Some steps can have a negative impact on search engine optimisation by making a legitimate website look similar in layout and design to a phishing site, Google has warned.
In a Webmaster Central blog post, website owners are told that there are a number of page elements that are checked automatically to help identify phishing sites.
They include secondary domains that are not clearly linked from an organisation’s primary website, making it more difficult to identify whether it is owned by the company it purports to represent.
Logos for other companies should be placed well away from any login or password fields, to help reduce the confusion that might be caused for people who mistakenly associate the logo with the login.
Google also stresses that asking for a password to another site is a defining characteristic of phishing and should be avoided by legitimate webmasters completely if they wish to avoid damaging their search engine optimisation.
The search engine welcomes submissions from people who believe a URL has been filtered in error via its Report Incorrect Phishing Warning form, which incorporates a CAPTCHA test to eliminate bots from reporting URLs.
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Google has issued its latest round of advice for internet marketers through the AdWords Content Network Optimisation University.
Writing on the official blog of the pay per click marketing service, Katrina Kurnit said that investing some time to set up a campaign correctly "goes a long way" towards driving better quality traffic to a website.
She added that companies should set up separate strategies for search and Content Network promotions, as this will afford them more control over keywords, bids, daily budgets and ad groups.
Ms Kunit also advised marketers to build up small, "tightly-themed" ad groups comprising between five and 20 keywords to help AdWords better target their marketing messages at the right audience.
Furthermore, using AdWords Conversion Tracking on a website can help businesses to measure the leads and sales each ad group and placement is generating, she said.
In related news, AdWords has introduced a "remarketing" feature that allows companies to specifically target users who have previously visited their site with relevant ads such as last minute discounts as they browse the Google Content Network.
News brought to you by ClickThrough – a best practice Internet Marketing Agency.
Keyword research often involves sifting through existing phrases looking for variations that might snag a few more customers, but one expert believes that writing a few simple stories can open up whole new possibilities.
Writing on Search Engine Land, Brad Geddes said that there are several different types of keywords employed in search engine marketing – explicit words that describe a product; problem words that describe a fault solved by that product; symptom words that outline a problem and actual product names.
Generating new keywords across these categories can be "very useful" as it addresses the different ways users search for goods and services, he added.
Moreover, these phrases often face little competition from other advertisers, unlike variations of top-performing keywords.
For example, a search for "excel slow", referring to a computer problem that affects the Microsoft Office program, does not trigger any ads on Google, Mr Geddes said.
By creating short scenarios that cover a "problem, symptom, explicit solution and product keyword", companies can generate a range of new phrases that while not guaranteed to convert, should give them some "entirely new directions" to explore, he added.
Diana Ransom of the Wall Street Journal recently said that once keywords have been selected, it is essential to continuously monitor their performance.
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The global economic downturn of the past couple of years has put added pressure on companies’ resources, but according to one analyst, that does not mean they should "throw in the towel" on working to boost their online profile.
Indeed, Josh McCoy of Search Engine Watch said, fine-tuning a website for search engine marketing can be beneficial during lean times as it helps to increase customer interaction and revenues.
Reviewing a site as a consumer can be one of the best ways to find areas for improvement, he noted.
With internal links, for example, anchor text in the homepage copy should match the "keyword theme" of the destination.
Copy should be relevant to both consumers’ interests and keyword phrases in order to "educate users, as well as the search engines, about what your site is all about".
Adding alternative tags to a site’s pictures can help pages to pop up in image searches, while some keyword research should help to create accurate, compelling descriptions for title tags.
Rob Jones of Search Engine Watch recently said that images should also be surrounded by highly-relevant content to boost their search profiles.
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The use of online video is becoming an integral part of internet marketing and the potential audience for the channel is only going to grow, according to one expert.
Jamie Estrin, managing director of ad network Web TV Enterprise, said that demand for pre-roll video ads is at record levels and the wider use of video-based search engine marketing is "growing significantly".
"With more and more premium video content going online the audience is growing all the time and with any evolving market place there’s lots of new players arriving there which is great," he added.
Mr Estrin’s comments come after a poll of 100 marketers by smartclip found that 71 per cent are planning to use online video in their campaigns over the next 12 months.
A further 72 per cent said that they see online video ads as a transparent and measurable tool for audience interaction.
Some 35 per cent said that targeting is one of the biggest strengths of online video, while 38 per cent felt that interactivity is a strong unique selling point for their campaigns.
News brought to you by ClickThrough – specialists in Search Engine Optimisation and Internet Marketing.
Google has highlighted a number of "internationalisation" projects that are widening the accessibility of its search services to users around the world.
On the search engine’s official blog, distinguished engineer Ben Gomes said that since the company introduced real time content from sites like Facebook, Twitter and MySpace to its results, it has expanded its reach to include over 40 different languages.
Kevin Gibbons of Search Engine Watch recently claimed that using "organic" search engine marketing techniques, such as promoting blogs via Twitter, can create an "online buzz" that can help marketers to benefit from real time search.
Elsewhere, Mr Gomes noted that Google Suggest, which offers a list of possibilities that users might be looking for as they type, has also been internationalised and since 2008, has been rolled out in 50 languages across 170 domains.
In addition, he announced that a new feature will soon be rolled out that introduces popular query refinements for city names to help visitors find points of interest in different destinations.
The application will initially cover 200 US cities before being expanded to include international locations.
News brought to you by ClickThrough – a best practice Internet Marketing Agency.
It is important to keep a close eye on the statistics your e-commerce site provides to ensure that you are correctly targeting your content to your likely audience, and therefore making every sale that should be available to you. Not only that, but you need to be encouraging your potential and actual customers to engage with you, so that you can work on converting them to a customer for life, as well as utilising their network to promote your products more widely.
The big problem with traffic statistics is that invariably they do not easily indicate the different types of individuals who are arriving on your site. You cannot necessarily discover from your traffic stats whether that visitor came to buy, browse, bargain hunt, or research. There is no one size fits all for content on an e-commerce site, and it can be difficult to ensure that the information most likely to convert to a sale is easily discoverable by the right audience. After all, each type of user may come looking for slightly different things and act upon the information in different ways.
This is where metrics and measurements come in handy. By profiling the different shoppers and visitors to your website, you can begin to understand the different categories of users your promotional campaigns drive to your websites, and hence target information specifically to those visitors. By encouraging them to sign up to a newsletter, open an account, complete a feedback form or survey, or engage with a live contact person, you can begin to build up a picture of the types of people who visit your e-commerce site.
Why? You need to discover who is visiting your site, what their intentions are, and whether you are delivering precisely that they seek.
If you discover that a link on a particular site always leads to a sale of a discount item, or products that are on sale, or multi-buys, you can assume that the majority of those visitors are bargain hunters. Therefore, you can set up a landing page that specifically caters to those seeking a great price or a bargain, and push all of your lower priced deals to those customers immediately they follow the link from the originating site. There is no point pushing the highest spec products to those who are looking for bargain unless your price is highly competitive.
By looking at which type of visitor your backlinks and certain Pay Per Click campaigns or keywords drive to the site, you can adapt the content or landing pages to suit. Conversion rates can be measured and tweaks and changes made to landing pages to test those rates and increase them.
If you see that you have return visitors who regularly buy, then it is worth targetting those customers with a newsletter highlighting products they have shown an interest in or previously purchased, offer quarterly (or whatever timescale suits them) coupons, discounts and vouchers to repeat customers, and so on. By adding the option to open an account – this should not be compulsory for a first or one-off purchase – you can track our best customers and look after them.
Another way to motivate your customers is to offer an affiliate program that rewards them for their loyalty and promotion of your products and services. This does not necessarily mean purchasing expensive affiliate administration software, and may just mean assigning a single person within the business to communicate with your affiliates to ensure that the relationship is managed so as to be mutually beneficial.
You may discover that there are a number of customers who regularly put multiple items in their shopping basket before checking out, and then remove some of them. If this is the case, you need to check your pricing and shipping costs, and ensure that they are competitive, as well as clearly indicated at the point of purchase. Additionally, if you find a large number of shoppers dropping out before the sale, you must check the usability and functionality of your e-commerce software for ease of use and errors.
By examining the statistics, and applying a few techniques to gather information and then assess it for patterns, you can easily access the goldmine of information which your visitors leave behind. With carefully tailored calls to action, designed to meet your required results and tested regularly to ensure that you are hitting the right targets with your visitors, you can increase the number of responses and thereby achieve what you require from your ecommerce site.
When considering a social media marketing strategy, it is important to remember that social media marketing has only just entered the ‘prove it’ stage. In other words, whilst many are aware of social media and its potential benefits, there is no clear road map yet that businesses can adopt for guaranteed success. There are case studies of brands and businesses who have achieved a level of success but there are still many businesses who have not sought to use social media in their marketing process so there is a need for more evidence to breed strategies.
There seem to be some common questions about social media marketing which those many businesses who have not yet got involved in social media are seeking answers to, before embarking on a potentially time-consuming and unknown strategy. Here are seven of the top questions we are asked.
The first question has to be “Where do I start?” There is an ever-growing number of social media websites, and you need to research these before you decide which site(s) will be best not just for you, but to track down your target audience. Trying to second guess which social site will be the next big thing or which is going to fall out of favour is a bit like trying to herd cats, so you should spread your actions across more than one site, and keep a weather eye on developing trends.
Question 2 – What tactics should I use? Once you have decided which sites are appropriate for your marketing message, you need to understand which tactics are likely to work best in those places. Once again, this is a matter of not just research but also trial and error. However, don’t dive in to tweeting, for instance, without at the very least understanding the basics, the netiquette, and lurking for a while to see what others are doing, right and wrong.
Question 3 – What is social media netiquette? There is a fine line between communicating or socialising, and marketing, and ensuring you don’t cross that line will take some effort. There are unspoken rules in each of the social media ‘worlds’ but there are many experts who are happy to ensure that the community adheres to those, by educating newbies and so on, so seek out the people who are respected within those communities and ask for advice, or listen to what they are saying.
Question 4 – How do I measure whether it is working? You need to be clear that spending time and money on the tactics required for those sites will not dilute your core marketing message, nor distract from or conflict with other activities. You should ensure that you have processes in place to track effectiveness and return on investment, just as you do with other marketing efforts. Remember: metrics matter!
Question 5 – How much time should I spend? It is clear from the many who are already involved in social media that it can, without careful management, become a major time sink. Understanding this from the outset will mean that you can develop clear processes that do not eat into precious time that could be more profitably be spent elsewhere. This is not to say that marketing via social media cannot reap rewards, just that you should be aware that you can become consumed and even a victim of your own success.
Question 6 – Can things go wrong? The social media world is very viral, and one minor post can go global in hours or even minutes if it captures the imagination. This can lead to servers falling over, out of stock product landing pages, or your email inbox suddenly becoming fuller than your secretary can cope with. Automation and checking that your backend systems are fully functional is worth considering if you don’t want to be overwhelmed. Whilst it is not usual to find these problems happening, other events in the social media world outside of your control can contribute, and it is worth being aware of the potential for social media to make life that little bit harder than you were expecting!
If there are any known problems with your site, ordering systems, stock control etc, or you have been seeing poor conversions from other marketing tactics, then it would be wise to resolve these issues before becoming a social media marketer. If there is already something wrong with your website, you can count on it being pointed out publicly to many in the social media world!
Question 7 – What should I look to achieve? Understanding exactly what you want your social media efforts to lead to is a must. There is no point twittering or updating your profile purely for the sake of it. You should have clearly defined outcomes so that your actions lead to the results you wish for. This means that you also need to make sure that once you have driven your new audience in the direction you wish them to go, your website, newsletter, blog etc is also set up to help you achieve your aims.
Summary.
Social media marketing is definitely a must in the mix of internet marketing and promotion but you should enter the water cautiously. Not so cautiously that you don’t see results, but it is most definitely not a ‘dive in at the deep end’ strategy unless you are very thick skinned and/or ready to start a new business if this one goes down the tubes because of your social media mistakes!
Google’s AdWords service has rolled out a new feature designed to make it easier for companies to target users who have already visited their website.
According to the Inside AdWords blog, "remarketing" has been on a trial run since March and has proved popular with companies looking to boost brand awareness, drive sales and increase their clicks.
Aitan Weinberg, product manager at the pay per click marketing service, said: "We’ve received a tremendous response from the hundreds of advertisers who’re been using it in recent months, across all industries."
Remarketing works by adding a piece of code to a site’s product page which allows marketers to show relevant ads – to highlight, for example, last minute discounts – to all previous visitors to that page as they browse the Google Content Network.
In addition, companies can use the feature to reach viewers of their YouTube brand channel or YouTube homepage ad.
Earlier this week, AdWords announced the launch of Search Funnels, a set of reports that expand the information on how consumers interact with ads in the shopping process by highlighting first and last clicks, assisted conversions and path lengths to purchases.
News brought to you by ClickThrough – a best practice Internet Marketing Agency.
Competitive intelligence can be a critical element in the search marketer’s toolkit, according to one analyst.
Writing in Search Engine Land’s PPC Academy column, Josh Dreller said that there are two basic types of platforms that can provide essential insights for pay per click marketing.
The first tracks the use of millions of keywords by different websites. Many of these applications will allow marketers to search for a particular site and display the phrases it uses, as well as letting them type in a keyword and showing the pages that are competing for it.
Alternatively, there are intelligence tools that gather information, with permission, on the habits of actual web users in a similar way to agencies that compile TV audience ratings.
These services examine the sites visited by participants, their online shopping habits and the phrases they use in search engines.
Mr Dreller said that this creates a more detailed picture of how a target audience engages with a brand on the internet.
"Competitive intelligence tools are crucial to have in your search engine marketing toolbox," he added.
According to research by Econsultancy and ExactTarget, 66 per cent of marketing professionals plan to increase their spending on social media, mobile ads and search engine marketing this year.
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