Seattle Search Marketing Blog

Google Analytics now integrated with feedburner data

Maria — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 17:48:40 +0000

The long awaited integration between Google Analytics and Feedburner is finally here. If you are using both Google Analytics and FeedBurner, you will automatically see campaign attribution for item clicks tracked by your AdSense For Feeds or your Google FeedBurner account.

FeedBurner is now automatically inserting Google Analytics tracking codes into the URLs of the items or content. For instance, if you publish a blog and a subscriber reads it and then clicks through to your site, you will see that the source of that visit is FeedBurner. And as you can see, it gives even more granular information, such as the type of feed reading software or email. Here are a couple of screenshots:

TRAFFIC SOURCES:

Feedburner Data in Google Analytics

CAMPAIGNS:

Feedburner data in Google Analytics

Now, to make sure Google Analytics tracking is enabled for Feedburner, check the “Configure Stats” page on the Analyze tab. Here’s a screenshot:

Feedburner Settings to enable Google Analytics tracking

Enjoy!

Google Analytics gets asynchronous tracking

Maria — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 04:09:02 +0000

Google Analytics is off to a good start this December with their latest launch – a new Asynchronous Tracking Code snippet. Basically, we now have another way to track websites – especially the ones that use many scripts or rely on rich media content.

Google’s blog suggests thinking about the asynchronous tracking code snippet “as a script that uses a “separate lane” to handle part of the processing of your webpage”. As the number of scripts on your page increases, the asynchronous tracker works to reduce page load time by being processed separately. Here’s how asynchronous snippet looks:

Asynchronous Tracking Code Snippet for Google Analytics

The asynchronous tracking snippet offers many benefits, including:

Faster tracking code load times for your web pages due to improved browser execution
Enhanced data collection and accuracy
Elimination of tracking errors from dependencies when the JavaScript hasn’t fully loaded

So, how to do you install the new snippet? Read Google’s Installation Guide or simply read on for step by step instructions.

Before you get started, please note that asynchronous tracking is not available in urchin.js. If you are using the urchin.js snippet, you’ll have to read the Tracking Code Migration Guide.

Now, to install the asynchronous snippet on pages that either don’t currently use Google Analytics or are currently using traditional tracking with ga.js. , follow these steps:

If the page already uses Analytics, remove your existing tracking code snippet and any customizations you have made.
To reduce errors, it is recommended that you remove the existing tracking code snippet from the include file or mechanism that injects it into your web pages. You can paste your existing tracking code snippet in a text file to keep track of any customized methods you use.
Insert the asynchronous snippet at the bottom of the section of your pages.
One of the main advantages of the asynchronous snippet is that you can put it higher in the page. More specifically, you should position it as the last script in the section. As determined by Google, putting the asynchronous snippet in the is the optimal position.
Modify the _setAccount method with your web property ID.
For more information on web property IDs, check out the “Web Property” section in Google’s Accounts and Profiles document.
Add your customizations back in using the asynchronous syntax. Google’s Usage Guide and Migration Examples pages provide many examples of these conversions.

Note: Even with asynchronous loading, some content might be blocked from rendering in certain browsers. To avoid this possibility, other scripts in your site should be positioned in one of these ways:

before the tracking code snippet in the section of your HTML
after both the tracking code snippet and all page content (e.g. at the bottom of the HTML body)

If that isn’t an option, you can still put the asynchronous snippet at the bottom of the page. You can also split your snippet to retain some of the benefits of asynchronous tracking.

Now, I am not sure about you but I’m definitely taking the asynchronous snippet for a test drive.

Targeting options that make Facebook advertising a goldmine

Maria — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 03:34:01 +0000

Any business that is targeting other businesses runs into many challenges with their online advertising. From getting a lot of consumer traffic to having a hard time defining their product in simple terms, every B2B advertiser out there could really use a magic bullet. Something that is simple, affordable, and profitable.

While typical advertising solutions like Google AdWords and Microsoft AdCenter are a must have in the B2B marketing mix, there’s one network that is often unreasonably ignored by businesses. The true goldmine for B2B lead gen, Facebook offers targeting options that no other network has. Let’s take a look.

When you are setting up an advertising campaign on Facebook, you can target the entire network (which, in the USA alone, is 89,805,620 people!) or you can really define your ideal target – by location, age, birthday, gender, education, marital status, and [drum roll] company name. Here’s how the targeting setup looks:

Facebook Ad Targeting Options

Now, why is targeting by Company Name so important?

1. You can target all businesses currently in your pipeline.

2. You can target businesses that are hard to reach through other channels.

3. You can target CFOs, CIOs, CTOs, and VPs.

4. You can create a custom message for every business you are after.

Simple as it may seem, these things are extremely hard to do with traditional paid search. Of course, there are many drawbacks with Facebook ads. Some of your target businesses may not be on there (either because people did not provide the info, or simply because there’s no Facebook users among all associated with the company), the user information may be outdated or incorrect, the user may be inactive (or one of these people who uses Facebook once a year). But this does not mean that it is not worth it. So really give your lead gen program a boost by adding Facebook to the mix – and I am certain you will not regret it.

Any takers for Google AdWords ad sitelinks beta?

Maria — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 18:29:02 +0000

There’s hardly a search marketer out there who has not noticed the ad sitelinks on the usual AdWords ads for some advertisers. Well, I’ve noticed it too and have some observations and knowledge of this beta to share. But first off, what are ad sitelinks anyways?

According to Google’s one sheeter, Ad Sitelinks is a new AdWords feature that allows us to extend the value of our existing AdWords ads by providing additional links to deep content within our websites (in simple terms: a way to get more real estate on the SERPs and get hidden, deep pages to shine in top spot). Basically, the ad is allowed to have up to 5 links for the user to choose from: the landing page link and up to four additional destination URLs to provide additional user options and/or make the ad more targeted to a larger audience.

The idea behind this beta is that ad sitelinks will provide additional page options within a site for the user to click on – as long as the advertiser is certain that the links provided are the best answer to the user’s search query.

Now, how do these ads look? The easiest example is eBay (hint: if you wonder about any betas happening, search for ebay across the top three engines and you’ll likely see it right there!):

adwords-ebay-ad-links

Google Ultra Luxury Consumer Study

Maria — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 19:52:10 +0000

For consumer marketers out there, Google did a webinar talking about their Ultra-Luxury Consumer Study. In the webinar, Pam Danziger, president of Unity Marketing, presented the results of an in-depth study, sponsored by Google, examining the role the Internet plays in the lifestyles of the ultra-affluents (consumers with incomes corresponding to the top 2 percent of U.S. households, with household incomes of $250,000 or more). The results provide powerful insights for all luxury brands, into how to reach and interact with these important consumers.

If you missed the webinar, check out the recorded version of the webinar or download the Google Luxury Study.

All Google Twitter Profiles I betcha you are not following

Maria — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 17:59:48 +0000

I am certain that I am not alone in wanting to follow Google on Twitter. Yet, since there are so many different groups and products, knowing exactly who to follow can be a tedious task. I’ve compiled a list of Google’s official profiles on Twitter and think that you may find it helpful.

The latest profiles released are Auto, Financial Services, Media & Entertainment, Retail, Tech, and Travel – to provide industry information and product updates.

Now, the list as provided by Google:

twitter.com/Google – our central account
twitter.com/GooglePubPolicy – our take on politics, policy & government
twitter.com/Blogger – for Blogger fans
twitter.com/Google Books – Passages, quotes, images and product news
twitter.com/GoogleCalendar – user tips & updates
twitter.com/GoogleContacts – user tips for Google Contacts
twitter.com/GoogleImages – news, tips, tricks on our visual image search
twitter.com/GoogleNews – latest headlines via Google News
twitter.com/GoogleNewsJP – latest headlines via Google News Japan
twitter.com/GoogleReader – from our feed reader team
twitter.com/GoogleVoice – updates & info on Google Voice
twitter.com/iGoogle – news & notes from Google’s personalized homepage
twitter.com/GoogleStudents – news of interest to students using Google
http://twitter.com/googlemobileapp – Updates on Google mobile apps
twitter.com/YouTube – for YouTube fans
twitter.com/YouTubeES – en Espanol
twitter.com/GoogleAtWork – solutions for IT and workplace productivity
twitter.com/GoogleSites – Google Sites updates
twitter.com/GoogleToolbar – news & tips from the Toolbar team

Geo-related
twitter.com/SketchUp – Google SketchUp news
twitter.com/3DWH – SketchUp’s 3D Warehouse
twitter.com/Modelyourtown – 3D modeling to build your favorite places
twitter.com/EarthOutreach – Earth & Maps tools for nonprofits & orgs
twitter.com/GoogleEarth – updates from the Google Earth team
twitter.com/GoogleMaps – uses, tips, mashups
twitter.com/GoogleSkyMap -Android app for the night sky

Ads-related
twitter.com/AdSense – for online publishers
twitter.com/AdWordsHelper – looking out for AdWords questions and tech issues
twitter.com/AdWordsProSarah – Google Guide for AdWords Help Forum
twitter.com/GoogleAnalytics – insights for website effectiveness
twitter.com/GoogleAdBuilder – re building display ads
twitter.com/GoogleAdManager – info on managing online ads & inventory
twitter.com/GoogleAffiliate – info for publishers from Google network advertisers
twitter.com/GoogleAuto – news for auto advertisers
twitter.com/GoogleFinSvcs – news for financial services advertisers
http://twitter.com/googlemande – news for media & entertainment advertisers
twitter.com/GoogleRetail – news for retail advertisers
twitter.com/GoogleTech – news for tech advertisers
twitter.com/GoogleTravel – news for travel advertisers
twitter.com/GoogleTVAds – info on our digital system for more measurable TV advertising
twitter.com/TechnologyUK – for U.K. tech advertisers
twitter.com/UKretail – for U.K. retail advertisers
twitter.com/creativesandbox – for advertising agencies
twitter.com/InsideAdWordsDE – for German AdWords customers
twitter.com/GoogleAgencyDE – for German ad agencies
twitter.com/AdSenseKorea – info for Korean-language publishers
twitter.com/AdSensePT – info for Portuguese-language publishers
twitter.com/AdWordsRussia – AdWords news & tips in Russian
twitter.com/DentroDeAdWords – Spanish updates from the Inside AdWords blog
twitter.com/GoogleAgencias – for Latin American agencies

Developer & technical
twitter.com/AdWordsAPI – AdWords API tips
twitter.com/GoogleResearch – from our research scientists
twitter.com/GoogleWMC – Google Webmaster Central
twitter.com/GoogleCode – latest updates for Google developer products
twitter.com/GoogleData – Data APIs provide a standard protocol for reading and writing web data
twitter.com/app_engine – web apps run on Google infrastructure
twitter.com/DataLiberation – our initiative for complete import/export of all data
http://twitter.com/googledevapac – for Google developers in Asia-Pacific
twitter.com/GoogleMapsAPI – about using Google Maps embedded in websites
twitter.com/GoogleIO – Google’s largest annual developer event

Culture, People
twitter.com/googletalks – notes from our @Google speaker series
twitter.com/googlejobs – the voice of Google recruiters

Country or Region
twitter.com/googlearabia – news from the Google Arabia Blog
twitter.com/googledownunder – Google activities in Australia & New Zealand
twitter.com/googlebrasil – News & info for Brasil
twitter.com/googlecanada – News & notes from Google Canada
twitter.com/GoogleDE – Google in Germany
twitter.com/GoogleKorea – News & notes in Korean
twitter.com/GoogleLatAm – Latin America (en Espanol)
twitter.com/GooglePolicyIt – Notes on Google policy issues in Italy
twitter.com/GoogleRussia – Information in Russian on Google products & services

Are there any accounts missing?

SEO-Friendly URL Structure – Lowercase/Uppercase for SEO Benefit

Maria — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 22:24:55 +0000

It seems logical to think that search engines in general and Google in particular do not see a difference between lowercase and UPPERCASE keywords when they return search results to the user. Back a couple of years ago though it was a popular SEO strategy to place the same keyword in both lowercase and uppercase into meta – a strategy that’s a bit on the spammy side, if you ask me. While most SEO experts are confident that lowercase is preferred, the uppercase advocates may have a point.

I am certain that Google places some emphasis on the use of uppercase and lowercase – as capitalization may be very relevant to the query (for example, “US” vs “us”). While I have not run across any case studies on this, the opinions and observations are all over the place. Yet, theoretically, I can see how lowercase and uppercase pages may be getting different placement on SERPs.

Again, in theory, case difference may mean different pages – in which case Google would spider them separately and view them as two separate pages – hence, the position and rank difference. The potential drawback is duplicate content penalty. While it is unlikely that duplicate content penalty will result from lowercase/uppercase situation, a 301 is still a good idea.

Just like with http/https seo, the best practice is to have one version of the page (I’d recommend it be the lowercase) and apply a 301 redirect to keep everything in the same place.

A couple of other things related to uppercase/lowercase SE optimization:

Check this thread on Google Webmaster Tools to read on some uppercase and lowercase URL problems other people have had.
Check this thread on SEOMOZ to read about uppercase and CSS style issues for SEO – I wasn’t even thinking along these lines until I read it!

How to SEO for HTTP and HTTPs

Maria — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 22:28:53 +0000

Whenever you get to optimize a website that has both HTTP and HTTPs versions (very common for e-commerce but not limited to e-commerce alone), the question of optimizing secure pages versus non-secure pages becomes important. While I do not have extensive experience with HTTP/HTTPs SEO, there’s virtually no information anywhere that helps understand the potential challenges for such optimization. Based on my observations and technical knowledge, here’s the top challenges to watch out for when you are optimizing HTTP/HTTPs – and resolutions for each.

1. Duplicate Content and Canonicalization – very likely if the secure pages of your site have already been fully indexed along with your HTTP site.

Because the protocols (http/https) are different, HTTP/HTTPs are considered two separate sites, so there’s a good chance to get penalized for duplicate content. If the search engine discovers two identical pages, generally it would take the page it saw first and ignore the other pages.

Solutions:

Be smart about the site structure: to keep the engines from crawling and indexing HTTPS pages, structure the website so that HTTPs are only accessible through a form submission (log-in, sign-up, or payment pages). The common mistake is making these pages available via a standard link (happens when you are either ignorant or not aware that the secure version of the site is being crawled and indexed).
Use Robots.txt file to control which pages will be crawled and indexed
Use .htaccess file. Here’s how to do this:

Create a file names robots_ssl.txt in your root.
Add the following code to your .htaccessRewriteCond %{SERVER_PORT} 443 [NC]RewriteRule ^robots.txt$ robots_ssl.txt [L]
Remove yourdomain.com:443 from the webmaster tools if the pages have already been crawled
For dynamic pages like php, try< ?phpif ($_SERVER["SERVER_PORT"] == 443){echo “< meta name=” robots ” content=” noindex,nofollow ” > “;}?>

Dramatic solution (may not always be possible): 301 redirect the HTTPS pages to the HTTP pages – with hopes that the link juice will transfer over.

Additional ideas to solve:

Have portions of the site configured to use SSL to allow data transfer between the server and the browser over an encrypted (secure) connection. Note: the URLs of these pages still begin with https rather than http to indicate the secure protocol.
If you already have HTTPs pages in the index, remove them with Webmaster Tools

2. Linking

In some instances, I’ve seen Google index the HTTPs version of a website (which is not a totally bad thing) but since everyone is linking to the HTTP version of the page, the HTTPs is out in the woods in terms of pagerank. Now, if Google indexed only the HTTPs pages, then you are in trouble because you basically have no link juice from HTTP pages.

Solutions:

The best practice is to get links to HTTP versions of the pages, and to do this you will need to make sure that important pages are available in HTTP (typically, this should not be a problem, as most HTTPs pages are not content rich and have less value for the search engines).
Keep a different log file for the https domain and write a bit of code to point the referral links to your email every day or week. Contact the webmasters and ask them to change the links to http with a sweet mail (this works for me most times).
Keep normal sections under http only to reduce the likelihood of people linking to https.
Last resort solution: wait for Google to start counting https links for http pages (good luck with that!)

Did I forget anything? Let me know as this topic is very interesting and poorly discussed across the SEO community. Cheers!

Go Mobile! with a little help from your friends at Google

Maria — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 05:42:56 +0000

While mobile marketing has been on everybody’s mind for the past couple of years, it is a commonly shared opinion that the platform for mobile is just not ready for global use. Whether you agree with this statement or not, one thing is definitely true: more and more advertisers and marketers are thinking about going mobile. Now Google has created their own little page to help us, the marketers, go mobile in 2010 – or even sooner than that if we are really determined.

mobile-search

Here are the steps that our friends at Google suggest to go mobile:

Step 1. Mobilize your website.

Easy as it may sound, this may be a very challenging task. My personal wisdom: hire someone who knows what they are doing, it always ends up cheaper this way.
As an iPhone user, I am well aware that most phones can render text from any webpage – but oftentimes the design and the functionality of the page are gone even before it gets a chance to load. So really if you clean up your site and simplify your branding, it will become mobile friendlier by default. Another great piece of information is knowing that you can set your website to detect which device the user is coming from – to send them to the page that would work best for them.

Here are the things that Google suggests we take into account:

Phones have slower internet connections than computers. To help reduce the time your customer waits for your page to load, limit the use of fancy graphics, large images, videos and Flash. Note that some websites with a lot of Flash content may not load on a mobile browser at all.
Include a visible call to action to ensure that conversions (like a purchase or sign-up) are simple and quick.
Think about what type of information a customer on-the-go might want and how this might be different from what they’d look for sitting at their desk. Consider making it easier to find information about store locations, where to call to order, and other details that a user might look for from their phone.

Step 2. Location, location, location.

Unlike computers, mobile phones stay with us most times – even when you would not think a person would want to have a phone close by. Take advantage of that and follow these Google tips to enhace the user experience:

Let your customers skip the step of inputting their location and searching for the pharmacy closest to them. Instead, use location information to show the nearest pharmacy location proactively and immediately. Fewer clicks and less typing can result in happier customers and faster path to sale.
Suppose your brand is sponsoring a local sporting event. Consider offering potential customers who are in the local area a mobile experience customized around the event. For example, offer directions to your booth where they can try a sample of your product.
If your site can’t detect your customer’s location, you may want to integrate your app or webapp with Google Maps. Show them a map of nearby store locations where they can purchase your product, and include a mobile-only coupon for an extra incentive and better tracking of your results.

Step 3. Entertain and engage – at all times.

If you are like me, you play with your phone whenever you can. On multiple occasions I was embarrassed to walk into a wall because I was so engaged with whatever was on my iPhone screen while I was walking to my car. Security aside, here are some Google ideas to help your mobile visitors stick around:

Establish your brand as the go-to place for information that relates to the product or service you provide. For example, if you sell food products, be the one-stop resource for recipes and shopping lists to use on the go. If you sell event tickets, be the resource for day-of-event information, such as up-to-the-minute traffic information. If you sell a weight loss product, create a tool to help customers count calories while they’re dining out.
Engage your customers when they’re looking for entertainment. Create a mobile game on your website or a downloadable mobile application to bring your brand to life and increase customer affinity.
Reinforce your messages on other media your customers interact with. For example, write your mobile website address on an outdoor billboard, put a QR code on your bus ad, add a phone number customers can text to receive more information about what you featured in your TV ad… you can even use the mobile web to add more information about your product than its physical packaging will allow, or link to a coupon when the customer needs it most.

Step 4. Word of mouth. Literally.

I can’t tell how many business opportunities you are missing if you are ignoring viral marketing. Check Google’s wisdom to be on top of the game:

Go viral! If you have an element in your campaign that lets your customers send something to their friends, the mobile phone is the perfect medium. Some apps can even tap into a customer’s contact list for easier sharing.
Encourage your customers to participate in your events, contests, or ad campaigns through their mobile devices. If customers are sending in photos, for example, make sure there’s an easy way to do it from a mobile phone, so they can snap and send on the go. A campaign with a scavenger hunt could have people submit videos of themselves at various locations. In any of these cases, letting your customer submit on the spot means they’re more likely to participate.

Step 5 (my favorite). Help them find you.

Self-explanatory but very important: if they can’t find you, there’s a very good chance there’s someone else taking your place (or buying your branded terms).

And last (but not least) if you use your phone for browsing, check out a list of Google’s applications for mobile phones. Chances are you’ll like something.

Twitter on Bing and Google: Best Thing After Sliced Bread

Maria — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 00:43:02 +0000

Regardless of the general poor opinion on the name and the logo, 3-month-old Bing is quickly adding on interesting features. Now, the new and the latest one, is Twitter results in the Bing index. While this was announced at the Web 2.0 conference in San Francisco, the Twitter index can already be taken for a test-drive. Of course, it has issues if you are using Chrome, but on IE and Mozilla it works just fine. Check it out for yourself: http://www.bing.com/Twitter!

Twitter-Bing

Pretty exciting but I must admit that it is really weird seeing www.bing.com/Twitter instead of www.twitter.com/Bing.

Now, according to Kara Swisher of All Things Digital, the Facebook/Bing deal is also confirmed. While www.bing.com/facebook does not exist yet, signing up with Facebook is an even bigger deal for Bing now that Google has also reached an agreement with Twitter. The latest blog post on the Official Google Blog announced that Google will now include Twitter updates in Google search results – coincidentally!

As both Bing and Google have been able to arrange data deals with Twitter and Bing has reached an agreement with Facebook, we, the search users, now get the best thing after sliced bread – the ability to see real-time data from very popular and innovative sources among Google’s and Bing’s SERPs.