Business Marketing Online (BMON): Google AdWords Management » Google – the Official Blog

What were they searching for? We'll never know.

Chris Rand — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 18:00:52 +0000

As it's the end of the month, a lot of you will be looking at your Google Analytics reports, and you may see something new: the term "(not provided)" in the "keyword" column of incoming traffic from search engines. What is this, and what does it mean? Well, Google has taken the step of encrypting searches from its users who are signed into a Google Account. In other words, for a certain group of people, information about what they were searching for is no longer sent to us as website operators. There's a dull announcement about it here and way too much equally tedious discussion by search engine consultants, all over the web, about the implications of the move. Suffice to say that the "keyword" information you're getting from Google is now only going to be from a sample of users, and we just have to hope it's a representative sample. I guess we never had any right to expect this information, but it's a shame to lose it.

What were they searching for? We'll never know.

Google moves to keep up to the minute

Chris Rand — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 18:00:51 +0000

I've deliberately not mentioned Google's recent important ranking algorithm until now, so we could actually judge the effect. If you want to see the sort of theory that we geeks have been wading through, here's the best article I've read. Apparently the update has affected the results page in some way on over a third of all searches, so this should be of interest to everyone, because there won't be a reader of this blog whose company website's main traffic source is anything other than Google.

Here's the official announcement from Google. You'll note that the whole thing is to do with "freshness" of content, and you might wonder how that's going to affect business-to-business marketing, which isn't all about the latest happenings in the world. The answer is that we should see far less impact than those who are more concerned with current events, but if you can get topical items on to your website, you might see some interesting traffic, for a short time at least. One thing is for sure: constant updates to a website are increasing in value as a way to "impress" Google, and – as I've said many times – you're killing your web presence if the only additions to your website are a press release every three months. Get yourself a blog (we'll do it for you if you insist!) and get writing.

Google moves to keep up to the minute

Expect to see changes in the traffic sent by Google

Chris Rand — Sun, 27 Feb 2011 18:00:03 +0000

There's a major Google update bearing down on us like a train, according to the Official Google Blog. It's supposedly live in the US, and being "rolled out elsewhere over time". So if you monitor your Google positions, such as with the weekly charts we send our Insider Programme members, don't be surprised if you see the graphs becoming a little more volatile than usual. The update is supposed to downgrade low-quality sites, so I'd hope that it wouldn't affect your company site (and it almost certainly won't if there's some decent original content on there). In fact, if you've traditionally been beaten in the rankings by some seemingly worthless websites, you may even find the update moves you in the right direction. Watch the Google referrals in your analytics reports closely.

Expect to see changes in the traffic sent by Google

Now it's really worth uploading video content

Chris Rand — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 17:00:11 +0000

Videos are great for business, and still a hugely under-used marketing tool in most B2B sectors. You don't have to spend thousands on them: bring in a modern video camera, get a decent salesman to demonstrate a product in a well-lit room, and you can have the results up on YouTube up before elevenses. It's a great thing to point prospects towards, and it's another tempting item for bloggers and news sites to include.

The problem with video is in getting it to convert, even to website traffic. That's because people can't click on a video and get sent to your website, so you're relying on appropriate links from the siteowner appearing next to it. On YouTube, you can't even have a link next to it, which is why you see so many videos with the related website URL in a caption. But let's face it, few people type in URLs nowadays – it's click or die.

Now things have changed. It'll cost you money, of course, but it looks like a massively worthwhile investment to me. YouTube has just announced the introduction of clickable captions in Use Call-to-Action overlays to drive traffic to off-YouTube web pages and I think this is a massive shot in the arm for business video. Sales demonstrations, maintenance information, seminar coverage – what can you film which you can put on video?

Now it's really worth uploading video content

Why you should follow Google's advice

Chris Rand — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 17:00:44 +0000

Last week I mentioned one of the useful guides issued by Google, and a lot of you found that interesting, so here's another – probably the most basic one of all, as it happens. Whilst Google's Webmaster Guidelines page is critical to owners of new websites to ensure they don't make big mistakes, it's also a great checklist for your existing site. When you get on to the technical section, don't worry if it goes over your head, but do forward the items to whoever set up and manages your website to get their confirmation that everything's being done correctly. In the Design and Content Guidelines section there are only nine points, so think about every one and how it relates to your website. Google doesn't publish this stuff for fun – if you want to do well in Google, you need to follow its advice.

Why you should follow Google's advice