The Founder and CEO of Nine By Blue, Vanessa is taking on the new role of Chief Product Officer for RKG.  The Nine By Blue team will continue to be based in Seattle, and operate as RKG Seattle.

Vanessa is also the author of Marketing in the Age of Google, and she serves as a contributing editor for Search Engine Land and writes for a variety of publications on search engine optimization and searcher behavior. She’s advised companies of all sizes globally, has offered advice on better citizen access to online US government information for White House online initiatives, the NIH, and other government agencies, and speaks to audiences worldwide.

Nine By Blue has worked with clients such as Microsoft, Expedia, BankRate, AllRecipes, and IGN to harness the power of search for greater customer understanding and engagement. Blueprint is Nine By Blue’s signature business intelligence product that transforms SEO and web analytics data into insight and action.

For more details, as well as thoughts from Vanessa, RKG CEO George Gallate and RKG Chief Knowledge Officer Adam Audette, please see our full press release.

Click the image to watch the video.

The idea of authorship has the potential to change many things about how we view content, and its authors, on the web. Google’s innovations with rel=”author” and rel=”publisher” are explored in this video, including ideas on how ecommerce companies can begin using it.

An additional topic is explored on the challenges of content ownership when authorship is enabled. Who owns the content, what happens when an author leaves the company, and how should companies handle these problems?

Click the image above to watch the video (full transcript included on video page).

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Still, many vendors were not happy with the new model because they felt sellers with bigger budgets would dominate the space.  But Google maintained that the quality of the feed was still going to be extremely important for an ad to be eligible for a PLA auction.  This has been evident since the change with many of the feeds that we optimize.

It is critical for PLA advertisers to keep their feed up-to-date with the latest Google specs and to submit values that pertain to their products in all required columns and in as many recommended columns as possible.

Last week, Google announced a number of updates to their feed specifications.  In case you have not seen them, here is a summary of the most important changes.

• Unique Product Identifier:  In the past, vendors who sold products without a UPC, MPN, EAN, JAN or ISBN had to send an exemption request to Google that allowed them to submit a feed without including unique product identifier values. This exemption was usually used for custom or antique products.  Google has replaced the exemption form with an “identifier exists” column. Now sellers will need to add a value of FALSE for a product that does not have a unique identifier value. This column should not be used for products that do have a unique identifier, but the value is hard to find.
• Description: Google is requesting that the descriptions provide more details about the product. The details they would like to see in the description include: “size, material, intended age range, special features or other technical specs. “ In addition to those attributes, they would like sellers to provide “the item’s most visual attributes, such as shape, pattern, texture and design.” These new descriptions will be used in matching the products to searches, so the more information you can provide the better. Google is still recommending the description be 500 to 1000 characters long while allowing up to 10,000 characters.
• Image Specs: As Google strives to provide better results to searchers, they will now be accepting higher quality images. Images for each product can be up to 4MB in size and it is recommended that the images be at least 800 pixels in height and width.
• Color: The changes to the color specifications are trying to clean up the values sent in feeds. Google has clarified how multiple colored products should be presented. The value for these products should now have the dominant color listed first and any secondary colors listed after. Each of the colors should be separated by a ‘/’ (i.e. Black/Green/Orange). If you are using XML, &#47 should be used for the ‘/’. Google recommends that you limit the color to three values and do not use “multicolor” as a value. Also, jewelry or wood products that have a finish or material name can use the color column to submit those values.  Google is still not accepting numbers or non-alphanumeric characters for color values.
• Merchant-Defined Multipacks: Google has added a column for merchants to create and define multipack products. By their definition, “Merchant-defined multipacks are custom groups of identical products submitted as a single unit of sale.” The new multipack column requires the value be an integer that defines the quantity of the products in the pack. The price has to also match the total price of the multipack.

The unique product identifier exemptions will be honored until July 15, 2013. If you are a seller that has this exemption, you should add the “identifier exists” column as soon as you can to make sure it is set up correctly before the deadline. All of the other changes are now in effect, so you should make any updates necessary to conform to the specs as soon as possible.

For more information, check out the links below to see the official Google announcement and the updated Google Shopping Feed Specification page:

http://adwords.blogspot.com/2013/05/updated-google-shopping-feed.html

http://support.google.com/merchants/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=188494#US

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Sometimes it’s just one check on a single site, in which case, a quick site:URL search is the obvious choice. But for those other times when there’s a need to check a batch of sites, I’m going to share an easy process to speed you up.

A caveat before we dive in: site: searches can be a slightly sketchy way to check indexation. Results can vary wildly depending on what data center you happen to hit when you search, and monitoring indexation using XML Sitemaps in GWT and BWT is more reliable and provides more visibility. That said, the site: search does have its place, and that’s what I’ll address here.

There are a bunch of steps, but combined with keyboard shortcuts, this will all take a matter of seconds. Don’t be intimidated! Once you have the process down, it’s very fast.

1. Open an Excel spreadsheet and put all the sites for which you want to check indexation in column B.
2.  In column A, type “site:” and copy it all the way down to the end of your list.
3. In cell C1, type “=concatenate(a1,b1)” and hit enter, and voila! C1 now has a site: search populated. 
   Quick tip: if you start typing your formula (“=concat…”) and the formula populates, hit the down arrow and “Enter,” and Excel will populate your cell with this: =concatenate(), with a cursor blinking in the middle of the parenthesis.  You can also utilize the ampersand to concatenate your columns by entering “=A1&A2″ into C1 instead of typing out the concatenate function.
4. As in step 2, copy your concatenation for each site: search down all rows.
5. Copy all of your concatenated site: searches and paste the values in place of the formulas: right click, select “Paste Special” and select the “Values” box.
   
6. If you did this step right, you’ll see text in place of your concatenation in the formula bar.
7. Open a tab in Chrome and go download this browser add-on: Copy All URLs. What it lacks in naming creativity, it makes up for in perfectly functional simplicity and a random umbrella icon.
   
8. Open a new Chrome window.
9. Copy your URLs from your Excel spreadsheet, click the umbrella in Chrome and “Paste.”
10. All your site: searches will show up in their own tabs, so all you have to do is flip through and hit “Enter” to execute each search. 
11. So, cool, that does it for Google. What if you also have to check for Bing? Well, I thought about that, too. Open your Chrome Settings and change your default search engine to Bing.
12. Repeat steps 7 through 9 to check indexation on Bing.

When you’re done, don’t forget to change your default browser back to the Google.

The above screenshot is an interesting definition because that result is served from OxfordDictionaries.com, however Merriam-Webster.com contains the following definition: “conforming to a general rule or acceptable procedure,” which I think is much more relevant.

The rel= “canonical” tag is an HTML element that the major search engines publicly announced support for in February 2009 in order to show the relationship between URLs and to designate a preferred version of a duplicate URL. Thus the canonical tag helps to clean up duplication and can be used on duplicate pages and near duplicate pages.

The canonical URL is the preferred or dominant URL. The rel=”canonical” tag allows Search Engines to understand what should be the ranking, indexed page, and are essentially treated as a soft 301 redirect, passing equity to the preferred URL. If canonical tags are properly implemented, all duplicate, non-canonical URLs will be dropped from the index.

For example, if your homepage has 3 versions due to your CMS structure or any other technical issue, the canonical tag can be placed within the <head> of pages to point to the preferred URL. 

The two duplicate URLs below are duplicates of the preferred URL http://www.example.com:

http://www.example.com/index.html

http://www.example.com/home.html

The duplicate URLs would contain the following canonical tag referencing the preferred URL:

<link rel=”canonical” href=”http://www.example.com” />

The canonical tag can also be helpful for cleaning up duplication due to tracking or sorting parameters appended to URLs.

For example, if your subcategory page for black jeans can be sorted by price, you can use canonical tags to avoid duplication and extraneous URLs within the index.

http://www.example.com/black-jeans/ would be the preferred URL but users and Search Engines can end up on the URL sorted by price:

http://www.example.com/black-jeans?price50-99

The above price sorted URL would have the following canonical tag signaling the preferred ranking URL:

<link rel=”canonical” href=”http://www.example.com/black-jeans/” />

How to choose the preferred canonical URL?

There are two important variables that need to be evaluated before selecting a canonical URL: the equity a URL contains and whether it is linked to internally.

The preferred canonical URL should be the URL that contains the most equity, as it will have more ranking potential. Usually the URL with the most equity is also the URL that is internally linked to through navigation, however this is not always the case. We frequently see client sites that link to non-canonical URLs within navigation (more on this below).

*A good tool to use to evaluate equity of a URL is Open Site Explorer. It can be a free tool for a few URL evaluations, but after that you’ll need an account.

Let’s use the Sesame Street site as an example. They have duplicated home pages with the following URLs:

http://www.sesamestreet.org

http://www.sesamestreet.org/home

We can see the split equity between these two URLs with the screenshot below:

SesameStreet.org contains a canonical tag on http://www.sesamestreet.org/home pointing to http://www.sesamestreet.org (although it is funky coding – call us :) The canonical tag signals to search engines that http://www.sesamestreet.org is the preferred version, indexing only that URL and consolidating all link equity onto that URL.

Internally Linking to Canonical URLs

As briefly mentioned above, we see a lot of sites that do not link to canonical URLs. Internally linking to canonical URLs helps to consolidate link equity and send quality signals to search engines. Take the Sesame Street example above and look at their internal link numbers for the two URLs:

Although the http://www.sesamestreet.org is the canonical or preferred version, they are internally linking to http://www.sesamestreet.org/home. The internal signals (internal links) are almost all pointing to the non-canonical version of their homepage.  Updating internal linking to point to the canonical URL, consolidates equity and sends consistent signals, strengthening the URL overall.

Cross-domain Canonical Tags

Cross-domain canonical tags are exactly as they sound, referencing a relationship of URLs across another domain.

Some online publishers, including RKG, will reference content that has been posted elsewhere. The best way to avoid duplication or being penalized for publishing copied content is to implement cross-domain canonical tags.

These tags are no different; they just reference the preferred URL on a different domain. For example, George Michie contributes to SearchEngineLand.com and promotes his articles on the RKG blog. Both sites were indexed and ranking for the same content. We implemented cross-domain canonical tags and the RKG blog posts were dropped from the indices. Seems like a loss for RKG, which from an organic search perspective it slightly was, however we didn’t really own the content, SEL did, and they should be the preferred, dominating URL for the content.

For example, if you look at the canonical tag found on the following blog post:

http://www.rimmkaufman.com/blog/the-perfect-search-engine/19122011/

you will see it points to the SEL URL:

<link rel=”canonical” href=”http://searchengineland.com/how-would-you-create-the-perfect-search-engine-104253″ />

HTTP Header Implementation

In some cases it is difficult for platforms to adjust the <head> of a page. If implementing rel=canonical tags within the <head> of a page is not an option for your platform, then an alternative solution is to implement the canonical tag within the HTTP header like this:

Link: <http://www.example.com/preferred-version>; rel="canonical"

This is also great for .pdf files and other file types that can be indexed by search engines.

Comments and Questions

We would love to hear your comments and questions regarding canonical tags. Please leave them below.

It doesn’t have a zippy name, but drilling down through the AdWords Help blog you can now find a section about new bidding features on the Display Network.  The instructions describe how to switch to the new bidding setup once you’ve migrated your display campaigns to Enhanced Campaigns.

What is so great about this new bidding feature? It allows you to pick and choose where you want the destination URL and bid to live by target type for each campaign.  Previously, when we layered in different types of targeting into a GDN campaign, we had to observe a strict hierarchy to determine the right level to place the destination URL and bid.

Why would you layer different targeting types for display campaigns?  To get at a more specific group of people.  Similar to layering in day-parting rules, geo-locations, and keywords, it helps narrow the field of potential users and, hopefully, yield you better results.

For example, if you want to retarget people with ads if they’ve been to your site and have not converted, but only when they are on a site that is discussing content related to your products, you might try layering a remarketing list with a list of specific placements (or broader topics) to capture only users in that select group.

As illustrated in the Venn diagram below, this would allow us to only show ads to the users that would occupy the overlapping purple space.

AdWords set its previous structured hierarchy based off of what they determined to be the most granular way to target.  Here’s what the order used to look like, from most specific to least specific:

1. Managed Placements
2. Topics
3. Interest categories & remarketing
4. Keywords
5. Default Ad Destination URL

Meaning, for the diagram above, Google would have suggested that users reading those blogs were a better indicator than the fact that particular user had shopped around your site.  If you didn’t observe the hierarchy, AdWords would do its best to correct it for you.

Below are some examples from another AdWords Help page that include one example of what would happen if you didn’t follow the hierarchy and neglected to provide a destination URL for the most specific method from the above list.

Examples Prior to Enhanced Campaigns:

In this example, Google would use the keyword destination URL, www.example.com/flowers_roses.html, when the impression is served.

In this example, Google would use the managed placement destination URL, www.example.com/flowers_tulips.html, when the impression is served.

In this example, Google would use the ad’s destination URL, www.example.com/garden_tools.html, when the impression is served.

Now it isn’t often that you would have 3 different URLs for a keyword, placement and ad all in the same ad group, but if you were using those destination URLs with unique tracking parameters based on those criteria, it would make a difference.

So in the last case, if we thought that the presence of the keyword “white rose bouquet” was more important or indicative than the fact that it was serving on “flowerarrangementblog.com” and we wanted the ad to serve because of that match instead of the placement match, we would lose out.  AdWords would have predetermined that the placement was most critical in connecting the dots between your ad, and ultimately your products, instead of the keyword.

Custom Bidding Under Enhanced Campaigns

With the change to the bidding feature now available on the GDN, you can pick where you want your custom bid to live.  The new bidding menu has been slowly rolling out to accounts since they’ve announced the change to Enhanced Campaigns, so don’t panic if you haven’t seen it yet.

Additionally, you must upgrade each particular campaign to Enhanced Campaigns to start seeing the options populate.  However, once the “custom bidding” button appears in the Display Network tab in the campaign, you can start choosing which targeting level you’d like to set.

In addition to choosing which targeting level (keywords, placements, or audiences) gets to be bid with the custom bid feature, you’ll be able to apply bid adjustment factors at the ad group level for the targeting types that aren’t selected.

For example, if we choose to make placements our targeting and bidding type for a specific ad group, we can then apply the bid adjustments, which range from -90% to 900% for interest categories or retargeting lists also in that ad group.  The only exception here is that keywords can only be chosen as a custom bid targeting level and are not subject to bid adjustment percentages.

In regards to our previous ad group example, there are two outcomes: choosing the keyword as the custom bid or the placements as the custom bid.  Under scenario 1, “white rose bouquet” gets a set CPC or CPM bid and we could, if we wanted to, apply a percentage adjustment to the placement “flowerarrangementblog.com” of -20%.  Under scenario 2, “flowerarrangementblog.com” would hold the bid, and no adjustment factor would be applied to the keyword.

So which method is best to follow?  Are keywords, placements, audiences, or topics the best indicator for a person’s purchasing intent or the best structure to find the ideal bid?  Do the bid adjustment multipliers on top of the custom bids help refine or skew the results? We can’t say for sure yet, but it is definitely something we will be testing to find the best practice for this new set of options.

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Click the thumbnail to view the full infographic

With all the players in the online display advertising space, it is really hard to keep everyone straight and know what pieces to incorporate into a strategy that will work for your business.  Besides having a firm grasp of the different types of targeting independently, now we are faced with choosing the right platform that offers the right combination we are looking for.  Meanwhile, no two companies offer the same thing and it gets confusing to know how everything fits and works together.

This infographic will explain how to connect the dots between ad servers, ad networks, ad exchanges, demand side platforms vs. retargeting only agencies, 3^rd party data providers, and creative shops.

RKG would love to help you build the right solution for your display program.  Give us a call (434.970.1010) to find out how we can help you sort through the list and craft the right strategy for you!

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International SEO is a topic I haven’t seen much written about lately, but it’s becoming more and more important in this always on, highly mobile culture of ours.

In fact, while the percentage of English speaking Internet users grew around 300% from 2000-2010, the percentages of Chinese and Spanish speaking users grew by 1,478% and 807% respectively.  Any brand hoping to capture some of this international business clearly needs a solid strategy.

Specifically in the hospitality world where most large brands have international properties and their guests are searching for locations around the world, having a robust international strategy is particularly important.

First consider the goals.  In this case, the goals are to create a site that presents the correct language to the correct users, and to rank well based on where the user is searching.  For example if a user in Spain were searching for hotels, you’d want your Spanish language site to be returned on page one in the SERPs.  This goal supports the larger goal of driving natural search traffic to the site, which ultimately converts and brings in dollars via the online channel.

Now the strategy is to make use of all the tools and methods available to achieve the desired result.  Here I will cover the most important tactics supporting this strategy.

Before I get into the meat of the article let me first say thank you to the whole SEO Client Services team here at RKG, specifically Jody O’Donnell, Ben Goodsell and Cara Petterson who put in all the hard work researching and developing our international recommendations.  These folks are so knowledgeable that talking technical SEO with them can be like drinking from a fire hose.

I feel ya buddy.

Domain Strategy

Ideally a domain strategy using TLDs (Top Level Domains, e.g. .au, .de, .cn) would be chosen and implemented consistently across international sites.

Hilton for example is using a consistent TLD domain strategy across three international sites.

Links to international sites from the Hilton.com footer

These link to:

• http://www.hilton.com.cn/
• http://www.hilton.de
• http://www.hilton.co.jp

One benefit of choosing the Hilton.de country code TLD type structure is that the correct geo-location can be set within Google Webmaster Tools.  Using subdomains or subfolders means you’ll need to verify the country specific website in Google Webmaster Tools and choose the appropriate country preference.

The primary benefit of using the TLD strategy is that it’s most effective at lining up location signals correctly.  A site is much more likely to rank well in the targeted regional search engine when TLDs are used.  However, subdomains can be a viable option, as can subfolders, but these should be considered second and third options.

Country Specific Hosting

Hosting a website from the same country the website represents can be very beneficial in that it sends a strong signal to the search engines that the site is relevant to the users search query.  By looking at the IP address of a site relative to that of the user doing the searching, the search engine determines they are in the same country and will be more likely to serve that website in the search engine results pages.

Using the Hilton example above I found the IP address of http://www.hilton.co.jp is 92.123.64.41.  Using a WHOIS search to run a quick check on that IP address shows that it’s country of origin is in the EU.

Preferably the site would be hosted in Japan, but sometimes hosting each global site from its respective country may not be feasible for reasons technical or otherwise.

Hreflang Tag

Now on to one of the more complicated tactics in an international SEO strategy.  In case you missed it, Adam Audette covered this topic in his blog post titled, “Advanced International SEO with rel=”alternate” hreflang=”x”.  To boil it down, we’re essentially using the rel=”alternate” hreflang=”x” tag to let Google know there are region specific versions of the website available, which should be returned when appropriate.  I highly recommend reading that article before continuing.

Done?  Great.  Now that you have a solid understanding of this tag let’s look at how Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts could make use of this if they chose to.

There are now two ways to use the hreflang tag; 1) in the HTML on each page via meta tags and 2) in the XML sitemap.  The XML sitemap flavor is much easier to implement so we’ll focus on that method first.

First off Four Seasons needs a well-optimized XML sitemap on their root domain, where the rel=”alternate” and hreflang=”x” tags will be listed along with the standard URLs we’d generally expect to see.

Once the XML sitemap is in place we’ll add the following:

<url>

   <loc>http://www.fourseasons.com</loc>

   <xhtml:link

       rel=”alternate”

       hreflang=”zh”

       href=”http://www.fourseasons.com/zh/welcome/”

   />

     <xhtml:link

      rel=”alternate”

      hreflang=”br”

      href=”http://www.fourseasons.com/br/welcome/”

   />

   <xhtml:link

      rel=”alternate”

      hreflang=”ru”

      href=”http://www.fourseasons.com/ru/welcome/”

   />

   <xhtml:link

      rel=”alternate”

      hreflang=”x-default”

      href=”http://www.fourseasons.com”

   />

</url>

For more information on hreflang tag implementation in an XML sitemap directly from the source, visit: http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=2620865.

If the XML sitemap method isn’t feasible, there is another option using meta tags.  This method is not as clean and simple, but will still get the job done.

Using the example above, we’d simply put the following meta tags in the <head> section of each page:

<link rel=”alternate” href=”http://www.fourseasons.com/zh/welcome/” hreflang=”zh” />

<link rel=”alternate” href=”http://www.fourseasons.com/br/welcome/” hreflang=”br” />

<link rel=”alternate” href=”http://www.fourseasons.com/ru/welcome/” hreflang=”ru” />

<link rel=”alternate” href=”http://www.fourseasons.com” hreflang=”x-default” />

These are just examples, and every individual language represented on the Four Seasons site will need to be included.

One more method I should mention regarding letting the search engines know which language is being targeted is through the use of meta content tags.  Simply place a tag such as the one below on each page.

<meta http-equiv=”content-language” content=”ru”>

If multiple languages are spoken within the same country it’s a good idea to create content in each language, as well as using the hreflang tag to make sure the correct language is served up.

Link Building

Just as in the case of working to improve rankings for US sites, link building for international sites is important as well.  Developing high quality, relevant links from the correct region can be very helpful.  For example, the site http://www.marriott.co.jp/default.mi would ideally have many great backlinks coming from other ‘.co.jp’ sites.  This is a very strong signal to the search engines.  The overall approach to link development is the same regardless of country.  For more info on creating a link building strategy I recommend reading, “How to Create a Link Building Strategy”.

Bottom Line

To ensure the right version of the site is returned to the right users, it’s important to give every signal possible to the search engines, making it clear which version of the site to return.  Give us a call to find out how RKG can help you create an international SEO strategy that fits within your overall marketing and SEO efforts.

Parting shot courtesy of Four Seasons Bora Bora…because who wouldn’t love to be here?

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Click the thumbnail above to watch the video

A solid link development strategy has always been about high quality, relevant content.  But now more than ever it’s critical to approach link building with a long-term perspective to avoid algorithmic or manual penalties.

Watch the video to see some key questions answered around how to create a link building strategy that will produce great results for the long haul.

To learn more and get your questions answered, register for our upcoming webinar, “Link Building for the Long Haul”.  Register now at rkg.co/link-building!

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At RKG, we are noticing the effects of an abnormally warm March 2012 on year over year performance figures. NOAA noted that March 2012 was the “warmest March on record in the contiguous United States.” Chicago, Illinois experienced mid-June-like temperatures from March 17^th to March 22^nd 2012 with 60 degree lows!

March 2012 vs. March 2013 Differences

Naturally, our first inclination was to dive into our data to see how these weather changes may be impacting paid search performance, aka demand-driven marketing. Specifically, we pulled performance for clients in outdoor-focused verticals, mainly in the pet, pool, outdoor spring/summer sports, and gardening spaces.

The sample set of clients showed a 20-40% dip in clicks and a 20-30+% dip in sales from the warm March 2012 to March 2013 (as compared to an overall 13% lift in clicks and a 21% lift in sales across RKG’s client base). The impression and traffic declines indicate a change in demand (folks are not quite ready for spring outdoor fun, while snow is still on their deck.) And, for the folks that made it to some of these seasonal sites, we saw a decline in closing ratios year over year. People were looking around in chilly March, but were not quite ready to make a purchase.

United States Regional Weather Differences

The weather maps below show YoY March temperature differences, by region. Notice the Pacific and Mountain areas experienced ‘average’ to below average temperatures in 2012, while the mid to east areas were warmer than average.  In contrast, this year, the mid and east regions (minus Maine and other north eastern states) were cooler than average.

It’s interesting, if we dive into regional click trends for clients in the same sample set of outdoor-related verticals, we see a similar trend. (See map below for paid search click-trends year over year.) In red, the Pacific and Mountain regions were not hit as hard in terms of paid search traffic declines (and were actually up in some instances) from March 2012 to March 2013. Whereas the mid to east regions (in blue) observed a steep decline in traffic (and for some clients, a drop in conversion rate). No surprise, this March doesn’t feel like June!

Performance Among Outdoor-Related Sites

April 2013 Recovery!

The (obvious) goal is to ‘recover’ the lost March sales in April. Folks still have pools, dogs, outdoor sports to play; they just weren’t ready to be outside in the colder temperatures. RKG is primed and ready to capture pent-up demand as the weather shifts. We are using all the tools in our possession (extensive keyword coverage, PLA optimization, bidding adjustments, appropriate device/geo/network targeting, and more) to make the most of April.

The good news is we are beginning to see the tide shift this week as the weather is warming up. We are excited to see the sales lift continue.

We are curious, what are other folks seeing in the outdoor space?