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If you are a not familiar with Sheerluxe, a luxury shopping directory, and you enjoy getting top tips on the best sites for clothes, homeware, gifts etc. then it’s worth taking a look.  Sheerluxe advertises a range of retailers products from smaller boutiques to well-known high street brands and a few years ago decided to also run events to provide these retailers with conferences that support their businesses develop.  As Minute Steak provides International Search management for smaller boutiques through to well-known high street brands these conferences provide an excellent opportunity for us to discuss the current issues retailers are facing, and hopefully provide them with solutions and information on industry developments and how these may help their business.

This year we presented on Advanced Search Strategies and Re-targeting for Retailers.  Our aim was to show some simple steps that retailers could take to increase their online presence.  These included:

  • Product Feed creation and optimisation
  • Product Extensions and Ad Listings
  • Google Shopping
  • Google Places
  • Pre and Re-Targeting

If you would like to hear more about this presentation and how the above can help increase your exposure within the search listings then please get in touch on contact.us@minutesteak.co.uk or 020 7420 3500

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March 2012 marked the expansion of Google.co.uk into encrypting searches for users logged into a Google property. The result for many sites was that a great deal of mission critical organic keyword data disappeared from analytics reports, only to be  replaced with the not-very-helpful ‘keyword’ (not provided).

This March wouldn’t have been the first time that (not provided) has reared its annoying head in your reports as encrypted search has been in implementation on Google.com searches since October 2011; so for most of us here in the UK it was hiding amongst the keywords lower down on the list, only to shoot to prominence from early March. Looking at (not provided) keyword data, you would probably have seen a graph that looks a lot like this one.

Google Analytics graph showing prominence of organic keyword not provided from March 2012

You have been watching your organic, non-brand keywords grow nicely, the result of your successful SEO campaign, but now you’ve lost some of that valuable keyword data which has likely left something of an upset in tracking your progress. It goes without saying that the aim is to focus on growing your overall organic traffic, but what we really want to see is a growth in non-brand traffic (i.e. traffic that did result from a search for your brand), as you should be getting the largest portion of your brand traffic anyway.  So what do we do with the data?

Your Options:

At first glance it might seem that you’ve been left with dead-wood data that you may be tempted to ignore but there are ways that you can garner more intelligent insights, which will ultimately result in smarter decision making. Needless to say, some solutions are better than others but you will be left to decide which approach works for you.

1: Strip out the Data and Re-Benchmark

A sticking plaster ‘solution’ is: to simply pull out the (not provided) data altogether, thereby creating a new benchmark with your keywords provided data and working from there. You are not excluding (not provided) data from your total organic traffic reports, simply when you are splitting out brand and non-brand. In effect you’ve chosen to disregard this portion of traffic altogether, focusing only on the information that you do have full access to.

You’ll quickly notice that this has affected the way your campaign results appear, possibly in your favour and possibly not. Only in March 2013 will you be able to see your year on year growth comparisons, which, for many, might be too long to wait. And even if you took this approach, seeing (not provided) in your Analytics will prove to be an itch that you really want to scratch, sooner or later.

Option 2: Reapportion the Data

Strip out the (not provided) keyword data and then calculate the ratio of brand to non-brand traffic within the remaining segment. Then reapply this ratio to the (not provided) data, adding the numbers to what you have with (not provided) stripped out. You’ve now accounted for all your organic traffic with an assumptive reapportioning of the (not provided) data.

What you might notice with this solution is that your ratio of brand to non-brand traffic has ‘changed’ quite significantly – the solution is assumptive after all – compared with previous months, throwing your growth trend out of whack.

In short this approach allows you to attribute traffic based on the data you do have but it doesn’t give any more information than that, not to mention that the assumptive element isn’t a great approach to handling data.

Hence option three.

Option 3: Understand the Data

Acquiring deeper insights from this seemingly meaningless segment of data is actually very possible, thanks to the data held within and flexibility of Google Analytics (ironically).

A couple of folks have come up with some really clever solutions to making the data more meaningful. Analytics guru Avinash Kaushik has suggested a systematic approach to gaining some understanding into the profile of the users who are being caught in the (not provided) net, while smarty-pants Dan Barker has a method for understanding landing pages and thereby making some assumptions on the driving keywords based upon the targeting of those pages. This does also require some deeper manual analysis but you remain in a far richer data position than without it and is highly recommended (remember you can’t apply these sort of Analytics data filters retrospectively).

In Summary:

Ultimately, understanding the (not provided) data requires an assumptive element, more or less depending on the solution you choose, which would obviously depend on your needs and data requirements but it is possible to make the information far more useful, giving you the power to better track progress and make informed, data-based decisions moving forward.

We’d love to hear any other creative solutions to dealing with the loss of vital keyword data, please do comment below with any thoughts or ideas.

by Warren Zanin

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Posted in SEO | Comments Off

Many sites will recently have received a message in Webmaster Tools alerting them to the fact that there are ‘unnatural links’ to their site which indicate paid links.  While many companies are desperately altering their back link profile and undoing their link building to date, other companies are sitting smugly at the top of the search results without any sign of penalties despite the hordes of paid links pointing in their direction.

We are all aware of the old SEO practices such as keyword stuffing, excessive directory links or keyword rich sidebar links, that used to garner immediate results but are now detrimental to rankings.  So why is it that there are still companies that utilise keyword stuffed, anchor text heavy blog and forum commenting regularly that aren’t affected by the latest updates?

The common theme that we’ve seen running through these sites is that the keywords that they’re optimising for tend to appear in their domain name.  Whilst it’s obvious that a company that includes a keyword term like ‘sunglasses’ in their domain is likely to be a sunglasses retailer, it doesn’t mean that they are necessarily better than a leading optician or a fashion house that also sell sunglasses.  It also shouldn’t mean that they benefit from excessive use of spammy links on blogs and forums which would result in penalties for other sites.

Can it be that despite Google’s constant efforts to crack down on paid links and attempted manipulation of the search results, they’re still missing some of the worst offenders that are right under their nose?  Seeing sites get away with SEO murder is frustrating but there is little we can do about it other than hope that Google figures out a way to differentiate between a brand’s actual name and cheeky keyword spamming.

Posted in News and Events, SEO | Comments Off

Why you should look again at the Google Display Network

April 10th, 2012
by Jonathan Dunkley

The Google Display Network is often seen by online marketers as the ugly step-sister of the AdWords family. Poor CTR and low conversion rates are often the outcome of poorly targeted text ads. PPC account managers start running GDN campaigns only to turn them off as the frustration of poor performance sets in.

Google Display Network

The following tips will give these campaigns a much better chance of succeeding (and stop you pulling your hair out):

 

  • Split GDN traffic out in to their own campaigns – this is the only way to properly manage and report on performance.
  • Group keywords in to relevant themes. Bit of a standard AdWords tip, but it’s surprising how many accounts we’ve seen in the past which ignore this.
  • Target placements which do well with managed targeting. By splitting these out in to their own ad-group individual bids and specific copy can be created to further enhance performance.
  • Take the time to create image ads to run alongside text ads on the GDN. The performance differences between the two are huge in terms of both CTR and (in many cases) conversion rate.
  • For products or services with a longer time to purchase, start a re-marketing campaign. By targeting those users who didn’t convert the first time but have shown an interest, overall site performance should increase.

The key to success with the Google Display Network is to ensure the initial setup and targeting is correct. Once this is spot on the campaigns should be a lot easier to manage and improve performance with optimisation.

 

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Viral Marketing – Is it for you?

March 22nd, 2012
by Jeremy Thomson

If I were to say the name Joseph Kony would you know who I meant? Chances are you probably would thanks to a video made by Invisible Children that smashed viewing figures on YouTube. It was the fastest video to amass more than 100 million views, which it managed to do in only 6 days surpassing Susan Boyles Britain’s Got Talent audition:

 

Since its release the video has caused the charity, Invisible Children, to come under criticism from many with their motives and organisation being questioned but there is now denying the impact of this video. If their aim was to alert people to who Joseph Kony is and what he is doing then it was an unmitigated success and it helps to highlight how powerful viral marketing can be, especially for brand awareness.

From a brand awareness perspective great viral marketing can massively expand the reach and appeal of your company as well as totally change peoples perceptions. Procter and Gamble completely reinvigorated their Old Spice brand with this piece of viral marketing:

 

 

This video has been viewed by millions of people and has helped bring a dated brand back to people’s minds. DollarShaveClub.com recently bought out their own video along the same vein and it has greatly helped drive exposure of their brand and get people talking about them:

However, not all viral marketing is done well. Sapient Nitro released a promotional video for themselves which got people talking about them but not in the way they were hoping. The video was widely criticised and they ended up taking the video down as it was doing more harm than good:

 

So the lessons to learn are that viral marketing can be incredible for brand awareness, BUT only if it is done right and gets people talking about you in a way that you want.

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Posted in Misc, social | Comments Off

It has recently been announced that Google will be updating its algorithm to incorporate search term synonyms, which will subsequently help deliver improved results pages which actually answer a user search query, rather than delivering pages of SEO’d results that inevitably have been influenced by the likes of agencies like minutesteak.

This, combined with a suspected devaluation of link anchor text has forced SEO agencies across the globe to rethink their link building strategies.

Here I have included a few approaches as recommended by the SEO team at minutesteak to help overcome these algorithmic updates, and maintain an unfaultable backlink profile.

With the movement towards ‘semantic search’, whereby SERPs will be filled with pages offering the most relevant information, rather than those optimised around the keyword searched for, we will start to see more results for similar search queries, rather than solely results for exact keyword matches.Below I’ve mocked up an example of the kind of results page I would expect to see as we enter ‘the age of sematic search’.

The image on the above shows a real SERP containing pages optimised purely for the keyword ‘jobs’ , whereas my mock-up below,  includes pages featuring ‘vacancies’, and ‘employment’. This is a very clever move by Google as it forces webmasters to create pages that actually answer holistic search queries (ie answer your query, and offer you more), but also completely devalues link anchor text, which previously was arguably the most important factor in search engine rankings.

Actual Search Engine Results Page For The Keyword 'Jobs'

Actual SERP

This is a mock up of a potential semantic search page.

Semantics SERP: The SERP Of The Future

  • In the last week of February, Google announced a number of key algorithm changes that are due to have dramatic consequences for search engine rankings. The main one being that Google turned off a key factor used in link evaluation. Now, no one at Google has overtly said what this factor is, but there is a good chance it might be ‘link anchor text’, which ties in nicely with the move towards a more holistic search results page. This forces link builders to really evaluate the anchor text distribution of their target pages, and ensure that the links they are building aren’t exact match anchor text heavy, but result in a natural, all-encompassing insight into page content.

So what does this mean for SEO? Well, first of all, your link building activity needs to be a lot savvier. By building around a minimum of 3 different anchor texts synonyms for each page, and then tailoring the on-page content to a similar selection of keywords, you are essentially able to give search engine bots a much better idea of the overall theme of each page, rather than that of a single keyword. That way, your page about ‘jobs’, ’employment’, ‘vacancies’, ‘open positions’ etc is more likely to rank well for any of those search queries rather than a single over optimised term.

Over-optimised sites are being penalised by the day, so there is no better time to optimise your link building strategy, and clean up your current backlink profile. Here, in an article featured on ‘The Drum’, STEAKs very own Gareth Owen, gives his insight into Google’s mass penalisation of over-optimised sites.

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‘You got pwned’

March 9th, 2012
by Katie Saunders

Hacking is a word that used to make me think of computer geeks with malicious intent. Nowadays, however, it is an important and necessary part of software development. Ethical hacking is used by firms to check the security of their infrastructures.

One firm that focuses on this is Vupen security. They are being talked about this week after taking part in the 6th annual hacking contest “Pwn2own” at the CanSecWest security conference. The premise is to find and exploit weaknesses in browsers and other web related software. For successful exploits winners receive the hacked device as well as a cash prize. Afterwards, the organisers of the event send a report to the software company detailing the vulnerabilities. In the interests of security, these are not made public until the issues have been fixed.

Alongside this 3 day event, this year Google ran their own additional contest, “Pwnium”. Last year Chrome was still in a position of having never been exploited. Previous contestants have claimed that the Google security sandbox is difficult to get past, making Chrome a bit too challenging. A sandbox is effectively a testing ground for running untrusted programmes. The Chrome sandbox runs separately from the rest of the system, hence why it has been harder to overturn.

The Pwnium contest was set up with the intention of encouraging hackers to tackle Chrome, with Google having decided to offer up to $1 million in prizes. Clearly it works in Google’s favour to find faults and improve them before the malicious hackers run havoc.

Vupen Security took on this challenge and actually hacked Chrome after an hour of the competition. The CEO of Vupen Security, Chaouki Bekrar said, “We wanted to show that even Chrome is not unbreakable”. Contests like these will serve to improve our confidence in the security of computer use and web browsing. So, hacking can be and is used as a force for good.

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Are you making the most out of YouTube?

February 28th, 2012
by Graeme Carlisle

Since its humble beginnings in San Mateo, California in 2005 and the first upload Me At The Zoo in November of that year YouTube has become a household name and part of our day-to-day vocabulary. The Googlezilla quickly caught on to the potential that this rapidly growing video sharing platform could bring to their already established search business and in the following November they acquired YouTube for US$1.65; a hefty price for a business that was not yet generating revenues.

Things have since changed for both Google and YouTube and the end user. There are now almost 8 years of content uploaded every day, the site generates 800 million unique visits every month and YouTube has monetized 3 billion videos every week. Oh and it is the world’s second largest search engine, second only to Google of course. Impressive stats, but what has this meant for advertisers and businesses?

There is a whole world of potential for targeting users thoroughly engaged and interacting with content relevant to your business. They are interacting with brands, building relationships, reviewing products and finding out the latest trends. Here are the different ways that you can use this to achieve your different advertising goals:

  • Brand Awareness

Make use of the Full Monty of YouTube’s advertising solutions. Roadblock takeover on the homepage, reach 23 million unique users over the 24-hour period (N.B These don’t come cheap and need to be booked directly through a YouTube rep). Use In-stream and true- view video ads to reach a highly targeted audience that is interacting with relevant content and integrate this with promoted videos to capture those users in the SERP’s or watching similar videos. Manage these through the reliable Adwords interface on a cost per view (CPV) basis. Importantly it is key to drive subscriptions to your brand channel, which is constantly uploading informative and engaging content to keep your brand in the user’s radar. You can partner all of these solutions with a range of display banners linking to your external web property or to your brand channel, to further increase you coverage.

  • Direct Response

In a more targeted way you can use the CPV based solutions to present your potential customers with the benefits of your products, new features and present them with powerful calls to action. Use the associated display advertising to drive traffic to your conversion page and drive sign-ups or e-Commerce transactions. You can effectively measure how the user is interacting with your content using YouTube Insight. Find out what is working and not working on a ROAS basis and focus optimisation on a conversion basis. As always make sure you work from statistically good data and be aware of over optimisation!

If you would like to know more about all of YouTube’s advertising solutions then this is a great resource. Alternatively please get in touch with the Minutesteak team who will be happy to advise, plan and manage your YouTube activity, as well as sharing our favourite videos!

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Posted in e-commerce, Paid Search, social | Comments Off

Can, or rather should, Pinterest be used by businesses?

February 24th, 2012
by Camilla King

Pinterest, the new kid on the Social block has exploded onto the scene with an unpredicted speed of 10 million unique visitors faster than any other standalone site in history. In 10 short months it accumulated 13 million users, although predominately coming from the US, with a strong surge in uptake also from the UK.

The virtual pin-boarding site, allows users to “pin” images from around the web, creating digital scrapbooks based around themes that take their interest. Its highly visual, creative, beautiful and catastrophically addictive. In fact, users now spend so much time browsing, pinning, repining and liking attractive imagery, that only Facebook and Tumblr can boast more social media time on site than Pinterest.  Even Mark Zuckerberg has climbed on board.

So the question is, how can brands utilise the network to promote brand awareness and potentially accumulate online sales?

Wedding planners, interior designers and clothing retailers have an ideal platform to promote products and services, which fit nicely into the popular “board” themes such as dream wedding gifts, favourite kitchen and homeware, and coveted outfits. Another common trend is pinning images of favourite foods and recipes. Restaurant chain Tender Greens in California has been using the social network to showcase images of chefs at work and food they are serving. While high-end retailer Bergdorf Goodman uses the site to display swanky spring shoes for sale.

Andrew Lipsman, Analyst at research firm ComScore says “businesses are definitely taking notice”, but crucial to making the platform work for you is not being appearing “inauthentic and seen as just pushing your product”. In addition to creating their own pin boards, businesses can make their products more Pinterest-friendly by adding “Pin It” buttons to their website, Lipsman goes on to say. This way a user can add products to their own personal boards at the click of a button. Furniture retailer Raymour & Flanigan, for example have gone so far as to add Pinterest icons to emails targeting potential customers.

Tipograph believes Pinterest is a good way to inspire and speak to a new audience. She says: “Pinterest is a great platform to tell our brand story through images, engage with our greatest advocates and build referral traffic to our ecommerce website.” So, maybe the network opens up opportunities for relaying ethos and culture of a brand, rather than shameless self-promotion, an approach which has potential to be eagerly welcomed by users, even if the wool isn’t pulled entirely over their eyes.

 

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Dentsu Global Digital Day

February 17th, 2012
by Gemma Haggarty

Further to our acquisition by Dentsu last year, we were invited to their Global Digital Day in Tokyo.  This gave us an opportunity to meet with other agencies within the Dentsu Network and discuss the future of digital advertising.

For me the most interesting presentations were those presented by Denstu India and China.  The way in which they have developed strategies to target vast markets and overcome obstacles such as limited Internet access and political involvement were incredibly inspiring.

Alongside gaining insights into these markets, we were able to discuss successful case studies and these, along with the innovative use of digital marketing being developed by the Toyko office, gave us plenty of food for thought for our own clients.

Did you know….

It is these communications that enable us developed integrated International strategies and Minute Steak is proud to be managing search activity in over 30 countries.

If you’d like more information on how we can help identify the right International territories for you to target online along please do get in touch.

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