Posts Tagged ‘Search behaviour’

Google SSL update and its impact on SEO, SEM and more.

November 8th, 2011

At Reform lively debate and conversation is encouraged as we develop our take on the latest developments in the ever-changing world of digital. Digital marketing is far from black or white (no search-related hat pun intended!), and through these debates we believe that we can better relay our thoughts on both sides of the fence to our clients and colleagues.

This week we’ve been discussing the latest Google SSL update, how Google Analytics now reports some SEO traffic as ‘(not provided)’ and the potential user / privacy issues driving the change.

Here are different takes on this development from two members of our team – one positive, about what Google can do as the innovative leader in this field, the other perhaps more pessimistic about what Google has become.

Niall Madden, Director at Reform says…

The big story here is that when a user logged into Google (Gmail for example) does a search, they are being taken through an encrypted query on Google’s https website, stripping out all the tracking parameters in the process, resulting in that traffic showing in Google Analytics as ‘(not provided)’.

This means that Google, and ONLY Google, know not only what keyword was used, but where the listing ranked in the SERPS (the “cd=” parameter correlates with the SEO rank in all occasions).  Why I hear you ask? Apparently this is due to a concern about protecting the privacy of Google users.

Since the change, if you’re logged in and in the US, you can’t even enter a search query with JavaScript turned off any more (UPDATE – NOV 18 – This is no longer the case, as now we can search with JS off, even when logged in, though some interesting features include one where the sub-links are shrunken into the older link only versions). Combine this with the recent announcement about the algorithm tweak emphasising content freshness (affecting around 35% of results) and there’s a lot of buzz within the SEO industry.

But the big issue is Google Analytics, a free service that’s been great for SEO practitioners over the past few years. Many users started seeing a few SEO visits listed as ‘(not provided)’ in the keyword list, and even a few days ago shrugged it off as overhyped news – since they only saw it affect 1-2% of traffic, people weren’t concerned, life went on.

Then, by last Friday, that 1-2% hit as much as10% on a couple of sites, and people started getting concerned.

There is potentially another layer to this story.

Google recently launched Google Analytics Premier, which it is aggressively pushing to larger scale clients. The introductory price of $150,000 per year provides a service which, according to the brochure will enable you to ‘track more than ever’, ‘own your customer data’ and ‘analyse ALL of your data’.

To me this sounds like music to the ears of clients worried about losing keyword data for 10-20% of SEO traffic to their site, and it has caused many to think that Google might be using this data exclusively like many third party ad providers do theirs.

However, this statement has not been accepted by Google, and their reps and other parties have informed us that this is not currently the case, (so conspiracy theorists can rest, for now). Still, it seems like the logical next step if Google is going to be selling their product, and many people have said that the answers they receive from Google on this subject are vague at best.

Face it, Google has changed. The data is valuable, and they need to generate revenue beyond AdWords. Hey, call me a cynic, but it just seems like the path that Google is taking, regardless of what Google tells me. I mean, really, who’s going to pay $150k when 10-20% of the keyword data is missing!?

And as for user privacy, consumers tend to complain more about targeted advertising, like remarketing perhaps, not SEO results. Ironically for PPC – “If you choose to click on an ad appearing on our search results page, your browser will continue to send the relevant query over the network to enable advertisers to measure the effectiveness of their campaigns and to improve the ads and offers they present to you.”

So where’s that valued privacy now?

Richard Fergie, Consultant at Reform says…

Yes, you are a cynic. As far as I know, it’s all speculation and conspiracy theory at best.

Firstly, I think it is important to be clear that Google *could* do everything that Niall is talking about; there is no technical barrier to them operating an exclusive web analytics service in this way. My argument is not that Google can’t, but that Google won’t.

What will Google gain from this? If this change increases uptake of their premium analytics product so that it grows to twice the size of Omniture it will increase Google’s revenues by only 2% (based on 2010 figures).

Not the type of return shareholders are looking for.

2% at Google’s scale is still a lot of money but I think this reward is not worth the anti-trust risk for Google. Google are already walking a fine line in the anti-trust courts; I say that using their dominance in search to help them dominate the premium web analytics space will put them so far on the wrong side of the line that the US Government will have to take action.

So what is the real reason why Google have made this change? I genuinely believe that they are doing it to protect user data. Not because they care about user privacy but because user data is being used to compete with Google in the online advertising space.

Google Remarketing is an excellent retargeting solution but it is nowhere near being the best in the space. Giving these ad networks additional data in the form of the user’s search query makes their targeting even more efficient and harder to compete with. Google can reduce the effectiveness of their competition and gain brownie points with organisations who care about user privacy – win/win.

So who is right?

Only time will tell (though at this moment Google have claimed that the data will currently NOT be added to Google Analytics Premium). In the mean time, this surely provides an opportunity for innovation and development within the SEO industry.

Every business in every industry suffers setbacks at some point, and from an SEO practitioner point of view, this certainly feels like a step backwards for SEOs that analyse keyword data as a key sign of the overall project’s value.

However, workarounds will be developed, new KPIs will emerge, and the industry will continue to grow. This isn’t the first time data has been closed off, and presumably it won’t be the last.

Blog post by Niall Madden, SEO Director of Reform

Search engine marketing in Malaysia – International search review issue number 7

August 1st, 2011

Reform has this week published the latest paper in its international search review series. Continuing the focus on markets in Southeast Asia, this instalment looks at the internet and search market of Malaysia.

With internet penetration increasing from 15% in 2000 to 59% in 2009, it’s clear that there has been significant change in this country’s technological outlook over the last decade.

This is another market where Google has consolidated its dominance of the search engine arena, growing its share from 51% in 2008 to 85% in 2011.

The increase in internet penetration (16,902,600 internet users as of June 2009) has occurred in spite of the fact that the quality of the broadband in Malaysia is still rated as ‘poor’. This, combined with a growing number of increasingly sophisticated mobile devices, has led analysts to believe that mobile search will become ever more important in this market.

Advances in mobile technologies can also be looked to as the facilitators for the phenomenal popularity of social media sites in Malaysia. This is a country that has Facebook penetration of 88.4%, and which accounts for .47% of Twitter’s world voice.

Since 2009 the number of Malaysian web users using social media to keep in touch with family has increased to 71%.

To find out more about the search market landscape in Malaysia, download a copy of the review – and let us know any comments or feedback that you might have. You can also download past issues of the International Search Review to see what we discovered about Chinese internet development and the Russian search behaviour evolution amongst other things.

Contact us and we’ll send you the next issue of our International Search Review before anyone else.

Blog post by Juliette van Rooyen, Consultant at Reform.

Benefits of on-site search

June 9th, 2011

On-site search. It’s a feature found on almost every e-commerce website, and yet for years retailers have largely completely ignored its benefits.

Traditionally returning irrelevant results, for most e-commerce departments this function has not been a priority. Instead they have focused on actions such as SEO and web page conversion optimisation. Recent data, however, suggests that this is likely to change over the coming months.

NMA recently published an article to this effect, saying that “research shows that at least 50% of visitors want to use the search function”. “Last October, FACT – Finder conducted research using eye-tracker technology to take a closer look at on-site user behaviour, and 80% of the British people surveyed went as far as saying search boxes should be more prominent on the page”. With such a large percentage of people actively seeking an on-site search box, improving this feature is bound to move up the priority list for e-commerce managers.

Getting the placement of the on-site search functionality right, and making sure that it returns relevant results, will certainty help to improve on-site conversion. However, there is another aspect of this feature that should also be looked at.

In most cases data on what is being searched for is readily available via a sites CMS. Analysing and using this data properly is another way for e-commerce teams to improve on-site conversion. Looking at what keywords are currently being searched for can not only help websites to better place their products on site, but can also help to inform what is being looked for by the consumer. If there are a high number of searches for a certain type of product but the sales are generally quite low, then there should be an immediate red flag that something is not working. Is there enough stock for this product? Is the style, colour and sizing all that it could be? Analysing this can help improve the site owner’s placement of products as well as help to inform future stock orders.

So, with demand for a quality search function growing, and with the clear benefits that can be gained from analysing the data this feature produces, surely this will become a priority for all ecommerce websites?

Blog post by Mike Jennings Director at Reform

What data tells us, and how it helps us to improve.

February 4th, 2011

“Data consists of propositions that reflect reality, such as measurements or observations of a variable.” (Wikipedia)

The definition doesn’t necessarily fire one up with enthusiasm or excite your imagination, right? Once I had a boss once who was fond of saying to me, usually when I’d come up with a new and crazy idea for a product or service, “Ah, Mary… that’s all very good, but what does the data tell us?”. She would then squint her eyes and turn on her heel in a most disturbing and enigmatic way. I finally realized, years later, that what my boss hoped for was by my burying myself in the ‘data’, and scrutinizing it for pattern, shape and linear connectivity, the empirical truth and Holy Grail of marketing certainty would emerge… and into the bargain, she would avoid the risk associated with impulsive experimentation. Today marcomms, marketers and media folk have the collective opportunity to use data to afford both discovery and alacrity of purpose.

All around us, the web provides endless streams of real time data… after all, that’s what enabled the internet to become a reality – bits of datum connecting with other bits of datum. Now that should makes us EXCITED, because as it is real time data, we can test and experiment with our new ideas, and gauge almost immediately if those ideas are having the desired impact on our customers and our commercial objectives. We have this opportunity to disseminate and analyse enormous amounts of consumer behavioral data, sound bites, conversations, blogs, films, tweets, transactions and check out drop offs etc.  There’s so much of the stuff, where does it begin and where/when will it end?  THE TRICK IS – DO NOT BE OVERWHELMED!

Reform recognizes that our clients and their agencies will need independent expertise and informed guidance into how best to manage all this information and shape it into meaningful business insights.

We also recognize that solutions must be both robust and cost effective, and most often a selection of automated tools alongside human squirreling, will yield the most powerful results.  To this end we have developed sway, our proprietary tool for developing business strategy based on information derived from amalgamating digital data sources. Our sway breakfast seminar on February 15th is a must attend event, and the opportunity to learn more about Reform’s services in this area. (for more info about this event please contact events@reformdigital.com). I hope to see you there!

Blog post by Mary Keane-Dawson, Non-Executive Director at Reform

Thinking outside the search box.

May 28th, 2010

I’m not going to bang on about how great search is, or about how you should make sure that your site maximises the use of SEO with PPC as part of an integrated strategy involving all types of media. Chances are you hear that all the time anyway if you work with us. However, I will look at some of the things that, for me, make natural search a unique experience – not just in marketing terms but in the way that people approach it, the way their minds work.

Clients are becoming increasingly involved with and interested in SEO, which I think is great. I have no idea why some companies still try and make SEO such a top secret operation. By now everyone on the ‘practitioner’ side ought to know that the best projects are the ones where we can help the client understand how natural search truly works, pushing aside the mystique. Once the client understands and believes in it, they are more likely to make changes. Just as the search algorithms constantly evolve, so does the need to clarify with more depth. We want clients to ask about our recommendations, or suggest recommendations of their own, as we’ll be glad to discuss and explain what we feel works best.

Of course, there is never just one right answer. There are so many factors that influence natural search that it is imperative that we continue to think outside of the box. For example, for one of our clients the biggest influence on their SEO traffic is daily news stories. It is not a news site, but if a subject is not on the news then no one searches for their related terms. Another example is a site which sees increased traffic whenever specific episodes of certain shows are shown on TV. The trick is spotting these trends and attempting to capitalise upon them. We’re not necessarily saying look out for every wave of traffic, but when you see one wave coming in, think about how you might catch the next. A referral from a search engine may not result in a sale right away, but other influences can help you convert it into a sale further down the road.

The worst thing you can do in SEO is think “if I do ‘A’, then ‘B’ will happen immediately”, and it is crucial that agencies and clients communicate to avoid this kind of assumption. When clients understand more about the process, hopefully conversations around SEO will go far beyond the ‘As’ and ‘Bs’, to questions such as the right way to link several sites together, or how to sculpt ‘link juice’, ‘page rank’ or ‘link strength’ within a site. Or on the PPC side, whether to use keywords with ‘free’ in them if you are targeting something that users have to pay for.

If you’re keeping score by the way, the short answers are: you can build some strength by connecting your different sites, but it needs to be done in a way that seems natural; for link strength if you don’t want a link to be followed, it’s not going to improve the other links on your page, in fact it can hurt the site overall as retaining link strength is unnatural; and last but not least, for the PPC question, yes, some of the best ‘paid’ conversions came from ‘free’ keywords.

As for the long answers, well that’s another conversation or blog post. Still, here at Reform we like being asked questions, because in the world of search there is always at least one answer…

Blog post by Niall Madden, SEO Director of Reform

iPhones, iPads and the advent of ‘shortcut search’

April 26th, 2010

The advent of Apple’s iPhone – and indeed smart phones in general – is changing how we consume media and content. Nowadays, web-based information can be accessed more readily (and more cheaply) without us necessarily having to be chained to our desks.

The behaviour of searching for web-based information on the smaller screen is, however, different to how we search on our personal computers. This is exemplified by the fact that mobile search volumes (the amount of times that people search the web on their mobile phones) have been, by and large, disappointing, to the extent that to date neither Yahoo! nor Google have been able to realise significant ad revenue through mobile search advertising.

When we’re on the move we tend to be more time poor, and the restrictions of screen size and bandwidth mean that we are more likely to limit our searches to content such as maps, or for local listings such as restaurants, and less likely to carry out in-depth search-based research for purchases such as office equipment or cars.

Another new behaviour to understand is the consumption of apps. Apps on smart phones are fast becoming short cuts to finding information and the apps development market is being flooded by brands who want to make their mark. Often this new app consumption behaviour is replacing the behaviour of web search. For example, on my PC if I want to find out if there is a National Trust property in a certain area I will open up my browser and I will search on Google for “national trust properties in [area]”; but on my iPhone I won’t search by my browser (Safari), I will open up my National Trust app, and I search within it by area. This behaviour of downloading and deploying apps to snack on information can be described as ‘shortcut search’ behaviour.

Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt has made it clear that the technology giant will be prioritising their product and technology strategy for “first screen” technology moving forwards, in order to capitalise on the larger and faster growing web markets such as India, Africa and South America (where mobile phone adoption takes precedence over personal computers). It is therefore important for digital planners to keep one-eye on the future opportunities for brands on these new platforms. And if app search and app consumption grows to be as prolific as PC-based web search over the last ten years, Google, Microsoft and the other search providers will want to capitalise in terms of advertising revenue.

For those of you who have seen or even touched one of the new iPads, it is enough to melt the heart of the most sceptical of gadget geeks. I think the experience is more akin to the iPhone experience (and eighteen months in, I am still a woman in love!) than to the Mac. It has the speed and the rich visuals of the Mac but it is a giant touch screen that glides at the swipe of your finger, and with big, friendly app buttons on it.

So the big question is: if we start booting up our iPads on the train, bus or in the car (preferably not when driving!) because the very mobile screen size and bandwidth affords us more time online, will our search behaviour be similar to our PC or Mac search behaviour i.e. via the web browser, or will be it be more comparable to mobile phone search behaviour i.e. via apps? Will one platform’s search behaviour cannibalise the other? And what will this mean for brands who rely so heavily on search traffic volume to satisfy direct response, sales and business targets? We shall wait and see!

Blog post by Amanda Davie, Managing Director of Reform

The importance of search

March 25th, 2010

In a world where technology has evolved so quickly over the last few decades it is good to see an increasing understanding that technology in its own right is of little consequence. The key is the way that technology interacts with its users. An MP3 player is not much use without its headphones, a mobile phone is not much use unless two people want to communicate, 3D films need an audience and for all their GHz and RAM PCs have not yet learned to think for themselves.

So when one looks at technology in the marketing space it is probably important to consider how capable the human body is to interact with digital traffic. For the most part consumers have two ears, two eyes, two nostrils, ten fingers and millions of taste buds, but only one mouth. This suggests that they are immensely well equipped to enquire of their environment but their ability to establish a presence in their environment is very limited. Messages can be received by hearing, seeing, smelling, touching and tasting but can only be actively delivered verbally.

Perhaps this explains why the emergence of Search is fundamentally changing the way that marketing works. Over the last 30 years the technological advances have provided new platforms through which marketers have been able to broadcast their messages to recipients who are largely ‘programmed to receive’ – one message, multiple recipients. Now the tables are turning and the increasingly ‘aware’ consumers are extending their receptor attributes and using accelerators such as curiosity and self-help to go in search of a more fulfilled life.

As these consumers take control of what they want, where they want it and when they want it, the brands that will succeed are the ones that will be ‘found’. So if someone has a product or service that they want to be seen, heard, smelled, felt or tasted, then they need to make sure that they have optimised their delivery through both SEO and PPC.

Blog post by James Kilpatrick, non-Executive Director of Reform