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Image Search: What exactly are you looking for?

May 19th, 2011
by Katie Saunders

Last week the search giant Google released an update. This time it was a modification and improvement to their image search. Essentially, users can now perform image searches based on categories or subjects. Rival search engine Bing has offered this functionality since 2009. This led me to wonder if Google’s update surpassed Bing’s offering and generally, how the two engines differ for image search.

I started by performing a search on each engine on the word “steak”. One thing I have noticed in recent months is that the Google results incorporate the page number that they are on. This allows you to scroll down the page without having to click for the next set of results at the bottom of every page. Bing image search has had this continual scroll functionality for a while, but does not include pages. Personally, I find that the page break helps to keep the page feeling less cluttered. The Bing results are nicely arranged within their own individual boxes though, so that keeps it feeling quite neat.

Moving on to Google’s update, the options on the left-hand side of the page now include “Sort by subject” as well as the default option “Sort by relevance”. Clicking on this option changes the page to rows of subjects with a few example images on each row. Hovering over the row or subject title then provides the user with an option to click to view more of the same.

This is all quite logical, until I click on one of the subject options. I tried clicking on the “sirloin steak” subject row and my query now read as “sirloin steak” in the search box above the images. Bing does this too but the initial results remain clickable as the subjects appear as a clickable tab across the top of the results.

This is where the Bing and Google difference was highlighted. Google funnels the user into a more specific query, but then was unable to provide subjects relating to “sirloin steak”. At this point the user has to click the back button or start the search again. The Bing layout felt a lot clearer and gave example related searches at every stage. The tab above the results meant that at any point in my search I could click back to other categories as well as related searches.

Google released the subject search option with a view to allowing searches based on descriptions. Using the term “London domed church” and hoping to come across Saint Paul’s Cathedral, Google did not disappoint. There were only eight images on the subject page; however six of these were of St. Paul’s. The Bing results were numerous and more varied, yet all still relevant to the actual search query in some respect.

So which engine is better? It depends what you are looking for. It would seem that Google’s “subject search” does work best when identifying objects based on a description. When Google released this image search update, that was their intention. Yet this is only one way that people use search. If searching for the perfect image based on one query, Bing image search provides more options for choosing related images.

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Google Launch Google Map Maker

May 6th, 2011
by Lucy Ingram

Google have launched a new tool called Map Maker in America which allows you to add and update geographic information for people to see in Google Maps and on Google Earth.  It enables users to add local knowledge so that it accurately reflects the area and gives people helpful insights.

The main uses of the tool are that you can edit existing information if incorrect and add features which may be a place of interest or characteristics such as rivers, telephone boxes, etc.  You can add local shops to the map which haven’t created their own Google Places listing, move shops to the right position if they’re incorrect place or adjust the shape of buildings.  You can also add navigation features such as one way streets or cycle lanes.  Updates need to be reviewed before they can go live.

This is not yet live in the UK and no date has been confirmed for launch.  However, Google are trying to get people to input information through encourage them to throw a ‘mapping party’.  This is where a group of people from an area get together and correct the shape of the roads, rivers, buildings, add local footpaths, cycle routes or useful points such as post boxes.

The marketing implications of this new venture seem limited for the time being.  The tool will allow you to accurately portray your business by providing more information about how to get there if you’re in a tricky location or simply being able to add the entrance to your stores.  We are now seeing synergy between Google Maps and Google Products with real time information about locations of products and availability and Map Maker opens up the possibility of being able to be even more specific about information.  For example, large retailers will be able to specify on a map where the product in the store.  The possibilities could be endless.  Watch this space for details on when it will be live in the UK.

 

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Google Launches New Media Ads

April 13th, 2011
by Camilla King

Over recent years we’ve increasingly seen Google test the water with new paid search ad formats, of which one of the latest has been Video Extensions. Using the same targeted keywords, copy and URL link as traditional PPC ads, users can expand a plus box to view a relevant video.

The feature creates clear opportunities for customer engagement with sight, sound and motion all within the comfort of the SERPs. It also allows extensive branding opportunities for marketers, far and beyond a standard paid search ad of the past. Primarily these extensions were beta tested in the US for movie trailers, product demonstrations or previews. The user could watch the first 10 seconds of the video without incurring a cost for the advertiser, after which a standard CPC charge would apply, and the user could click through to the site free of charge.

More recently, however the use of Video Extensions has matured, with Google announcing a new version of AdWords known as Media Ads, specifically for marketers of big movie releases. Now when a user searches for a film title or variation, a large light box will appear, dimming the rest of the screen while the video is played. The difference; there’s no keywords, no bidding, instead the verified studio behind the film will appear top, paying a standard flat rate for each click. This is all part of the Adwords New Ad Formats Initiative by Google, which was launched a year ago to improve the rich types of information within ads.

Currently on limited release for major motion picture studios only, there is some threat of monopolising the industry by disabling smaller players. Google has also indicated that the Media Ad formats will soon be available to other industries, helping to promote their videos through PPC. While the branding and engagement prospects here are exciting, we will have to wait to see the full impact on smaller players across these industries.

Google describes the offering as a “theatre-like experience”, but in reality is the full screen too invasive? And what if the user is searching for cinema showing times or film reviews?

We hope the Media Ads prove themselves to truly deliver rich format ads to the customers who want it, and do so without compromising the fair competition of PPC advertising.

 

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Posted in News and Events, Paid Search | 1 Comment »

Can we really ever measure offline sales from search?

April 8th, 2011
by Jonathan Dunkley

Google’s AdWords blog this week features a piece of research they’ve called “Online to Store Experiments” which attempts to bridge the gap between online advertising and in store sales:

Google have done this by setting up a variety of campaigns in markets across the U.S focussing on specific products and then measuring the impact of in store sales of these products. These results were then compared to control markets where no online advertising was shown.

Online advertising, just as any other form of promotion has an impact on driving sales in store, but can this really be ever measured in the same way an ecommerce transaction can be? The variables between the test and control markets that can’t be fixed are enormous:

• Location
• Weather
• Income levels
• In-Store staff training
• Other marketing activities

… and this list could go on for some time. The simple fact of the matter is that experiments like this will never be completely fair. There are however several ways to try and track these consumers on their journey from online to offline:

• Vouchers – Driving customers in-store using vouchers has long been used by offline marketers to track sales and in the last few years exploded online with retailers and restaurants alike benefiting. These vouchers are getting smarter now, and the ability to track back to an individual advert, url or keyword is not too far off from becoming mainstream. Once this becomes the norm, tracking and optimising where these vouchers are placed becomes a whole lot easier.
• Reserve and collect – The likes of Argos and co have been doing this for years. By allowing consumers to make the transaction online and then come in to store, means it is traceable in the same way as a full on web purchase with the added benefit that you’ve got them in-store where sales staff can take over to try and cross/up sell as well as showing them the rest of your product range.
• Local Shopping – A product currently in Beta from Google, Local Product Search allows retailers to link their CMS to Google search so consumers can find specific products that are in stock and available to purchase nearby. Once they’ve found the right product at the right price, a map, phone number or e-commerce site is presented to complete the transaction. Tracking the customers once they come in to store then becomes a little trickier, but a reserve sytem or e-voucher will help this.

Progress is therefore being made to address the online to offline tracking conundrum, and whilst Google’s research is by no means perfect it certainly highlights that steps need to be taken to improve measurability in the near future.

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Google adds to social offering with +1

April 1st, 2011
by Warren Zanin

If you weren’t already feeling overwhelmed by the plethora of social media platforms and engagement points out there, Google has added +1 to the game.

+1 allows users to socially share and recommend pages and sites from across the internet, enabling friends and connections to see these recommendations. As recommendations are known to affect users’ decisions this is a huge play by Google to make their results socially viable. Not only will site owners be shortly able to add the +1 button (https://services.google.com/fb/forms/plusonesignup/) to their sites but users will also be able to engage with +1 within the search results – natural and paid.

+1 clicks will have prominent exposure within the search results, forcing their way into your consciousness every time you perform a search. The precursor is a Google account of one flavour or another and, in particular, a public Google profile.

This is big news for UK sites, especially considering the huge majority of market share held by Google. What better way for the World’s biggest search engine to take on the likes of social giant Facebook than with its own social data that can be seamlessly incorporated into results, enrich them and affect click-through?

I’m personally interested to see how Google qualifies +1 clicks, surely they don’t think that I would care what the car hire company I emailed via my Gmail has +1ed or not. The difference here is that people don’t use Facebook to manage their daily admin, and so those sorts of residual contacts would automatically be ‘filtered’ out. In other words +1 could result in some quite noisy data that users would likely ignore, depending on how they use their Google accounts.  This might also give some folks a privacy scare, although for many social media users privacy isn’t the biggest concern.

If your site is not already on board with social engagement, especially at this point, then now is the time or else you are asking to be left behind. With social media playing an increasingly more important role in search results for all search engines +1 is destined to play an important role in Google’s ranking algorithm. In fact Google have stated that +1 could affect natural rankings so it’s an imperative integration into your search marketing plan.

Before you go, check out the great post on +1 by our sister company Steak and don’t forget to Like, Digg, Stumble, Tweet, Bookmark, Email, Buzz etc this post when you are done (you’ll have to back in a few days to +1 it).

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Posted in SEO, social | 1 Comment »

Google have been playing around with how they display maps in the natural and paid sections for a while now but the latest innovation in local search is Hotpot which aims to make local listings personalised.

What Is It?

The concept was first brought to our attention back in November but everyone is talking about it once again.  The aim is to make Google Places results personalised to you, not just in terms of your location, but in terms of your likes and your friends recommendations.

It’s all based on reviews and powered by your Google Profile so it takes into account what is similar to something you’ve already liked and reviewed as well as what your friends have liked and reviewed.

The way that it works is you can create reviews in the Google search results, Places pages and via the Places apps on mobile phones through your Google profile.  The more you rate, and your friends, the more personalised and useful the search results are.

You can watch a video and find out more here: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/02/google-hotpot-now-on-googlecom-and.html

How Can We Use It?

To be a recommended business, the first step is to ensure that you have a presence in Google Places and to make sure that it’s an optimised one!  The second step is to encourage users to rate and review your business.  The way you do this is up to you, you may offer discount codes for those who write reviews or simply send out follow up emails to encourage them to rate if they enjoyed the service.

Will It Catch On?

Similar services such as Buzz and Wave have not caught on and there are other sites such as Foursquare, Facebook Places and Yelp that are well established in this space.  However, this is Google and Google Places is much more advanced and authoritative than other sites could hope to be.

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Google Ads – Optimising for conversions

February 25th, 2011
by Katie Saunders

This week Google launched a new feature within Adwords based on how ads are served within a campaign. Live from 23rd February, advertisers now have 3 options for how ads are delivered. The original two options; rotate and optimise for clicks remain, the interesting new option is to optimise for conversions. This does of course require Conversion Tracking to be enabled within the account as Google will use that data to decide which ads are converting best. In cases where there is not enough data to make this decision, Google will automatically show ads that are most likely to receive clicks instead. Ad rotation that is optimised for conversions will apply to all ads on Google as well as the display partner sites.

To enable the Optimise for conversions option for individual campaigns, select it in the Ad Delivery section of the Advanced Settings tab. If you want to apply it across multiple campaigns, view All online campaigns, and then select the relevant option in the Ad rotation column on the Settings tab.

The advantage that jumps out at this point is for when two landing pages are being tested against two identical ads. If the conversion optimiser is applied here, then Google automatically decides for you which of the landing pages is more successful.

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Link Building – Quality, not Quantity.

February 17th, 2011
by Jeremy Thomson

The process of Search Engine Optimisation can be considered more of an art than a science. In order to appear within the ‘organic’ results of a search engine a combination of on-site and off-site factors must combine to appear for Google’s algorithm. For these organic results Google has a list of things it takes into account, some of which it has discussed openly but most of which it would rather keep to itself.

The off-site optimisation that is the main focus for many digital agencies is link building. This involves the creation of links from relevant sites back to your site. This link is seen as a vote of confidence from the other site in Google’s eyes and the authority of your site is increased. By increasing this number of relevant links a website can begin to improve their rankings within the natural search results. One thing that is very important in this link building process is the page rank of the website that links back to your site. This is Google’s measure of a sites quality and relevance and helps determine the value of each link highlighting the importance of using high quality links.

A different strategy to improve the ‘organic’ listings of a website is to aim for quantity over quality, massively increase the number of sites linking back to their site in any way possible. By having such a high volume of irrelevant links some sites could be able temporarily hoodwink the Google algorithm and this is what we call ‘unethical link building’.

This ‘unethical’ strategy means that many of the sites used for links are kept live for the sole purpose of being stuffed with irrelevant links. This means that a huge number of these links need to be created because of the low page rank Google attributes to the site that the link originates from.

In the US JC Penny has recently been dominating all searches for terms relating to the huge range of products they sell – from generics to long tail keywords. They even managed to keep this up during the holiday period and beat well known brands for branded top spots.

Why? How could their site have more authority and more relevance than the official branded site? This is because JC Penny had undergone a strategy of ‘unethical link building’. Although not ‘illegal’ it is against what Google advises and can be punished severely, as JC Penny found out recently. Google identified the strategy being employed by JC Penny and were quick to take action as JC Penny dropped off the Search Engine.

At 7 p.m. on Wednesday, J. C. Penney was still the No. 1 result for ‘Samsonite carry on luggage’ in the US. Two hours later, it was at No. 71. At the same time JC Penney was No. 1 in searches for ‘living room furniture’ in the US. By 9 p.m., it had sunk to No. 68. These Figures are from a story written by the New York Times which offers a close look at what happened to JC Penny

This stands as a clear warning into the price of undertaking a strategy on unethical link building.

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Google Boost for Small, Local Businesses

November 2nd, 2010
by Gemma Haggarty

Currently in beta in select U.S. cities, namely San Francisco, Houston and Chicago, Google Boost is Google’s new solution to helping small businesses to be found on Google and Google Maps as shown below:

Google Boost enables businesses to set up an ad within their Google Places account and then the system automatically identifies relevant keywords for the ad to appear against. Although we would support an easy system for businesses to achieve relevant and targeted exposure within the search engines, it is hard to believe that Google’s keyword targeting will generate cost effective activity.

Firstly, Google does not expand on the process taken to decide which search terms an advert will appear against; how can it guarantee their relevance and optimisation? Secondly, there is no mention of quality score which may impact the CPC paid by the business due to there only being one ad available and traffic targeted to the same landing page. Thirdly, and for us most importantly, Google only provides the following information on the performance of your account:

• Impressions (how many times your ad appears)
• Actions (how many times users click on your ad)
• Cost during a specific time period
• Top search keywords and the number of actions and impressions per keyword

The above metrics will provide information on the volume of traffic to your web-site, but does not include tracking data that will enable you gain insight into the value of those visits; whether your objective is pdf downloads, enquiries or a purchase for example. We would advise setting up Google Analytics on your web-site, setting up the relevant Goals and assigning analytics tracking to the url provided to Google Boost to ensure you can see the true value of this activity.

As this solution is currently only in beta in selected U.S. cities, we wait to hear more information on it being rolled out across the U.S. and making it’s away over to the U.K. Our feeling is that it is likely to be rolled out sooner rather than later as it is another example of Google developing a ‘solution’ for businesses that ultimately generates them more revenue whilst driving unmanaged, untargeted and potentially unprofitable traffic to sites.

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Every now and then Google tests new features across a random selection of guinea pigs.  Last week, a video was released by SEO consultant, Rob Ousbey who noticed that as he typed in every letter, the search results changed instantly to reflect what he was searching for.

The positives are that it ought to save time as you won’t have to keep clicking to load up each and every different search term.  Also, it should make it easier to find exactly what you’re looking for as you’ll be able to see any relevant pages in the SERPs as you keep typing.  On the other hand though, there are plenty of negatives.  A computer that’s already slow could struggle while Google loads page after page of results as well as being irritating and distracting having information flashing and changing.

The impact on SEO?

This could be a SEO’s dream or our worst nightmare!  Either way, it’s sure to have an effect on the way that people search.  I anticipate that few people will bother to go beyond the first page or perhaps even look below the fold as they can simply type in longer, more relevant search terms.  As a result, it’s vital to be on the first page of results for long tail keywords.

Other things to consider are Google Maps, Videos, Shopping, etc.  When these sections appear in the standard results, they often take up a fair amount of space above the fold, so it’s imperative that companies get themselves listed in Google Places, get products in the Product Search database, tag up videos and images accordingly and so on.

I guess it’s just a matter of time before we find out whether or not this is deemed worthy enough to be rolled out to us regular searchers. In the meantime, get ready for part two – the PPC perspective, coming soon.

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