Company names in AdWords

Mar 012011

I’ve seen this often and it puzzles me each time. A company spending (a lot of) money on AdWords for their company name.

I’ll wager that if you look at the keywords statistics for the search for many of these companies (possible all, but that’s a large claim) you will see the main keywords of organic search being the company name in some variety.
Say you have a company called “Ajax Products” on the domain “www.ajaxproducts.com” and you run statistics for traffic; then I’ll almost put money on a wager that the top 3 searched entries to the site would be “www.ajaxproducts.com”, “ajaxproducts.com” or “ajax products” in some order.
Afterwards, the following of other keywords and various misspelled varieties of the name. (It’s just an example, right)

Now this is simply because of the very high integration of search engines in browsers which have changed many common peoples browsing and searching habits. I know this from myself.  I often (mistakenly most of the time) type the company name or even address into the search bar in my browser instead of the address field. But even my address field searches now on Google.
This will lead to a lot of hits on those words from people. However it is from people that already know your site address or company name well enough, and that are almost a guaranteed hit to your site.

So why is it that I often see companies use AdWord on their own company name?
For example – if I searched for ajaxproducts in Google, having Ajax Products come up as an AdWord as well. (Yes, still a theoretical example).

Basically I can see 3 possible and plausible scenarios for this happening.
1) Your company name is generic so other competitors AdWords might end up on searches for your domain/company name.
2) You really, and I do mean really, want to brand your company name.
3) It is an easy way to generate actions from an AdWord budget.

The first is plausible, and a result of how Google places adverts on top of the organic search thus presenting advertisements that fool the searcher into thinking they’re part of his search. If your company name is generic, others AdWords might trigger them.
Then it is a plausible strategy, however it would also mean the AdWords might be rather expensive for you and the extra revenue they bring in can be limited.

The second one is just silly. The people you target are people already knowing you, your domain and/or your company – so they know you and the AdWord money are basically wasted.

Which leads me to what I actually think is the smoking gun in most incidents. That with a limited AdWord budget it might be ……. nice – to present some pretty numbers to the decisions makers of how much traffic and revenue the AdWords bring in.  And because Google shows those AdWord ads on top of the organic search, those AdWords would bring in a lot of traffic.
However, as mentioned, those people clicking the advertisement already know you, so it would stand to reason that they would in fact visit your site anyway. Because let’s face it, if your site isn’t ranking first on a search for your company name or domain, you have bigger issues than AdWords.
So basically – the AdWords budget goes into traffic for people who were going to visit your site anyway.

It would in my opinion be much more prudent to target AdWords for keywords/phrases that are different from your company name, simply because you’ll target people who might be interested in your site but who doesn’t know it or wouldn’t visit it as a first chance.
However it takes a little guts to take away those AdWords and try to spend the money on other keywords. Simply because the revenue from AdWords of guaranteed traffic looks nice on a report, whereas the AdWords on lesser used keywords might bring in less traffic and revenue.
However it is entirely possible that the revenue those AdWords would bring in would be “extra” traffic and thereby overall be better, even if the AdWord report itself might be worse. SEO is not a single focus technique, but an overall marketing strategy.

The question is: is long tail SEO actually SEO?

Feb 172011

Yesterday I read a blog post on Search Engine Journal about a discussion on whether or not long tail SEO was actually SEO or just content writing.

Well, for those who do not know – long tail SEO, as opposed to short tail, is about SEO’ing (heh, acronym fun) content to longer key phrases and search terminologies. For example: a 3-6 keyword phrase or combination of keywords. Short tail, naturally, is optimizing to a single or two keywords.

The argument was that long tail SEO was easier to get simply by writing content, because the phrases or keywords would fall in naturally in the content and because of this – it wasn’t actually SEO, but just writing. The counter argument is primarily that, well – surveys seem to indicate long tail converting better and therefor it is SEO.

Myself, I’m fully in the “long tail is SEO” camp – however, I do recognize that it is easier to gain just by writing content.
But, the reason why I feel it is SEO is not as much because of better conversion rates or more traffic.
I feel it is SEO because you optimize your content for what person actually searches for. It might seem similar, and well – it is, but the approach is different. Instead of focusing on what converts, it’s focusing on what people need and want.

An example from one of my own other blogs which is about SQL – I have content more or less optimized for the direct error message people receive in specific situations.
I know, both from anecdotal evidence of what I and colleagues and friends do, but also from searches – people search for the error description.

For example a page like: An explicit value for the identity column in table can only be specified when a column list is used and identity insert is on (yes, long title, too long I know – but it matches an error in SQL Server directly and therefore I opted for the full title) which ranks high amongst some very tough competition without many links, but simply because it is relevant.
And that is why I personally think long tail SEO indeed also is SEO.

It is however – as mentioned – easier to optimize for long tail, and you’ll target rather specific traffic with it and therefore you should never forget the short tail SEO.

Google SSL search - Google Analytics and SEO.

May 262010

I read that Google will start offering SSL search to keep the search safe and encrypted.

Now this does indeed sound as a good thing, it means your searching will be more secure. All you’ll need to do is use https instead of http.
So – is Google really only worried about the privacy of users? Let’s dig a little deeper.

The encryption will naturally not mean anything for Google themselves – they’ll continue to collect the data as they’ve always have. Anything else could be hurting their AdWords and peoples trust in them.

However enabling SSL in search via the https will mean the referrers will be turned off.
“As another layer of privacy, SSL search turns off a browser’s referrers. Web browsers typically turn off referrers when going from HTTPS to HTTP mode to provide extra privacy. By clicking on a search result that takes you to an HTTP site, you could disable any customizations that the website provides based on the referrer information.”

This looks to mean that the search terms aren’t transmitted from the browser to the website, and means that the information about them aren’t collected, by for example Google Analytics.

My first thought was “Google Analytics: Premium Service“.
Google as said still collects the information meaning they can still be coupled in with the website, however if they aren’t immediately accessible from the client, and thus the JavaScript transmitting data to analytics it will mean analytics can’t display them in the current setup.
Is it farfetched to think that Google might divide Analytics up in two services?
One free with basic features, and one premium to buy if you want to know the search terms people enter your site with?

I guess we will see eventually how this SSL affects Analytics.  But to return to the AdWords issue once more – if people don’t know which search terms their sites pull in, how would you trust that Google AdWords are actually working and which AdWords to target? You can’t check up on it other than trusting Google. Previously – you could couple the information with Analytics and make deductions on that information.

A side issue is SEO. If the search terms aren’t displayed, then people will be unable to actually figure out which terms the visitors of a site use and how and where to optimize content for the audience.
SEO people often battle it out with search engines because they play the same game.
Search engines wants to provide the most relevant results to a search. SEO people want people to see their content. Google removing or hurting one factor could potentially be another move in that ongoing dance

As both a user of Google’s search and Analytics – I’m torn myself. I welcome the privacy (although Google still records my searching, so privacy of course is to be taken with a grain of salt), but as a professional user of Analytics and SEO, I’m a bit wary of what this could mean as well in that area.

Google working on form crawling

Apr 142008

Just read the blog from Matt Cutts entitled "Solved: another common site review problem", that Google is working on (experimenting with) following form links now, meaning GoogleBot will submit some queries from a form and see where it is taken and crawl those pages.
More information is availble at the Google Webmaster blog: Crawling through HTML forms

Now, it is still on experimental basis. Mr. Cutts says only a few select sites are currently being tested, but for SEO people and especially us programmers who try to keep up with the progress just a bit, this opens up a whole new ball park if indeed the feature gets implemented on a more permanent basis.
I suggest reading the sources to see why Google is working down this avenue, because it also shows why it is beneficial for us programmers.

Interesting in my own personal little opinion, and it is a path which will make life a little less confusing for us programmers when we try to solve problems for our clients.

Load time and Google AdWords

Mar 102008

Reading the blog: http://www.blog.concept-i.dk/adwords-landingssider/ (in Danish), it stated that loading time will now start to affect your quality score for adwords.

Interesting.
I dug a little further and found information about it availble in the FAQ from Google, at amongst other this link: https://adwords.google.com/support/?fulldump=1#87144.

Now this is rather interesting in my book, because eventhough we as consumers have gotten faster and faster connections over the last couple of years, pages which feature a lot of flash for example are still excrutiating slow and annoying to load. This will now start becomming a larger factor.
Focus on time-to-load is in my (humble or not) opinion a good thing, and I'd very much like to see a larger focus on this – and if Google takes this step further and starts deducting the pages rank on the search result with load in mind as well, it becomes more fun.

This is how you cheat Google ….. or not.

Dec 012007

Some time ago a Danish company released a press release on how to cheat Google and build up their SEO practice on it.
Basically it is simply a "cloacking" system and the claim is that Google never would be wiser.

Well, Google dislike Cloaking and are working to make such techniques impossible.

Personally as both a professional webprogrammer and a personal web-user/surfer – I dislike it as well, because it is a technique used to cheat the user and invalidate their searches. It is one of the reasons why I dislike many of these gray-area SEO companies.

Anyways – Matt Cutts from Google wrote this piece on his blog, in direct reference to the situation with the mentioned company. Apparently the script used is so buggy that plenty of information about the “parent brand” names – meaning the companies who bought this cloaking – could be found, and Cutts said that they could be removed from Googles indexes (*fingers crossed*).
Well, I guess they could do that because it is small time businesses and not like BMW in Germany who only got a temporary removal lasting a short period of time.

So well, basically when trying to cheat the searchengines make sure your scripts are error free Laughing

Shortly after Cutts blog was published, the owner of this cloaking system was interviewed by a danish media(Danish article – sorry) said that all the domains running this cloaking are owned by him (and not the paying customer) and thus all Google can do is close down the cloaking domains and not the discover the customers actual domain and close that.
Of course he’ll have to say that because it is the fundamentals of the system being challenged.

The question is how Google will track these cloaking pages without having a manual process combined with their crawler, if the script/system doesn’t throw as many errors as shown by Cutts.
Unless of course they start to spoof crawler user agents so they appear in all essences as a normal browser. Now that could be fun :)

However one of the customers visible by name in Cutts blog are now fearing to be removed, and I for one hope they will be. Of course the owner of the Cloaking System said that it was an error on their part and apologizes to the customer. Yeah, if errors happens once, they can and will happen again.

I do not specifically like Google, because I feel they are amassing too much information about us surfers and other issues (such as Google in China), however I dislike these people/companies more, because they try to cheat us users by manipulating the actual results as presented to us by Google.

So I do hope Google bans every company they come across who does this and develop a method of automatically tracking/detecting these things.

That at least might create some respect about the SEO market in the eyes of many of us, and make it seem less like snake oil-market.

So, I was at a SEO presentation the other day

Nov 222007

Well, I always thought SEO was just another gray advertising market, more or less ethical companies selling stuff few actually needed.
Especially with cases such as BMW and SAS Raidson (sorry, link is in Danish) still lingering within the mind.

Of course, I knew that SEO was big business, that it was something few actually had much concrete information about (except Google of course :) ) outside what they've tested or read or heard or thought up, and I knew that many people, and companies, wanted their websites optimized to be ranked higher. Hence experiences such as the situations to linked above.

Due to my job, I’ve encountered SEO a couple of times and performed some minor work on a couple of clients’ websites, and subsequently had read somewhat large amounts of contradicting information about it – you know:
Use meta-keywords. Do not use keywords. Use friendly urls, dynamic is fine. Page length is important, not important. Linkfarms, doorway pages and all that.

So when I got the chance to go to a (free, yah) SOE presentation by somebody who supposedly knew something about it I of course jumped at the chance. The person holding the presentation was from the Danish firm Concept-I (their blog can be found here and it is now one I’ll keep an eye on.)

I must say it was quite educational and while I did leave there in a state of euphoria over having learned something new relative easy (not always the case) and free of charge, my view of SEO had not really changed much, except for one thing …. the sheer and utter importance of it.

I hate to admit it, but it works. Google is an authority on the market, due to market position alone, and if they say a site is "number 1" – it is an quality stamp, or at least it is perceived like this.
I even know this is the case from myself as well, despite I’m very critical of information. For example, I do not click adwords because it is blatant advertisement, and as such the company buys its "position" on Google. Just like I do not buy Vanish Oxy Action Clear Colour Ultra Lite Unlimited or what it is called, simply because I see a cheesy synchronized advert on the TV.
But that is just me, I try to automatically filter adverts out and avoid being influenced by them.
 
Anyways, being easy to find is one thing, however this perceived quality stamp tied in with rank position is very very different and vastly more important. This leads to more and more companies seeing the importance of staying high in the ranking, and thus more and more need for SEO. 

The fact of authority alone, is what makes SEO tremendously important in today’s online market and as such I think everybody who works connected to that field owes it to themselves, and their clients, to keep an ear to the ground and try to keep somewhat up. If nothing else to be able to guide and give advice to the clients, in case they need SEO done.
Even if one have no personal interest in SEO, but have a profession where online activity is a factor – SEO to help advice client is important. At least in my (not so often humble) view. 

As said, I did learn many good and solid things from said presentation, and some myths where busted, for me personally at least – which I’m very grateful for.  Some of the myths busted was one about page length causing ranking issues; something I did not really believe in, but you see it online (I know, I know – if it is on the internet it must be true ?).
Another was that Google was able to do dynamic URLS quite well –so friendly urls are now more a public relations tool then anything – that is good to know, cause it is a common statement flung around the web. 
There was a lot of other useful information, about linking and a little insight into how these professionals do it, and some things to avoid.

All in all, I walked away from this presentation armed with more the tools and more knowledge which I can use in my chosen profession. Of course, being the huge skeptic and cynic I am, I am not blue-eyed, and know that what I got was more a superficial view then indebt (it is also limited how much you can do on 3 hours), from one company/persons perspective, and that as such it needs to be spiced with multiple sources of information.
But I feel better armed in the universe of SEO now.

Still perplexed, but better armed.

WordPress SEO fine-tune by Meta SEO Pack from Poradnik Webmastera