Last week, I had the misfortune of encountering perhaps the most misguided thread on digital marketing I’ve ever seen on Twitter (which is saying something), in which an SEO declared unequivocally that “organic search traffic beats paid traffic for every single metric.” To me, these statements seemed outrageous and even inflammatory. But much to my surprise, many SEOs caught onto this thread and were all about it. Et tu, Rand? Realistically, I’m not sure what data can truly back up these far-reaching statements declaring dominance of organic search performance over paid search in every metric. And Rand’s caveat fails to address the real problem of this thread, which is its narrow-minded, one-versus-the-other premise. In reality, some searchers will click on ads. Others will click on organic links. Marketers should be trying to capture both. Let’s talk about the current landscape and dive into how there are better, more nuanced ways to look at performance comparisons between paid search and SEO — without all the bluster. Paid search growth has long outpaced organic growthIt’s no secret to paid search and SEO managers that Google has steadily made updates over the past couple of years that have directly harmed organic traffic, including the addition of a fourth text ad above organic links on desktop, the addition of a third (and then fourth) text ad above organic links on phones, doubling the size of Product Listing Ads on phones, moving the Local Pack to the top of search results, and more. As a result, overall organic traffic has declined Y/Y for the past several quarters, as shown in this chart from the quarterly Merkle Digital Marketing Report (registration required). You don’t have to take our word for it — take a look at Google’s Q1 2017 earnings report, which showed a 53 percent increase in paid clicks on Google properties Y/Y. Even though that includes other channels, the vast majority is search, and if you think that isn’t coming at the expense of organic — well, you’d be wrong. I don’t say this because I’m a paid search hack trying to butter up PPC. Our agency manages SEO as well — and does a fantastic job of it. I even lauded the strong organic growth we were seeing a couple of years ago in a presentation at SMX Advanced about Google’s declining paid search click growth at the time. If we were seeing big organic growth overall, I’d be screaming it from the rooftops and saying that every marketer needs to be throwing all their resources at organic. Unfortunately, that’s not the case — because again, Google has been steadily making changes that directly harm organic search and help to keep paid search click growth strong. So right off the bat, we have one metric that paid search has an advantage in. This is going to vary from brand to brand, but overall, this is the way things are moving for most marketers. But what about all those other metrics that are supposedly amazing for organic and terrible for paid search? Anyone who understands how to do such comparisons correctly would be careful to provide nuance and specificity in explaining how performance metrics should be analyzed. Unfortunately, Twitter is ill-suited for such details. Here are two tips for anyone looking to derive meaningful comparisons between paid search and SEO. 1. Segment query types and devicesIf most of your organic search traffic is coming from searches for your own brand name, but a smaller share of paid search traffic comes from branded queries, performance is going to vary. Shocking, I know. As such, you should be segmenting traffic and conversion performance by brand vs. non-brand, as well as doing category-level segmentations within those buckets. This was made harder by the rise of [not provided] obfuscating organic queries in analytics packages, but is still possible using tools such as Google Search Console. Similarly, organic and paid search might derive different shares of traffic from different device types for a given brand. Device types tend to perform differently in all sorts of metrics, from click-through rate to conversion rate to bounce rate. Thus, this would throw off any overall performance comparisons and require that metrics be broken down by device. In the case of analysis that declares some overall winner with zero nuance about how data was segmented, it’s almost guaranteed the individual didn’t bother making such segmentations. Declaring such overarching results apply to every brand in existence is just ridiculous. 2. Take advantage of both paid and organic, and measure incrementalityBut it’s not just about measuring how paid and organic search metrics compare on any given day. It’s also important to understand how they work together. Every marketer wants to rank organically for every keyword that they might consider bidding on in paid search, preferably in the top spot. But it’s simply not possible for every site to rank on the first page of organic listings for every single query that might drive value for them. Similarly, every brand would love to have an ad at the top of the page for every relevant query, but the economics of paid search are limiting. It’s not financially viable to bid to the top position for every term, and in many cases it’s not even feasible to bid to the first page of results given the expected return for a particular query. So we have a situation where brands would love to have both paid and organic listings (since users are inevitably going to click both types of listings), but in which it’s impossible to actually achieve perfect visibility in both. Understanding how these two types of visibility work together, then, is key. In the case of brand keywords, it’s certainly possible that a site might be able to pick up all of the paid search traffic it’s getting from brand ads through its organic listings. Of course, this is going to depend on factors such as if competitors are bidding on brand keywords and how many first page organic listings are occupied by the brand, but it’s possible. Still, we find that the vast majority of brand holdout tests show that organic links do not pick up all traffic that goes to brand ads, such that brand ads have some incremental value. There is no way to say that organic “outperforms” paid when it comes to talking about this incremental traffic — you’re either getting it through ads or you’re not getting it at all. Period. In the case of a non-brand query in which a site doesn’t even rank on the first page, pretty much all traffic coming from a paid search ad is incremental. Should you try to rank organically for that query? Absolutely, but it doesn’t mean you should forgo paid search just because you heard organic search is better in every metric. Conclusion: Get rid of search partisanshipWhat I’m trying to get at here is that marketers should want to be “turned on” for as many different types of search visibility as possible, whether it be paid links, the local pack, the knowledge graph or plain old organic listings. Lauding one channel over another in sweeping statements is ridiculous and actually harms the discussion by completely ignoring important nuances. What’s worse, pitting one channel against another is incredibly detrimental to moving the conversation forward on how the two channels work together. Given the complicated relationship between paid and organic search that varies from query to query, such search partisanship is only good for those who specialize in one channel to make the case for their specialty. In that regard, I’m glad I work at an agency that manages both paid and organic search optimization, such that we can feel free to laud the benefits of both and talk about challenges and concerns in equal measure. We’re all about working across channels to squeeze every possible ounce of value out of search, whether it’s paid or organic, while single-minded folks clutch the pearls of the one channel they know how to manage. In short: Be open-minded, think critically, and understand the nuances of comparing paid and organic search. The post How to compare paid search and organic search without sounding foolish appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land http://ift.tt/2rZ18qa
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As you are no doubt aware, Google recently added additional reporting and transparency to the Quality Score (QS) metric that’s all-important in terms of calculating Ad Rank. (If you’ve never watched the updated Ad Rank explanation video by Hal Varian, Google’s chief economist, I recommend you take a look.) Determining the relative importance of Quality Score componentsGoogle has provided advertisers with data on Quality Score for some time; what’s new here is historical trend data visibility into three key QS components: expected click-through rate, ad relevance and landing page experience. While being able to inspect these new, granular metrics is great, it’s important to realize that all we’re gaining is an estimated importance of each of these QS components. And just as in cooking or baking, the mere fact that you’ve got some ingredients on hand, plus a vague idea of how much of each ingredient to use, doesn’t predict (or result in) the best possible outcome. Think about these factors and scores as indicating the quality of each ingredient in a given dish (for example, meatloaf). While great ingredients are necessary for a great outcome, knowing the quality of each ingredient alone isn’t sufficient. To create a world-class meatloaf, we also need an understanding of their relative importance. Unfortunately, Google’s latest tweak doesn’t tell us anything about this. But while we don’t know for certain the rank order of the quality factors that have the highest impact on the final Quality Score, we do have a pretty good (anecdotally derived) idea that predicted CTR is the most important one (the others count as well, but likely less so). Expected CTR is likely to remain the most important for many reasons, not the least of which is that it makes Google the most money per search for them to calculate QS based heavily on that data. It’s important to remember that — as Varian indicates — it’s in Google’s best interest to incentivize marketers to do things that improve their ads’ relevance (or CTR) while also making the post-click user experience suck less. (Admit it, there’s still a lot of room for improvement out there — and not just on your site!) We also have to remember that higher CTRs and relevance make Google (and Bing, too) more money in the long run, so these incentives are completely aligned. TIP: If you’ve seen a historical jump in cost per click (CPC) required to maintain historical position, being able to inspect the historical Quality Score is a great way to determine whether the surge in CPC was based on a QS fluctuation on your end, or if it’s due to increased auction pressure in the AdWords marketplace. Quality Score and other points of marketing leverageGoogle continues to make it clear that we should pay attention to improving Quality Score. One of the great things about obtaining Quality Score improvements is that these provide you with leverage. Leverage is key — not just to achieving the high positions for the searches that can drive substantial profitable volume for you, but also because if you don’t have it, your competition does (which means they’ll kick your butt). But improving your Quality Score isn’t the only way to ensure your ability to remain in top positions profitably. Improvement in other areas can make a huge difference in your long-term success. My favorites are (starting from the things you can do at the AdWords side of things):
Don’t forget that all of the above strategies will help your overall business, not just your performance in search. They will eliminate friction, make your other media more effective and deliver conversions at higher values, thus delivering a win to your company’s top and bottom line. The post Quality Score and other leverage points appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land http://ift.tt/2qZUL6o “8 Google AdWords Hacks that Will Double Your Conversion Rate!” “AdWords Tricks That Increased Customer Acquisition by 20%!” “An AdWords Campaign Tweak to Increase PPC Leads 200%!” These days, it seems like everywhere you look, someone is suggesting a new AdWords hack, trick or tweak that will transform your AdWords accounts. I’ll admit that I’ve even written these types of articles myself. And why not? Big wins are exciting and fun. They’re the thrilling result of clever tactics and brilliant customer insights that inspire us to take our paid search accounts to the next level. At least, that’s how they’re supposed to work. In reality, most hacks, tricks and tweaks become something of a crutch. We all want big wins, so we hungrily search for the next idea that will cut our cost-per-click, boost our ROI, or deliver whatever result we’re currently looking for. Then, to our great frustration, that incredible tweak that made company X’s campaigns crazy profitable doesn’t work for us. Maybe it delivers decent results, but our results are nothing compared to what company X saw in their case study. What went wrong? Are you just bad at AdWords? Was the case study a lie? Unfortunately, with our fixation on big wins and AdWords hacks, we sometimes forget that the most successful AdWords accounts aren’t built on a single win. They are the cumulative result of hundreds to thousands of micro-wins. Those micro-wins are hard to write case studies about, but they ultimately make a much bigger difference than most hacks, tricks or tweaks. Focusing on micro-winsWith all that in mind, then, let’s take a look at a micro-win case study. Now, I could easily have titled this article, “The Simple AdWords Hack That Tripled Lead Volume” and probably gotten a lot of clicks. However, there was no simple hack. Yes, we more than tripled this particular client’s lead volume and simultaneously boosted lead quality, but we didn’t hack our way to success. In fact, it took two years and thousands of mini-tweaks to get these results. Yet that doesn’t mean that this case study doesn’t have an interesting story to tell. In fact, for most AdWords advertisers, this is the sort of success story that they should expect from their own accounts: In the beginningWhen we first started working with this client, their account was performing decently well. It was nothing to write a case study about, but it wasn’t losing money hand over fist the way some accounts are. In fact, since this was a B2B company with a large lifetime value, we were able to test quite a few different tactics in their account without putting their profit margin at serious risk. So, for the next 10 months, we tried all sorts of different advertising strategies. We experimented with various keywords and remarketing strategies and tested a whole alphabet soup of AdWords options (e.g., GDN, GSPs and RLSA). After exploring all of our options, we had increased click volume by 500 percent and lead volume by 240 percent: Not bad, eh? Overall, our grab-bag of tactics was delivering good value for the client. Finding our championsAt a certain point, however, we had tried just about everything that it made sense to try. To make matters worse, every time we tried to push the envelope with something new, we ended up wasting money. Clearly, we needed to change our focus. So, we switched from exploration mode to refinement mode. We dug into the client’s analytics data and discovered that not all of the clicks we were driving were created equal. For example, paid search clicks from certain keywords were producing lots of leads. In contrast, clicks on our Display Network ads rarely converted. Using this data, we started to make changes to the account. We cut our Display Network budget and eliminated other campaigns that weren’t producing profitable sales. It took about four months, but we eliminated 20 percent of our clicks without really reducing lead volume. More importantly, this reduced our cost per lead by 13 percent. Now, after a little over a year, the client was getting 3x the leads at 90 percent of their original cost per lead. As with our exploration phase, this improvement wasn’t the result of any particular major change — it was the sum of countless micro-improvements to the account. Polishing things upEventually, however, we hit another plateau. We knew which channels and campaigns were driving the best clicks, and those clicks were converting at a pretty good rate. However, a high-converting campaign isn’t always the same thing as a highly profitable campaign. To really get the most out of the account, we dug into the client’s sales data. As it turned out, we were bidding on a lot of keywords that were driving conversions… but few to no sales. In this situation, we realized that we were facing a couple of potential problems: (1) we were bidding on the wrong keywords; or (2) our ads and landing pages weren’t a good fit for our keywords. So, we started aggressively testing our ad copy and landing pages. After a few tests, if the keyword still wasn’t producing sales at a decent rate, we got rid of it. And, as it turned out, that was the case for 89 percent of the keywords. At first glance, you would think that eliminating 89 percent of your keywords would kill lead volume; however, that didn’t prove to be the case. Instead, because we were able to redirect ad spend from our poorly performing keywords to our best keywords, lead volume only dropped by 10 percent. Lead quality went through the roof. Altogether, this meant that we ended up spending 43 percent less on AdWords while producing more sales. Not too shabby! Micro-wins for the winAfter two years, we had tripled lead volume, dramatically improved close rates and cut overall ad spend. It was a huge win for the client, but it wasn’t the result of any particular tweak or hack. Instead, it was the end result of thousands of micro-wins. When you get right down to it, this is how most AdWords accounts achieve true success. Yes, advertisers tend to make a big deal out of the big wins, but headline-worthy hacks are the exception, not the norm. Instead, it typically works best to follow the model we used with this client. Start by exploring your options. You might waste money on a few false starts, but you’ll learn what really works for your business. After you’ve figured out which options deliver clicks and conversions, take a harder look at your campaigns. Identify which channels deliver profitable conversions and which ones simply make a lot of smoke and noise. Then, once you’ve narrowed your ad spend down to your most effective options, take a look at your sales data. Find the specific campaign elements that produce sales, and focus your spend on those elements. It isn’t a get-rich-quick scheme, but this methodical approach delivers consistent micro-wins that add up to big wins over time. And ultimately, isn’t that what matters most? The post Micro-wins: The true secret to AdWords success appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land http://ift.tt/2rkSgP5 TL;DR version: The Rainmaker Platform is shifting from a pure technology play to software with services included before the end of June, at much higher pricing. That means if you want Rainmaker at its current pricing, you should start your free trial now. When we rebranded from Copyblogger Media to Rainmaker Digital in September of 2015, it was a firm statement that put the Rainmaker Platform at the forefront. But it was also a foreshadowing of where we saw things going. We knew we were headed from software-as-a-service (SaaS), to software and service to create complete solutions. People need sophisticated marketing technology, yes — but they also need done-for-them services such as design, content, and lead generation strategy. The technology is only getting more sophisticated, and we plan to remain at the forefront of that with Rainmaker. But sophisticated technology calls for equally sophisticated strategy and execution — and not everyone has that kind of expertise in-house. Our original goal was to create marketing technology for entrepreneurs and small businesses that are doing content marketing themselves or via freelancers. In the meantime, we’ve been turning away businesses happily willing to pay for a more complete solution. Our go-forward strategy is to follow what the market is telling us. We’re going to offer you the services that we’ve been teaching and doing for ourselves over the last decade. A complete Rainmaker solution providerWe’ve been doing service work for our Rainmaker Platform customers for over a year, but it’s been very cautious. There are many ways to develop a client services department, but given that we’ve been product-focused for so long, we weren’t arrogant enough to think we could just pull it off effortlessly. In that last year, we’ve explored several viable ways to do more for our customers and prospects as a hybrid technology and digital marketing service provider. After careful deliberation, we’ve come up with a path that allows us to expertly provide anything that a Rainmaker user needs. Rainmaker Digital has entered into a letter of intent to partner with an existing digital agency, Nimble Worldwide. We’ve had a long relationship with Nimble, as they were our email marketing provider for years before we developed our own solution, RainMail. Effectively, the Rainmaker assets of the company (excluding StudioPress, Synthesis, Copyblogger, Authority, and DCI, which are not affected by this move at all) will be combined with Nimble assets into a new entity, with us as the majority owner. First of all, that means you can rest assured that the company you know today remains the company you’ll be doing business with going forward. Plus, the Rainmaker side of things will be where I’ll be putting much of my personal attention and effort. That said, this deal provides instant access to an experienced team of digital marketing professionals and a network of talented contractors that ensures our service solutions are expertly crafted and delivered. This grows the Rainmaker team significantly, without the pain and uncertainty of building an agency from scratch. The change in business model unfortunately left four of our existing employees without positions, along with the loss of some of our own contractors. That was certainly no fun, and our operations leadership preserved every job possible despite the significant reorganization. On the brighter side, this will open up a lot of work for our Certified Writers and members of the Genesis design community as we get rolling. We’re very excited to provide additional freelance and employment opportunities to the large ecosystem we’ve cultivated over the years. To sum up, I’m 100 percent certain that this is the smarter move compared with trying to build an internal agency from scratch. And ultimately, the clear winners in the deal are our customers and prospects. What can we help you with?The first meaningful impact of this will be that we’ll be able to do just about anything you need related to your digital marketing efforts. That includes:
On that last point, we’ll be able to provide clearly defined service bundles that allow you to quit thinking about marketing and focus on the rest of your business. If the ROI is there, why would you say no? We informed the thousands of existing Rainmaker customers about these new services last week, and the response has been enthusiastic. That means if you decide to get on board with the Platform before the switch, you’ll have the benefit (but not the obligation) of access to these services as well. We’ll be rolling out access to both project-based and retainer-based solutions in the coming months. Once things are live, we’ll let you know here. The end of “off the shelf” RainmakerAll of this restructuring is aimed at offering you more options from a trusted source. Of course, with any major escalation in value, there are changes to the way things have been. The biggest change is that going forward, we will no longer sell the Rainmaker Platform “a la carte.” In other words, the sales process will become more hands on, and less like a “pull out your credit card and sign up online” SaaS. All future sales of the Platform will be bundled with services, and at a significantly higher price. We’re anticipating that this change will happen before the end of June, 2017. So, if you’ve been contemplating the Platform, but don’t feel like you need additional service components, you should start your free trial before the switch happens. We’ll naturally send out reminders before the point of no return. Exciting stuff to come … stay tuned! Feel free to ask questions in the comments, and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can. The post Last Chance to Get the Rainmaker Platform at the Current Pricing appeared first on Copyblogger. via Copyblogger http://ift.tt/2qZK8Rj Today’s consumers research products on the go, using their smartphones to find and choose at which nearby business to make a purchase or eat a meal. Most visit the store they select on the same day. Yet most marketers can’t – or don’t – optimize their digital presence or measure the impact of their digital campaigns on in-store sales. On June 6th, join our digital marketing experts as they explore online and offline connections across multiple digital channels. They’ll discuss best practices to drive foot traffic, plus key metrics to measure the impact of digital search marketing, organic search, social media, and ad campaigns on top-line growth. Register today for “Mobile Marketing vs. In-Store Sales: Help! What’s the Correlation?,” produced by Digital Marketing Depot and sponsored by MomentFeed. The post Mobile Marketing vs. In-Store Sales: Help! What’s the Correlation? appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land http://ift.tt/2qXQx1p Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land:
Recent Headlines From Marketing Land, Our Sister Site Dedicated To Internet Marketing:
Search News From Around The Web:Local & Maps
Link Building Searching SEO
SEM / Paid Search The post SearchCap: AdWords dashboards, new Google hotel reviews & featured snippets report appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land http://ift.tt/2qlcLq1 Google has confirmed with Search Engine Land that it is now rolling out a new user interface and feature set around local reviews for hotels. Earlier this month, we saw Google begin testing new hotel reviews features, and now Google has begun to roll them out. Sergey Alakov was the first to notice these beginning to roll out. A Google spokesperson confirmed this with us just now and said in a statement:
The new hotel reviews interface added some core features. Here are a few:
Here are some screen shots we are able to see now of the new interface: The post Google confirms it’s rolling out new reviews format for hotels appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land http://ift.tt/2rRx7JJ
Let’s talk about those times when you feel like giving up. If you’re building a business Part Time, I can assure you one thing… There will be times when you feel like quitting and going back to the “safer” life you swore you wanted to leave behind. Even the job you hate sometimes seems a […]
via BobandRosemary.com | Part Time Business Success Tips http://ift.tt/2qQ2WEg Earlier this month, we wrapped up the West Coast edition of MarTech. The conference kicked off with the Stackies, an awards ceremony celebrating exceptional illustrations of marketing technology stacks from companies like Microsoft, Cisco and many more. I also unveiled the 2017 edition of the Marketing Technology Landscape, which now includes a whopping 5,381 solutions, up 40% from last year! Paul Revere, Red Sox, Clam Chowda and MarTech!If you missed MarTech in San Francisco, don’t worry! We’re heading back to Boston for the first time since 2014. If you’re passionate about marketing and getting the most from marketing technology, then plan to attend MarTech, October 2-4. Check out my short video invite. Take advantage of exceptional alpha ratesSave $400 by registering now. You’ll get the full MarTech experience: access to conference sessions, networking events, marketing technology vendors in the Expo Hall, event mobile app, hot meals, WiFi and more! As the martech world continues to expand, MarTech conference is the show to help you sift through the buzzwords, jargon and various advice and connects you with real world martech experts doing incredible work. P.S. I’ve recently published some round ups from our San Francisco show here and here. The post MarTech is coming! MarTech is coming! To Boston Oct. 2-4 appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land http://ift.tt/2qWy6Ii Google is testing dashboards in AdWords Report Editor. Optmyzr’s Frederick Vallaeys noticed the dashboards on Tuesday. After building tables or charts in the drag-and-drop Report Editor, advertisers can embed them to a modular and customizable dashboard. The dashboards can be edited, shared, downloaded as a PDF, and even set on a recurring schedule for sharing. A KPI widget and a text widget are available to include comments to accompany the reporting widgets. The dashboard function only supports single account data at this point and is not compatible at the Manager Account (MCC) level. Below are several screen shots Vallaeys shared with Search Engine Land. This view shows the modular blocks in which the dashboards can be built, along with the text widget in use. Charts and tables can take up multiple blocks. Here’s what the dashboard above looks like when completed. Dashboards can be scheduled to be emailed daily, on the first of the month or weekly. The test is quite limited at this point, so do not be surprised if you don’t see it in your accounts yet. The post Spotted: AdWords reporting dashboards that can be scheduled & shared appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land http://ift.tt/2rhhzl6 |
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