Kerstin Baker-Ash

New Look to the Google Search Engine Results Page (SERP)

I rarely get excited about SERP changes but after the Google+ announcement and even since +1, there have been indications that something big was happening at Google. I love the clean design and fresh look of the Google Search Engine Results Page (SERP). It's a bit busier, but I think Google's minimalist design of the last decade was lacking in personality. With Google now being all about social, it's time their SERPs reflected that in the ability to interact (I'm logged in on Google+) and share like we've never been able to before.

It's a beautiful thing.

Google's Buggy Floating Maps

Google's annoying floating map issue could've started out life as an engineering bug, quickly snowballing into a real pain for paid search marketers. Not familiar with the issue? Basically, scrolling down any page with map results past the imaginary fold results in the non-premium ads on the right hand side of the page to disappear underneath the map.

It's annoying from a UI point of view - Google Maps follows you down the page, but weren't you scrolling down because the top half wasn't necessarily relevant to you? It's also very frustrating from a paid search marketing point of view. Some SEM folks have commented that their best conversion rates or ROI result in clicks on ads in position four - that disappears when the map disappears the ad. Suddenly, your SERPs go from this:

Turns into this:

At the bottom of the page, bloomsnroses.com completely disappears.

It's a head scratcher, only because it clearly isn't designed to help with UI - it's more of a revenue blocker. I can't see how that makes any commercial sense, but it's been going on for a while. Oversight, unfixable bug or buggy revelation?

Direct Online Marketing recorded a video of this back in October that shows the buggy floating maps results in real time:

 

New Look to the Google AdWords Ad Preview Tool

Woke up this morning to do some regional PPC sleuthing, and it looks like Google has finally rolled out a new look Ad Preview Tool. I'm happy to be corrected, but I don't think Google's Ad Preview Tool has been updated since about 2006. I really dig the new look - it's cleaner, it's more intuitive and it has a fantastic feature that allows you to input coordinates instead of a place name for added accuracy.

Even more helpful for a new wave of mobile marketers, you can preview the look and feel of SERPs by mobile device (with a full internet browser only). That means you can see how your ad looks to an iPhone/iPod Touch user, Android, Palm webOS or an iPad. You can further refine to carrier in a host of countries - I checked the usual UK, USA, Canada and then expanded to the rest of Europe, and even some locations in the Middle East. 

Thanks for the long overdue update to the Ad Preview Tool, Google. It's fabulous and quite possibly worth the wait.

Google AdWords Interface Bugs

Why not start the year off right with a slew of bugs in Google's AdWords interface? The latest bug hit just during final year report times, and seems to not be able to show data on certain accounts prior to October 2010 in the Campaigns summary tab.

Whitewashed for privacy, there's absolutely no information (clicks, cost, impressions) available in the Campaigns Summary Tab prior to October 2010. The information isn't available when downloaded, either. Getting nervous, I went to the change history to see if the campaign had been modified in such a way that the information would no longer be available.

Like magic, campaign information appears (it's a seasonally relevant campaign for January - April, in case you were wondering). I've got clicks, impressions, cost and no idea why this information isn't available in the Campaigns summary tab. No quick answer today either, because it's a bank holiday.

If anyone has information on why this is occurring or how to rectify it, I would be eternally grateful.

Paid Search Sitelinks - The Inside Story, Part II

Yesterday, in Paid Search Sitelinks - The Inside Story, Part I, we discussed the issues surrounding Google's new beta platform for PPC sitelinks. Today, let's talk about workarounds to the problems, and what this new system can add to your site's ROI potential.

The Workarounds

You've got your four links appearing below your main ads - links that Google has picked for optimization heaven. However, your highest sale volume link isn't appearing because it's CTR is half a percentage point lower than another. The fix is relatively easy - you simply need to work around the system instead of going through it like good boys and girls. In your campaign settings, select the six ads you don't want appearing and delete them. That's it - by removing Google's say over your sitelinks, you remove the need to optimize the titles of the links and the pages they go to. After all, you know best pages within your site for conversion, so you should be able to make a very educated decision about how your site's PPC campaign is displayed in Google.

Campaign settings mean that you're up a certain creek without a paddle if you've structured your account with many ad groups within a single campaign. Firstly, you need to do a bit of restructuring to get the sitelinks for the right campaigns; this may mean building out a campaign with a single ad group, just to make it more tightly targeted. Also, consider this: brand searches are, for the most part, the results that pop up with sitelinks in the natural search results. Your brand results in the natural SERPs are going to be pushed down if you're using paid search sitelinks, so you need to act like a consumer and focus primarily on your brand terms initially. This isn't to say that generic terms (like "insurance", "vacations", "clothes", etc) couldn't be optimized for paid search sitelinks - über-generics are perfect for this beta - it's just good to get a feel for the way searchers interact with your new campaign setup on a safe term first.

Finally, keyword tracking. Honestly, there isn't much of a workaround here. As my confidential informant told me, "the idea here is to increase overall sales." Although tracking results at a keyword level is great and very much recommended in any PPC campaign, treat it like the cherry on your sundae instead of the nuts and track your paid search sitelink results at a campaign level. You should have already split your campaigns out very granularly already, so this tracking will act as close as possible to tracking at the keyword level anyway.

In the Future

How cool would it be if Google came out with a heatmap of SERPs with paid search sitelinks? If they want to keep pushing SEO down (and let's be honest, it's not a money maker by any stretch of the imagination for them), this would be a great case study to analyze eyeball dwell time on PPC sitelinks.

Overall, putting two and two together (more links, more prominence) should make your campaign tick along very nicely. Presumably, the more prominence given to five links from a single advertiser should push it well over the edge in terms of campaign expectations and ROI on brand terms and über-generics.

Are you considering opting in to Google's paid search sitelink beta? Have you already been doing it and found a way to track more granularly than campaign level? If you have, or have any questions about the program, let me know by filling in the comment form below - I'll see if myself or my secret Google snitch can answer them for you.

Paid Search Sitelinks - The Inside Story, Part I

After writing my initial post on paid search sitelinks, I was contacted by someone who is testing sitelinks in the field for a retail client. This person, while wishing to remain anonymous (I've always wanted to say that), has gone through the interface, what the benefits are and why it's not a perfect system yet. 

The Basics

This only works on ads in premium; ads that appear above the natural search results, not alongside them on the left. You can choose up to ten links to appear underneath your main ad - Google will automatically choose four and the settings are applied at campaign level.

The Issues

Since only four links are displayed at one time, you need to find a way to optimize for the best performing links out of the ten you've chosen. Google determines this much like they determine ad rotation - the best CTR wins the game. Even if you want to have all the traffic driving to your biggest money maker, you might be forced to use other links because of a lower CTR. Pants.

Also, these choices are applied at campaign level. So, all the sitelinks will apply to all of the ads eligible in the campaign itself, regardless of ad group. This can result in irrelevant links showing up for your ads.

Presumably, if you're willing to pay top dollar for a premium ad listing (i.e. top position), you'll also have a fancy tracking system in place to track the campaign's effectiveness down to keyword level. Well, scrap it. The sitelink URL usurps the keyword URL - you're no longer tracking at keyword level. 

Tomorrow in Paid Search Sitelinks - The Inside Story, Part II, I'll discuss potential workarounds and optimization techniques to the issues mentioned above. Also, we'll look at the benefits of using sitelinks in your paid search account.

Paid Search Sitelinks

First reported in August and September by Darrin Ward (USA) and iCrossing (UK) respectively, Google are now allowing some advertisers additional real estate at the top of the pops in paid SERPs. While this is largely a helpful step for PPC advertisers, what isn't discussed at length is the implications on natural listings, and the impact that has on SEO.

 

It's important to note that there are negative implications for brands invited to participate in the test. Firstly, the tracking needs four new layers added to a campaign to test the efficacy of sitelinks off one brand term. This can be a pain if you set it up with older tracking software which then requires individual tracking tags on the four different pages. A headache, but not an insurmountable obstacle. 

You can't measure brand engagement on a home page when you deeplink searchers to a microsite within the main homepage. The advertiser provides Google with a list of ten possible sitelinks; while they respect the order you give those sitelinks in, Google reserves the right to change your list without notice depending on performance. These are brand searches, not additional query strings with pets, motors or business tacked on to the back - it's also possible that searchers will not feel like their particular query (let's say content insurance) is being met, even though they searched on the pure brand term. Let's not discuss additional revenue generation methods by Google, it's something akin to beating a dead animal with a nuclear weapon.

On the positive side of the argument, you have the potential to give your brand extra prominence (in paid SERPs at least, more on SEO later). More users can engage with different strands of your brand - pets, motors, business, etc - without having to search or navigate through different parts of your site. Let's also not discuss the conversion potential for pure brand queries in paid search without additional sitelink help, either - see dead animal/nuclear weapon reference above.

Does this hurt traffic to natural listings? Potentially. When pages in the natural part of SERPs are pushed further and further down, this can't help with a case for SEO and brand optimization. Forget about outranking on key generic terms, either - if there are three paid ads at the top of the SERP and one of them has sitelinks, you can pretty much forget about appearing above the fold on most computer screens. To be fair, paid sitelinks are largely within the domain of brand terms, not generics. However, the rollout potential is dangerous when you consider the work that goes in to jumping even a one place above a competitor in natural rankings.

It's far too early to comment on the efficacy of Google's newest PPC beta test, but it will be very interesting to see if it increases brand engagement on different areas of a site or drives searchers to exactly the same place they wanted to go in the first place - the home page. 

I'm Back - And My First Google Streetview "Find"

Not so much with a vengeance this time, but a quiet, September-like whimper. With the holidays upon us (not the Jingle Bell kind), I'll share some of my favorite new year recipes (I cooked up a storm this weekend), some new things going on in my world and also a couple of SEM tips and tricks (I'm trying to keep the blog somewhat SEM-y, you know).

First, I thought I'd kick off the month with "the man that Google didn't erase" - a lovely photo of a man on Streetview whose hands, rather than his face, are blurred to mask identity (perhaps he's a famous hand model?). The unfortunate gentleman appears opposite 42 Eversholt Street (near Euston Station) in what looks akin to an early morning hangover nap:

Curiously, he's photographed across the road from a table dancing venue - perhaps the reason for his early morning stupor?

Is Google's Traffic Estimator Accurate?

No.

Google Traffic Estimator accuracy seems to have been lost in the sands of time, updates and shinier tools. It is woefully underestimating traffic for top search trends in the UK. Consider the recent Swine Flu outbreak (which the British media is making into an I am Legend epidemic). On Google Insights for Search, you can clearly see two distinct uplifts in traffic volume; one when it broke in April, and another since we started seeing more and more rates of infection and media attention:

Now take a look at Google Traffic Estimator's traffic predictions for the term "swine flu" - 0 clicks a day? £1 per day? Never mind the mathematics of dividing by zero, but how often is this updated? How can Google suggest using the traffic estimator with results as inaccurate as these:

When projecting costs and clicks for your internal stakeholders or for clients, make a point of querying the accuracy of the Traffic Estimator. Use your own judgement and search engine marketing know-how - remember that it's perhaps in Google's best interests to underestimate so that you will have to feed more money to keep up a seemingly impossibly great traffic level. Never rely on a sole source of information when building a campaign from scratch, or even expanding it.

If there wasn't a case for research before - here's your clear justification to invest in a proper keyword prediction tool or extra resource for human research.

Sports and Search

Google, in their infinite wisdom, has given us a very easy way to obsessively check scores in a non-work threatening way. Since moving to the UK and marrying into a family of Cricket fans, I've found myself very interested in the Ashes, a marathon of tests and days of Cricket every two years between England and Australia. Naturally, I like to keep up to date with the boys' progress, but don't want it to take up too much time (wicket gone? Great. Back to work). Unfortunately, Google doesn't make it easy to search for one or two simple words (Ashes or Ashes Test):

Instead, you're forced to hunt and peck around until you come to the conclusion that you should be typing in "England Australia":

While I'm pleased at the current score (which would mean an historic English win at Lord's), I would be an even happier camper if Google didn't make it so hard to type out nearly twice the number of characters necessary to get an up to date score.

Checking on the BBC site now - England have just won their first test match against Australia at Lord's since 1934. Yippee!