'Net Features : study

Journey to the Top of the SERPs

Michael Garrity — Tue, 16 Oct 2012 20:00:00 GMT

Have you ever wondered why everyone seems to make such a big deal out of search engine optimization (SEO) and reaching that coveted top spot in the search engine results pages (SERPs)?

Well then, new data from Compete may just enlighten you, as a recent study of tens of millions of consumer-generated SERPs from Q4 of 2011 shows us just how massive the difference between a first and second place listing can be to a website.

According to the data, approximately 85 percent of all the listings shown are organic, with 15 percent appearing as paid search listings; they also found that 55 percent of all SERPs have ads.

But the more telling information comes from looking at the clicks on organic results. Compete says that 53 percent of those clicks go to the top organic listing, and the number decreases significantly from there. The second link gets 15 percent of the clicks, while the third gets nine percent, the fourth sees six percent and the fifth is clicked on just four percent of the time.

Being on top is also beneficial for paid listings, as well, though having the number one spot in the ad block is less important than simply appearing in the block at the top of the page. The study shows that about 61 percent of paid search ads show up on the right-hand sidebar, but they only account for 13 percent of the paid search clicks with the top listing getting just four percent of all paid search clicks. In contrast, the third listing in the top ad block receives around nine percent of all paid search clicks; in fact, the ads in the top block see an impressive 59 percent of all the paid clicks.

The report also shows that around 24 percent of the ads on a SERP appear at the top and make up an impressive 85 percent of the clicks, while 15 percent of them appear at the bottom of the page and get a paltry two percent of the clicks.

In other words, this report wants you to know that it pays off (big time) to invest in getting your site at the top of the SERPs. But as we all know, that's easier said than done.

Just a few weeks ago, Google released a list of 65 new changes to its search engine algorithm from August and September, many of which may have direct implications for how websites and pages will be able to move up in the SERPs. Here's a look at six of the most important updates; webmasters and SEOs take note.

The Role of Authority

One of the updates from August focuses on page quality and intends to help searchers find "more high-quality content" from sources that the search engine trusts. This means that building that kind of trust is crucial to improving your search ranking. You can do this by receiving (and giving) links from trusted and authoritative sites, creating a sitemap, lowering your bounce rate and not "over-optimizing" your content.

Matters of Location

Two updates now look more at location to determine a site's place in the SERPs. The first now determines relevancy of pages for queries containing locations, and the other "nearby" change improves the precision and coverage of relevant local Web results, helping it better identify results that are localized for each user (and ranks them appropriately). To better find these local, relevant searchers, optimize your site for local search by registering with a search engine's local business registry, getting links from local directories, developing location-specific landing pages and adding geographic keywords into landing page content, <h1> and <h2> tags and metadata.

The Return of Keyword Density

The changes also included an update to term-proximity scoring, which means it would behoove you to improve the keyword density on your site. You can do this by inserting keywords into page titles, headlines, ALT text, page URLs, rich footers and, of course, your copy.

The Importance of Freshness

Being fresh is crucial, and the last two months saw a number of changes aimed at rewarding sites with fresh content. Now, Google will apply a more granular function based on document age, and also seeks out and favors the latest content from a given site when two or more documents from the same domain are relevant to a search query. So make sure you're continually adding fresh content to your site, and if you're busy schedule makes that difficult, don't be afraid to ask for guest contributors or even press releases that you can publish. Anything to keep your site from just sitting there and getting stale.

Title Tags in Focus

It's difficult for Google to generate preview snippets for pages that it does not crawl because of robots.txt, so now a replacement snippet will be included that explains that there is no preview because of robots.txt. To prevent this, include titles and descriptions in the metadata of your Web pages.

Universal Intent

In addition to all of this, Google can now show improved Universal Search results through a better understanding of when a search has strong image intent, local intent, video intent, etc.

Take these key updates into consideration as you continue to optimize your site for the search engines (and maybe take a look at the other 59 changes, as well), and before you know it, you'll be movin' on up the SERPs.

How Does Breaking News Affect Search Results?

Michael Garrity — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 19:15:00 GMT

Business-to-business (B2B) inbound marketing software provider Optify has released new data about the differences in the way that search engines react during breaking news events.

The study specifically looked at three hot-button news topics from the past few years: the Japanese tsunami, Steve Jobs' resignation as CEO of Apple, and Amanda Knox's return to Seattle after being released from an Italian prison.

Optify conducted the study by identifying specific keywords for each event that would drive the highest volume of results on Google and the Microsoft-owned Bing. The evolution and performance of these keywords were observed on each search engine over a period of time, and Optify found that to react to the news, both Bing and Google made dramatic changes to their search engine results pages (SERPs).

Both sites diminished or eliminated the presence of sponsored content, increased the amount of results containing integrated or multimedia content, and pushed recent news content to the top of the page at the expense of ranked results. Overall, about 70 percent of all the content shown above the fold was breaking news.

However, there were some expected differences. Mainly that when it comes to surfacing news results, Bing favors the most recent results and those coming from MSN.com, also Microsoft-owned. Google prefers authority and reach and serves more results from "prominent" publications.

The study ends up concluding that organizations with higher authority and social reach tend to do better in a breaking news cycle.

Slingshot Study Shows Google SERP Superiority

Michael Garrity — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 17:00:00 GMT

Recently, Slingshot SEO conducted a study on user behavior in an attempt to determine the impact of page-one search engine rankings on organic click-through rates (CTRs). The results of said study were released in a white paper entitled "A Tale of Two Studies: Establishing Google & Bing Click-Through Rates."

As the title indicates, the primary purpose of the study was to look at the differences in CTRs between the two major U.S. search engines, industry-leader Google and the Microsoft-owned Bing, and how they can help quantify return on investment (ROI) from SEO campaigns.

Slingshot decided to address its research by looking to answer a series of questions pertaining to observed CTR curves for organic U.S. results on both search engines and how they compare to each other, among other things related to user behavior.

Since the company sees organic CTR on search engines as one of the best metrics for measuring user engagement, and since Google and Bing are host to approximately 95% of all search engine inquiries, this study was meant to provide a perspective on just how valuable a page one ranking can be on either site.

Some of the hard data presented in the white paper includes:

- Google SERPs showed an observed CTR of 18.2 percent for number one rankings and 10.05 percent for number two rankings.

- Bing SERPs showed an observed CTR of 9.66 percent for number one rankings and 5.51 percent for number two rankings.

- The total average CTR for first page organic search results on Google is 52.32 percent.

- The total average CTR for first page organic search results on Bing is 26.32 percent.

- Each month, about 117 million searches in Bing are for the term "google." (Hint: that's not a great sign of user loyalty.)

The evidence clearly shows that users are far more trusting of Google's search results, especially on page one, than they are of what Bing has to offer. According to the report, after studying user behavior based on CTRs, Slingshot wants to "emphasize the importance of ranking in the top ten positions in Google SERPs."

To read the full report, click the above link or just go here.

Massive Increases in Global Paid Search Spending

Michael Garrity — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 15:45:00 GMT

Independent search marketing agency (and software solutions provider) Covario released its third quarter Global Search Advertising Spend Analysis last week. The whitepaper included information showing that paid search spending by technology and consumer electronics companies improved greatly from its less-than-stellar second quarter.

Global pay-per-click (PPC) advertising in the third quarter of 2011 was up a whole 26 percent from the preceding quarter and 24 percent from quarter three of 2010. This growth is seen as a result of strong numbers in back-to-school shopping and an increase in investments in the Asia-Pacific region.

According to the Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer at Covario, Craig Macdonald, "Technology and consumer electronics advertisers are upping their budgets for Asia-Pacific and are now looking at search spend growth for the full year in APAC to be in the 40-plus range."

Cost-per-click (CPC) advertising, which is the average transaction cost for purchasing search engine advertisements, has consistently seen 2 percent quarter-on-quarter price inflation because of an increase in competition for search engine auctions; this is, in large part, a result of "robust growth" in search marketing spending in Asia-Pacific.

Macdonald believes that the technology sector will increase global paid search spending by approximately 20 percent for 2011.

Of course, APAC wasn't the only region that increased its paid search spending. In North America, it grew by 21 percent; in the same quarter last year it only increased by 7 percent. In Europe, there was a 23 percent increase from the second quarter and a 24 percent increase from Q3 2010.

"We do, however, see growth slowing in Europe," cautioned Macdonald.

Covario seemed intent on pointing out that "major growth opportunities for global advertisers are in Asia-Pacific, where quarter on quarter growth was at 45 percent and year on year paid search spend was up more than 100 percent." The biggest boom areas for PPC investment in the area are Japan, China, India, Australia and New Zealand.

Other important findings by Covario include:

- 75 percent of paid search technology clients see paid media spending on Facebook being a key part of annual budgeting in the upcoming year.

- Overall growth in paid search spending for 2012 should be in the 18-22 percent range. In North America, it will be 18-20; in Europe it will fall between 15-20; and it should land between 30-25 in Asia-Pacific.

- Google does, and will continue to, control the majority of the spending, as it has a 75 percent share of the global paid search market. Yahoo-Bing take about 15 percent, and Baidu is set to grow to 8 percent.

- Predictions state that mobile search marketing will only command about 3-5 percent of overall paid search marketing. The real money in mobile search strategies right now is in SEO and Web development.

Report Studies User Experience of Financial Websites

Michael Garrity — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 17:00:00 GMT

Web-based usability testing tool Usabilla recently conducted a study on the user experience, as well as usability similarities and differences among some of the largest retail banking websites in countries around the world, including the U.S., Germany and the U.K. Though it is focused on sites in the financial sector, many of the takeaways from the study provide insights that can be used to help websites in any industry.

Among the banks included in the report are Bank of America, Barclays, Chase, Citi, Deutsche Bank, HSBC, Royal Bank of Scotland and Wells Fargo.

In the study, 400 participants were asked to perform simple, everyday tasks on these various websites and then provide feedback about their experiences. They were asked various questions, such as which aspects of the sites made them trust the banks, where they had to click to get information about credit cards, where they had to click to find information about how to meet with someone from their nearest branch of the bank, where to click if they have had a card stolen and what they would change or improve about each site.

Usabilla took the data from this report and gave each site a mean score based on accuracy and the time it took users to locate important information on the site. From there, each site was ranked from best to worst based on its overall performance.

Some of the most important findings from the study include the following:

- Often, many of these sites have a divide between a user's priorities and the priorities of the banks. Most of the "information is often based not on the most frequent actions a user takes . . . but on the services the bank wants to sell."

- A user's trust in a website is based largely on visual factors. Pages that display a padlock icon by their login and sign-in sections are often much more trusted than those who don't. Also, if they have clear banners and links that make reference to their security measures or programs, they appear more trustworthy; on the other hand, sites with many ads and/or offers appear less trustworthy.

- Most banks performed poorly when it came to offering a "Lost Credit Card" button by failing to place one somewhere that was easy for users to access. Many of the participants in the study said that "the experience of losing a credit card could be much less stressful" if banks were to make this button simpler to find on their websites.

- The sites with the cleanest designs on their credit card pages performed the best in the survey, with all participants agreeing that too much information made it difficult to find desired content.

"The retail banking sector occupies a critical corner on the Internet, and consumers place their financial livelihood in these companies every day," says Paul Veugen, Usabilla Founder and CEO. "We decided to test and highlight these leading retail banking websites due to the level of trust that consumers place in them combined with the intrinsic customer-centric nature of the banking sector."

Of course, it should go without saying that much of the information gleaned from this study can be worthwhile for any website. For instance, a common issue on many webpages is that businesses often don't adapt fast enough to meet user needs or wants, and recent trends on many sites are swinging towards customization for users. Likewise, it has long been known that the more cluttered a page is, the less usable it will be for people visiting the site.

Thus, it is good for website owners and designers to pay attention to these kinds of reports because, if nothing else, they show that even major companies can still make mistakes on the Web. The major findings of the study, when broken down to their essentials, are all about having a clean and easy-to-follow design and providing relevant content to users. I think that those concerns should be contemplated by any website.

Webtrends Studies the Splinternet

Michael Garrity — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 07:00:00 GMT

A study conducted by Forrester Consulting, and commissioned by Webtrends, that examines "the effect that the explosion of new devices, emerging technologies and the fragmentation of digital marketing channels" has been having on both marketers and digital marketing strategies was released today.

Webtrends is considered one of the world's leaders in unified mobile, social and Web analytics and engagement and sanctioned the study, entitled "The Implications of the Splinternet and the Future of Web Analytics," in an effort to research the potential future of Web analysis and discover emerging trends in the digital marketing environment ahead of time.

The study was conducted in May of this year with 210 global senior-level digital marketers across various industries in both the United States and Europe.

What they found was that there are many marketers who seem to be having trouble with the fragmentation of technology standards and customer touch-points, and that this problem persists across most, or all, digital platforms and devices.

According to a Webtrends press release, the study produced three key conclusions:

- Disruption of the marketing landscape: The Splinternet, technology and channel fragmentation, leads to marketers trying to quickly adapt to a new multichannel environment and "racing to understand the Splinternet." In the study, 85 percent of the respondents said that they "Completely or Strongly Agree" that in order to best serve customers today, they have to improve their multichannel capabilities.

- Marketing strategies need rebooted: The foundations of the marketing strategies of many firms will need to be evaluated, and in some cases completely redone, in order to best establish "mutually beneficial relationships" with customers in an environment composed of new channels, technologies and high expectations from more sophisticated consumers. One question posed by the study asked what skills the respondents thought would be most important to their organization over the next five years in a post-fragmented climate. A total of 50 percent said that strategy was most important, followed by 28 percent who thought campaign planning was key.

- Multichannel success can be achieved by mastering multiple disciplines: A multidisciplinary approach will be the best way for firms to harness the opportunities that the Splinternet will present. Included in this are technology, organization, process and measurement, all of which are considered interrelated contributors to an effective campaign. Forrester found that 84 percent of respondents "Completely or Strongly Agree" that they would drive more sales and profit by establishing themselves as multichannel companies.

Webtrends Director of Product Marketing, Analytics Steve Earl says, "Clearly, as the results of this research demonstrate, future success in interactive marketing is inextricably linked to effective measurement across digital channels."

Starting on September 23, Webtrends will have a copy of the study available online here.

Drupal-driven Sites Fare Well in New Report

Michael Garrity — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 23:00:00 GMT

A new study reports what is being labeled as an "identified trend in corporate website governance", concluding that more high-profile and scalable websites are moving to the Drupal platform.

The study was conducted by Volacci, a search engine marketing company that leverages the Drupal content management system (CMS) technologies for "superior search performance and profitability," in an effort to see which websites are currently built using the Drupal CMS.

Though Drupal typically sees a very small share of the market, with only about 2 percent of all websites currently running on the platform, the company has been seeing more significant increases in the corporate world, with a larger percentage of these websites adopting Drupal's CMS.

In August, the Inc. 5000 was announced, which is a listing of America's fastest growing companies. The number two company on the list, Solazyme, is one of the many sites using the Drupal CMS. Other Drupal sites on the list include Goldline (180), Accuvant (1800) and WellMed Medical Group, all of which saw their positions on the list increase compared to where they were in 2010.

Over the last few years, Drupal has seen a variety of corporate, education and government enterprises, among many other industries, begin to utilize their CMS platform to create their websites. Volacci says that this is an attempt by these companies or organizations to establish "a robust, SEO-friendly presence on the Web."

Study Assesses Value of Social Media Users

Michael Garrity — Sun, 28 Aug 2011 17:00:00 GMT

Not long ago, the Pew Research Center unleashed on the world the results of a study highlighting how Internet users, and specifically Facebook users, are much more likely to engage in political activities like voting or attending political meetings. However, another research company, Resonate, was conducting a similar study of their own, and their findings were drastically different.

According to Resonate, "heavy" social media users "don't translate to desired behaviors" offline, and they warn marketers looking to dive into social media that their "results do suggest that the rush to social should be tempered with a little more caution."

The study was broken down to observe the habits of three types of social media users: Heavy, who spend an average of 26 percent of their time online engaged in social media; Medium, who use social media about 4.1 percent of the time; and Light, who are only on social media about .42 percent of the time.

They analyzed these three groups in combination with their online purchase behavior and political activity and their findings seem to suggest that these consumers may not supply the ROI that many marketers are looking for (and investing in heavily).

What they found was that most of the heavy social media users are, no surprise, less involved in the offline world than their counterparts who don't spend as much time on similar sites.

But shouldn't all of that time spent online, and thus in more prolonged contact with all of the ads that can be found plastered on social media sites, lead to more frequent purchasing by these Heavy users?

Apparently not. In fact, the study says that not only are these Heavy users statistically less likely to purchase products or services online, but they typically spend less money than others when they do.

Of course, these are just the findings of a single study, and as I've already mentioned, other research shows that time spent engaged in social media has a greater affect on a users offline activities, so this particular set of data is likely not an absolute characterization of the issue. Still, considering how much money marketers spend catering to social network users, and, presumably, more, uh, heavily to the Heavy users, I wouldn't just sweep this data under the rug, either.

This handy chart explains:

Search and Email Still Primary Online Activities

Michael Garrity — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 17:00:00 GMT

Some new information released following a May 2011 Pew Internet survey may be helpful to marketers looking to target different demographics of Web users.

The results of the study show that, to no one's surpise, search engines and email are the most common online activities. In fact, 92 percent of online adults say that they use search engines to find information on the Internet, and over half (59 percent) say they do so on a typical day. And though searching is clearly popular among most Internet-using adults, it is actually tied at 92 percent with the number of people who use email. On top of that, 61 percent of respondants say that they use electronic mail on an average day.

For years now, in fact ever since the Pew Internet Project began, searching and emailing have been the two most popular online activities. The following graph shows how the two have compared to some other leading online endeavors over the years.

As you can see, email has consistently been the most popular use of the Internet among average adults. Typically, according to the study, younger online adults, those who are college educated and those in the highest income categories are more likely than others to utilize email. These difference among demographics becomes more conspicuous when that data is broken down to look at email use in a typical day. Here is a chart that breaks down email use by various demographics into two subsections, those who just use email and those who typically use it on a daily basis.

Search is easily more popular among younger adult users, typically those ages 18-29. In fact, 96 percent of this group use search engines to track down information on the Web. While that is a lot, it's not as if there's some phenomenal generation gap when it comes to search engines; 87 of the oldest Internet users (which consists of those 65 and older) use search engines as their primary method of collecting information as well. Below is a chart on search engine use broken down by the same demographics and user tendencies as the one above.

Both searching and emailing have long constituted the core of online communication and information gathering, respectively, even as newer platforms, broadband and mobile devices have started to quickly alter the way in which Americans use the Web. Analyses of the study point to the increasingly habitual use of both email and search engines as a potential reason for why it has maintained such steady popularity. Comparing these new studies with older information shows use that while approximately 60 percent of adults engage in each of these activities on an average day, 2002 saw only 49 percent of adults using email and just 29 percent using a search engine on a daily basis.

But what does this mean for potential marketers? Well, for starters, it clearly shows where they need to be focusing most of their attention on the Internet. Placing ads on search engines seems like an obvious way to increase impressions, but other methods, most notably search engine optimization, can help to increase your presence on search engines because, as this study shows, everybody across all demographics is used to utilizing search engines.

Email also has a broad range of possible marketing techniques, and with so many potential consumers being attracted to using it, there is no reason not to take advantage. Sending newsletters, special promotions and providing new product information are just a few of the things that you can do to market yourself via email. Of course, it's important to check your use, because nothing is going to hurt your reputation more than becoming notorious for spamming. But, if you have something relevant to say, it would certainly be in your best interest to utilize what has long been the most consistently popular online activity to promote yourself.

Yeah, this study's results don't tell us anything too shocking, but they do serve to reinforce the idea that focusing on these two key areas in Internet usage is by no means a waste of your time. And, as the findings also point out, they're both becoming increasingly more popular among all demographics, which means that you are now reaching out to a wider audience. Sometimes it's best to just go with what you know works, I suppose.