
The final piece is data. SEO is about keywords and which keywords are most valuable from the perspective of multiple KPIs, including traffic available and conversion rates. Now, if you have a mature paid search program, you don’t have to look far for this data, which you already have in spades. Strategically use your paid search data to inform your SEO decisions, and you will end up with a win/win situation. Paid search will become more efficient due to better user interaction, and SEO rank will grow on keywords that really matter. This will lead to a proper overall SEM strategy.
In short, always remember that slow and steady SEO combined with a nimble, flexible and robust paid search program will truly create a serious SEM strategy. Build the right culture around the total search picture and it will be unstoppable and will not put you at risk of penalty from the likes of Google. Let the Hare carry the Tortoise, but finish with the Hare and the Tortoise hand-in-hand and leaving your competition gawking.
Paid Search is “The Hare”
Originally published on eCommerceConsulting.com here back on 01/07/2014.
Here are the simplified steps to getting paid search live:
Now that you are live, start expanding and remember to keep an open mind about budgeting. A flexible, performance-based budget will give your SEM manager/agency/etc. the ability to capitalize on emerging trends and to create a more robust paid search channel in the long-run. Another advantage of a flexible, performance-based budget for paid search is PPC’s usefulness in testing landing page performance and identifying the most effective keywords for a given page. Turn this data into informed SEO for the page tested.
Now, when you do identify an emerging trend, a prompt and informed response is key. Dig into the analytics and use that data to also try to confirm the trend. Did you find a positive trend? Then shift budget to it and monitor it. If you find a negative trend, shift budget away from it reserve resources for a positive trend. Many times, a positive trend will mean that a negative trend is happening at the same time, so that can make the budget shifts easy. Also, don’t forget to look for additional keyword expansion options when you spot a trend. This could be an expansion of a certain area of your keyword campaign, or in a negative trend, it may simply mean the need to expand and refine your negative keywords. Finally, when it comes to trends, always look at the longevity of the trend. If it ends up being a lasting trend, use the paid search data to inform targeting changes for SEO.
The other major flexibility you have with a well organized paid search channel is the ability to control your overall search return on investment (ROI) but tracking is key to clean data. Make sure you (or your agency) are using the granular tracking parameter values and dig into them constantly. Use this to confirm trends and drive informed decisions regarding when and where to increase/decrease budgets to improve your overall paid search ROI. As always, there will be keywords that you always want to show up on, but with a robust paid search strategy, there should be plenty of ROI offsets that can keep these “mandatory” keywords in play at positions acceptable to you and your executives.
Much like all SEO, paid search benefits from consistent management and longevity of activity. As you leverage paid search, remember to give things time to become established. Paid search is driven by algorithms just like all other search engine marketing, and longevity of data will result in the ability to make better decisions across your organization and allow the individual search engine algorithms time to better optimize when and where they show your particular ads.
Given many of you are probably using a vendor to build and manage your paid search, here are a couple of additional strategies for creating a true partnership with them. First off, make sure you have as much transparency as possible. Does your SEM manager have direct access to the paid search accounts and are the accounts owned by you vs. the agency? Is the reporting you get from them at a granular enough level for your SEM manager to identify trends? Are you using a common reporting vehicle on top of any proprietary internal/external analytics systems? I personally find Google Analytics to be a great shared analytics platform when working with a vendor, but the key is to measure variances between the agency’s internal conversion reporting system and your own internal reporting system. Consistently evaluate these variances and monitor benchmarks. Finally, make sure your SEM Manager’s primary role is SEM and not simply reporting on SEM. Allow them to have time in the trenches with the agency. If they are not working hand-in-hand with the agency, even down to keyword expansions, push for a change. Reporting is a good thing but not to the detriment of leaving business on the table for competition. Strike a balance and empower your people to empower your agency. Set real, tangible expectations for the agency and regularly ask your agency about trends they may be seeing in your accounts. Also, make sure they build out your campaigns in a highly organized fashion that equates directly to your existing website’s taxonomy, as a highly organized paid search structure will always reap long-term benefits and will also allow better responsiveness to granular, short-term trends.
In conclusion, use paid search like it is the Hare in the race. Leverage the flexibility and the immense amounts of data available, given you can get quite a clear picture quickly when using and analyzing it correctly. Use paid search to sprint ahead of your competition and then leverage that data to inform other areas of your online business, especially SEO, to shore up your lead.
Next week, look for the next article in this set called ‘SEO is “The Tortoise”’ where I’ll discuss SEO at a high level and, strategies for ensuring that slow and steady will win the race.
See you at the races!
------------------
We all know the story of the Tortoise vs. the Hare. The Hare was
able to gain ground immediately but was also the most likely to get
distracted. Paid Search is the Hare when it comes to search marketing,
but when the data is used to inform other areas of the business,
particularly other search-leaning channels like SEO, your company can
end up with some very big wins.Here are the simplified steps to getting paid search live:
- Open an Account
- Set up Payment (credit card is the fastest)
- Pull the tracking tag for the account and get it on the site (not required, but smart)
- Define your analytics tracking value template
- Name a Campaign and AdGroup (I like to start with “Trademarks” and “Brand – Exact”)
- Develop a list of keywords (your brand name is always a good start)
- Decide on the landing page (trademark/brand is easy, start with your homepage)
- Write 2-3 ads to start
- Choose 4 main areas of your site and set up your Sitelinks
- Choose a maximum bid amount (if you don’t know what to start with, start with $0.50 and adjust from there)
- Launch
Now that you are live, start expanding and remember to keep an open mind about budgeting. A flexible, performance-based budget will give your SEM manager/agency/etc. the ability to capitalize on emerging trends and to create a more robust paid search channel in the long-run. Another advantage of a flexible, performance-based budget for paid search is PPC’s usefulness in testing landing page performance and identifying the most effective keywords for a given page. Turn this data into informed SEO for the page tested.
Now, when you do identify an emerging trend, a prompt and informed response is key. Dig into the analytics and use that data to also try to confirm the trend. Did you find a positive trend? Then shift budget to it and monitor it. If you find a negative trend, shift budget away from it reserve resources for a positive trend. Many times, a positive trend will mean that a negative trend is happening at the same time, so that can make the budget shifts easy. Also, don’t forget to look for additional keyword expansion options when you spot a trend. This could be an expansion of a certain area of your keyword campaign, or in a negative trend, it may simply mean the need to expand and refine your negative keywords. Finally, when it comes to trends, always look at the longevity of the trend. If it ends up being a lasting trend, use the paid search data to inform targeting changes for SEO.
The other major flexibility you have with a well organized paid search channel is the ability to control your overall search return on investment (ROI) but tracking is key to clean data. Make sure you (or your agency) are using the granular tracking parameter values and dig into them constantly. Use this to confirm trends and drive informed decisions regarding when and where to increase/decrease budgets to improve your overall paid search ROI. As always, there will be keywords that you always want to show up on, but with a robust paid search strategy, there should be plenty of ROI offsets that can keep these “mandatory” keywords in play at positions acceptable to you and your executives.
Much like all SEO, paid search benefits from consistent management and longevity of activity. As you leverage paid search, remember to give things time to become established. Paid search is driven by algorithms just like all other search engine marketing, and longevity of data will result in the ability to make better decisions across your organization and allow the individual search engine algorithms time to better optimize when and where they show your particular ads.
Given many of you are probably using a vendor to build and manage your paid search, here are a couple of additional strategies for creating a true partnership with them. First off, make sure you have as much transparency as possible. Does your SEM manager have direct access to the paid search accounts and are the accounts owned by you vs. the agency? Is the reporting you get from them at a granular enough level for your SEM manager to identify trends? Are you using a common reporting vehicle on top of any proprietary internal/external analytics systems? I personally find Google Analytics to be a great shared analytics platform when working with a vendor, but the key is to measure variances between the agency’s internal conversion reporting system and your own internal reporting system. Consistently evaluate these variances and monitor benchmarks. Finally, make sure your SEM Manager’s primary role is SEM and not simply reporting on SEM. Allow them to have time in the trenches with the agency. If they are not working hand-in-hand with the agency, even down to keyword expansions, push for a change. Reporting is a good thing but not to the detriment of leaving business on the table for competition. Strike a balance and empower your people to empower your agency. Set real, tangible expectations for the agency and regularly ask your agency about trends they may be seeing in your accounts. Also, make sure they build out your campaigns in a highly organized fashion that equates directly to your existing website’s taxonomy, as a highly organized paid search structure will always reap long-term benefits and will also allow better responsiveness to granular, short-term trends.
In conclusion, use paid search like it is the Hare in the race. Leverage the flexibility and the immense amounts of data available, given you can get quite a clear picture quickly when using and analyzing it correctly. Use paid search to sprint ahead of your competition and then leverage that data to inform other areas of your online business, especially SEO, to shore up your lead.
Next week, look for the next article in this set called ‘SEO is “The Tortoise”’ where I’ll discuss SEO at a high level and, strategies for ensuring that slow and steady will win the race.
See you at the races!
Tuesday, March 26, 2013
Company "House"
I see a lot of companies that from the outside look awesome, but internally, well, they are just a house of cards.
Build a true home for your business and the assets that make it work. Knowing your product and market are not what will make you the top person. Having the right people, technology and company cultural climate will delightfully surprise with the success that is possible.
Peace.
Shanti
Build a true home for your business and the assets that make it work. Knowing your product and market are not what will make you the top person. Having the right people, technology and company cultural climate will delightfully surprise with the success that is possible.
Peace.
Shanti
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