Above the Fold

When we think about user experience we aim to make it as painless as possible for users to find, and engage with, the content they are looking for. By placing huge expanding ads at the top of a page or filling the header and sidebars with unnecessary information, CTAs, ads, etc. we are hurting that experience. And now Google is confirming that those types of pages will have a harder time appearing in organic search results. Great news for user experience fanatics like us. Bad news for sites trying to milk every pageview for as much ad revenue as possible and sites that push real content lower on the page than is necessary.

Curious what sections of your site’s pages appear above the fold? Google has a browser size tool that overlays the percentage of users that will see the various sections of your page.

SEO & Design

This block level analysis emphasizes the need for an SEO strategy to sync up with and, in some ways, inform the wire framing and design of a website. It is also another indication that Google is getting better at calculating user experience and beginning to reward sites with good layouts, fast loading pages, easy/intuitive navigation, accessible/responsive design, etc.

At the end of the day, Google wants the best possible experience for their users – and so should we.

Rand Fishkin recently discussed the accuracy of visitor data for SEOMoz site traffic and the sometimes egregiously incorrect data provided by these tools. He rallied a call-to-arms for Webmasters to share the level of deviation on their own sites and form an industry consensus. We took Rand’s spirited dissertation to heart and analyzed a large (anonymous) site, comparing actual data with the public estimates.

Alexa.com – Lots of Data (Most of It Wrong)

Alexa gets credit for offering more data than other free public services, including search keyword traffic, clickstream data and audience demographics. The only issue being the extremely inaccurate nature of this information.

The top queries from search traffic were not indicative of actual organic search activity, with a few queries not appearing at all in the real data. Perhaps most inexcusable was the “% of traffic from US”, comparing Alexa’s 74% with the actual 96%. This is an important metric to advertisers and the discrepancy here could very much impact our business opportunities.

The demographic of site visitors has been shown to be Males, 35-44, (confirmed through a number of methods) but Alexa interpreted our visitors instead as Females, 45-54, which is the exact opposite from reality.

Compete.com – Under-reporting Visitors & Proud of It

Compete reported Unique Visitors at 57.92% lower than actual data, though some penance is given with the option to export CSV data. They might be forgiven a margin of error for sudden swing months, though this large discrepancy is averaged over 7 months time.

Actual Data: 4,596,476 unique visitors 

Compete Data: 1,934,332 unique visitors

DoubleClick – Google Gets It Wrong

You would expect the master of data to have accurate numbers, especially considering that the crux of their revenue stream depends on adoption of AdWords and AdSense. The margin of error is not much different than Compete and Alexa at 63% under-reported Unique Visitors and 24% under-reported Pageviews.

Unique Visitors:

• DoubleClick: 68,000
• Actual: 185,733
• Difference: 63.39%

Pageviews:

• DoubleClick: 830,000
• Actual: 1,086,206
• Difference: 23.59%

Quantcast – Great if Quantified (Otherwise Not)

Electing to place a Quantcast tag on your site (hereafter known as being Quantified!) allows you to publically share real data. The tag does not estimate, nor does it guess, but instead provides accurate and reliable data. However, not everyone is comfortable with this level of transparency and instead relies on Quantcast to estimate their traffic. A quick review of 3 large sites shows unique estimates under-reported by 85% – 90%. Not even close to reality. Similar to Alexa’s missteps on audience demographic, Quantcast viewed our Males, 35-44, site instead as Females, 50+.

ComScore  – You Pay for the Best of the Worst

The only paid service mentioned here is noticeably more accurate than the alternatives, showing only a 12% pageview under-reporting discrepancy compared with real data. Being the service most widely respected, it was refreshing to see ComScore actually coming close to providing true analytics.

Actual Data: 10,161,527 pageviews 

ComScore Data: 13,519,743 pageviews 

The goal of these traffic tools is to offer a public face for your site without giving away all that valuable data. So in that context estimations are perfectly useful, though a margin of error between 10%-15% is not an unreasonable request for general accuracy. All tools error on the side of conservative under-reporting, which is an understandable tendency, though the degree of discrepancy should still fall within moderate boundaries. It is interesting, however, that many tools show a similar magnitude of error around 60% under-reported, perhaps indicate that the same (inaccurate) data source is referenced by multiple tools.

A recent research study by Ogilvy Action quantifies both the increase in mobile prominence and also its effect on digital shopping habits. Noting that “mobile search traffic doubled in 2010 and has gone up five-fold in the past two years”, the study targets Singapore as the model of early adoption for mobile technology and a bell weather for global trends to come. The chart below demonstrates the great potential for global growth if the current pace of adoption continues or accelerates.

The role of mobile search was particularly prominent during the recent holiday shopping season. In a Nov 2011 Google study regarding toy shopping, it is reported that “nearly 1 in 5 toy shoppers use mobile to shop and search is their #1 activity”, followed by visiting mass merchant and retailer sites. Paid mobile search ads are perfectly targeted to capture the intention of online toy shoppers while they are actively searching. The role of mobile devices is becoming more of a “shopping assistant” during a consumer’s purchase process. The chart below from another Google/IPSOS study reveals the extent to which shopping decisions are influenced by mobile devices.

Retailers with physical stores are noticing the trend and adopting tactics that compliment mobile habits. This past holiday season some Lowes stores provided employees with iPhones to better interact with shoppers who were scanning product bar codes or searching for online reviews.

Mobile phones are becoming ingratiated within all aspects of our lives. Brands that recognize this trend and position themselves within the mobile space – through a mobile optimized website, custom phone application or appearance within search – will reap the benefits of increasingly savvy shoppers and their mobile phone “shopping assistants”.

The researchers describe domain bias as “a user’s propensity to believe that a page if more relevant just because it comes from a particular domain.” Using data from a blind test of click activity, the study asserts that domains can influence a user’s preference 25% of the time. Even more surprising is that users would choose recognizable domains over results that were actually more relevant. The crux of search engine services is returning results relevant to a user’s query, so this behavior feels somewhat irrational. One potential rationale might be the trend of users ticking to the “safe neighborhoods” of the Internet to avoid viruses, poor content farm content or scams from Nigerian princes; people tend to trust the sites they already know and feel comfortable with.

An example given in the report compares CTR for similar ads when the domain is switched. In this instance, users preferred WebMD.com over GeneticHealth.com 25% of the time. Of note is that the experiment accounted for users randomly selecting answers by removing results from failed “honeypot tests” where click behavior was not consistent or proved erratic (about 10% of the time).

As digital marketers, we try to capture a user’s attention by a variety of tactics, though this report implies that a large portion of success on search engines is influenced by a domain name that could have been an afterthought in the online marketing plan. A big takeaway here is the importance of addressing the domain name early in the process, accounting for perceived credibility and trust with your property’s URL. Furthermore, pay-per-click advertising relies on Display URL’s to draw eyeballs and entice clicks. Since most PPC platforms require the Display URL to match the Destination URL, advertisers are stuck with their chosen domains. Ads for credible sites could benefit from this bias while new sites or 3^rd party advertisers could suffer on CTR.

The portal through which users interact is the search engine, so the question becomes whether algorithms will take into account this preference for credible domains when ranking results. The Microsoft research reveals that “search results concentrate over time on fewer domains with increasingly larger share of results pointing to the top domains.” We have seen this progression over time with 2009’s Caffeine update favoring brands on search results, and a recent algorithm update lending authority to “official sites”. Google may continue to give searchers what they prefer – credible and recognizable domains – though the result of which may lead to a future of homogenized search results.

But there is hope! New sites attempting to find a footing in search results can still take action:

• SEO best practices regarding technical elements and site architecture
• Relevantly applied microdata on content
• Elements of freshness and recent content
• Enticing PPC ads served to targeted searchers

Microsoft researchers have demonstrated the influence of domain bias in user click activity, though the fact that 25% of searchers were swayed by the URL means that 75% of searchers were not. There is still an opportunity for sites to create relevant content, apply good SEO tactics and rank for a variety of terms.

Microdata is a way of labeling content within HTML in order to point out specific types of common information for search engines’ use/indexing.  Examples of this information may include descriptions of certain persons (name, occupation, etc.), product reviews (ratings, price, etc.), or recipe details (prep time, serving size, etc.).

Without getting overly technical, microdata is denoted by HTML tags similar to metatags (usually using <div> or <span>) to assign brief descriptors to items and properties on a webpage.  Below is an example Google provides of an HTML block of personal contact information without microdata and (below that) with microdata.

Without microdata:

With microdata:

Google explains the sample above like this:

• In the first line, itemscope indicates that the content in the <div> is an item. itemtype=”http://data-vocabulary.org/Person indicates that the item is a Person.
• Each property of the Person item is identified with the itemprop attribute. For example, itemprop=”name” describes the person’s name.
• This information could be marked up even further with microdata by assigning address properties to the subject’s location (Albuquerque, NM).

Marking up your site with these microdata tags is currently one of the best ways to put your content into context that makes it easier for search engines to read. Without them, your content appears to web-crawling bots moreso as one large collection of data, words, numbers, fact sets, etc., which is not nearly as search-engine friendly.  Microdata allows Google (or Bing/Yahoo!) to better understand and categorize all of the information on each page, which not only helps in improving SERP rank, but can also encourage higher CTRs by displaying in the search results the most relevant information to the searcher.

Applying microdata to HTML on a page about a restaurant such as its name, its location, its price range, as well as reviews will not affect the appearance of the content, but it will help Google better understand it and present that information in a way that is most relevant to the user. Below is an example of a Google SERP page using specified microdata to display to the searcher what are called “rich snippets.”

What’s more is that in June of 2011, the holy trinity of search—Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo!—announced the joint alliance of schema.org, a site that provides a full directory of microdata properties and tags that webmasters can follow.  This means that all three major players in the industry have agreed upon a common foundation of microdata sets that is now quickly becoming standard in best practices for web development and SEO as HTML5 takes over.

While not every SERP has been affected (results for [how many calories in an apple] may not require real time publishing updates), we have noticed the impact on general content not typically thought of in the realm of real time immediacy. For example, the below snippet includes “freshness links”, which are not always present and, in this instance, appear on the 11^th result and no other listings. Interesting also that the public +1 annotation is shown but does not appear on any other listings.

Publishing frequent (and unique) content is a good first step, but there are other actions to ensure Google is immediately aware of your content and treats it like the fresh nugget that it is.

• Dynamically update your xml sitemap, including <lastmod> timestamps
• Update your RSS feed – some in the SEO community believe there is a strong correlation between RSS and the “freshness links” in the screenshot above
• Promote the social sharing of your content – case studies have shown that frequently shared articles on Twitter get indexed quicker and benefit from perceived “freshness”
• Apply HTML5 <time> tags if applicable to your content

Relevance to a user’s query is still paramount, so don’t expect to see search results that are hyper-local (published 30 seconds ago) but are not the quality listings you would otherwise expect from your friends in Mountain View, CA. Following proper “freshness” protocol and being smart about how your content is released out into the world could help you capitalize on Google’s new obsession with fast and timely content.

Without getting into the technical aspects of the change, the biggest potential impact would be on those of us who use keyword-level data to optimize site content, layout, user experience, etc.

Despite Google being very clear that this change would only impact less than 10% of queries, our initial reaction included questions such as, “How will we be able to optimize our site for branded vs. non-branded searches?”, “How can we connect user search intent to on-site behavior (i.e., conversions)?”

Before we get into the data we have seen over the past 10 days, here is an example of how we use keyword-level data to optimize a site:
Let’s say we have 20,000 users arriving on a site from organic search. We can divide those users into a few different groups to learn what type of content various users are looking for, what browsers and devices they are using, etc. Perhaps we want to compare people who search for brand terms (e.g., Jeep, new Jeep Wagoneer, etc.) to those who are searching for industry/category terms (e.g, SUV Reviews, new SUVs 2012, etc.). Using advanced segments in Google analytics, we can compare these two groups relatively easily and find that (as an example) those searching for brand terms are 3Xs more likely to download a brochure while those searching industry/category terms are 5Xs more likely to be on a mobile device and 12Xs more likely to search for a nearby dealer. Using this data we can change a site’s experience to better serve our various organic search audiences.

We’ve been keeping a pretty close eye on the data since Google implemented this change and, in general, it has had very little (if any) impact on our ability to measure organic search traffic, track users’ paths through the site, see where users are leaving, what devices users are searching from, etc.

Looking at data from a few different sites that we work on across several industries, here is the percent of organic search data that has been affected:

News/Magazine Site: 1.6%
Insurance Company: 0.9%
Home Improvement Company: 0.7%
Recipe Site: 1.5%
Food Company: 1.2%
Food Company: 1.5%
Pet Products Company: 1.2%
Luxury Home Goods Company: 1.3%

Just to make sure the data above is clear, using the News/Magazine site as an example, of all of the organic search traffic going to that site (over 15,000 visits over the past 10 days) only 1.6% or 250 visits were ‘blocked’. In other words, instead of seeing what queries brought those 250 search visits to the site, we see “(not provided)” as shown in the screen shot below.

So, at the end of the day, it’s not that concerning. Until that number starts to approach the 10% – 15% point, we can still do all of the keyword-level analysis we did before (including the example above) and feel comfortable that we are making decisions based on statistically sound data.

To review…

• This change only affects organic search data for users who are signed into their Google account.
• It does not impact your ability to appear in organic search results.
• This is not a change to Google’s search algorithm. Nothing is different in terms of what it takes to appear in organic search results.
• This does not impact paid search data. Those users’ queries will still appear in the data.
• The change will be seen in all analytics platforms, whether you are using Google Analytics, Webtrends, etc.
• This only applies to Google searches. Yahoo/Bing search queries will still be displayed.
• So far, the amount of data being blocked is so small that it is not worth worrying about.

If anything, it might even provide new data that we did not have access to before. For example, if we start to see that the (not provided) traffic really likes subscribing to our RSS feed, we definitely need to make sure that our feed appears correctly in Google Reader (since we know those users are signed into a Google account and are more likely to use Google Reader to manager their RSS subscriptions).

We’ll continue to watch the data (as we tend to do), but don’t expect any massive changes to your ongoing organic optimization efforts, measurement ability or traffic patterns.

Let’s say that you published decent content and Google deemed it worthy of ranking highly on its search engine. Hurdle #1 has been conquered. The next step is persuading a user to click on your listing  – you have a relevant keyword-rich title and meta description right? With any luck, you’ve just earned yourself a visitor. The user experience presented on the landing page now makes the difference between an engaged visitor clicking across multiple pages per visit and one who bounces immediately by furiously clicking the BACK button on his browser.

We ran a handful of tests where the query resulted in a desired link on the first page, which we then visited but immediately bounced and returned to the search results. The SERP had been adjusted slightly based on this behavior, which in Google’s eyes meant we were dissatisfied with the clicked result.

NEW OPTION FOR MORE RECENT RESULTS

The immediate bounce adjusted the search results to now show an option to “Get more results from the past 24 hours” below the listing that was just clicked. Google understands you were dissatisfied with the clicked listing and might be interested in more recent material. In addition to recent listings from the same domain, other sites are offered as well, potentially derailing the visitor from returning to your site. As well, a ‘Block Results’ link is now available for that extreme case.

Step 1: Searched Google for query [man of the house]

Step 2: Received the below listing and clicked-through to the site

Step 3: Immediately bounced from the site, returning to Google

Step 4: The listing has now been modified to include recent results & option to block

Step 5: Expanded recent results include other domains

BLOCKING ALL DOMAIN RESULTS

Two additional SERP tests revealed a “Block Results’ link immediately following the site bounce. This rather extreme action could have major repercussions for your site if the user was extremely dissatisfied with his landing page experience.

Step 1: Searched Google for queries [craig heimbuch] and [push present ideas]

Step 2: Received the below listings and clicked-through to the site

Step 3: Immediately bounced from the site, returning to Google

Step 4: The listing has now been modified to allow blocking the entire domain

Keeping visitors on your site is important for a number of reasons (business objectives, site engagement, brand loyalty) but now we see a potential negative impact on your organic search results as well. Creating a landing page (or just adapting your site in general) that allows a clean and easy user experience can benefit both your visitors and your organic search listings.

We are often asked to justify the amount of money and resources spent on paid search, organic search, social media, user experience optimization and other online marketing tactics when a site doesn’t have a clear ecommerce conversion (i.e., it doesn’t generate direct revenue through the sale of products, fee-based memberships, etc.). Despite the lack of an ecommerce conversion, most sites still have goals – or some desired action that users should take.

These actions can range from downloading a file or watching a video to calling a phone number or signing up for a newsletter. All have value, and that value can be attributed to keywords (paid and organic), display ads, Facebook posts, referral links, etc.

The Value of Micro Conversions

Downloading/Printing a Coupon

If your site offers coupons, chances are you are paying to get those coupons out through other channels. What are you paying to mail your coupons? If you spent $10,000 sending coupons to 10,000 people, using a 10% open rate, you spent $10 per open. Apply that $10 to every digital coupon download. The argument could even be made that online coupon downloads deserve a higher value than direct mail because the user asked for it as opposed to receiving it unsolicited.

Email Sign-Ups

If you have an active email newsletter, there are several ways to arrive at the per email value of that tactic. Are you already paying a company like Response Media to acquire email addresses for you? If so, you already know what each email address is worth (since you are paying $X for each address anyway). Do you have ads in your emails? If so, divide the ad revenue by the number of subscribers to find the ad revenue per email address.

Watching a Video

If you are running TV ads or pre-roll advertising, you have all the data you need to put a value on each video view on your website. Let’s say you spent $10,000 to run a TV ad that was viewed by an estimated 50,000 people. Each online video view, in this case, should be worth at least $.20. Again, the argument could be made that an online view deserves a much higher value than a broadcast view because it is 100% accurate and user-activated.

Calling a Phone Number

Your business offers a professional service of some sort (e.g., law firms). You know that the average lifetime value of any given client is $10,000 and 1 out of every 50 callers turns into a client. Using this data, you can assume that every phone call is worth $200.

How to Use the Data

Now that you have a value defined for each desired action on your site, you can start applying it to traffic sources, visitor types, days of the week, etc.

Which traffic source has the best ROI?

Once you have all of the data for a given time period, apply the value of each conversion to arrive at the total value for each traffic source. Then, using the costs associated with those traffic sources incurred during the same time period, you can estimate the ROI for each source.

What time of day should I publish Facebook posts?

Analyzing user behavior at various times throughout the day can reveal some interesting trends. As you can see, Facebook posts are most successful at driving traffic to the site early in the morning, mid-afternoon and again in the early evening. We can also see that users are most prone to watch a video during lunch and at 7PM. With this data we not only know when to post to Facebook, but the type of content to promote at certain times of the day to earn the highest return possible.

This example is particularly useful because Facebook posts do not differ significantly in time/effort from one post to the next and they are almost always presented to the same audience. Those two variables being constant, the comparative value of these actions becomes even more accurate and compelling.

This type of valuation can get really fun when we start to apply values to Facebook likes, comments and other metrics associated with social engagement, but that’s another post

At the end of the day, this type of analysis is based on our belief that simply understanding how many visitors your site has, or the overall CTR of a paid search campaign is not sufficient data to truly understand whether specific tactics are effective and worth the time, energy and money.

SURFACE LEVEL ANALYSIS

Reviewing the below data set based on just core data (clicks, impressions, CTR), a few outliers grab our attention:

• Campaign 1 is most effective with high clicks and CTR
• Campaigns 4 and 9 are performing great with high CTR’s
• Campaign 8 is struggling under a lower CTR

COMPARING MULTIPLE DATA POINTS

Extending our view to include additional data, the above conclusions are adjusted to incorporate new metrics and a more accurate picture is revealed.

• Campaign 1 is afforded its high click count due to a low $0.98 CPC. Further investing in this campaign with the goal of increasing clicks might prove less costly than other campaigns.
• Campaign 9 might be applauded for its high 10.06% CTR, but this must be viewed in light of relatively low impressions compared to other campaigns. As well, despite the successful clicks, users are less apt to convert with a low 0.95% conversion rate.
• While Campaign 8 has the lowest CTR and highest CPC, the conversion rate is the highest. If conversions are the ultimate goal, we might explore why the CTR is so low and try to bring down the high CPC with more relevant keywords/ads to further fuel conversions.

VISUAL DATA ANALYSIS

Reviewing multiple data points visually can also yield trending insights not apparent from raw numbers. In the example below, our graph shows that as CTR increased over time, the average CPC fell somewhat proportionally.

We might infer that our ads have been viewed as more relevant by Google as the CTR increased, thereby improving keyword Quality Score and driving down our CPC. Knowing that CTR increased is helpful information but tying this metric to cost-per-click data reveals a bigger picture of how the campaign is performing (and more importantly, the factors involved).Further analysis into other influencing factors might confirm this correlation or suggest alternative theories.

Most data points in PPC performance affect each other in a constant ebb and flow of interrelated factors. Too often a myopic view of only one metric is taken (often to reinforce a hypothesis), but widening your vantage point to encompass related factors can reveal much more about real campaign performance.

The Same Social Media Standards …

So what exactly is Google Plus? Most importantly it is not a standalone application but rather integrated social sharing across Google properties (Search, Gmail, YouTube, Android phones, Google toolbar, etc). However the tricky part will be convincing users to create Google public profiles and opt in with their friends. Currently few Google profiles exist and it is this hurdle that could stall widespread adoption. However, Google has publically stated that the new Plus One button will be a signal in organic ranking, so there is an incentive for users to adopt a profile and begin promoting sites.

What will look familiar is ‘The Stream”, a wall of feeds (very similar in appearance to Facebook) showcasing shared photos, videos, +1 articles and status updates. Your friends can comment on a stream inline or simply give it a +1, similar to the ‘Like’ button on the Facebook wall. We don’t know if +1’s found exclusively on a Steam post will affect organic rankings, though given the documented importance of Twitter mentions, Facebook Likes and the public admittance that +1 button activity on sites will impact search ranking, there is good probability that social sharing on Google Plus could become a signal as well.

While Facebook does allow users to create ‘Lists’ for sharing information with only certain groups of friends, the interface and usability has been too much of a hurdle for the casual user. Google’s ‘Circles’ feature allows the same functionality but in a simple way of dragging friends to a prescribed ‘circle’. Whenever an item is shared across your network, Google Plus by default asks which ‘circles’ should be included. This is a quick and easy way to share that party picture with your college buddies but not your coworkers.

Our own data suggests that users are interested in not just ‘Liking’ content but also sending to specific friends. Our agency helps manage an online magazine for men called Man of the House and we have noticed that for every 1 ‘Like’ there are 0.56 ‘Sends’ directly to friends. While the data only suggest half of Facebook users will ‘Send’ an article, we believe this statistic is indicative of a larger trend even though ‘Likes’ still dominate. The ability to share content with selectively chosen groups of friends, rather than a blanket public recommendation, will become a trend in social media and the increasing awareness of privacy around shaping one’s online identity.

… But With Some New Features

While the above features are similar to what is already available in social media, the ‘Sparks’ and ‘Hangouts’ applications show new creative thinking around what users may want in the future. ‘Sparks’ is similar to a customized RSS feed with articles suggested based on your interests (which of course can be shared across Google Plus if you so choose). The ‘Hangouts’ feature is a form of group video chat with your Plus One pals. While the technology is not entirely new (Skype already has such a feature) the seamless integration within the Google universe could appeal to users.

Another key point of differentiation is the immediate release of an Android (and soon iPhone) compatible app, allowing all the functionality associated with Google Plus. Initial screenshots show the app was not created as an afterthought but rather a vital component of the Google Plus ecosystem. One interesting feature is that photos taken on your phone can be instantly uploaded to your account and tagged by location. No more synching by USB cable or a tedious upload process – you take the photos and up into the cloud they float. Google is well aware of the growing base of smartphone users, in addition to the prominence that Android phones now play in the industry, and have wisely incorporated mobile devices into Google Plus.

The Verdict on Google Plus?

It might take some time for users to adopt Google Plus as their de facto social media sharing hub. Many have invested so much time and energy building their Facebook communities that switching to an entirely new platform could be a difficult change. This hesitation might further be compounded by an overly complicated Google Plus interface that could detract from mass adoption. However, the seamless integration with other Google platforms and Android phones makes that pill easier to swallow.

But will Google Plus transform the way you interact online? Probably not immediately but we know by their track record that Google is big on constant innovation and CEO Larry Page has been insistent to Mountain View employees that social is where Google needs to grow. A Fast Company article on the topic gives a nice appraisal worth noting:

“All of which is to say, if you take a look at Google+ today, and write it off for all the ways it falls short of what you’d want from a new social network, you’d be missing the point. This is just v 1. Or, more likely, v 0.5.”

We have only seen the beginning of Google’s focus on social media. A reactionary move by Facebook to update their own platform can be anticipated (already video chat has been quickly rolled out since the Google announcement), providing competitive fuel for even more innovation going forward. When the world’s largest digital presence decides it wants to be more integrated with your digital world, you can expect that life will never be the same.

First, the +1 button relies heavily on using a well-connected Google Profile. Otherwise you are just a faceless searcher clicking +1 buttons without much context. While Google admits that +1 votes will affect organic search ranking and be shared publically (on this point they have been vague and left the door open to how public +1’s will be shared), the personalization is really the crux of why this feature might resonate with users. How many of you currently have complete Google Profiles synched with all your friends and networks? Not many, I would imagine. Encouraging users to opt-in to yet another web presence profile will be hurdle #1 for Google.

Who will this affect the most? Major brands should see minimal impact while content publishers could find a swing in ranking. Let’s take Nike, for example. They already rank definitively on the first few SERP pages, while other sites with a high amount of +1’s will probably not knock them off that pedestal. Furthermore, we can expect brands to acquire +1’s themselves and solidify their position. Content publishers, on the other hand, are more reliant on dynamic ranking and could find themselves assisted by +1’s (or, on the other hand, hindered if their content does not acquire these social votes).

Individual sites will start to post the +1 button in the coming months when it becomes available. Given the leverage that Google wields on the search results pages, many sites are reliant on organic search traffic and will adopt this new feature if only in the hopes of not being left behind. As with any algorithm update, this could open the door to manipulation, but Google has most likely accounted for that when integrating +1 as a ranking signal. AdWords ads will also feature the new button though Google has stated this will not be a factor in Quality Score. In both instances, the +1’s can be monitored and tracked through AdWords and Google Webmaster Tools, offering social metrics not as readily available with the Facebook ‘Like’ button and sharing valuable visitor insight.

Will this change the internet? A little. Though the type of site you run, either as an authoritative brand or content publisher, will determine how big an impact this change may have on your organic ranking. When the +1 button for individual sites is released in the coming months, we can expect to hear more about the affect on organic ranking and the social landscape in general. The US will see this featured rolled out first, though a global deployment will surely be announced shortly. Google has set up an experimental test of the new feature for users to see how their Google profiles might be affected.

The key here is that a user must be signed in to his Google profile AND have a social network connected to that account (LinkedIn or Twitter, for example). The new functionality is predicated on users being willing to synch up their accounts; a topic especially pertinent given the recent attention to data sharing on the web.

Some might argue that keeping certain accounts separate helps compartmentalize the primary uses of Twitter (sharing topics and communicating) and Google (seeking information or navigating websites), while combining could amplify the noise and clutter already threatening to overpower the web. However, the example given on the Google blog of researching a trip to Mt. Kilimanjaro might be a case where social recommendations could prove helpful. I would trust the opinion of my friends when deciding to climb the highest freestanding mountain in the world, or perhaps the less dramatic example of researching digital cameras.

A further question would be whether the algorithm accounts for your friends’ web behavior, outside of posts or recommended content, and integrates their random clicks and sites visited. This would take an assumption that their online behavior is indicative of my own, though the social search functionality described above is to a certain extent exactly that. Personalized results in this scenario could run the risk of becoming homogenized and lose their relevance along with their diversity.

Surely the Microsoft executives in Redmont, WA, are sitting back and laughing, confident that their business relationship to Facebook assures them of more relevant social search results on Bing. Google has been prevented from accessing Facebook pages and has a noticeable gap in their social search results. While this is clearly a value-add for Bing results, Facebook may not always be the top social sharing site. Furthermore, does this portend a dark future where competing search engines only show manipulated results from business partners that have mutually vested interests?

The phenomenon of social sharing does not appear to be slowing down and search engines are wise to take note of the direction web interaction is heading. Google is already quite fond of trusted brands in search results, though companies would be wise to prioritize their social footprint and maintain active community management with consumers. Grabbing that top spot in the SERP is vital to most web properties and engaging fans socially could land them right at the top of personalized search results.

We have also seen examples where a character icon was inserted into the sitelinks. This visual manipulation is most likely not in line with AdWords regulations, though such actions are not being blocked at the moment.

Here is a quick rundown of the rules & parameters for ads with sitelinks:

• Up to 10 hyperlinks may be specified, along with display URL’s, though all links may not appear, depending on the quality of your ad compared with competing ads
• Sitelinks will only appear for the single top-ranked ad on a given user search. While the official policy is 1 sitelink per query, we have noticed instances of multiple paid sitelinks in the top position.
• There is no additional cost for ad sitelinks.
• There is no guarantee on the frequency with which your sitelinks may appear.
• Ad sitelinks can only be set at the campaign level, not the ad-group level

Organic vs Paid Sitelinks

There is an important distinction to be made between paid AdWords ads with sitelinks and organic sitelinks available outside of the auction system. Organic sitelinks become available through Google Webmaster Tools when your site meets a certain threshold of content and/or pageviews, though the parameters are not exactly known. Google automatically offers sitelink options and the webmaster only has control to deny the auto-generated sitelinks or suggest new titles for those already chosen. Choosing sitelinks outside of the auto-generated options is not possible.

Paid ads with sitelinks offer more control in the text displayed and hyperlinked, though the advertiser pays for this exposure and does not have complete command of when and how they might appear.

The Positive: Higher CTR & More Real Estate

We have noticed a substantial CTR increase on sitelink ads, even across different industries, demographics and ad versions, with a typical rate above 10% and sometimes closer to 20%. Another advantage is the valuable real estate the sitelink takes up above organic results. Any additional space that your ad can fill, and thus take away from competitors, only serves to better draw the searcher’s eye toward your ad and your tempting array of links.

Similar to organic sitelinks, this paid ad extension operates best when a campaign lends itself to multiple landing pages. If your paid search conversion funnel can take multiple approaches, sitelinks provide a unique opportunity to direct searchers down different paths toward potential conversion.

The Negative: Ad Constraints & Lack of Control

A major drawback is that sitelinks can only be set at the campaign level. Most account structures have a broad campaign theme broken down into specific topical ad groups. It can be difficult to generalize a sitelink that encompass all potential ads that could appear in that campaign, hindering the micro-targeting that otherwise an account structure offers. This lack of control is further augmented when you don’t get to choose which ads will appear with sitelinks. This is left to AdWords deeming your ad (relative to competitors and ad rank) as ‘high quality’, an attribution almost as difficult to manipulate as the quality score assigned to keywords.

Since we all love data and analytics, what if you wanted to see which of your individual sitelinks was bringing the most clicks? AdWords does not show data on specific links, which would be a great insight for any data-driven account manager. Monitoring conversions is not available in the ‘Ad Extensions’ tab, which would make the most sense, but can be found by segmenting ads or keywords by ‘Click Type’. More of a user-interface complaint but certainly room for improvement.

Sitelinks: Room for Improvement But Still Valuable

AdWords sitelinks have been a benefit to our campaigns, helping drive up average CTR and placing our ads above competitors on the SERP. Certainly there are areas for improvement, though the simple fact that buying a sitelink placement costs no more than a typical ad shows what a benefit this extension can be to your campaign.

We captured a few screenshots below while temporarily included in the test. We noticed Google engineers outside our office window, lurking and taking notes. The thumbnail snapshot features the latest Google cache of the page, though notably flash content is missing. This might serve well as a warning shot across the bow for those sites that do not employ a backup non-flash version. We might speculate that Google Webmaster Tools could allow a backup file directory or thumbnail location specified in a sitemap, similar to video sitemaps.

Taking it a step further, text related to the query is called out with orange borders and increased size within the thumbnail. The [Bill Bryson] example below shows how increased keyword relevancy could greatly improve click-through rate on ranked pages.

Some might recall a similar feature circa 2004 when AskJeeves.com implemented “binoculars” featuring a page preview on the SERP. A common complain at the time was a lack of recency in image snapshots. Six years later, in an environment of real time search, search engines can crawl and index pages much faster. In our test, when a thumbnail was not immediately available, one was created within 1-2 seconds.

The test does not include paid links in this functionality, reserving thumbnails for organic results. The large preview pane takes up valuable real estate, covering paid ads and potentially decreasing user engagement with ads on the right. However, the page preview does not appear until the blue background is clicked, allowing a user to first browse sponsored links. To Google’s benefit, the page preview means users will spend more time on their results page and it’s worth noting that increasing eyeball duration is always a benefit when selling ads to those eyeballs.

**UPDATE 11/10**

The official name is “Instant Preview” and is slated to be rolled out across 40 languages in the next few days, though a demo interface is available now.  Interesting that once a user clicks the magnifying glass, Google loads all related instant previews on the SERP, allowing a user to simply mouse over the other results rather than continually clicking.

I received an email at the beginning of September informing me that the Yahoo Ambassador program was being discontinued. Similar to Geocities being removed from the index, this marks another milestone in the evolution of Search.

It will be interesting to see whether Yahoo Ambassador badges remain on sites and how long people leave it on their LinkedIn profiles now that the program does not exist.

It was a good 4 years, but I suppose this means I have to change my desktop background to something other than my Yahoo Ambassador certificate.

The data below compares Google organic traffic from 18 days before Google Instant to the 18 days after.

With the exception of a few outliers, most sites have experienced increased organic search traffic, but lower quality users. We will continue to monitor this, and also look into Google Instant’s impact on our paid search data in the upcoming weeks.

Anyone seeing similar trends in other industries?

Clicking ENTER when the blue arrow is aligned on your chosen result will load that page in the same window. The video capture below shows how this functionality helps you navigate search results.

One ramification here is the need for paid positioning above the organic results, since those appearing on the right side are not able to be navigated without clicking. Also noticeable is that the arrow navigation is not an option while Google Instant is dynamically serving up results. This makes sense since keyboard navigation allows the user to scroll between suggested results while in this mode.

From start to finish, including using Google Instant, a user can now navigate SERP’s without clicking, using only keyboard commands.

UPDATE: It is possible to navigate to the right side paid ads by scrolling down through all the organic results, at which point the blue arrow cursor appears on the right paid ads. Interesting, however, is that once the bottom paid ad is reached, the cursor does not jump back to the original starting position on result #1 but just ends right there. Scrolling back up is the only option.

In other cases, and less frequently, the blue arrow (or triangle) appears on the 2^nd result.

The blue arrow icon does not appear to be a graphic though page code does show that inclusion is deliberate under a CSS span ID of “knavm” with the color and other attributes assigned via css.

If we see the blue arrow appearing on both 1st and 2nd SERP results, what then is driving this decision? Some potential ideas might be the most clicked link, the highest page rank or an authoritative brand page (similar to the algorithm update last month where brands are dominating SERP pages).

Perhaps we are just seeing a test of new HTML5 functionality. To determine if this is a regional or national roll out (or test), are other users seeing the blue arrow and on which result is it appearing?

UPDATE: We now understand that the blue arrow icon can be manipulated vertically with keyboard commands to scroll among search results, both paid and organic. We posted a related video on keyboard navigation of Google results.

a: amazon
b: best buy
c: craiglist
d: duke energy
e: ebay
f: facebook
g: gmail
h: hulu
i: ikea
j: jungle jims
k: kroger
l: lowes
m: maps
n: newport on the levee
o: orbitz
p: pandora
q: quotes
r: reds
s: skype
t: target
u: university of cincinnati
v: value city
w: weather
x: xavier university
y: youtube
z: zappos