Google Releases New PageRank Update

Posted on 04/05/2012 by Hannah Keane

Yesterday, Google released a new PageRank toolbar update. The release was a hot topic on Twitter for all bloggers and webmasters who have been desperately awaiting the new update since Google’s last PageRank release back in February.

A PageRank is what Google uses to calculate the popularity of a webpage. Calculations are conducted through mathematical algorithms which depend upon numerous factors such as backlinks, outbound links and audience attention.

Unfortunately, Google doesn’t give information on all the statistics behind its PageRank algorithms. However, many SEO experts have confirmed the data is based entirely on the quality of your website.

PageRanks can be extremely useful for webmasters, as they reveal the quality of a website. A high Google PageRank is likely to boost the ranking of your site.

How to check your PageRank

There are many free tools on the web which you can use to discover your PageRank. Software such as PR Checker, has an easy to use interface with one click installation. Once installed, you will then have your software ready for the next update. On average, Google release approximately 4 updates per year.

What Your PageRank Score Means

Google PageRank is a reputation score given to each website on a scale of 0-10. If your PageRank toolbar score has dropped, this is often because your website is receiving fewer links from other sites. Scores can also drop when webmasters use spammy techniques such as selling links on their website.

To get a high PageRank score, you should be produce a steady flow of high quality content and update your site regularly. However, try to avoid putting dozens of blog posts or articles on your website in one day and nothing the following month, as this is considered as unnatural and Google will struggle to predict how often it needs to crawl your site for new content. Backlinks should also come in at a steady rate and you should focus on building high quality links, making your website look as natural as possible.

Avoid PageRank Metric Obsession

Although the PageRank toolbar is a useful indicator as to how your site is performing, it’s important not to become obsessed with your score. PageRank data is not updated frequently and there are other factors which need to be considered when judging your website’s success. Why not take a look at Google Analytics, where you can consider conversion rates, ROI and other metrics that provide useful information for your business and website?

Ask the Experts

If you have any queries regarding your PageRank score, contact KPI Business Services. Our team of SEO experts understand what search engines are looking for and only use ethical internet marketing techniques that are approved by the search engines themselves.

Posted in Google, Internet Marketing, PageRank, Search Engine Optimisation, SEO | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Extended Lease Domains Made Available to Site Owners

Posted on 04/05/2012 by Kadie Dobson

On May 1st, SEOs and website owners were treated to a new opportunity to possibly increase page ranking through a positive change in domain buying possibilities.

The UK’s registry for domains originally announced in November that it would be changing the standard domain registration period from 2 years, to a choice of 1 to 10 years. The rule, brought into force this month, applies to .uk domains (often the most appropriate domain for businesses with UK-based customers). Extending your .co.uk, .org.uk or .me.uk domain for a longer period than the original 2 years can have a number of benefits.

Why would I want the commitment of a long-term domain?

A domain name which is bought for an extended period is thought to have a positive impact on a site’s ranking in the search engine results pages. It is widely believed that Google considers a domain’s expiry date (part of its domain authority) as a metric to determine PageRank. Of course, if it does, it would be a very minor factor, with hundreds of other signals also analysed in Google’s algorithms, but registering a domain name for 10 years shows search engines that you are here to stay. Google has a patent application on looking at this data, and although this doesn’t mean they use it, the view widely held in the SEO world is that a domain’s expiry date is relevant to ranking.

You may think that purchasing a long-term domain is a costly commitment when you cannot guarantee Google will use it at all, let alone to your benefit. And of course, a 10 year investment is not for all businesses. New websites may be risking too much, and for sites selling Justin Bieber merchandise, having a 10 year contract may be optimistic to say the least.

But for established businesses which realistically expect a steady flow of customers for years to come (if your site is about cars, gardening or any other long-term sector), registering a domain for an extended period is an easy and affordable way to hedge your bets with Google. In addition to potentially benefiting from SEO improvement due to an increased domain authority, you are sensibly securing your domain for your own prolonged use. The extended domains were made available partly to reduce cyber squatters; people who wait to buy domains once a site forgets to renew, then selling the contract back at a profit. With less time between renewals, you are less likely to forget to renew your domain, keeping your email, site content, ranking, customers and revenue. You’ll also be able to reduce the hassle of renewals, and may even pay a lower price per year if you purchase for an extended period.

Of course, each site is different. The good thing about the new extended leases is that they at least give the flexibility for site owners to choose the length of their registration.

If you need advice on how long to register your site’s domain for, more information on domain authority or help with choosing a domain, contact KPI for a chat.

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Google Announce Changes to AdWords ‘Rotate Evenly’ Settings

Posted on 03/05/2012 by Hannah Keane

 

This week, Google announced that major changes will occur to the AdWords rotation tool.

The current rotation setting allows users to test new advertising techniques by selecting either ‘optimise for clicks’, ‘optimise for conversions’ or ‘rotate evenly’.  Next week, Google plan to put the rotate evenly setting under a 30 day time limit after ad creation. Once your advert has been running for 30 full days, Google will auto-optimise it to the most successful ad rotation setting.

Although many advertisers heavily use the rotate evenly tool to test new techniques and tweak landing pages, Google have said that running the setting indefinitely can potentially harm advertisers by driving less relevant ads to users. They have also stated the change is being put in place to improve ad performance and provide users with a more relevant ad experience.

In terms of AdWords experimentation, 30 days is a very short time period, particularly for small businesses with low volumes and niche target audiences. However, many PPC experts have predicted Google will eventually introduce another form of ad testing software.

Here are a few solutions to help you prepare for the rotation changes;

  • Set up an ad testing schedule within the 30 day time period. Although you will have to be much more rigorous with your ad testing, if your campaigns get a decent amount of traffic, this may well be a beneficial technique.

 

  • Have a go at using AdWords Campaign Experiments, often referred to as “ACE”. This software is located at the bottom of the settings section and enables you to test a range of different features for up to three months at a time. ACE is not as straight forward to use as the rotate evenly tool, but it is much more advanced and enables users to split test two versions of a campaign or ad group at the same time.

 

For more information on these changes or any queries regarding PPC advertising, contact KPI Business Services. We are a recognised Google AdWords certified partner and have the skills and expertise to successfully manage your online advertising campaigns.

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Have you been p..p…p…picked up by penguin?

Posted on 01/05/2012 by Kadie Dobson

Google’s latest update, called Penguin, has been the talk of the internet marketing world this week, causing ruffled feathers and met with a generally – ahem – frosty reception. Aside from paving the way for a seemingly unending number of penguin-related parodies, puns and Photoshopped pictures, for many website owners, the update was much more than an annoyance. Penguin resulted in huge drops in rankings, and therefore traffic and business, for many sites, some of which became hidden far down the results pages overnight.

While Google’s various Panda updates (first rolled out in 2011 – we’re now on Panda 3.5) targeted low-quality websites, Penguin was created to reduce the relevance of spam in Google’s algorithms.

Google’s Matt Cutts has said that Penguin isn’t targeting legitimate SEO but webspam; SEO techniques which add little of value for humans. Here at KPI, we are constantly stressing the importance of good quality SEO (good quality, on page content, for example), and Penguin has made this more important than ever. Webspam includes techniques employed by disreputable SEO agencies, such as keyword stuffing, link schemes, purposeful duplicate content, and cloaking, redirects and doorway pages designed to trick Google’s robot crawlers.

Of course, you may not know which methods your current SEO agency are using, and you may have been unexpectedly hit by Penguin (or be likely to be hit by a future update). It is important to choose a trustworthy SEO agency which are open about their ethical techniques.

As Penguin was an automatic algorithm update, it appears that many site owners believe they have been unfairly penalised. They claim that Penguin has not only damaged spammy websites, but some unlucky innocent ones. Google is now apparently willing to knock out a few legitimate sites if it means removing a host of spammy ones. In addition to this, some are arguing that search results have even been made less relevant by the update.

While many are trying to predict the next Google update (are the animals linked with the letter P? Their black and white colouring? Their endangered status?), some are left with more to worry about.

How do I know if my site’s been pecked by Penguin?

To understand which steps to take to achieve traffic recovery, you need to find out what, if anything, is affecting your site’s ranking. Many have been bamboo-zled by the close proximity of Panda (Panda 3.5 was rolled out on April 19th) to the Penguin update (April 24th).  If you have suffered an unnatural drop in rankings, it is important to check your traffic data.

If traffic to your site was starting to significantly decrease before April 24th, chances are it’s Panda not Penguin which has affected your ranking. If you notice a sharp decrease in traffic after around the 24th, that cute little penguin is your culprit. Of course, many sites will be completely unaffected (traffic fluctuations are natural), and other websites will benefit from Penguin as competitors are penalised. It can be complex however, as unnatural link warnings were sent to Google Webmaster accounts about spammy link building in January and February, even before Penguin was launched.

Naturally, SEO forums are filled with those who have been badly affected by Penguin. But it is important to remember that those whose traffic has stayed the same or increased simply have nothing to shout about. Only 3% of search queries have been affected by Penguin.

How can I get my site get back on its (happy) feet?

If you have been affected, ask your SEO agency what they’ve done to get your site penalised. Ask them to, or get other SEOs to remove damaging links and ensure your site adheres to Google’s guidelines. Google has a reconsideration process which KPI can guide you through once your website meets these guidelines. However, if your site has been hit by Penguin rather than Panda, some believe that the reconsideration request won’t do much, because Penguin is automatic and Google may not make manual exceptions. There is, however, a Google form which can be used to air your grievances to the search engine. This should be done constructively, rather than accusatorily, and KPI can help you through each of these processes effectively.

What does Penguin mean to SEO?

Penguin has simply made it more difficult for poor SEO practices to be relevant.

Even those that haven’t been affected this time should take a dive into quality SEO now, to avoid being hit by a future penguin update. Webmasters should now focus on creating high quality links to avoid being associated with webspam, staying firmly away from disreputable agencies. In addition to quality being more important than ever, KPI are predicting the world of SEO is changing as a whole. We predict that Penguin, the emperor of Google updates, has meant SEOs may need to adopt more traditional PR techniques as Google becomes better at spotting methods of manipulating PageRank.

So, if you don’t want to be affected by Panda, Penguin or future animals in the Google zoo (Puffin? Pelican? Pzebra?) remember to build your site not only for search engines, but for human users too. It’s as clear as black and white.

If you’re still confused about penguins and pandas, if you want help switching to ethical SEO, or want to know how to deal with being penalised, contact KPI and we’d be happy to help. 

Posted in Google, Internet Marketing, Link Building, News, PageRank, Panda, Penguin, Search Engine Optimisation, SEO | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Google AdWords Introduces Major Changes to Keyword Match Types

Posted on 26/04/2012 by Hannah Keane

Starting next month, Google are introducing major changes in the way existing and future AdWords campaigns work.

Google is attempting to make improvements to exact and phrase match search terms. From mid May onwards, exact and phrase match keywords will include a wide range of other variants by default. This means your chosen keywords will act like modified broad match search terms, serving up ads for a wide range of searches, including misspellings, acronyms, accents, stemmings, abbreviations, and singular and plural forms of the term for which you are paying.

Ever since the introduction of AdWords, if you wanted your ad to appear for variations of your keywords, you would use a broad match type. Exact match terms would only trigger ads for search queries which exactly matched your particular keyword and phrase match terms would allow your ad to appear when user searches contained your chosen keywords.

Google claim the change will improve the way AdWords campaigns work. Research conductors with advertisers has shown a three percent rise in clicks when the new change was implemented. However, Google have also stated that results will vary with different advertisers, so it’s highly possible the change could eat into advertiser profits. Those with smaller budgets will be particularly vulnerable as these broad variations could include a large number of irrelevant search queries.

These ‘improvements’ are essentially taking away advertisers’ ability to focus on a specific term. It appears Google are taking away advertiser’s control of when their ads appear simply to increase their profits.

Fortunately, there is a way to opt out of the change:

  • Go to advanced settings
  • Click on keyword matching options
  • Select exact and phrase matching
  • Enable ‘do not include close variants’

 

Unsure about these new changes? KPI Business Services are Google AdWords certified partners. As PPC experts, we can manage your campaign and monitor your account, keeping track of all irrelevant variants of your search terms so you’re only paying for keywords which relate to your products and services.

At KPI, our aim is to keep your AdWords campaigns profitable. Contact us today for more information.

Posted in AdWords, Email Marketing, Google, Internet Marketing, PPC | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

How will the EU cookie law affect your business?

Posted on 25/04/2012 by Kadie Dobson

On the 26th of May the dreaded ‘EU cookie law’ comes into force. It was 2009 when the EU directive originally instructed members of the EU to create laws on locally stored files in regard to online privacy – particularly cookies.

Cookies, for those of you who don’t know, are small pieces of textual code which are stored by a user’s browser to identify them and track their online activity – a sort of electronic “tag” that lets websites recognise you. Although that may sound worrying, they are usually just read and stored by websites for the purpose of recording visitor statistics, targeting advertising, storing logins and remembering preference settings. Without them, you’d have to log back into Facebook every time you went back to it.

In an attempt to give online users a greater level of privacy, however, the EU-enforced UK law (applying to websites with a UK-based top level domain or a UK-based target audience) has now made it illegal for website owners to track cookies without a user’s permission. If website owners ignore this they can theoretically, from May this year, be fined up to £500,000.

Selected cookies can be tracked still be tracked without informing the visitor, but the majority, including those used for targeted advertising and visitor statistics, will now require consent.

Although asking visitors for permission (done through a pop-up box or drop down ‘accordion’ bar) on your site sounds like a minor change, experts are predicting it will have an extremely detrimental effect on businesses in the UK, with estimates predicting a loss of up to £10 billion for the UK economy. This figure is calculated from the predicted loss of advertising through a reduction in targeted ads, lost sales from visitors inconvenienced or unwilling to share their cookies, damage to current technology and the migration of online businesses overseas to avoid having to implement the changes. Website analytics businesses, such as Google Analytics, are also going to be hit hard as their products become less relevant.

Issues with the EU cookie law

The Information Commissioner’s Office website itself recorded a 90% drop in the number of tracked visits to its site after it began requesting to record cookies from visitors. This, if reflected in SME websites, can render visitor statistics unrepresentative, making website maintenance and marketing more difficult.

Some believe, due to the large percentage of websites unaware of the law or otherwise unlikely to comply by the 26th of May, that the deadline for fines being imposed may be further extended or at least relaxed (with no prosecutions) for a while. On the contrary, a landmark case may be taken against a website which fails to comply as a means of raising awareness amongst site owners. Nobody quite knows how harsh of an approach is going to be taken.

It’s also been pointed out that heavy web users are likely to be annoyed when faced with disruption from consent forms on almost every website they visit. Many web users won’t be aware what cookies are, so are likely to dismiss pop-ups and notifications – which most sites are likely to class as consent. The EU cookie law is therefore unlikely to protect the very people the law it was intended to.

We could also point out that the only way of knowing whether a visitor has given you permission to store cookies or not is to, er, store a cookie. Clever.

Surely I can turn cookies off on my site?

Most website owners are completely unaware that their site even records cookies. Those that do, and want to switch them off, are often using software which doesn’t allow them do so. If you can turn off cookies you are likely to be limiting the functionality of your site, preventing the recording of visitor statistics which you may need for website marketing. If you don’t have reliable demographic information on visitors to your site, revenue from targeted ads is going to be hit hard.

 Well why can’t I just ask permission from visitors?

You can and it is important that you do so. Web specialists such as KPI can advise you on how to notify users in an unobtrusive way, helping you to comply with the law without annoying your customers too much. As of 26th May, UK regulators will have the power to prosecute any website which tracks cookies without permission, so it’s important to organise these implementations as soon as possible.

For more information and assistance on EU cookie law-proofing your website, contact KPI. We’re internet marketing specialists who, up-to-date on the latest technology news and changes, and will be able to keep your website within the law with minimal disruption to visitors.

Posted in EU Cookie Law, News, Search Engine Optimisation, SEO, Web Design, Website design | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Internet Marketing and SEO Conference Speaker

Posted on 20/04/2012 by Kadie Dobson

For those who want to learn about SEO and development in the internet marketing world, there is perhaps no better way than through an engaging and inspirational conference led by a knowledgeable speaker.

KPI’s very own Principal Consultant Graham Loosley is well-versed in speaking at Internet Marketing and SEO conferences, having presented seminars and talks on more than 200 occasions on a variety of topics. Graham recently gave a well-received talk on mobile SEO at the sell-out Retra National Conference in Newcastle, to which he was greeted with responses to his @gploosley Twitter referring to him as the “oracle of SEO” and stating “he really knows his onions when it comes to internet marketing”.

It’s not difficult to see why Graham’s speeches are greeted with such a fervent response. Graham has a wealth of knowledge in the field of Internet Marketing, having built his experience as an online marketing strategist, tactician, consultant, trainer and speaker long before Google first began to crawl in 1997, and was working on major e-commerce projects even before the first dot-com bubble arrived.

Graham originally qualified as an Accountant at Ernst & Young, before later moving into the field of business systems, working in IT management and strategy, managing large offshore IT development teams and complex web development projects.

Later Graham co-founded KPI Business Solutions, a growing SEO agency which consistently achieves top rankings for clients’ websites. Services offered by KPI cover all areas of Internet Marketing, with technicians working on all manner of SEO, PPC and Social Media campaigns, as well as website design and online strategising.

Graham is Principal Consultant at KPI, leading the business, and its clients, to Internet Marketing success. His easy communication style is popular amongst everyone from those completely unfamiliar with the concept of SEO to fellow SEOs looking to learn about up-and-coming developments in the search engine world. He explains often complex concepts in plain English, sharing his detailed insight into SEO with others in one-on-one consultations, and talks to groups of less than 10 to over 100 people. Graham regularly offers expert consultation services to clients, via phone, email and in-person, as well as finding time to speak at the UK’s leading SEO conventions and conferences.

If you think you or your business can benefit from Graham’s unrivalled knowledge and understanding of SEO and developments in the world of Internet Marketing, contact KPI for more information. 

Posted in Internet Marketing, Search Engine Optimisation, SEO, Social Media Marketing | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Webmasters Warned Over Unnatural Links

Posted on 11/04/2012 by Kadie Dobson

Here on the SEO blog we commonly refer to black hat SEO tactics. One of the most common black hat tactics is poor quality link-building. We have recently been contacted by numerous site owners who have found themselves downgraded or de-indexed by Google for this, and received this dreaded message in their Google Webmasters account:

This is a result of Google becoming increasingly stringent in its reactions to unnatural or artificial links to websites: links which are generated, often on a large scale, with the sole purpose of improving a page’s ranking on Google. Last week, Google issued further warnings like the one above to warn webmasters it is aware of and punishing them for their techniques.

Google itself claims it is making its process of dealing with websites with unnatural links “more visible”, giving website owners the chance to understand (or be reminded) that they have poor quality links which the search engine recognises. This means that for website owners there is no better time to sort out your site’s backlinks.

Why does Google penalise such tactics?

Google’s Panda updates have aimed to cut down the effect of black hat SEO tactics such as link farms and blog networks. These websites work by building links to your website to boost its authority. They build links for a price rather than based on the value of content – something which Google is vehemently against.

Google wants to favour links which are recommendations for a website rather than paid-for links, so it has made “links intended to manipulate PageRank” a violation of its guidelines. Google is also constantly looking to remove the authority which link farms and networks have, thus rendering them pointless as their links become valueless in the rankings.

Many disreputable SEO agencies focus on short-sighted strategies, using poor quality links from such schemes to increase site rankings. You may see encouraging results in the SERPs as a result of SEO link-building work using these techniques, but you may find that your website has, or will, drop dramatically or be completely de-indexed once Google realises. Sometimes it is only when website owners receive a warning message on their Google Webmasters account that they realise their SEO firm has been using these undesired tactics.

A notable example of a blog network which has been knocked out by Google is BuildMyRank, which allowed thousands of users to publish blog posts with links. The difference with BuildMyRank was it actually assessed blog posts (with accompanying links) for quality, and many SEOs thought that this made it a more ethical way of building links. Google didn’t agree and de-indexed the majority of BMRs pages a few weeks ago, causing a dramatic drop in rankings for many websites using the tool.

Google is extremely serious about these kinds of black hat tactics. In January it punished its own browser Chrome for publishing paid-for adverts on other web pages which included links to the site from which the browser could be downloaded: the very paid links which website owners are punished for. Google denied authorising the campaign, which broke its own content guidelines, and embarrassingly downgraded the Chrome home page from site listings for the keyword ‘browser’ for 60 days.

What do I do if Google has penalised my site for unnatural links?

If you find that your site receives a significant drop in rankings or completely disappears from Google’s SERPs, check your Google Webmasters account for a message like the one above. If you have received a similar message don’t panic! Here’s our guide to what to do if you find a notice of unnatural links from Google:

  1. Don’t ignore the message but don’t panic. Google will find it very difficult to prove you were involved in the creation of these links, and is far more interested in de-indexing networks of link schemes rather than the individuals using them. This is not to say they will not take action against you, but there’s no need to make unnecessary trouble for yourself. So admit nothing about black hat tactics to Google. Remember they are understanding and have a reconsideration process to give webmasters the chance to get their site re-indexed or indexed with a fair ranking again.
  2. To apply for the reconsideration you will need to prove your site meets Google’s Webmaster Guidelines. Your SEO agency should be able to check for unnatural links and get any they find removed, or at least install ‘do not follow’ tags to ensure they are not indexed by Google. It is important to remove any spammy links from link farms or blog networks as Google will refuse to reconsider your website’s ranking if they find them.
  3. Look for a new SEO agency who will use long-term white hat tactics rather than black hat link schemes. KPI are a Google Certified Partner and able to guide you through Google’s reconsideration process and ensure your website is not penalised again in the future.

Since its Panda update, the quality of a website’s backlinks has become more important in Google’s algorithms. Google’s work is going to continue to decrease the relevance of paid-for link schemes, so it continues to be important to choose an SEO firm who focus on sustainable quality rather than instant results (which can drop as quickly as they rise).

If you are worried about your SEO firm’s ethics speak to KPI to find out how we can help improve your website’s prominence in the long-term.

Posted in Article Marketing, Black tactics, Google, Panda, Search Engine Optimisation, SEO | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Optimising Facebook profiles for search

Posted on 28/03/2012 by Kadie Dobson

As we’ve previously discussed on the blog, mobile web traffic is increasing, with nearly 12% of website traffic coming from smartphones and tablets alone. Beating even this, however, is Facebook, which sees 50% of its traffic coming from mobile users; that’s 5 times more than the average website.

Given that Facebook pages are generally more popular than corporate sites, it’s important to make sure your Facebook page is optimised for mobile users if it is to become a valuable source of traffic to your main site.


What are the benefits of Facebook optimisation?Facebook mobile

34% of people interact with their favourite brands on Facebook; more than on Twitter, Linked In, blogs or any other form of social media. A huge 77% of people read the posts, news and offers posted by a brand on the news feed, and over 50% of fans are likely to buy from a brand after becoming fans, making Facebook an obvious way to communicate with potential customers. Your Facebook page should therefore be search engine optimised to maximise your number of fans, just as you would with your website to increase traffic.

Although your Facebook page will be accessed by different kinds of users, mobile users searching on Google may opt to visit your Facebook profile rather than your website because its features are designed for mobile devices. Mobile users almost never load the second page of search engine results, making it extremely important to rank highly. And for the many businesses who are yet to create a mobile website, it is their Facebook page which provides a mobile friendly platform for users. Whether you do not have a mobile site yet or are just looking to increase your overall online prominence with your Facebook profile, optimisation on Facebook should not be overlooked.

How can I optimise Facebook?

Optimising Facebook pages is easier than optimising websites. There are a number of simple tactics which can be employed to optimise your business’s Facebook page for Google:

  • Claim your Facebook brand’s custom URL if you haven’t already. Make your URL facebook.com/yourbusinessname if it is available, and if not, make it as close as possible. The words in URLs are reflected favourably in Google rankings.
  •  Include your brand name in your Facebook profile name. This will optimise the title in Google’s search listing, which is also viewed favourably by Google when indexing websites.
  •  Include keywords in your Facebook profile’s “About”, “Description” and “General Info” fields to further optimise for search engines. Ensure that, although this has a keyword focus, the keywords don’t detract from the quality of their writing.
  •  Backlinks are an important integration method in SEO, and these can be applied for Facebook profiles. Link from your website to your Facebook profile, including your business name as the text for the link rather than the usual “Check us out on Facebook”. Facebook statuses with links to your website will increase traffic, but are not indexed by Google, so will not improve your website’s ranking. Linking from your website to your Facebook page, however, can improve the page’s ranking. Link to your brand’s Facebook from Google+, Yelp and Linked In pages using the same method.

If you need further help, advice and guidance, contact KPI to find out how they can assist in the optimisation of your website and Facebook page.

Facebook create business page

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Conventional PPC Techniques Don’t Work For All AdWords Accounts

Posted on 23/03/2012 by Hannah Keane

Recent studies have shown that traditional PPC wisdom is not true for all AdWords accounts and while conventional rules work for some companies, there are certain techniques that should possibly be ignored.

Never force account creation

It is a common misconception that you must never force customers to create an account before purchasing your product or service. Traditional PPC research showed that forced account creation lowers conversion rates. While it is true that you should put as few barriers as possible between viewing a product and the payment process, recent studies have revealed that many companies have gained an increase in their overall revenue when forced account creation was implemented.  Users who had their contact and payment details saved in an account were more likely to return to the site and purchase further products, as the payment process was then much quicker.

Never send traffic to your home page

Many PPC users are under the impression that they need to send their traffic to the particular page which answers the searcher’s question. This can be a useful tip for many accounts, however for certain sites this concept has failed. Research has shown that that traffic directed to a homepage can increase conversion rates and revenue, as it lures the searcher into the form filling process that exists on many insurance and quote comparison websites.

Never put your call to action at the bottom of the page

It was often advised that all websites should have a call to action at the top of their landing pages. However, when researchers began to test sites with a call to action below the fold on a page, they discovered that conversion rates began to rapidly increase. Advertisers should test their call to action at the top and bottom of a page to discover which technique works best for the campaign.

Never use broad match terms

In terms of keywords it’s a well known fact that exact match terms convert better than those that are broad match. Although this statement is true, when it comes to implementing your chosen terms it isn’t always that simple. Key phrases with low search volumes should also have a phrase or broad match version in the account in order to catch these terms.

When managing accounts many people find that misspelled keywords often have higher search volumes in comparison to correctly spelt phrases. Including broad match terms is an effective way of catching all spellings of a particular word. Research has shown that in these situations, broad match variations have a higher conversion rate than exact match terms.

Every AdWords campaign is different. A concept that works brilliantly for one company might not be as successful for another. Therefore it’s advisable to test a range of methods on your account to discover what brings you high conversion and revenue. This will then enable you to rely on your own set of techniques.

KPI Business Services can successfully manage your online advertising campaigns. As a Google AdWords certified partner, we use tried and tested PPC methodology to ensure our customers’ campaigns generate the right traffic for maximum return on investment.

Whether you’re completely new to PPC or have an existing AdWords account, contact us today for effective internet marketing.

 

 

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