Google Search: There’s a New Bird Behind the Scenes

Recently Google released information regarding the newest iteration of their search algorithm. Algorithms describe the system search engines use to sort through all available information related to your search and then come back to you with answers.

Search Engines live by these algorithms and rely on them for successfully delivering relevant content to its users. Search Engines, typically make frequent updates in order to create a better search experience, deliver more relevant results, and ultimately keep their searchers coming back.

Names like Panda and Penguin are behind the scenes names for code releases, and are most familiar to those who follow the industry releases.

Google’s latest algorithm change is called “Hummingbird” and the information below should help you understand the changes and affects it could potentially have on your advertising.

Hummingbird

Google started using Hummingbird in late September 2013. No, PageRank is not gone – PageRank is one of over 200 major components that go into the Hummingbird algorithm. Hummingbird looks at PageRank along with other factors – like overall page quality, the influence a page has on the market, and the quality of all crawl-able content on the page – to determine what to serve up on a search engine results page (SERP).

Panda, Penguin and other updates were changes made to the old algorithm, but not an entire replacement of the existing algorithm. Hummingbird is brand new and replaced the old algorithm; though it does continue to use some of the same pieces of the old algorithm.

 
Hummingbird was introduced to produce results in response to an overwhelming use of “conversational” type search terms. These searches are using more than just keywords and phrases in queries; they are searching with long tailed terms and have very specific requests. Before Hummingbird, if someone would search “What’s the closest place to my home to buy an iPad?” a traditional search engine might focus on finding matches for a small number of keywords and find a page that says “buy” and “iPad.” Hummingbird is designed to better focus on the meaning behind the words and could take into account the actual location of your home (if you’ve shared that with Google). It might also understand that “place” means you want a brick-and-mortar store and allow you to filter out results showing virtual or online locations.
 

Google has said that Hummingbird is paying more attention to each word in a query, ensuring that the entire search query is taken into account, rather than particular words. The goal is that pages matching the overall meaning rank better than pages matching just a few words.

How does Hummingbird affect you as an advertiser?

Google’s guidance remains the same, it says: to help ensure more relevant search results, advertisers must concentrate on original, high-quality content. According to Google’s Matt Cutts, if you are focused on high quality content, you shouldn’t worry too much about changes to algorithms. Jeremy Rigsby, Lead SEO Strategist at www.TheLocalSearchAgency.com, a search consulting and strategy firm, describes high quality content as:

1.      Location information carrying or offering a particular product or service
2.      Detailed product or service descriptions
3.      Variations of products or services
4.      Offers and promotions for a particular product or services

If you advertise on Google, code releases like Hummingbird call for you to continually check to make sure your content strategy hasn’t gone stale and that your website hasn’t lost its competitiveness. The best rule of thumb is make sure that you have the necessary high-relevant content that supports your lines of business, and that it’s easily crawl-able and indexed by Google.

Top 5 Most Frequently Asked Questions About SEM

1. What exactly is SEM?

SEM (Search Engine Marketing) is the placement and management of ads on search engines. These ads are more prominently displayed than the organic (free) listings and usually generate more clicks, which can lead to more calls and more sales. The most common form of SEM is Pay-Per-Click advertising, where advertisers bid on the keywords they want their ads to appear under.
SEM ads are fast-tracked to the top and right side of search results pages and the advertiser only pays when a user clicks on the listing to visit the advertisers' website. 

2. How does SEM differ from SEO?

Like SEM, the goal of SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is to promote a website by increasing their ranking in search results. SEO promotes websites by improving a website’s structure, technology, and content so that it will achieve high rankings in the organic (free) search results of a search engine.

Given the amount of information on the Internet, a company can fully optimize their web site and still find it appearing several pages down in the search results. This is why many companies invest so heavily in SEM, as it increases the likelihood your website will get noticed.

3. Do I need an SEM program if my business appears on Google Maps/Local Business Listings?

The answer is yes, because different users search in different ways. Some only look at the top listings while others go several pages deep to find what they are looking for. Similarly, some users only look at the ads in the middle of the page while others explore left to right. It is important to expose yourself to a wide variety of user preferences to ensure the broadest group of people see your advertising.

4. What makes an effective SEM program?

Simply slapping a low bid on a bunch of keywords is becoming less likely to earn sales. Greater sophistication is needed to maximize your website’s exposure while minimizing your costs. An effective SEM program must include the following four components:

KEYWORDS—This refers to selecting a set of terms or phrases that, when searched, will deliver your ad to those who are searching. Pick the right ones and you are well on your way to bringing targeted, qualified visitors to your site. Pick the wrong words and you will sabotage your SEM campaign.

GEOGRAPHY—If your business is in any way location-specific, you’ll want to take advantage of geographical targeting. Choosing where your ads will appear can be done in a variety of ways - at a  city/metro level, based on a radius (in miles) from your location/service area, or the geography can be fully customized to include only the cities or ZIP codes that you want to reach.

DAYPARTING—Is a person conducting a search at 3:00 AM on a Tuesday morning a good prospect for your business? Targeting your advertising by time of day or by day of the week is a technique often underutilized in SEM programs. It drives conversions (clicks) and reduces wasteful spending. By reducing bids at poorly performing hours and reallocating those funds to hours with better conversion rates, advertisers can expect greater conversion volumes and better returns on advertising spend.

BID LEVEL/BUDGET—Budgets are limited, so determining a maximum bid level for each keyword and developing daily and monthly budgets is crucial to ensuring funds are properly allocated throughout the year.

5. How can I measure the effectiveness of an SEM program?

There is no guessing when it comes to measuring the performance of an SEM program. Clicks, impressions, spend, and online orders can all be tracked to provide conversion rates and  cost-per-call metrics. However, the real value of tracking an SEM program is using the data to further refine the program and to maximize its effectiveness.

For more about SEO and SEM go to www.TheLocalSearchAgency.com

 

 

 

Local Listings Management

Local Listings Management – Is It Really That Important?

Some believe that local listings management (LLM) is simply a matter of keeping their business name and website current on Google. They think, "update once and you're done." Not true! Local listing management is one of the most important processes a marketer or business owner can perform when trying to capture interest and leads from the Internet. It takes a concentrated effort that needs monitored, maintained and refined.

Why are Local Listings so important?

There are more people conducting online searches for local businesses than ever before. In fact, the Kelsey Group has identified 70% of US households now use the internet when shopping locally for products and services. It’s never been more important to ensure your business is accurately listed in as many online directories as possible. Supplying information about your business to these touch points, or local listings, is crucial to your business being found in an online search by a potential customer. 

Establishing and maintaining a strong local listing presence helps businesses rank higher in organic results when potential customers search for your business. Plus, local listings are more important to consumers than you might think. Research by comScore has identified online searchers find local and organic results to be 7 times more relevant and 8 times more trustworthy than paid results!

Why do businesses outsource the management of their Local Listings?

It takes a substantial commitment of time, manpower and dedication in order for a business to manage its own local listings. There are literally hundreds of digital touch points and online directories, but some companies like to manage the process internally. The basic steps of the process are outlined below:  

·         Claim listings at multiple local listing websites – such as Google, Yahoo Bing, Ask, CitySearch, etc.

·         Update listings with your business marketing information – and include text for web and mobile searches, as well as photos, coupons, videos, images, etc. 

·         Clean-up inconsistent data – Since local listing websites obtain data from multiple sources there could be multiple listings for a single business address. Delete or merge any duplicate listings to avoid confusion.

·         Monitor consumer reviews – on all local listing websites.
Monitoring, managing and responding to reviews is an important process and doing so will help you retain and acquire new customers. 

What should you do?

Local listings are far too valuable to be ignored, so don’t leave them to chance. Begin by deciding if you want to invest the time and resources to manage the process in-house or utilize an outside LLM service.  Remember, the goal is to accurately list your business, monitor your presence and enhance your online profile!