You can now evaluate the power of your landing pages for generating leads and sales from organic traffic

Value: [rating=4] Recommended link: Google Analytics article We're 'quite excited' by this new feature from GA since it gives back some insight which was lost 3+ years ago when Google stopped reporting on keywords from organic search when it blocked reporting of encrypted search terms, labelling them as the opaque 'not provided'. What marketers need to know about this new feature 1. You can now see not only the volume of traffic generated by organic keywords, but also the visit quality When integration is configured we have been able to see estimates impressions and clickthrough of search volume for different keywords, which has been helpful since Google blocked reporting secure searches with keywords reported as not provided. This means that you can now see data on bounce rate and conversions in Google Analytics as shown here. Previously just…

On 3rd April 2014 Google announced that the clock is ticking until they automatically upgrade all Product Listing Ad campaigns into Google Shopping Campaigns. The timeframe they have outlined is August 2014. Therefore we recommend that you make this switch manually before the end of July as otherwise Google will take the liberty of doing it for you. Shopping campaigns were released in beta mode in October 2013 and then fully in February 2014. There are many aspects to shopping campaigns that are consistent with product listing ads: The ads are matched to user searches based on your product inventory data feed that you send to the Google Merchant Centre rather than being triggered by keywords that the advertiser sets. From a shoppers perspective they look identical - the ads show an image of your product, the product name and price and there is the option to add…

Check you’re not making these 5 mobile SEO mistakes to get your SEO right in 2014

Importance: [rating=5] Recommended link: Google’s new advice covering mobile SEO mistakes

December 2013 update

We originally alerted readers to Google's new advice on mobile SEO in June 2013. This is a BIG deal since more searchers are performing mobile searches and your mobile SEO traffic may fall if you get the user experience wrong as explained below. In this update, Google have again highlighted the importance of a seamless mobile experience by releasing a new tool to help site owners review mobile SEO errors. We also advise comparing your mobile/desktop SEO traffic in analytics to see whether you may be missing out on mobile SEO visits. Here is the output from the new Google Webmaster's tool taken from Google's new announcement:

June 17th…

A briefing and ressearch on the impact of Google's new Tabbed Inbox

December 2013 update: Return Path have released a comprehensive study evaluating the impact of Gmail's tabbed inbox. We have added it to the end of Tim's post to enable readers to compare their open and delivery rates in Gmail. In August 2013, Google made two important changes to the Gmail inbox that all email marketers need to understand.

What has changed?

The two changes that Google have made are distinct, but have been introduced together. 1. Tabs added to the inbox separating promotional, social updates and other email 2. Ads that look like emails may be placed at the top of the promotional tab These changes are being automatically rolled out to all Gmail users. As Gmail users access their inbox they will see this popup to inform them about the inbox change: Then the Gmail web interface looks…

Google Helpouts are the latest in a long line of services from Answers through Knol

From when Google Search launched in 1997, Google has always been trying to find the best answers to its users' queries. Google Helpouts are the latest approach to help answer users queries, but in a quite different way to standard search. Did you know that Google briefly tried a similar approach before? In order to provide a more dedicated response to users' queries, in Aug 2001 Google decided to launch 'Google Questions and Answers'. This service allowed users to send their questions by email and for a flat fee of US $3 Google staffers would reply to those questions. Unfortunately the Google service ran for only 24 hours, after which it was shut down due to excessive demand! This was followed by 'Google Answers' in April 2002. This  was different in the…

Not a major update likely to impact rankings as the headlines suggest?

Importance: [rating=1] For commercial Purchase Intent Queries

Recommended link: Search Engine Land FAQ by Sullivan

Mainstream media such as the BBC have picked up on what they call a "Major Upgrade to Google’s Search Alogorithm". This sounded like something we should alert readers too particularly since it is said to affect 90% of users. However, it has been in place for one month already, so this suggests it won’t have a significant affect on rankings otherwise the impact would have been seen already.

It was announced in a slightly bizarre way, not through consumer-facing Google’s Inside Search blog which covers big announcements to the interface or consumer algorithm or Webmaster Central which alerts about algorithm changes limiting spam which have a major impact on rankings such as Panda and Penguin.

Instead it was announced at what the BBC called…

Keeping up-to-date with the latest Adwords innovation

Importance (to AdWords users): [rating=5] Recommended link: AdWords announcement of Enhanced campaigns This year Google have been shipping enhancements to AdWords at a feisty pace. We thought that it would be helpful to take stock and review some of these key changes. We notifying this update now since from July 22nd 2013 Google is automatically migrating all users to the new Enhanced campaigns feature. Google notes that a fair proportion of campaigns have still not been migrated since the announcement of the new feature in February... "Advertisers have upgraded over 6 million legacy campaigns, representing almost 75% of active campaigns". This blog post covers these 4 main additions for which I give more detailed advice in the newly updated Smart Insights Guide to Getting More ROI with AdWords. 1. Enhanced campaigns 2. Auction Insights tool 3. Automated rules 4. Dynamic Remarketing ads.

1.…

Yes 41 feature updates - here's our top 5 from the Google I/O announcements

Modern marketers have always had to take Google+ seriously, because of Google's dominance in Search. Yet, there are other reasons too... with the proliferation of Android users on mobile (now 900 million Android activations, up on the 400 million last year); Chrome with its 750 million browser users and now the reported growth of Google+ to 343 million users - there are more and more reasons to keep a very close eye on what Google are doing. Not to mention Google Glass.

It's always been tempting to just focus on Facebook and to a lesser extent Twitter for B2C social media marketing and advertising, and given that Facebook shrugged off rumours of Facebook fatigue with large user increases in 2012 (now over 640m users) it's still tempting to do so. Google+ is the second largest social…

Shortcuts give you quick access to your favourite reports and customisations

Importance: [rating=1] Value for user: [rating=4] Recommended link: Google Analytics Support Page I’ve just been taking a look at this new Google feature. Although it doesn't involve a new report or big change to the interface, I think it’s worth sharing as a mini-tutorial since it could save you hours of time across the year if you know about it. I’ll certainly be flagging it up prominently on training courses.

What are Shortcuts?

Shortcuts simply remember your settings for an individual report. They’re like Favourites or Bookmarks for reports. Any Standard or Custom report can be added to your shortcuts but Goal reports, Real-time and Intelligence reports are excluded.

How do you set them up?

This is easy, for the report your currently viewing, just select the “Shortcut (Beta)” option from the options at the top of the report you want saving. Here I've set one up…

Introducing Google’s new retail strategies

If you're a veteran of "Internet marketing", you'll remember Froogle, Google's shopping search engine which presented products freely submitted by retailers using XML feeds. In 2007, this became Google Product Search and you may have heard this is now being rebranded to Google Shopping. The Google announcement explains: "We are starting to transition Google Product Search in the U.S. to a purely commercial model built on Product Listing Ads. This new product discovery experience will be called Google Shopping and the transition will be complete this fall".    While Google Product will officially becoming, Google Shopping the more significant changes outlined below will only affect US product feeds & users for now. There is no date as yet for a wider roll out, but it's rumoured to be early 2013. However what Google does in the USA almost certainly makes it way across the seas. This is often a good thing…