Google’s 3rd Most Important Ranking Factor & Why You Should Care

Back in November 2015, and during UAE Innovation Week, I presented about the future of search. One of the areas I covered was Google’s “RankBrain“.

Google has confirmed that RankBrain is one of the top three ranking factors for search engine results placement. The first and second most important, not in order, are content and links. The third most important ranking factor, RankBrain is one that poses significant challenges to designers, content creators, and marketers who are trying to design content specifically for ranking purposes. RankBrain, an artificial intelligence system that learns user search behavior and evaluates website content, is – according to a March 2016 Q&A with a Senior Strategist at Google – the third most important ranking factor out of the hundreds they use to rank and place search results.

In October 2015, Bloomberg reported on RankBrain and included some key information about the AI factor as provided by one of Google’s senior research scientists. This information included the statement that RankBrain was the third most important ranking factor in search results, so the March 2016 statement is simply a confirmation of what we’d already been told by a senior Google staffer. RankBrain is still in third place officially, but the position is “hotly contested” as it jockeys for better placement against content and links in the top three ranking factors.

Why care?

Why does RankBrain challenge designers who are focusing on SERP placement? Because it isn’t a static algorithm component that you can easily define and design around or for. It learns and evolves with every one of the billions of user queries and thousands of indexed web pages it encounters each day. RankBrain also doesn’t replace the many different elements of Google’s algorithm, it is just one small cog in the massive algorithm machine that Google officially named Hummingbird in mid-2013. Now, after you’ve optimized your online content for as many verified ranking factors as you can find, you have to contend with a factor that may be just as unpredictable as user search behavior.

Before you start fretting about your SEO strategies, you should know that RankBrain does not handle all search queries performed on Google, which sees millions of queries every second. Most of the searches that RankBrain processes are those that have never been entered into a search query box before. While you might think that there isn’t much Google hasn’t seen yet, keep in mind that it receives three billion search queries every single day. Approximately 15% of those queries – or 450 million – are searches never before entered by any human being.

The ability to analyze and interpret as-yet-unknown and ambiguous searches is a huge step forward in the search industry because, completely new queries aside, searchers are asking questions or looking for information with more conversational words and phrases than ever before, too. Voice searches on mobile devices have opened the doors for this practice to a large degree, and users are taking advantage of the convenience of speaking their query rather than typing it.

While you might think this has little to do with your marketing strategies, RankBrain does have an impact on your SEO. It means you will have to start doing what you should have been doing all along – designing your content for users, not search engines. Some of the ways you can do this include:

• Using more conversational search phrases as your keywords.
• Including long-tail keywords in your content to make it more relevant to user searches.
• Applying user experience design (UXD) tips to your websites, pages, and content.

The March 2016 Q&A that confirmed the top three ranking factors also provided a bit more insight into how Google’s algorithm works. The Senior Strategist for Google said that, in essence, different parts of the algorithm have more or less weight depending on the search queries entered and the search results provided. One set of results may show that a dozen specific algorithm factors dominate the determination of SERP placement, while another set of results doesn’t take any of those same factors into account when assigning rank position. This adds one more dynamic factor to the way designers, marketers, and content creators have to shift their focus toward an optimal user experience rather than an experience created for an algorithm.

Closing thoughts…

If you have been tailoring your online content to meet the wants, needs, and demands of your audience all along, you likely have little to worry about when it comes to RankBrain or any other Google algorithm component. Keep your focus on creating the most valuable and engaging experience for your users and they will repay you with continued traffic, leads, and a return on your investment that a search engine can never provide.

Image by www.flickr.com/photos/cblue98/

This post was originally published on Sandstorm Digital FZE

3 WAYS TWITTER CAN CREATE A REVENUE STREAM FOR YOUR BUSINESS

Social Media is an interesting place to be - It's like one giant experiment in psychology wrapped inside a marketer's dream. It's sophisticated, crazy, funny, depressing, egocentric and happy all at once. People from all walks of life engage companies on social media in many different ways.

The possibilities of generating revenue on social media are endless, but that doesn't mean it's automatic. There are still rules you need to follow to get your business found and generate traffic and leads through your website.

If done correctly you can create a strong lead-generating revenue stream giving you a huge advantage over your competitors. There are millions of people interacting on Twitter who don't even bother with Facebook anymore.

Facebook still dominates social media, but from a businesses perspective it can be hard to convert as not everyone is as receptive as other platforms. They don't use it as effectively as a place to interact with their favorite companies like they do on Twitter.

Twitter could overcome Facebook as the place to establish a presence for your business if they can grow their user base in the next several years. Through careful planning and and execution, you can turn your Twitter feed into a revenue-generating platform, while also driving traffic back to your website.

1. Lets Make  A Deal: Twitter Edition!

Twitter has always been a great place to cultivate leads and establish a business presence. Now that Twitter and Google have made a deal, it could be the most important out of any other social media platform around (searchengineland.com).

What kind of deal have they made?

Google will now be indexing more tweets. You can't index all tweets as Google's servers would crash but it can still be very effective for your business. Only indexing a few tweets can work to your advantage as there are certain profiles that have a better chance of finding their way into Google's servers. Once they're in there, people can search for your company using hash tags which is a powerful SEO trick that not many businesses are utilizing.

As of right now they are now indexing roughly 6% of all Tweets. Why is this significant and important? It creates a social backlink to your website. It's another way for people to find you and also find Twitter.

While Twitter doesn't make money directly off of this, they do so indirectly. If more businesses can find them, they may sign up to Twitter Ads and pay money for sponsored Tweets. This will bring in more revenue for both Twitter and your business.

If more businesses establish a presence on Google that means more people will, too. People love interacting with their favorite companies on Twitter.  Some people only make a Twitter account to follow their favorite movie stars, athletes, companies or restaurants. 

You can be a part of someone's Twitter feed, giving you access to what they share and also to get yourself in front of their eyes.

2. Word Of Mouth

They say a Re-Tweet is more important than a Tweet.

Why is that?

Every business knows that word-of-mouth advertising can take a long time to establish but adds a lot to your bottom line.

It's hard to measure word-of-mouth and social proof. When a friend tells you about an excellent experience they had at a local car dealership that could be the difference whether you choose one dealership over another. Friends and family create social proof for one another all the time. Most people are already insecure about buying cars so that one referral can be very powerful. Addressing certain insecurities before someone comes into your business can make all the difference in sales.

You can do all of this on Twitter. 

We can measure social proof with Re-Tweets. Re-Tweets in many different forms can be powerful for your business presence. 

Lets say you have a small community of friends and family all following your business on Twitter - One day you tweet out a promotion. A mom re-tweets it, whose son and daughter then re-tweet it. Then their dad re-tweets it to his co-workers who all also re-tweet it.

Because all of these people are following your company and each other, they all see it. The people following those people all see it as well. This is word-of-mouth and social proof in action.

Then you combine that with the opportunity to get your Tweet indexed and you have a powerful search engine optimization trick you can't replicate on Facebook.

3. Human Interaction

When you build a Twitter profile and start gaining followers, it can help you get up close and personal with the people that matter the most. Not everyone wants to pick up the phone and call anymore.

People now interact with the world through search engines and social media. They keep up with their friends and family on Social Media.  While everyone has a smart phone it's more convenient to engage on twitter.  Lots of companies release exclusive news and information on Twitter. Information and news travels much faster on social media. Instead of waiting for the news to come to them people are actively going out and searching for it.

Twitter can be instant - Why wait to see it on TV when you can seek out this news with a smart phone in multiple different areas? It gives you information about your favorite companies in bite-sized pieces of information. It lets your customers decide whether they want to continue interacting with you.

It only makes sense that your business should be there. You can get up close and personal and also monitor what your potential customers are doing. You can keep track of what they like, don't like, Tweet or Re-Tweet. This is all very powerful information as to how to interact with them and how to market to them.

By releasing exclusive information you can gain favor with your fan base. This will also get them to follow you much more closely. When you release an exclusive on your website, put that link into a tweet and tweet it out they may be more likely to click thru to your website for an offer. Fans on Twitter love it when they get exclusive access and information to them first. You're letting them know what the offer is and letting them decide whether or not they should click to your website to claim it.

It's less in your face advertising. It empowers your fan base to make decisions by giving them the necessary information.

This is all information that used to take years to learn about through survey after survey. Now you can learn about it right away. You can test different methods well and reach out to influencers.

What are influencers? They are the people who enjoy your company so much that they will go out of their way to share info about it. Not only will they share about it on social media but they will tell others about excellent experiences they've had interacting with you on Twitter.

This goes back to the whole word-of-mouth and social proof aspect.

Is Social Media For You?

It's not even a question anymore. Now that Google and Twitter have made a deal it's vital to your short and long term search engine optimization. SEO is now the most important aspect of your business and Twitter plays a big part in the process.

All you have to do is figure out what voice you want to have on social media. Once you establish that voice it can go a long way in creating an untapped lead generation stream your competitors are ignoring.

https://www.getfoundfast.com/blog/3-ways-twitter-seo-can-create-a-revenue-stream-for-your-business

HOW LINKS HELP GOOGLE FIND YOUR BUSINESS WEBSITE

What are links?

There are many  in the SEO world who would consider links the life force of the internet. More than any other search engine optimization technique, it is said that link building carries the most weight in ranking a website. At the most basic level, they help people find your website and create pathways to get there. If there were only one link that people could use to access your website, it wouldn't get much traffic. 

Not all links are created equal and it's important to know the difference between a good link and a bad link. Let's breakdown what a link is and why links are so important.

Links are considered the first big Off-The-Page ranking factor that search engines use to determine the page rank of your website. You could think of links as a vote of confidence by search engines. In the early days, the more links there are the better off your website was. The same concept holds true in today's SEO world as well. Google was the first search engine to rely on link analysis to improve relevancy and that's when search optimization as a job path first began. It takes a team of SEO experts to build and manage your link profile.

To this day links are the most valuable search engine signal you can have, but is more better?  With links and link building it's all about quality and not quantity.

What makes up a quality link? If you were looking for brand new Michael Jordan Basketball shoes, would you want a 100 different websites telling you to buy from them, or 3-5 that have a reputation for being an expert on basketball shoes? The Michael Jordan brand has more companies creating knockoffs  than any other company in the world. The Jordan knockoff industry is a multi-million dollar business.

It's hard to find legitimate Jordan re-sellers that only sell authentic Jordans. Because of that, you want to make sure who you're buying from is a reputable Michael Jordan re-seller. Nike has an application process before anyone can re-sell the Jordan brand just like Google has a system to rank pages.

If it's a high-quality link from an authority website filled with experts, then it will boost your website's page ranking. If it's considered a high-quality link, then the website has most likely established, "E-A-T" in the search engine world. E-A-T stands for expertise, authority and trustworthiness. It's the same thing if you were looking for a doctor when you get the flu. Would you want 100 doctors telling you the best remedy or 3-5 who have E-A-T giving you a remedy? A bad doctor telling you what to do, like a bad website linking to your website, can cost you in more ways than one.

If you get hundreds of links from some Chinese knockoff Michael Jordan website, it will hurt your ranking. However, let's say you had a link pointing to your website from Nike as well as Foot Locker and Dick's Sporting Goods to go along with NBA.com?

Those links are priceless and you can't put a number on how valuable they could be for your website and your overall bottom line. They can also send high quality traffic to your website. The people browsing Nike's official website are way more likely to buy then traffic sent from a website in China. Often times these are just bots sending signals to your website to boost their own rank or get you to click on their link.

You also want variety. If you have 1000 links from one website that isn't worth as much as a 1000 links from a 1000 different websites that are similar in theme or fall under the same umbrella.

For example, if the 1000 websites covered sporting goods, professional jersey's, forums about basketball or other sports or basketball shows, those links  would carry a lot of weight - as they should.

If you have links from a 1000 different websites that include the history of China, Chinese McDonalds, Best Places to visit in China and hundreds of other websites that had nothing to do with basketball or basketball shoes,  your website is in big trouble!

You can get good quality links by creating good quality, informative websites that people want to read and share. The content you put out can act as a link pointing back to your website which will then send a signal to search engines.

https://www.getfoundfast.com/blog/links-and-seo

SEO 2016 Predictions

Last week I had the pleasure of moderating a discussion for the Austin SEO Meetup. At that discussion, our focus was on uncovering what we expect to change next year — basically, an SEO 2016 Predictions session.

The event took place at Orange CoWorking in south Austin. Thanks to owner Shelley Delayne for hosting the event. Orange is a great spot for southies like myself, so give a look if you are in the market for a place to get away and work.

You can see the handwritten notes from the event in the feature image above. While that snapshot might give you a general indication of the topics we covered, it makes sense to dig a bit deeper.

Not to mention that my handwriting isn’t always the easiest to interpret, so let’s review the discussion here. I also have a couple of separate predictions from attendees of the event at the end.

As with any good looking-forward discussion, it makes sense to start by looking backward first.

SEO 2015: What Changed In The Past Year

1. Mobilegeddon: The label given to April 22, 2015, the day Google changed the rules so that mobile friendly sites are required to show up on SERPs for mobile searches in the vast majority of cases.
2. Rankbrain: Announced on October 26, 2015, Rankbrain is Google’s machine learning technology that adds a level of Artificial Intelligence to their indexing and ranking processes.
3. Blocked Resources: While this was technically announced in late 2014, it began showing up in Google Webmaster Tools / Search Console in March of 2015, so we included it for that reason.
4. E-Commerce Update: Rolling out in early February, this update primarily impacted E-Commerce websites and typos on brand terms. Some in the industry complained that it further advanced the lead that big brands have over smaller brands, while others speculated that duplicate product descriptions became more problematic.
5. Quality Update in May: Without full understanding of the exact changes made. we were informed by Google that they updated how website and content quality is assessed during May. This led to noticeable shakeups of the SERPs when it rolled out. Quite a few news sites complained of losses in ranking and traffic, but none were able to pinpoint exactly why one site was impacted more than others.
6. Panda 4.2: Google progressively rolled out Panda 4.2 over the late summer and into October. No one is quite sure exactly what “tweaks” were rolled into this update, as there was a slow deployment and impact was nearly impossible to measure. Perhaps they’ve gotten it down and are no longer causing collateral damage on each rollout.
7. Big Brands Increased Their Lead: As a topic that has been discussed for nearly four years now, members of the panel agreed that big brands have a distinct and growing advantage with SEO. Whether it be due to years of link building and earning, deeper pockets, or large teams to manage SEO priorities, it has become very hard to compete for smaller businesses.
8. Snack Pack Update: Many in the industry have adopted this nickname for Google’s early August change to the Local Pack. This update reduced the number of standard results for local searches from seven to three. This was a rather big update for companies who rely on local ranking heavily but have yet to make it into the top three in the local pack.
9. Google+ Rebirth: Later in the year, Google announced that they are changing the description and positioning of Google+. Allegedly a response to user feedback, it would also be logical to assume that this was a follow on to their previous decision to sunset authorship indefinitely.

SEO 2016: What We See Coming This Year

Below are the unfiltered predictions that were brought up by the group. Some of these were my own assertions, and I will call out which of those were my own below. The rest were either generated through open discussion or volunteered by one or more members of the group.

All-in-all, the ideas were pretty insightful. Let’s go through them now:

1. Bot Traffic and Black Hat techniques attacked head on: One member of the audience suggested that Google will get even more aggressive about uncovering cheating, automation/bots, and black hat SEO.
2. SEO more focused on integration to marketing and compliance with guidelines: Old school SEO is clearly past its prime, and it is time to look at SEO less as tricks and more as an integrated piece of the marketing mix. This is the year that most SEOs finally move over and accept that it should be done properly as a part of an overall business strategy, and in compliance with ethical standards that are practices elsewhere.
3. More Focus on Social: Much of the group agreed that this has to continue to grow in importance as we get more sophisticated with websites and rankings. With Google’s Rankbrain and other recent announcements, it is clear that they are factoring in a range of items including Trust. Social is a huge input point for determining whom and what content is the most trustworthy and worth sharing or ranking.
4. Brands, Brands, Brands: Brands have grown their lead and will continue to do so. As they learn more about SEO, they will only improve their advantage over smaller companies and agencies.
5. Penguin Folded into the Algorithm: This one is a no-brainer since Google already announced it, but we had to include it since it’s still yet to be done.
6. Algorithm vs. Point Updates: Following on #5 above, it is pretty apparent that Google’s goal is to evolve away from penalties to algorithmic spam management. Not only will they start to build these tweaks into the algorithm itself, but I anticipate that they will be less open about the details behind each major change. The only exception will be for massively impactful modifications like Mobilegeddon in 2015.
7. Video Will Become More Important: One member of the audience suggested that video will start to grow in importance this year. This point elicited a good debate, as some in attendance posited that video was already a huge impact. It is worth including, though, because video is clearly a key medium for sharing and social in addition to SEO. So why won’t it grow in importance? We shall see.
8. Massive Growth of Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) Functionality by Google, and a Bigger Shift to Intent Based Results: Following up on the Rankbrain announcement in late 2015, this is a logical prediction for 2016. The question is how much more advancement Google can generate over what they have already built since mid-2013 in this area. Personally, I can’t wait to see what they manage to figure out in the coming year.
9. Voice Search Will Become a Huge Deal in 2016: This was my prediction, and one that I stand by staunchly. It is the logical follow up to the huge emphasis on semantic search and mobile over the past couple of years, and the leading smartphone platforms are clearly working on it by way of Siri, Cortana, and Google Now on the top three mobile platforms.
10. More Semantic: With so many websites finally starting to adopt semantic markup, and Google’s latest advancements in machine learning, semantic will dominate in 2016 and beyond (everyone in attendance agreed on this one). Old keyword only strategies will continue to fade, and it is becoming more and more important to understand the growing importance of  topic targeting, synonyms, and link/content relevance on ranking.
11. Fear of Google: As another one of my own predictions, I expect fear of Google to reach a fever pitch this year. It will take them at least 2016 and possibly longer to convince website owners that they are following the mantra of “Do No Evil” after years of penalizing and slapping websites for spammy behavior. Building updates right into the algorithm and simply ignoring behaviors that don’t follow the guidelines will help, but some PR may be in order to repair their image with owners of smaller and mid-sized websites that have been burned in the past.
12. AMP- Mobile Fast Render to Impact Rankings: Google is part of a movement to help content render faster on Mobile, and Austin SEO founder Scott True expects this to start impacting mobile SERPs before the year ends.
13. Other Search Engines Grow Their Share: Simply put – several members of the group expect Bing and Yahoo to continue chipping away at Google’s market share in the US. Based on the trends in recent years, this is a reasonable expectation. You can find the current market shares of leading search engines in key markets here.

An Easy Way To Get a 205% Boost In Search Engine Traffic

Your TITLE on your blog posts can make a huge difference to your rankings.

You know you need to rank.

You need that ‘google traffic‘.

It’s how you’re going to get leads cheaply, and for a long time, so it’s important to know as much as you can about SEO.

What if I told you that you could improve your rankings by changing a couple of words in your title?

You can. It’s easy, I’ve done it.

Well, to start off with let’s think about how Google ranks pages.

Google ranks pages to match up to people’s search terms. Terms which, by the way, are ever changing. As society changes and trends rise and fall the WORDS people type into search engines change.

You may want to read: Eight Methods for getting the Most out of Google Search

In order to stay always on top you need to show Google that your site is better than all of the others. Content is part of this situation.

Your CONTENT, that is the actual ‘stuff’ on your page needs to be great. It can’t be mediocre in today’s world. It needs to be unique, interesting, helpful, easy to read and free. So you work hard to get all of that stuff on the page, and usually what happens is you give it an average title.

Your Blog Post Title

Now, the title of your blog post can be argued to be THE most important thing about your post. Why?

It’s the first, and in many cases the last thing your readers will ever see about your blog. If someone sees your title in the SERPS and doesn’t click it, that’s very bad. Your title needs to draw people in like a magnet.

Now, what invariably happens is that as people learn about online business, SEO and so forth, they’ll have it drilled into them that ‘keywords are key’ and you need to put your keywords in your title, somewhere near the start.

This is somewhat true, but what’s even more important?

Well sure keywords are important.

You should always have the keywords you want to be found for somewhere on your page, preferably more than once and in different formats (meta tags, alt text, headings and in content) but if no-one clicks your page then it doesn’t matter.

A HUGE ranking signal for Google is click through rate on the results page.

If people are clicking OTHER sites over yours, and they KEEP doing this, then after a while your site sinks down further, and this in turns gives you less chance to be clicked on and it’s a horrible cycle to get into.

You want to make sure that when Google ‘tests’ your site (they show your site nearer the top for a short period of time to test how many people click it and like it) it performs well.

Google has been known to show new sites or posts higher in the search results for a short period of time to test the click through rate, and how long people stay on your page. If your content is great, they should want to stay on there for a while, right?

But they won’t get there in the first place if your title isn’t good enough.

A Case Study

I’ve got a niche website which I don’t want to reveal here as it’s not relevant to internet marketing but just by adding a number to the title, I increased the click through rate to WAY above the average and within a few weeks it was raking number one.

Not only that, but it was ranking number 1 ABOVE sites that had MORE links, MORE content and MORE social shares.

How Does That Happen?

Because more people (by far) clicked my post over the other ones, and when they got there, I had great content which kept them interested enough to keep reading. Click through rate is very important.

So, what was the title?

Without giving the niche away, I had a keywords which was very similar to this –

‘things to do in XXX’

‘XXX’ is my niche.

So my blog post TITLE was this –

“40 things to do in XXX, especially number 5”

Now, all of the other posts for this keyword has the keyword in the title in one way or another. None of them had my little addition of ‘especially number 5’.

People saw this (at the time it was raking on the second page, and then a few days later, bottom of page 1, then now the first result) and clicked it because they were curious.

They wanted to know what ‘number 5’ was! Then when they clicked there, they stayed to read because I had written a great article.

That ranking is still staying there. I’m still the number one post for that search term and several related ones and I’m ranking above other better sites. It’s been several months now and nothing’s changed. Maybe my competition haven’t thought about changing their title?

Okay, so we understand that titles are important.

So What Makes A Great Title?

Several things.

1 – Your Actual Keyword

This is important so that people know your post is about what they’re searching for, and it helps search engines to show your post at the right time

2 – Some Engaging Words or Phrases

Things that turn the experience from someone searching a load of random posts to a conversation. Think along the lines of if you were talking to a friend.

You wouldn’t say ’15 pictures of cats’ you’d probably say something like ‘Look at these pictures of cats, the last one is hilarious!’

3 – A Number

Numbers have been shown to increase click through rates. People like specific numbers.

For example, which one are you more likely to click on –

‘How to make money online’ or 

‘How I Started Making $4567.70 per hour from my room’

It makes it more relatable and interesting.

So that’s it for now, but next time you writer a blog post, think about the title you’re going to give it. Great titles can help your article get that boost it needs.

Important Note!

Make sure that no matter how great your title, your content is even BETTER. If you have a great title but terrible content then people will click on your site, then instantly click back to the search results.

This sends a signal to Google and after not too long they’ll put your further and further down the list. It’s known as ‘pogo sticking’ when a searcher jumps from your site right back to the search results and it tells the big G that they didn’t find what they were looking for.

What do you think?

Are you working hard on your blog post titles?

Please share your views in the comments below, thanks!

http://nopassiveincome.com/easy-way-to-boost-search-engine-traffic/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Nopassiveincome+%28No+Passive+Income+-+tips+about+blogging%2C+traffic+and+affiliate+marketing%29

Search vs. Display: Which AdWords Network Should You Use?

Here at WordStream, our team of consultants analyzes thousands of PPC accounts. While our customers’ pain points tend to vary, many of their issues can be tracked back to one major misstep—their campaigns are set to run on both the Search and Display Networks simultaneously.

99% of the time, this practice will wreak havoc on a PPC account. The main problem is, these networks target users in two completely different scenarios. Not to mention, since metrics across each network are combined, it is challenging to assess how each is performing, and it eliminates the option to segment one’s budget by network.

Quite frankly, applying the same strategy to both networks is like trying to fit a round peg in a square hole…it just doesn’t work. If you have any campaigns opted into both networks, save yourself from future pain and agony and start separating them. In today’s post, we’ll do a deep dive outlining the components of each of these networks and examine what types of advertisers should be utilizing them.

A Quick Note on Search Network with Display Select (SNDS)

Before we delve into the intricacies of each network, I want to address one caveat to this rule, which is Google’s recent innovation, Search Network with Display Select (SNDS). If you’re an avid reader of this blog, you may remember a post from a few weeks ago, complete with a Google video broadcast (featuring our in-house celebrity, Rich Griffin!), touting the benefits of this new, hybrid campaign model. SNDS allows advertisers to opt their search campaigns into the GDN in a limited fashion. Essentially, AdWords claims that it will use “improved signals and methods of predicting where your ads are likely to perform best” to ensure that display ads are only shown in locations that are highly relevant to the advertisers’ “ideal” user.

As Rich mentions in his Google hangout video, this setting is reminiscent of Enhanced Campaigns, whereby AdWords pushes advertisers to expand their reach and appeal to a broader range of customers. For less-than-savvy PPCers, or advertisers who have limited time to dedicate to account management, this low-effort option may feel like a godsend. That said, it comes at a price. In shifting to this model, you are sacrificing significant control over GDN performance and putting a great deal of faith in Google. For advertisers who have the time to do so, we highly recommend sticking with the traditional best practice of managing the Search and Display Networks through separate campaigns.

When to Use the Google Search Network

Running ads on the Search Network is the most common, well-known form of PPC advertising. With this network selection, your ads will be eligible to appear on Google SERPs. If you want to expand your reach, you can extend your targeting to include “search partners,” a group comprised of smaller search engines, such as AOL.

This advertising format is incredibly effective because it targets an active searcher, who is on a mission to find something. As you can see in the example above, the searcher is looking for a plumber in Virginia. Upon submitting the query, both paid ads (highlighted in the red boxes) and organic listings appear. Sure, the plumbers could rely on their organic (read: free) listings, but chance are, they will be more successful if they run ads on the Search Network. Not only are paid ads more robust, but they allow the plumbers to include extensions with additional links, phone numbers and addresses. Since the Search Network connects advertisers to people actively looking for their products, search campaigns typically drive more conversions than display campaigns.

You should be running a Search Network campaign if:

• You’re working with a limited budget: In general, when clients are restricted to a small budget, we recommend starting with the Search Network. This format is more likely to drive direct conversions, making it easier to measure and justify your PPC efforts. Once you’ve mastered Search, it may be advisable to expand to the Display Network, which can boost visibility, leading to an uptick in search volume for your business.

• You sell an “emergency” product: If your product or service offering is something that users look for on a when-needed basis (plumbers, locksmiths, electricians, etc.), you should be advertising on the Search Network. For these industries, it is imperative that your ad appears when the searcher is in need of your services.

When to Use the Google Display Network (GDN)

In addition to traditional search advertising, Google also gives advertisers the opportunity to place their ads on a variety of sites across the internet. This collection of websites, which ranges from blogs to news sites and even YouTube, is referred to as the Google Display Network (GDN). According to Google, the GDN includes over 2 million sites that reach over 90% of global internet users. Given the expansiveness of this network, it is incredibly appealing to advertisers who are looking to expand their online presence.

When users are on the GDN, they may not necessarily be in “shopping mode.” Instead, they are going about their daily internet activities—catching up on news, reading blog posts, watching video clips, etc. In order to gain traction on the GDN, your ads must attract the users’ attention and entice them enough to click through to your site, leaving the content that they were originally engaged with. Accomplishing this is no easy feat—even with top-notch ad creative, it’s tough to draw users to click on ads while they are perusing the Display Network.

But don’t write the GDN off yet—while clicks may be scarce, ad space on the network is plentiful. It is the ideal space to promote brand awareness and its vast reach is appealing to advertisers who are looking to broaden their fan bases. By increasing your brand’s visibility, you may reap more clicks on organic listings or see an uptick in brand-specific searches. These clicks are also less costly than clicks on the search network.

You should be running a Display Network campaign if:

• You want to familiarize people with your brand: Many advertisers leverage the Display Network to promote brand awareness. Since the GDN is so expansive, it offers many opportunities for advertisers to connect with their audiences. Don’t worry—this doesn’t mean you’ll be “shooting in the dark” with your display ads. AdWords provides a variety of targeting options, ranging from managed placements (specific sites selected by the advertiser) to website groupings based on audience characteristics and more. By appearing on reputable sites that are popular amongst your target audience, you can quickly familiarize these people with your brand.

• You have a lengthy sales process: If you sell a product or service that consumers are not likely to purchase immediately, you need to ensure that your brand stays top-of-mind for prospects as they consider making a purchase. To do this, we recommend utilizing remarketing, through the GDN. This strategy allows you to show ads to anyone who has visited your site in the past, encouraging them to return and convert. For example, a friend of mine spent some time on the Tiffany’s website a few months ago, as he was considering proposing to his girlfriend and wanted to price out ring options. After visiting the site, he was added to Tiffany’s remarketing list and was inundated with their engagement ring ads as he perused the internet. The jeweler did such a good job of re-engaging with him that he took the plunge and bought a ring much sooner than originally planned!

• You have a sexy product: Since the GDN allows advertisers to display image ads, it is ideal for advertisers who sell luxury products whose ads are enticing to the eye. Since display advertising relies largely on distraction, it’s helpful to have an appealing product to promote. Take the ad down below, for example. Don’t tell me you wouldn’t give that a second glance!

• You have compelling video collateral: If you’ve already invested significant time and energy on bad-ass video collateral, why not put it to good use? YouTube attracts hoards of traffic (upwards of 1 billion views per day), meaning the advertising potential is huge. Plus, given the popularity of YouTube advertising, Google has made it increasingly easy for advertisers to establish video campaigns (especially for those who can leverage existing creative). This can be an incredibly powerful way to connect with your target audience. People are more likely to engage with video content than text or image ads and, with Google’s TrueView option, you only pay for users who demonstrate a true interest in your video (by watching it for 30 seconds or more).

Utilizing a Dual-Network Strategy

In reading the descriptions above, you may have noted that your company would benefit from boththe Search and the Display Networks. We advise many advertisers to run campaigns for both, when budget permits.

However, to truly reap the benefits of each network, do your due diligence and break them into separate, network-specific campaigns. From a strategic standpoint, this will allow you to craft your messaging based on the scenario in which your audience is viewing your ad. From a more logistical standpoint, this segmentation is critical. Not only does it allow you to set specific budgets and bids per network, but it will keep your data “clean” and help you to make more impactful optimizations.

Let’s take click-through rate, for example. Ads on the Display Network typically garner lower CTRs than their Search Network counterparts (which comes as no surprise, given the context in which they are shown). If the campaigns are not segmented, the CTR data can be severely skewed, making it challenging to analyze performance.

http://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2014/05/20/google-adwords-search-versus-display

What Is A Good Click Through Rate (CTR)?

What is a good click through rate?

It’s the age-old question asked by PPC managers and clients alike. Though we can agree that higher is better, much debate remains as to what constitutes a good vs. subpar account CTR. Below, I’ll give a definitive answer, though I acknowledge that many factors are at play. Additionally, I’ll be answering this question only in regards to Google AdWords and Bing Ads.

What Are These Factors?

Network – Search Network text and Google Shopping campaigns will, for the most part, have significantly higher CTRs than Display campaigns, although remarketing campaigns do have the potential for better CTRs than other types of Display campaigns.

Relevance – This factor combines the complete search experience from query to landing page.

Instead of listing them individually, I include bid, keyword match type, negative keywords/audiences, quality score, and ad copy as part of the overall relevance factor. All of these items need to work together in order to yield a higher CTR.

Ad Rank – Even with high relevance throughout, ad position will sometimes be low. Take into consideration both Google Shopping ad units and ad extensions and the prominence of a standard text ad diminishes greatly. Finally, if your ad is below the fold on searcher browsers, you’ll potentially accrue many impressions without the ad ever being seen!

Device – Dovetailing off ad rank, CTR will vary by device. I generally find mobile CTR to be higher than desktop and tablet. However, volume tends to be much lower. Mobile ads will also take up much of the screen, often giving users only paid options before having to scroll.

Data – My general rule of thumb is to have at least 100 impressions on any given campaign, ad group, keyword, or piece of ad copy before optimizing. There are always exceptions, but this threshold is a good baseline, as it gives the specific item a fair chance to succeed.

Vertical – CTRs will vary by vertical, especially when considering competition. For example, “lawyer” related terms are often extremely expensive and have vast search volume. Any of the above factors may be influenced, causing fluctuations in CTR.

So What’s The Verdict?

Based upon these factors, a good account CTR is 2%.

Others would argue that 2% is too low. I’m not advocating that once you hit 2% CTR, you’re in the clear. You should constantly strive to improve CTR in conjunction with your cost per conversion and conversion rate goals. My stance is that with all factors considered in today’s PPC world, a 2% account CTR should be deemed good.

Considerations

When I say a 2% account CTR, there will most likely be individual campaigns with better CTRs and those with worse. For example, your branded and Shopping campaigns may have CTRs much higher than 2%, while others may be below this percentage. In addition, Display Network campaigns will accrue many more impressions at lower CTRs, weighing down the overall account CTR more than search campaigns. With these considerations, my stance remains that a good account CTR is 2%.

Clients will inevitably ask how their CTR compares to others in their vertical. My answer tends to be cautious, as there are no definitive studies comparing CTR across verticals. There are studies, but none with conclusive data that I would be comfortable standing behind.

Using Google’s native tools, we are able to glean competitive data, but these figures are only estimates. The Auction Insights report provides interesting data comparing metrics such as impression share, average position, and overlap rate to your competitors.

Final Thoughts

Both clients and managers will also constantly question how to improve CTR. At the basic level it all comes down to one of the factors outlined above, relevance. Create a well-structured account that easily gives searchers answers to their questions (queries).

You should always be striving to achieve a higher CTR. A 2% CTR is good, but continually improving this metric will make your account great.

http://www.ppchero.com/what-is-a-good-click-through-rate-ctr/