Month: October 2013

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Not Provided Keyword Data in Analytics Requires Out of Box Keyword Discovery

Searching for keywords in an alternative way
Searching for keywords in an alternative way

In Google Analytics almost all organic search activity is being returned with a “not provided” tag masking the actual keywords used to find your content. If you are not advertising in Google AdWords, you may be totally in the dark as to what keywords visitors are using to find your web page content.

If you are looking to improve website visibility and popularity of your website, you may be struggling to figure out what keywords you should use for a landing page, topic for an e-newsletter or for that matter even the topic for a blog post.

Here are a few tips on how you can discover keywords and opportunities to incorporate into your content creation program by thinking outside the norm.

1. Use Google.com’s predictive text insertion to identify top search terms to see if you are covered. Click in to some of the searches you like and look carefully at the returned results. Do you see businesses like yours there or do you just see PDFs from colleges or government entities. Make sure the words you use for your final cut match with your business based on the returned results.

2. Use YouTube.com’s predictive text insertion in the search field to identify possible keyword variations you may not have considered. If you are video minded and see a possible keyword opportunity, consider making a video to fill that niche and place on that topic.

3. Use the Google AdWords Keyword Planner tool to do a reality check and see what type of competition you may face and look for alternative keyword variations.

4. Make sure to review your Google Analytics beyond the first page of results where you see the “not provided” as further down the page and back you will be able to see some of the actual keyword terms used to find you.

5. Make sure to review your Google Webmaster account to see what terms Google is showing as your query results. Although you may not see all the terms used to find you, you will be able to glean very specific insight as to city name, combinations, and top activity.

If you feel you need professional help, we provide consulting services to help identify areas of opportunity.

 

 

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Google AdWords New Extensions

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McCord Web Services is a Google Partner.

Google AdWords has been improving and enhancing their ad serving platform. There are several new ad extensions of note that every account should be watching and some new ones planned for rollout in the very near future.

New Ones Coming Soon and in Some Accounts Now

One of the newest ad extensions that has been in testing and is now starting to roll out to all accounts slowly is the third party review extension. Let’s say you’ve received an award, if it is from a legitimate third party, you can now add the link to the third party review and add exact text or a paraphrase and Google will show this under your ads. What a great way to let the world know and to give your business more credibility with these new type of testimonials. I am seeing this in my client accounts as of today.

Social annotations is another one that is moving out of beta and into accounts. This extension now matches your ad to your Google+ profile with the number of followers. You’ve got to be active and have a strong follower base on Google+ to see this extension show up in your account, but once you link your Google+ page it is automatic. Google will show your number of followers under your ads – again power to boost your ads due to what others think about you.

Seller ratings, this one is a big cherry for businesses with lots of online reviews at third party sites. Google will show star ratings based on aggregate number of reviews. Again this additional input can powerfully boost your ad above your competition by letting readers know how you’ve been reviewed and the number of reviews. This extension has a filter. You’ve got to have 30 reviews in the last 12 months in the language of the ad, participate in Google Product Search, and have at least 3.5 stars out of 5.0.

Communication extension, is one still in beta that a few of our clients are using. Google puts in a small entry field below your ad for readers to sign up without clicking into your website for deals, promotions or your e-newsletter. Google will email you a spreadsheet with the users name and email address every time you get a submission. It’s a great way to build your mailing list.

When we hear of other new extensions from our account rep at Google, we’ll share them with you on our blog.

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Matt Cutts on Squeeze Pages – One Page Websites

Here’s our video tip of the week using Matt Cutts from Google’s Web Spam team.

What Matt says in the video is if a one page website or squeeze page works for your customers Google does not consider one page websites or for that matter squeeze pages a problem.

However there are a few personal comments that I would like to add to this.

  1. Google does preferentially show in the search results websites that are more authoritative on a topic and typically websites of this  nature will be those with way more than one page.
  2. Google has now factored PageSpeed into their algorithm. If you have to scroll and scroll and scroll on a single page website to see content you may be negatively impacting your PageSpeed and may benefit from switching to a multi page format. This is a fairly new algorithm update and so you may have not had this be an impact before but may now or in the very near future.
  3. Consider user experience. A one page website does not allow for a privacy policy page, contact page, or for that matter more information about who you the business are. I would forgo a single page site to move to a more robust presence that allows for greater transparency and identification of your business.
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Is Guest Blogging Dead? Part Two

Today we’ll talk about when you can and should guest blog for others to improve your own organic placement.

First, I have to say that I do guest blogging on a regular basis for two sites in my own industry: the Bing Ads Community and SiteProNews. I personally find guest blogging in certain parameters authority and visibility building.

Here’s when I feel that guest blogging can be a workable strategy for you:

1. If you have an industry or trade publication that shows articles to the public (not locked behind a gateway) online I would consider the opportunity to write an article that would include links back to your website writing as an authority a great opportunity. I would highly encourage you to see out and write in these types of situations. Make sure that before you write you have your personal Google+ profile set up and that you link to this profile in the article bio block using the rel=”author” syntax. This discreet action will tie the article to your Google+ profile which you in turn link to your website. This type of guest blogging article may help with your own business exposure.

2. If you have been approached by someone in your industry outside of your geographic area and they are willing to allow you to guest blog on their quality blog and you have vetted them as a respectable business, I would consider a once a month guest blog post a wonderful opportunity for you. However, I would properly vet them to make sure that the link from their site to yours is not tainted by other types of activities they may be participating in that would be a high negative for Google which would bleed into your own site’s Google profile.

When would I steer clear of guest blogging:

1. If your SEO firm says “we’ll charge you $XXX a month to send out guest blog posts and they’ll be placed on hundreds of sites so you’ll get a high number of links”, I would be very cautious. In a recent analysis I did for a client we queried exactly where the content was placed and were shocked when the blog post for a medical call center was found on a hemorrhoid medication website and numerous off-topic/no name blogs. There is NO VALUE to your content appearing on sites like this! In fact, links from sites like this you may actually need to disavow with Google.

2. If your SEO firm says “we will write one article but then slightly reword it so it is different for every site we place it on.” Steer clear! This is called article spinning and one clear practice that Google has very clearly disavowed and has stated it considers content spam.

Quality content and the right type of guest blogging opportunities can actually be very good for your own organic placement. Find out how my firm may be able to help you with special quality pieces to use as guest blog posts for your own business.

You’ll want to check out Matt Cutts full video on the topic of guest blogging in this webmaster video from the Google Web Spam department for more information.