Blogpost (Digital Marketing)

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- Search & Analytics MKTG1415/1427 Week 9 Presented by Torgeir Aleti

What is a search engine? • A tool used to search the www for information • Previously lists of webservers (Edited by Tim

Berners-Lee, ceased in 1992) http://www.w3.org/History/19921103- hypertext/hypertext/DataSources/WWW/Servers.html

What is a search engine?

• Three basic components: • Crawler (“bot”, “spider”) • Index (massive database) • Query processor (returns

SERP - Search Engine Results Page - after querying the index)

• Popularity of search engine is determined by relevance of results

How Google search works; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNHR6IQJGZs

Ranking algorithm

• Location and frequency of keywords on page • HTML title tag • Content • Quality and relevance • Number of other sites

linking to page • Number of click-

throughs generated by searches

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PageRank

Search engine market share – Desktop

http://marketshare.hitslink.com

Search Engine Share Google 74.80%

Baidu 11.32%

Bing 8.08%

Yahoo! 3.37%

Yandex 1.26%

Ask 0.56%

DuckDuckGo 0.29%

Naver 0.12%

AOL 0.06%

Seznam 0.04%

Search engine market share – Mobile

http://marketshare.hitslink.com

Search Engine Share Google 80.79% Baidu 16.64% Yahoo! 0.95% Bing 0.82% Yandex 0.37% Naver 0.16% DuckDuckGo 0.13% Ask 0.07% AOL 0.02% Dogpile 0.02%

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Search Engine Marketing (SEM) • “Promoting an

organisation through search engines to meet its objectives by delivering relevant content in the search listings for searchers and encouraging them to click through to a destination site” (Chaffey et al, 2012).

Chaffey, D. & Ellis-Chadwick, F. (2012). Digital Marketing: Strategy, Implementation and Practice, 5th ed. Essex: Pearson Education.

Two key SEM techniques

• Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) • Natural (organic) listings

• Paid search marketing • Sponsored listings • Pay-Per-Click (PPC)

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) • “A structured approach

used to increase the position of a company or its products in search engine natural or organic results listings for selected keywords or phrases” (Chaffey et al, 2012)

Mobile; only adds will show. Need significant scrolling before organic search shows up!

THE SEVEN STEPS TO SEO FITNESS

1. Goals: Define Your Goals 2. Keywords: Identify Keywords 3. On Page SEO: Get Your Website to

“Speak Google” 4. Content Marketing: Create Quality

Content for Google and for Humans 5. Off Page SEO: Build Links, Leverage

Social Media, and Go Local 6. Metrics: Measure and Learn from

Your Results 7. Learn: Never Stop Learning!

McDonald (2019): SEO Fitness Workbook: The Seven Steps to Search Engine Optimization Success on Google https://www.jm-seo.org/books/seo-fitness-workbook/

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Approaches to SEO

• Search engine submission • http://www.google.com/submityourcontent/index.html

• Index inclusion • Ensure all pages are listed • Check Web Analytics data • Use “inurl:” or “site:” search to check

• http://www.googleguide.com/advanced_operators_reference.html

• Key phrase analysis • What terms are your customers searching? • See http://adwords.google.com/ko/KeywordPlanner/Home

Approaches to SEO (continued)

• Key phrase analysis – consider “qualifiers”: • Comparison/quality: compare car insurance • Adjective: cheap car insurance • Intended use: high mileage car insurance • Product type: holiday car insurance • Vendor: aami car insurance • Location: car insurance Melbourne • Action request: buy car insurance

Approaches to SEO (continued)

• On-page optimisation • Content of page will boost ranking,

however “search engine spamming” will reduce ranking • Google considers (>200 criteria!):

• Frequency • Occurrence in headings • Occurrence in anchor text of hyperlinks • Mark-up such as bold • Density (number of times) • Proximity of phrase to start of

document • Alternative image text • Document meta-data

Approaches to SEO (continued) • External linking • Google PageRank: A scale between 0

and 10, used by Google to assess the importance of websites according to the number of inbound links

• Strategies: • Identify and create popular content

and services • Identify potential partner sites • Contact partner sites

• Internal linking!

http://en.w ikipedia.org /w iki/PageRank

Black Hat vs. White Hat Black Hat Techniques

• Hidden content • Comment tags • Small font / White text on white

background • Meta keyword stuffing • Meta description or meta keywords

• Doorway pages (cloaking) – redirection • Link farming

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White Hat Techniques • Quality content! • Appropriate use of titles and meta

data • Keyword research • Use keywords across all elements of

your pages • Quality inbound links (e.g. to your

social media sites)

Google Algorithm • Pandas, Penguins and Hummingbirds!

http://m oz.com /google-algorithm -change

So, does this mean “SEO is Dead”? • Dying: Link spamming

• Using automated tools to build thousands of back links to a site

• Dying: Link networks • Back link networks that build links to sites

automatically

• Dying: Content spinning • Taking existing content, and using

software to ‘spin’ it by changing words around, thus making it unique

• Dying: Press release spam • Submitting press releases with every blog

post made, or whenever you have a good dinner

https://w w w.im pactbnd.com /is-seo-dead

SEO is (now) all about…

• Content marketing • Genuine, high quality content that

customers want • Social media

• Customers are using SM to find websites

• Providing value • TRUE value = lower bounce rates

• Mobile • Poor mobile interface = lower ranking

• Back link quality • Quality, not quantity!

https://w w w.im pactbnd.com /is-seo-dead

Paid Search Marketing (PPC)

• “A relevant text ad with a link to a company page is displayed on the SERPs when the user of a search engine types in a particular phrase. A fee is charged for every click of each link, with the amount bid per click determining its position.” (Chaffey et al, 2012)

Chaffey, D. & Ellis-Chadwick, F. (2012). Digital Marketing: Strategy, Implementation and Practice, 5th ed. Essex: Pearson Education.

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Also pay-per-click (PPC) Content Networks • Contextual ads on third-party sites • Approximately 1/3 of Google’s revenue • http://www.google.com/ads/publisher/

What about Position in PPC?

• Auction: Highest bid • Plus: Quality score • Click-through rates • Relevance of keyword to destination site content • User engagement (bounce rates)

• See https://adwords.google.com/ko/KeywordPlanner/Home

Analytics

Definition, analytics • Techniques used to assess and

improve the contribution of e- marketing to a business, including reviewing traffic volume, referrals, clickstreams, online reach data, customer satisfaction surveys, leads and sales.

Chaffey, D. & Ellis-Chadwick, F. (2012). Digital Marketing: Strategy, Implementation and Practice. Essex: Pearson Education.

The impact of Marketing Analytics

• Deployment of Marketing Analytics: • Firms attain favourable and

sustainable performance outcomes

• If competition is high, and consumer preferences is rapidly changing, analytics are even more important

Germann, F., Lilien, G.L. & Rangaswamy, A. (2013). Performance implications of deploying marketing analytics. International Journal of Research in Marketing, 30, 114-128.

Requirements for Successful Analytics Deployment

• Support from top management • A supportive analytics culture • Appropriate data • IT support • Analytics skills

Germann, F., Lilien, G.L. & Rangaswamy, A. (2013). Performance implications of deploying marketing analytics. International Journal of Research in Marketing, 30, 114-128.

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“You can’t manage what you can’t measure” Bob Napier – CIO, HP, 1960’s

Website Design for Analysis Techniques • Websites needs to be designed

for analysis. This can be done by;

• Breaking up a long page into different parts

• Group content by audience type or buying decision

• Measure attrition at different points in a customer journey (e.g. exit points on a five-page buying cycle)

• A single exit page to linked sites

Chaffey et al (2012)

A/B Testing

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A/B_testing

What to test?

• The call to action (i.e. the buttons) wording, size, colour and placement • Headline or product description • Form length and type of fields • Layout and style of website • Product pricing and promotional

offers • Images on landing and product pages • Amount of text on the page (short vs.

long) • Other…?

Source: https://vwo.com/ab-testing/

“Top 5 Metrics You’re Measuring Incorrectly”

• Unique Visitors • Multiple devices!

• Conversion rates • As a result of above

• Engagement metrics (e.g. time spent) • Two devices, shows as two users with

low engagement • Total global audience • Mobile device usage

• Viewable impressions

https://www.comscore.com/Insights/Blog/Top-5-Metrics-You-re-Measuring-Incorrectly

Google Analytics

• A “page tag” is added onto every page of a website: • JavaScript code • Collects visitor data • Sends back to Google for processing

• Tracks visitors from all referrers: • Search engines, ads, PPC networks, emails, links

within documents

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Facebook Page Insights • A “dashboard” to track activity

and fans of a Facebook page • Page Likes • Post reach (number of unique

people who have seen any of your page content)

• Engagement (number of unique people who have clicked, liked, commented on or shared your content)

https://www.facebook.com/help/794890670645072/?helpref=hc_fnav

Measuring what matters in Social Media • Growth and Engagement Metrics • It’s not about “how many”, but “how

engaged”

• Content Strategy Metrics • Are your strategies working (e.g. are

people sharing your content)?

• Audience Quality Metrics • Returning users • Shares/retweets

https://www.comscore.com/Insights/Blog/Measuring-What-Matters-in-Social-Media

The Engagement Food Chain

Source: Sterne, J. (2010). “Social Media Metrics”, p.109. http://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-social-media/metrics-and-roi

With any data you're collecting, whether it be quantitative or qualitative, the most important things to ask yourself are "What can I do with this?" and "What are my insights?" If you can't do anything with your data and you're not gleaning actionable business takeaways from it, then you should question why you're measuring it in the first place.