A: What a great question.  Most people just do a site: search in Google to find the number of pages on their website (for example, you could search for <site:www.yourseoplan.com> and look at the number of pages returned in Google – currently 270 pages).  But if you want to find out what portion of your total pages have been indexed by Google, you’ll need another way of counting the total number of pages on your site so you can compare it against Google’s index count.

We suggest using XML sitemaps along with Google Search Console in order to calculate the inclusion ratio of pages indexed in Google.  If your website platform cannot create an XML sitemap, you may want to look into using one of the sitemap tools that are available, below are some resources:

• For a small site under 500 pages, you could use the online version at http://www.xml-sitemaps.com/  or Screaming Frog.
• For larger sites, you can review other sitemap generators at: http://code.google.com/sm_thirdparty.html

If all you do is what to find out how many pages a site has, the sitemap process in this article can do that, or you can look into using a Crawler (like Screaming Frog). 

When you have a sitemap created, sign into Google Search Console and follow the steps below (if you don’t have an account, create one!):

• When logged into Google Search Console, go to the Sitemaps section.
• From here, add the sitemap that you created for your website.
• If all goes well, Google will show the URLs you have submitted (see below):

• Google does not show the discovered URLs immediately, but give it a few days and Google will now give you the total pages that it found in your sitemap.

With the submitted and processed sitemap, you can go to the Coverage section in Google Search Console and find a few details on how your site is indexed in Google:

(1) Submitted and Indexed

(2) Indexed, not submitted in sitemap

These two data points will help you understand what known pages are current indexed in Google (916/973, 93%).  Along with what other pages that Google may have found and decided to index that you did not know about (99!).

In addition to the above Valid and Indexed pages that Google finds, you can also find information in the Excluded tab of the Coverage Section about the indexing status of your pages. This tab can help you understand why some pages that you may have expected to see in the “Submitted and Indexed” datapoint, but where not.

The post How Can I Count the Number of Pages On My Site? – Ask the Experts appeared first on Gravity Search Marketing.

We’ve worked on ad campaigns for B2Bs including insurers, legal service providers, equipment manufacturers, and creators of software/SAAS for things like HR and document management. We’ve always found that removing bad clicks is a highly effective way to improve ROI. It’s all about the targeting.

Why Be Selective in Choosing Your Targets?

B2B advertisers are often faced with exceedingly high CPC price tags in AdWords. For example, to be near the top of results for “business liability insurance,” an advertiser can expect to pay $20 – $25 each time someone clicks the ad:

Don’t worry B2Bs, I didn’t click your links!

This click is costly, so you really don’t want an untargeted person to click on it. That’s why you should be very selective in who sees these ads. 

Negative Matching Keywords

Negative matching keywords is the #1 way to clear detritus out of your ad campaigns and make your audience more targeted.

When you set a negative match keyword in AdWords, Google will not display ads to anyone who uses that keyword in their search query. If you sell retail liability insurance and not truck liability insurance, then negative-matching the word “truck” will ensure you don’t pay for clicks from people searching for “truck liability insurance.”

As an example of an opportunity for improvement, State Farm’s ad shown below is displayed for “liability insurance for car” even though their ad is geared towards businesses. That’s probably not an effective placement for this ad. Negative-matching “car” would prevent the ad from showing up for this search:

Are you sure you want to show this searcher your B2B ad, State Farm?

Here are some recommended best practices in negative matching for B2Bs:

• Be thorough. There’s no downside to including variations and capturing all the categories that don’t apply to your business
• Monitor the full search phrases that deliver clicks to your campaigns, and continuously update your negative match list to capture any off-target terms you notice.
• If your business sells only to certain specialties within a business vertical, be sure to negative match other specialties. For example, if your business sells to veterinarians but not other pet care services, you should negative match all the varieties of pet care service providers you can think of, including acronyms.
• Consider broad-matched or phrase-matched negative keywords, not just exact-matched. If you exclude “truck driver,” a broad match will let you exclude “big rig driver” too.
• Unless they are part of your target audience, be sure to exclude job-seekers: people searching for “job”, “employer”, “salary”, etc.

When Negative Matching Isn’t Enough

Sometimes, a searcher does not give you enough information in their search query to determine whether to exclude them or not. For example, a person searching for “liability insurance” may be an average consumer looking for insurance for their home, or they may be a business manager looking for insurance for their business. For most B2B advertisers, the former group (consumers) is an undesirable audience: they don’t purchase your products. Worse, there are a lot of them; these clicks can drive up your advertising costs without generating the leads and sales you’re after.

If you’ve done everything you can to negative-match keywords that reveal a poorly-matched audience, but you’re still getting excessive clicks that aren’t converting to leads, there are a few steps you can take:

• Be extremely clear in your ad text to qualify the audience. Your goal is to dissuade undesirable searchers from clicking your ads. You can do this by specifying exactly who you serve, for example: “Services for Small Businesses.” You can also use ad extensions to list the kinds of businesses you serve.
• Track performance at the keyword level, so you know which keywords are giving you value. You may need to stop sponsoring some of your more generic terms if they’re getting too many crossover clicks from an untargeted audience. Unfortunately, due to the low volumes that are typical in B2B advertising, you may not have enough data to know which keywords are more or less successful.
• Use any other targeting options that are relevant. Does your business serve a certain geographic location? Is there a certain demographic that is more likely to be a better audience for you? Geotargeting and demographic targeting may be options to improve your audience mix.

Explore Lower Cost Keyword Targets

As mentioned above, CPC is generally quite high for keywords describing B2B offerings, easily heading upwards of $20 per click. Some other keywords may not have such stratospheric costs:

• Your branded terms
• Competitor names
• Competitor names + comparison terms like “vs” and  “alternative”

These keywords may be not only lower-cost, but also a good target audience as well. Using competitor names as keywords is a common tactic and is acceptable within AdWords guidelines, but does require some caution. Your ads must always follow Google’s rules for trademarks, and the landing pages should contain content that is relevant to this search.

Expect Relatively High Management Effort

It’s never a fun thing for us to tell a client, but it’s a fact: dollar-for-dollar, B2B ad campaigns typically require much more management effort than B2Cs. It can be enough work to manage a $5000/month campaign for a B2B as it is for a B2C campaign ten times that size. This is because of the relatively low volume and high competition of the campaigns. Keep in mind: it takes more work for your advertising manager to spend less of your money than it does to spend more!

On the bright side, each of your sales is probably worth a lot more than the average consumer purchase – and even more so if you factor in the lifetime value of a new customer. A highly-focused AdWords campaign will be worth the effort: put your ads in front of the right people and you’ll give it the best chance of success!

The post Less is More for a B2B in AdWords: Tips to Improve Your B2B Ad Targeting appeared first on Gravity Search Marketing.

Demographic Targeting for Household Income

While demographic targeting was available in the old AdWords interface, it’s more powerful and accessible in the new experience. For example, now household income is a demographic target alongside age and gender. (Previously, this was hidden deep in location targeting.)

You can find this by navigating to the Demographics tab from the main navigation menu. At the top of the page, you’ll find a chart for household income along with other demographics. This makes it easier to evaluate performance and modify bids based on income groups.

Bid Adjustments for Call Extensions

If you value calls, then you’ll be happy to hear about the advanced bid adjustment feature. This new feature gives you more control of the visibility of your call extensions. By toggling to the Advanced Bid Adjustment tab, you can modify bids to get call extensions to show more or less frequently in your mobile search ads.

Overview Page

When you first open the new AdWords UI, you’re taken to a refreshed overview page with plenty of high-level reports. AdWords visually displays your account’s insights in a fast and actionable way through bar graphs, heat maps, and more.

Our favorite addition to the overview page is the new Search Terms report, which displays a word cloud of the terms that most frequently triggered your ads. This report makes it simpler to identify new keyword ideas for your campaign.

Notes (Upcoming)

Just recently, Google announced that notes will be added to the new AdWords interface. This feature allows you to add comments within the platform about any significant events or changes to your campaigns. For example, if there’s a spike or dip in performance (perhaps due to a promotion), you can note it within the interface. This makes it easier for any users who have access to your account to quickly see what caused a change in performance.

Once you create the note, it will be visible beneath the performance graph (similar to how it works in Google Analytics). This new feature should be rolled out within the next few weeks.

(Photo courtesy of Google’s Inside AdWords blog)

For more information about what’s changed in the AdWords interface, check out the AdWords Help Center.

The post 4 Best Features of the New AdWords Interface appeared first on Gravity Search Marketing.

A: We’re often asked this question! I think we have an especially good vantage point for it, because we provide both organic SEO and paid search management services, rather than just one or the other. Like so many SEO questions, the answer is, “it depends.”

The general SEO/SEM industry consensus is that you will see an increase in traffic by including AdWords sponsorship, even when your site has top organic ranks for the same keyword. In our experience, this is generally true. Paid search results are very prominent and growing more so, especially in mobile screens. In some cases, even a #1 organic rank is pushed out of the first screen of mobile search results, so the only way to have a prominent Google spot is with a paid ad.

Recent industry data has shown large YOY increases in clicks on paid ads, while organic search activity has simultaneously languished. In 2016 and 2017, Google consistently made changes to the layout and contents of search results to favor paid ads at the expense of organic results. This is no big surprise, since Google earns billions from paid ads every year.

Most of our clients are looking for two measures of performance in their paid search campaigns: an ROI measure (Average cost of sale, or a similar metric), and a total volume of sales. If our client will get more total sales with both organic and paid results running for the brand name, and the ROI hits our targets, we’re probably going to recommend keeping those ads running.

That said, we think a good dose of skepticism and experimentation is called for, because of the inherent conflicts of interest here. It’s not surprising that Google has produced studies suggesting that search ads drive traffic that would not be provided solely by organic traffic. See links to past Google research for Mobile and Desktop devices. Full desktop study.

Naturally some people question Google’s data that suggests you are better off paying Google more money. In contrast to the Google studies, some research from eBay with a different conclusion can be seen here.

A main takeaway from eBay research was that their paid search ads were ineffective and cannibalized organic search traffic (Here and Here). However, there is also discussion of eBay’s flawed paid search strategy (Here).

The eBay findings provided a helpful counterpoint to Google’s studies, but they were really only applicable for eBay users’ specific searching behavior and their specific AdWords campaign structure. These studies are also very old. Since then, the search results have changed to increasingly favor paid results, and mobile search has risen to a dominant position. We don’t think the eBay conclusions can be be broadly applied to other businesses and websites.

We recommend cautious experimentation to find your own best course. A test would consist of turning on and off paid search advertising for a select list of keywords that have top organic ranks, and monitoring changes in total traffic & sales (including both organic and paid search). You’ll have to set up these experiments so that they aren’t susceptible to timing factors such as increased traffic on weekends. Because of the potential drop in visibility during testing, we don’t recommend running these experiments during a high season.

Organic search and paid search each have advantages and disadvantages, strengths and weaknesses. We see a place for both of them in the online marketing mix!

The post Ask an SEO: If I Have Top Organic Ranks, Can I Turn Off AdWords? appeared first on Gravity Search Marketing.

A: Your friend is correct. The Waldville school is advertising in Google when people search for your name, “waffen school LA”.

The post Ask An SEO: A Competitor is Running AdWords With My Name appeared first on Gravity Search Marketing.

A: The SEO industry doesn’t have a clear learning path for the newcomer, and there are no SEO degrees or certifications that I would consider must-have. Most SEOs learn by doing, usually by having their own website(s) that they work on and experiment with.

That said, there are some  trustworthy sources of information for students of SEO online:

• Moz.com has a learning center that provides a good starting point for new SEOs as well as those with more experience. Rand Fishkin’s “whiteboard Fridays” are a perennial favorite for those in the industry.
• Blogs from credible marketing agencies can be very useful (like ours, of course!).  Distilled is a marketing firm that offers some learning information on their site: https://www.distilled.net/u/.
• We’re familiar with several of the Lynda.com SEO presenters and we think they can be trusted to provide good SEO information. Just make sure that the video is recent!
• Anything by Danny Sullivan will be reliable as he’s a pillar of the industry. Follow Danny on Twitter while you’re at it!

Google offers some certifications, but unfortunately none for SEO. As an employer, I can say for certain that Google Analytics or Google AdWords certification can be very beneficial in making you a desirable employee, if that’s a direction you want to go.

Also direct from the source (Google) are webmaster hangouts with John Mueller: https://plus.google.com/+JohnMueller. The timezone is for Switzerland, so pour yourself some coffee and enjoy a generally technical SEO chat with Johnmu and other webmasters.

Readers, where do you go for SEO learning?

The post Ask an SEO: Can You Recommend an SEO Program or Credential? appeared first on Gravity Search Marketing.

This could affect elements on your website such as embedded YouTube videos and backgrounds that have moving elements (especially those with sound).

Chrome users comprise the majority of desktop traffic, at around 60%, according to Net Market Share.

How This Affects SEO for Your Site
User Experience (UX) can indirectly affect SEO, and is an important consideration in any SEO strategy. A bad UX can negatively impact engagement or derail your conversion path. Visitors encountering a poor UX may be less likely to link to your site, and fewer links is a disadvantage for SEO. Searchers encountering a poor UX are more likely to bounce out of your site and back to search results, and some SEOs believe that Google may interpret this as a negative signal.

If you previously had autoplaying videos that were annoying to users, this change may improve the UX on your site. On the other hand, if you have autoplaying videos that are critical to your site experience, you’ll want to make sure that this change doesn’t cause impediments to navigating your site or the appearance of broken or missing information.

What You Can Do
You can test this now, even though it’s not rolled out yet. You can get an approximation of Chrome’s upcoming behavior by pasting the following into your Chrome browser:

chrome://flags/#autoplay-policy

And selecting the setting: Autoplay policy > Document user activation is required.

Then, relaunch your browser.

This activates a beta version of this policy, so what happens when the policy actually rolls out in January may be slightly different.

If you see unexpected behaviors on your site, you’ll need to troubleshoot the user experience or connect with your developer to help, and plan ahead to ensure a positive UX for web content that you’ll launch in 2018.

In our tests, we’ve seen some unexpected behaviors when autoplay is disabled, including multiple clicks being required to play a video, and backgrounds with moving elements but no sound that we expected to play, but didn’t.

Chrome provides more information and developer support here: https://sites.google.com/a/chromium.org/dev/audio-video/autoplay

The post New Chrome Autoplay Policy Can Affect SEO appeared first on Gravity Search Marketing.

In the past, this feature was only available to a small number of celebrities, movie studios, museums, sports teams and leagues. As of June 22, 2017, Google Posts were expanded to include any local business owner or user with access to Google My Business.

How Can You Make Google Posts Work for Your Business?

• Share promotions, specials, announcements, or news.
• Promote upcoming events at your business.
• Showcase your products or services.
• Encourage customers to sign up for your newsletter, make reservations, buy products from your website, or learn more about your company.

How Do You Create Your First Google Post?

• Log in to your Google My Business
• If you have more than one location, scroll through your list and click “Manage Location” for the store you’d like to manage.
• Click “Posts” from the main menu.
• A ‘Create Post’ screen will appear. You’ll be given several options for your post (i.e. upload an image, write text, add event, add call to action buttons). Here’s what the interface looks like:

• Once you’ve entered your relevant information, hit “Preview” to preview the Post. If everything looks good, hit “Publish.”
• Your Post should appear within Google Search and Maps within a few moments.

Google Posts expire seven days after they’ve been posted. Events are the exception to this rule. If you choose an “end date” for an event that’s past the seven-day point, then the post will remain live until the end date has passed.

Any Tips for Succeeding at Google Posts?

• Posts can have up to 1,500 characters. However, only a preview is visible in search (usually only the first 100 characters). Put your best content first so people will click through to read the rest of your Post.
• Choose an eye-catching image for your Post. Make sure it’s clear, well-lit, and reinforces your message. At minimum, Google recommends a resolution of 720px tall by 720px wide.
• Always add a call to action button to drive engagement with your Posts. You can even add a UTM code to the URL to track any click activity to your site.
• If you’re selling a product or highlighting a promotion, be precise and include any instructions or restrictions (i.e. $50 off a purchase of $100 or more).
• Be authentic. Speak in the voice that represents your company.

Google Posts are an excellent way to take advantage of your local search space. For more information about this new feature, visit the Google My Business Help Center.

The post How to Take Advantage of Google Posts for Your Local Business appeared first on Gravity Search Marketing.

How cool is that! Searchers from Oregon all the way to South Carolina are looking for information about this once-in-a-lifetime celestial event. Truth is, even in such far flung places as California and Minnesota, a partial eclipse will be viewable.

Remember, kids: never, ever look at the sun without eclipse glasses (no, dark sunglasses aren’t enough).

The post Google Trends Shows 2017 Eclipse Path of Totality appeared first on Gravity Search Marketing.

When you click on one of the questions, the box expands to display the answer along with a link back to the original source material. There’s also a clickable link, which generates a new search in Google for the same question. This is similar to Google’s “related searches” feature at the bottom of a search results page.

The People Also Ask box, first seen in April 2015 by Search Engine Roundtable, has been displaying more frequently in Google’s search results. If you are looking for a way to increase your company’s share of voice in Google, this may be a good option.

How Do You Appear in the People Also Ask Box?

1) Identify a question that your site can answer well

You probably already know your top priority keywords. To find out how people are using them in question form, try one of the following approaches:

• Type your keyword into Google’s search box, then type “what,” “how,” “why,” and other question words to see which questions show up in the results. Keywords like “type” or “difference” can help you find questions people are using to compare products.
• Use a keyword research tool (we like the Google AdWords Keyword Planner) to find questions or informational searches that people use with your keywords. You may discover these suggestions are already appearing in Google’s People Also Ask box. For instance, if you search for “Himalayan salt” in the Keyword Planner, you’ll see the following results: 

  By looking at these suggestions, you might guess that questions about the benefits of Himalayan pink salt are also showing up in search results, and you’d be right:

  
  It’s best to focus your efforts on optimizing for questions that Google is already showing in the search results.

2) Create a webpage or blog post that’s dedicated to answering the question

For best results, the page should be text-heavy, and clearly and accurately worded. If possible, include the question or informational search query in the URL structure of the page and HTML title.

Your page does not need to be in Q&A format, but you should include the gist of the question and the answer in close proximity on the page. For example, the page that Google has selected to answer the question “How can I save money on college textbooks?” does not have that exact question on the page. Instead, it uses part of that phrase within its headline “8 Ways to Save Money on College Textbooks.”

If creating a new webpage isn’t an option, try finessing one that’s a close fit to the question you want to answer. Just make sure to choose a page that already ranks well for your top priority keywords.

By following the steps above, you may increase the likelihood that your website’s content could appear in Google’s People Also Ask box.

The post Google’s People Also Ask Box: What it is and How to Optimize for it appeared first on Gravity Search Marketing.