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Page 1: Modern Marketing 15 March 2013 Searchimg01.thedrum.com/s3fs-public/drum_basic_article/104423/additional... · THE DRUM 15.MAR.13 Search 03 CONTENTS 04 Agenda A round-up of key issues

15 March 2013Modern Marketing

through the looking glass search under scrutiny

Search®

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Page 3: Modern Marketing 15 March 2013 Searchimg01.thedrum.com/s3fs-public/drum_basic_article/104423/additional... · THE DRUM 15.MAR.13 Search 03 CONTENTS 04 Agenda A round-up of key issues

THE DRUM 15.MAR.13 www.thedrum.com Search 03

CONTENTS 04 Agenda A round-up of key issues for search marketers. 06 AdWords A look at the recent AdWords overhaul and its implications for search. 08 Content post-Panda Kieran Bass, SEO director at STEAK, discusses the role of content in the future of search. 11 A changing marketplaceWhat do changes to Google Shopping mean for online retailers? 14 Case study Net Media Planet’s paid search campaign for Papa John’s Pizza. 17 Q&A A cross-section of the industry offer their views on SEO and PPC trends, including how to meet the multi-platform challenge.

THE DRUM is published by Carnyx Group Limited. The publishers, authors and printers cannot accept liability for any errors or omissions. Any transparencies or artwork will be accepted at owner’s risk. All rights reserved. On no account may any part of this publication be reproduced in any form without the written permission of the copyright holder and publisher, application for which should be made to the publisher. © carnyx group limited 2013 iSSn 2046-0635

There’s no doubt about the increasing proliferation of mobile devices in the UK. In October 2012, Comscore reported that smartphones had a 62 per cent penetration in the UK. YouGov also found that there will be a staggering 10 million tablet users in the UK by August 2013, nearly one-sixth of the population.

As gadget obsessed Brits spend more time on mobiles, they search more on them, with our research finding 24.4 per cent of search clicks are coming from smartphones and tablets. This is the highest percentage globally, meaning UK consumers lead the world in mobile search, and search advertisers can no longer ignore mobile as a platform.

Google have reacted by launching Enhanced Campaigns in Adwords, which should make mobile search advertising accessible to the smallest of advertisers. As a consequence, they have generated challenges for large advertisers who had already developed mobile campaigns.

In addition, Google is rolling out paid Product Listing Ads (PLAs) in Google Shopping across Europe. Our research in the US found advertisers increased PLA investment by 600 per cent in Q4 of 2012. Advertisers are spending more because consumers are clicking more. The share of search clicks on PLAs increased 210 per cent in 2012 because PLAs now have higher CTRs than traditional text search placements.

If you add in Facebook’s dipping of its toes in the search waters, you can see a big increase in complexity for search marketers. We hope this search supplement will enable you to get your head around it all!

Jon Myers, VP, commercial director EMEA, Marin Software

SEaRCHiNg fOR aNSwERSIn this, the first of The Drum’s regular search supplements, we take a look at how developments at Google, social search and the growth of mobile are all impacting on search marketing. First we hear from sponsor Marin Software.

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www.thedrum.com 15.MAR.13 THE DRUM04 Search

Search marketers are understanding the value of content-led SEO strategy in the aftermath of last year’s Panda and Penguin updates to Google.

Brand advocacy, relevancy and trust are more crucial than ever to ensure successful results with search, and there is now a need for businesses to invest time and resources to create content strategies as this continues to be more of a focus. Steak explores this issue in an opinion piece on content strategy in search on page 7.

The recent example of Interflora being penalised for its paid SEO links, and being removed from the first organic position in Google, highlights the importance of adhering to Google recommendations and implementing a strategy focused on unique, shareable content, rather than a paid-for SEO route which goes against the search giant’s terms and conditions.

Matt Cutts, head of search spam, gave clear warning on the action Google will take against companies buying paid links: “The consequences for a link-selling site start with losing trust in Google’s search results, as well as reduction of the site’s visible PageRank in the Google Toolbar. The consequences can also include lower rankings for that site in Google’s search results.”

CONTENT

As PPC and SEO continue to evolve, what are the key issues for brands and agencies

incorporating search into the marketing mix?

CONsTaNTly EvOlviNg sEaRCH

Search marketing continues to grow as an essential component of the online marketing mix, with 2.7bn UK visits to search engines in December 2012.

Despite Google’s share of the UK market dropping below 90 per cent for the first time in October last year, the search giant continues to dominate, with a share of 88.35 per cent of searches in December.

However, Bing’s collaboration with Facebook as search partner for Graph Search will contribute to increased market share. Microsoft sites, led by Bing, currently make up 4.99 per cent of the market, the highest share so far.

Here, The Drum takes a look at some of the key trends for search marketers at the moment.

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THE DRUM 15.MAR.13 www.thedrum.com Search 05

Facebook announced its entry into social search with the launch of Graph Search, opening up a wealth of new opportunities for advertisers. Still in beta, Mark Zuckerberg has said it’s possible the internal search engine could provide sponsored ad opportunities within its results.

Ed Cox, head of digital at Arena Media, commented: “Facebook’s move into social search provides brands with a massive opportunity to target new customers and engage with existing fans. It has the potential to not only make brands more visible to the 1.01 billion people across the globe using Facebook, but also to make those brands relevant.

“Your brand can now appear in front of users at the point at which they are interested in a certain topic, while utilising personal data such as birthdays, interests, likes and locations, that isn’t available to Facebook’s competitors.”

While perhaps not the death knell for Google, Graph Search is certainly likely to become as effective, if not more effective, for social search than Google+.

SOCIAL SEARCH

Mobile search continues to grow alongside the rise in proliferation of mobile devices and usage.

A Marin Software report found UK consumers are leading the world for mobile search (with the highest percentage of mobile clicks globally) but advertisers still lag behind, allocating only 19.3 per cent of their search marketing budgets to mobile.

Jon Myers, VP, commercial director – EMEA, Marin Software commented: “This study indicates in no uncertain terms that the age of desktop dominance in the paid search advertising industry is coming to an end. There has been a significant uptake of smartphones and tablets in the UK, and this country now leads Europe in terms of consumer engagement with mobile advertising as we all increasingly shop online on mobile devices.

“While the rise of tablets is no secret, what’s interesting is based on our report, tablet users engage with search ads more than ads on desktops. A high user involvement combined with favorable performance characteristics make search ads on tablets hard to resist for advertisers.”

Matt Champion, media services director at Fetch, told The Drum that the biggest challenge of a mobile search strategy is getting the opportunity in the first place to start one for your client.

“Google has made a series of changes, some admirable, launching Enhanced Campaigns enabling some simplification of planning with regard to devices, location and timing,” he explains. “However, you are no longer able to run mobile search campaigns without including desktop search. 1 - 0 to the larger digital agencies that own clients’ desktop search already. For mobile specialists thankfully the core revenue is secured elsewhere.”

MOBILE

The trend towards browsers withholding data in the interest of consumer privacy is set to cause more controversy with Google announcing in January that it will encrypt natural searches made on Chrome, using Secure Sockets Layer (SSL).

Although it hasn’t yet been applied to paid search, the move does create a challenge for brands and agencies in obtaining the right level of data from natural search.

Lee Stuart, client services director at Caliber, commented: “The loss of search query data via SSL has added an extra level of complexity when it comes to understanding the impact of our work and has forced many to look at alternatives, for example traffic to a page. As more browsing devices adopt SSL this trend is accelerating rapidly – at the current rate all keyword data will be removed by the end of 2016.”

ENCRYPTION

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www.thedrum.com 15.MAR.13 THE DRUM06 Search

L ast month saw Google overhaul AdWords to cater for cross-device search. The global update is aimed at helping marketers hone paid search targeting across multiple devices,

while letting them adjust bids according to device type, location and time of day.

Using bid adjustments, marketers can bid 25 per cent higher for people searching a half-mile away, 20 per cent lower for searches after 11am and 50 per cent higher for searches on smartphones. These bid adjustments can apply to all ads and keywords in one single campaign for the first time.

The upgrade includes features such as ads optimised for various user contexts. This means marketers can run ads across devices with the right ad text, site link, app or ad extension without having to manually edit each campaign separately.

It also means marketers can tap into consumers’ searching behaviour regardless of which device they are using and manage their ad experience accordingly. So someone searching via a desktop can be sent an ad for a brand’s e-commerce site, whereas someone searching on a smartphone could be sent a click-to-call ad and location extensions, all within the same campaign.

It will also provide advanced reports, which let marketers count calls and app downloads as conversions within AdWords reports. This includes being able to count phone calls of 60 seconds or longer that derive from a click-to-call as a conversion, and then compare them to other conversions including leads, sales and downloads.

The move marks one of the internet giant’s biggest changes to AdWords to date and agencies believe it is a game changer. However, although there are multiple benefits, there are major drawbacks that agencies are seriously concerned will have ramifications on search strategies, client investment and drive up mobile cost-per-clicks (CPCs).

In the wake of Google’s AdWords overhaul, The Drum’s Jessica Davies speaks to members of the search industry to

establish the impact of the rollout on PPC in the coming months.

aDDing Up THE cosT of

aDwoRDs

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THE DRUM 15.MAR.13 www.thedrum.com Search 07

I’m just back from SES London, a busy search conference, and heard plenty of worried mutterings about Enhanced Campaigns. Advertisers who have been buying plenty of cheap mobile traffic in favour of more expensive desktop traffic worry that costs will climb.

In my experience clients seem to accept that Google will make big changes. Big changes are part of the fluid search landscape. As a result, where we need to restructure campaigns we’re allowed to just get on with it. Restructuring is needed in many cases as previously it often made sense to separate out mobile from desktop and now such a structure is impossible and pointless.

We had seen the cost-per-click of tablet target rising sharply. We can only speculate whether it would have exceeded desktop costs but in some sectors it certainly felt possible. Given that Google now treats desktop and tablet the same, there may be a few campaigns in which Enhanced Campaigns will actually help to reduce CPC inflation.

Initial use of the location and device targeting along with scheduling is both promising and frustrating. Its promise is in the potential; this feels like a good way to run future-proofed campaigns. The frustration is around the need to do more with the first wave of tools Google’s made available.

The fact that the first iteration of Enhanced Campaigns seems to leave the door open for some basic optimisation is good news for third-party bid management solutions. There’s still value in bid management.

The biggest cost so far with Enhanced Campaigns has been in time and roadmaps. Projects have had to be pushed back in order to find the time to convert campaigns over to the new system.

Andrew Girdwood, head of media innovation, LBi

There is no doubt the amount of time saved for campaign set-up and cross-device reporting will be of great benefit. However, we currently have to train clients on the changes Enhanced Campaigns bring. It is great that the wider media world has recognised the impact this will bring and is looking to search professionals to explain the features in detail. This ultimately will mean a smoother integration between traditional ATL media and search.

One of the key features is treating tablet and desktop as one. Tablet devices are taking an ever increasing share of the search volume in mature markets, as the experience is similar to a desktop, so it makes sense to club these together. The tablet auction does work differently to desktop search as there is no side targeting. This puts greater importance on the top three positions, meaning the auction for high-volume terms has an impact on the overall CPC for desktop/tablet targeting.

Google has allowed a workaround for opting out of mobile targeting, which is crucial if a client does not currently have the capability to target mobile. You can ‘opt out’ of mobile by reducing the mobile bid by 100 per cent. The option to run mobile-only campaigns is not possible as the bid base is on desktop/tablet therefore clients that only produce apps now have to target desktop/tablet.

At first we expected the impact of not being able to target by device to be a concern for telecoms that would want to target specific devices. However, we are now getting an increase in requests from other verticals as they want to understand the mobile consumer better. I would expect this to be a feature request to Google from a multitude of search practitioners as clients become more mobile savvy and roll out mobile-ready sites.

Adrian Cutler, head of performance products and global clients, EMEA, iProspect

This announcement is a game changer and its effects will be seen in the coming months. It brings advantages to PPC teams via simpler campaign set-up and more time for optimisation but also disadvantages.From a granular device approach, we are moving to a holistic search view that can impact how clients invest and report on PPC performance.

With a deadline of June, technology providers are working hard on incorporating enhanced campaign capabilities in their interfaces. While waiting, it leaves agencies limited in their ability to test enhanced campaigns where bid technologies are used.

We have conducted several controlled tests on campaigns which are not currently using bid technologies in the e-commerce vertical and using branded keywords only. By enhancing and thereby expanding to mobiles, we found a marginal impact on traffic volumes only. However, by migrating campaigns we did see inflation, specifically in tablet CPCs, of approximately 40 per cent. This is to be expected in the context of effectively starting from scratch on tablets with regards to quality score.

This initial foray into enhanced campaigns demonstrates the CPC volatility that will erupt in the marketplace over the coming months. As more advertisers opt in, not only will there be more competition across all devices, but advertisers that merge legacy single device campaigns might see increased CPCs – this fact needs to be incorporated into budget planning.

PPC has historically been one of the most cost effective channels in the digital mix but the impact of enhanced campaigns could deliver a change in the search paradigm. Marketers may need to re-evaluate investment levels in this channel once the impact of enhanced campaigns is understood.

Oscar Romero, search strategy director, Starcom Mediavest Group

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www.thedrum.com 15.MAR.13 THE DRUM08 Search www.thedrum.com 15.MAR.13 THE DRUM

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THE DRUM 15.MAR.13 www.thedrum.com Search 09

P anda, introduced two years ago, penalised sites built using low quality, scraped and poorly structured content. Initially called “the farmer update”, it was designed to target the sites that had managed to rank

for terms using very poor content, which were often also laden with adverts mid-text and deviously served pop-unders. It worked to an extent, but Google knew it had to target the links that came with it, and so in April 2012 Penguin – and the associated penalties – appeared for “unnatural links pointing to your site”.

Pre-Penguin, a raft of off-site link building techniques existed, ranging from the outright manipulation of linking signals to the greyer, murkier area of Google’s quality guidelines, and allowed SEOs and agencies to operate as an independent channel with all necessary activity involved in running the account ‘under one roof’. Links could be built or bought in volume, while rankings, visibility and traffi c increased and the SEOs didn’t have to disturb anyone in other departments.

But in the post-Penguin online space, it’s not so simple. Gone are the days of mass link buying and manipulation. Google has penalised many of the sites taking part in this kind of activity and worked to level the playing fi eld. In order to generate the authority signals Google is looking for, what once would have been a narrow channel-based view of SEO now has to encompass a range of online marketing activity – but SEOs haven’t always been great at this.

The key to success is a return to fi rst-order marketing principles and the creation of value for consumers; we need to move away from content creation focused on gaming search signal metrics and move towards content created for users. Rather than a myopic focus on the tangible outcome-metrics – shares, links, comments – at briefi ng and planning stage we need to know what really drives those actions: are we creating content good enough to get a response from a real, human audience?

People from within the SEO industry have always spoken about having “great content”, but getting an accurate defi nition has been hard to pin down. Content

is more than a blog about the latest industry trend, because who wants to read, link to or share a post on the latest EU gender directive that’s affecting an industry? Marketers need to be more ambitious and show more imagination; are we solving a problem for our customers, are we producing work which surprises and delights them, is our output better than yet more landfi ll content?

This is a fundamental shift, and one not every agency, SEO manager or strategist is capable of making. Just look at the content the industry has been churning out for the past few years – ‘Top Five Tips For Walking’ and ‘What Strictly Come Dancing Taught Me About Balance Transfer Cards’ – to understand the change required. A complete change in the content production thought process is needed, taking the emphasis from ‘what can we produce at volume?’ to ‘what do our customers want to actually see?’

Kieran Bass, SEO director at STEAK, explores the ‘three Ps’ – Panda, Penguin and penalties –

and their impact on the future of search marketing.

the technical capacity to understand, work within and account for it in planning and deploying digital marketing, is an offering not always mirrored in more ‘traditional’ creative digital marketing services.

Adding that seamlessly to strong idea-based content, marketing, social-media and online PR activity will be something of a true advance in online communications and commerce. Agencies who have spent the last year struggling with change should be optimistic about the opportunity this offers, provided they are bold enough to adopt new thinking, adapt their processes and bring in the diverse talent necessary to capitalise on it.

CONTENT & THE FUTURE OF SEARCH

That’s not to say that all SEOs are in charge of content, but they must be involved, as should the other disciplines. True visibility of a brand in the digital space has matured into a broader concept. An engaging and useful social presence, utilising rich content combined with a strong product offering and on-site experience, is a culmination of channels combining to create a great experience. In order for this to happen, digital needs to embrace SEO as a factor in all its activity, and SEO needs to embrace the mechanics of marketing, advertising and selling to customers in different buying contexts.

This is good news, but does mean a lot of change client and agency-side. Digital must be viewed in the round, rather than as separate channels, if brands are to effectively use a space which is only going to become more fundamental to people’s lives and purchasing habits. After all, when we look for the work that displays the greatest volume of the signals that we seek, we frequently fi nd it outside the SEO channel as social and creative teams embrace content to engage consumers and build brands. How are we going to super-charge this activity and move toward a kind of ‘optimised branding’ which refl ects the most effective communications online?

The huge advantage SEO agencies and practitioners have is in the insight, monitoring and tracking of online activity and our understanding of the structural realities that lie beneath the surface level of online interaction. This ‘engineering’ level, and

“Digital must be viewed in the round, rather than as separate channels, if brands are to effectively use a space which is only going to become more fundamental to people’s lives and purchasing habits.”

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THE DRUM 15.MAR.13 www.thedrum.com Search 11

Changes to Google’s Shopping have been met with mixed reactions from marketers, with some lamenting the loss

of free traffic from the platform, while others welcome the prospect of increased control. Katie McQuater takes a look.

THE cHanging MaRkETplacE

F ebruary saw the rollout of changes to Google Shopping in the UK, with the introduction of Product Listing Ads (PLAs) meaning the model is no longer free for retailers listing their wares. Retailers will

no longer benefit from free traffic from Google product search, but on the plus side will have more granular control over product listings, bids and traffic. So what do these changes mean for online retailers’ paid search strategies, and how important is the platform as part of a wider e-commerce strategy?

Google Shopping may not have been a priority for retailers in the past, says Tobit Michael, director of paid search at iCrossing, but these developments mean it should now be a key element of any online retailer’s marketing strategy. “Retailers running on Google Shopping but not running product extensions (PEs) or PLAs are missing a trick, and probably a lot of revenue,” he argues. Michael says the agency has typically seen PLAs contribute 10 per cent of direct non-brand sales in the past, with this set to increase to upwards of 30 per cent if stats from the US are anything to go by.

Indeed, statistics from the US, where PLAs were introduced in October 2012, suggest huge benefits for retailers who implement early. Digital marketing software company Kenshoo analysed 270m global impressions and clicks aggregated from merchants managing Google PLAs through the company, finding that PLAs outperformed text ads across a number of dimensions, including click-through rate (73 per cent higher) and return on ad spend (46 per cent higher).

Kenshoo product manager Irina Bukatik explains the reasons behind improved click-through from PLAs compared with the text-based model: “PLAs allow retailers to be more creative and visual in their paid ads. They can look forward to improved click-throughs and conversions while reducing their CPC expenditure. We really believe it’s a win-win for retailers and they should at least experiment early on rather than wait.”

This sentiment is echoed by iProspect global search director Kate Crowley, who argues that retailers not using the platform will miss out: “There’s just no comparison between trying to describe an individual product in your standard 95 character text ad and displaying a large, full-colour picture of the same product in the product listing section.”

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THE DRUM 15.MAR.13 www.thedrum.com Search 13

Paid search is a crucial part of Shop Direct Group’s online marketing mix according to head of paid media Mike Wheeler. So how does the company, which includes Very.co.uk and Littlewoods, see PLAs impacting on its paid search strategy?

“We hope to see some short term gains and market share opportunities. This is due in part to the announcement coming in the middle of the retail financial year, which for some advertisers may have meant challenges in securing additional budget to cover their existing data feed volumes,” explains Wheeler. “In addition, some advertisers who submitted a feed when it was free to do so may no longer be in a position to continue,” he adds.

Wheeler explains that the group’s profitable volume from paid search comes from the campaign long tail: “The more prescriptive the searcher’s term, the more likely the conversion as they navigate towards the transactional end of the customer journey.”

He also explains the place of Google Shopping within the group’s approach, saying that users of the platform have more intention to purchase. “Google Shopping sits in a similar space based on our findings – more intent to purchase, less browsing. It’s also generally anticipated that the change to a commercial model will improve the quality of the data within the advertiser’s feed that is being displayed to searchers.”

The biggest expected drawback is the loss of free traffic retailers will experience as Google Shopping shifts from a free model to a paid one for advertisers.

iCrossing’s Michael highlights the increased costs as a challenge for advertisers, partly due to the lack of benchmarking in what was previously a free model: “Advertising costs can increase significantly and without benchmarks which makes forecasting less reliable. To date, the tools that Google has supplied have not proved entirely accurate. However, this will improve in time.”

There is also the suggestion that reporting may suffer from a lack of clarity when multiple product listings are served from the same search, explains Michael, who argues this may make “accurate measurement of cannibalisation challenging”.

The overall consensus is that despite advertisers having to pay for traffic they previously received for free, the paid element of the service will mean retailers and users are more incentivised to make use of it. The previous model is described by iProspect’s Crowley as “the Wild West of shopping experiences”. She adds: “Irrelevant products jostled for position with the relevant ones and you’d be lucky to see one whole page of products related to your search.”

Now Google’s review process is far more rigid, higher quality results will ensue, in theory meaning that consumers are more likely to use the service. According to Kenshoo’s Bukatik, when Google Shopping was free, the apathy of retailers when it came to keeping product feeds relevant and updated meant that shoppers simply couldn’t rely on it.

“As a paid for service, there’s going to be much more incentive to ensure the most current, accurate information is maintained on retailers’ product feeds. So shoppers will have more trust in Google Shopping and will be more likely to use it – producing more clicks and conversions for retailers,” she says.

Google’s latest development has no doubt caused controversy in the world of e-commerce, as advertisers strive to adjust budgets in order to minimise the impact on their Google Shopping results. The good news, however, is that as Google is now making money out of the platform, functionality is likely to improve, enhancing the overall experience for both advertisers and consumers. What’s understood is that Google will only continue innovating as it improves its retail offering – and UK retailers need to take this seriously to use it to their advantage and avoid missing out.

“Retailers running on Google Shopping but not running product extensions or product listing ads are missing a trick, and probably a lot of revenue” Tobit Michael, iCrossing

“Set budget for PLA, so as not to cannibalise existing PPC spend”, advises Shop Direct’s Wheeler. He also recommends retailers review sections of their product feed to ensure product information is complete and up-to-date, and suggests retailers “review the Google Shopping product feed specification” to ensure their product feeds comply.

Adobe’s Beeston says retail marketers need to be “aware of current trends so they can prioritise campaign management efforts and create a strategy and testing process to discover the optimal campaign structure.”

Bidding the right amount for ads is also an important issue for retailers, who should consider a PLA-specific bidding strategy, according to Kenshoo’s Bukatik.

“We recommend using a PLA-specific bidding strategy, accounting for the nuances of PLAs vs. text ads bidding, such as the lack of position for PLAs. Product-level performance information is essential to bidding decisions and most granular optimisation.”

The best way to optimise ads starts at the feed, argues iProspect’s Crowley, who advises: “Make sure that your product names are as descriptive as possible as Google Shopping defaults to the ‘Relevancy’ view when you first click through.”

She adds: “Google places emphasis on relevancy in all its search products, and Product Listing Ads are no different. If your feed is poorly constructed then your placements are going to suffer and you’ll be paying more for your traffic.”

How can retailers optimise their paid ads?

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www.thedrum.com 15.MAR.13 THE DRUM14 Search

THE pRicE isn’T always RigHT

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Andrew Gallagher, marketing director, Papa John’s UK

Why did you choose to implement this campaign?Our industry is highly competitive, with promotions very much part of the strategy of the dominant market players. We were looking to move away from this approach. We also wanted to explore how we could use this channel to increase average order value.

Why does paid search work for Papa John’s?Using paid search we were able to put together an extremely targeted marketing campaign; by enabling us to target consumers by device, region and time we were able to promote our messages in the most optimal way. The flexibility with the cross-device approach enabled us to expand our reach, for example, targeting hungry consumers on their mobiles whilst commuting. It is this combination of factors that makes paid search such a compelling proposition.

What tips would you offer brands looking to generate sales using paid search?Understanding who your customers are and how they engage with your brand is fundamental to delivering messages that will have the right impact.

Secondly, I would recommend making best use of the technology available. With this campaign, we employed the latest technological capabilities to enhance the delivery modes and methods of our messages.

Building a close partnership with your agency, ensuring that they understand your goals and have the ideas, expertise and technical capabilities to take those ideas as far as they can go is the foundation of a great marketing campaign.

Using a tailored paid search marketing strategy, Net Media Planet stepped

outside of traditional discount marketing methods and achieved notable success for

Papa John’s, the pizza delivery company.

W hen Papa John’s tasked paid search agency Net Media Planet with increasing the company’s reach and

refreshing its marketing approach, the company adopted a strategy with a difference.

Turning its back on tired discount marketing methods, the agency instead took inspiration from the real-life restaurant experience and came up with a digital translation. The strategy saw successful results for Papa John’s and was awarded a Dadi Award in 2012 in the best use of paid search category.

ObjectiveRated the UK’s third pizza delivery company, Papa John’s market is highly competitive and dominated by promotions and discount offers. The company wanted to move away from discounting, which can damage profit margins for franchisees, but needed to maintain volume and market share.

As the brand’s newly appointed paid search marketing agency, Net Media Planet challenged the industry convention of discounting. When people who are hungry and don’t want to cook, search for pizza, they are highly likely to buy one. Knowing that hungry people are susceptible to appetite-inducing messages, the agency’s strategy was to tap into the hungry customer mindset, with a compelling message at the right time and place. The objective being to drive volume sales while significantly improving profit margins.

ExecutionIn the pizza delivery market, it has long been assumed that a discount offer through search marketing is the best way to drive volume sales. Net Media Planet challenged the conventional wisdom that has been the staple strategy of the dominant market players. Through a combination of technology, traditional copywriting and consumer insight, the agency was able to drive volume sales for Papa John’s without resorting to discounting.

The agency challenged traditional marketing methods and rather than discounting to drive sales, identified and tapped into the customer’s need-state of being hungry and not wanting to cook. For example, targeting hungry consumers on their mobiles and on their way home, when people think about what they want to eat. In a restaurant, customers are offered a menu

of appetising dishes – Net Media Planet took that principle and applied it to a paid search campaign, encouraging hungry consumers to buy more when ordering their pizzas, thus driving up average order value. Using professional copywriters, taste testing was conducted to identify adjectives to tantalise potential customer tastebuds, which would work within 35 characters!

Through its proprietary Mercury technology platform, Net Media Planet was able to conduct sophisticated targeting, optimisation and analysis. Campaigns were run separately on desktop, tablet and mobile in order to reach various targets – people at work, on the move commuters and people at home. All campaigns were created with ‘appetite appeal’ – designed to persuade customers to spend more on side orders. Customers’ responses to promotions of a wide range of side orders by geography, time of day and nature of device were analysed, establishing the most potent product combinations.

ResultsComparing the results of this campaign against promotional-based activity, average order value grew by 10.4 per cent on desktop and 12.7 per cent on mobile. The agency increased bottom-line profit per marketing £1 spent by 75.2 per cent on desktop and 139.4 per cent on mobile. On mobile, 48 per cent higher revenue per click was achieved without resorting to discounting.

Andrew Gallagher, marketing director of Papa John’s UK, said: “Through creative and lateral thinking, Net Media Planet has delivered an effective new way of generating sales whilst reducing the need to discount. It’s a powerful weapon to have in our marketing armoury. This kind of innovative thinking is what makes them such a great agency to work with.”

Through a combination of technology, copywriting and consumer insight, the strategy drove volume sales without resorting to discounting.

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ionSearch brings together over 60 of the world's leading search and social marketing experts in one place.

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THE DRUM 15.MAR.13 www.thedrum.com Search 17

The Drum catches up with a cross-section of those working in SEO and PPC to gain

insights into key issues including the changing role of search marketers.

Q A&

How do you see the role of the search marketer changing in 2013?

Malcolm Slade, SEO project manager, Epiphany Google made great strides in 2012 with regard to getting SEOs back in line with

its own vision for the web. Chasing algorithms and competitors is now largely a thing of the past. SEO now focuses on human users and understanding people’s intent online, and this is certain to continue through 2013.

SEO practitioners need to embrace more aspects of ‘traditional’ marketing to get under the skin of how users digest content and engage with it, to ensure everything they do improves the user experience. And if the goal is still to generate backlinks, SEOs need to find ways of generating them naturally by earning coverage.

Jon Myers, VP, commercial director, EMEA, Marin Software Search marketers have to deal with increasing complexities in a multi-device

world, with tablets and smartphones now accounting for nearly a quarter of search clicks. Also, there is an increasing number of ad formats to consider, whether it’s PLAs on Google or new ad formats on Facebook. Search marketers have historically had to spend a lot of time on manual tasks which left little time to develop campaigns across new ad formats and devices. In 2013, as these new ad formats and devices increase in prominence, search marketers will need to automate manual tasks and focus more time on strategic development of campaigns in these fast developing new channels.

Ben Hatton, managing director, Rippleffect It’s been a long time coming, but search marketers need to roll their sleeves up

and get involved. Almost every part of a digital presence can impact on search in today’s landscape, so they can no longer stand back and wait for the final product before optimisation begins.

SEOs need to be involved at the stage the site build begins, from content strategy to site structure to social media and, in some cases, technology. PPC have previously got away with sneaking in a few landing pages and perhaps a bit of conversion rate optimisation; now their input should be taken of a much wider range of subjects, including mobile/multi-device strategy.

Andy Gaukrodger, search manager, Freestyle Interactive The release of Panda and Penguin showed just how serious Google is about

its focus on the quality of the content we find via the search engine. In 2013, the quality emphasis will endure and Google will continue to keep the search industry on its toes. This rapid pace of change means that search marketers will continue to play a key role in providing valuable technical insight into the impact of Google algorithmic changes. But, as the latest Interflora penalisation by Google demonstrates, a search marketer also needs to accomplish a longer-term objective by thinking creatively beyond an appetite for ‘hits’ at any cost.

Mike McDougall, head of search, Blueclaw I think as search marketers we expect the bar of expertise to be raised year-on-year,

2013 is going to

be an interesting year for search marketers, from both an external and internal perspective, as the sector broadens in terms of opportunity, deliverability and skill.Tina Judic, managing director, Found

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www.thedrum.com 15.MAR.13 THE DRUM18 Search

and 2013 isn’t going to be any different. The search landscape is constantly becoming more complex. We see our role as being a lot more consultative; helping clients to understand how to get the mix of paid and organic search right – as well as designing and implementing campaigns. Search now needs to be far more integrated into the marketing mix to be effective – and we think making this case and explaining more about our tactics and processes is key to this year.

Also, understanding how the search journey to conversion changes across different device types is going to be key to strategy development in 2013.

James Collins, product marketing manager, Stickyeyes Search marketers must be innovative. Not in the sense of being technically gifted

or understanding the labyrinth that is search engine algorithms, but in the sense of being innovative in the ways in which they acquire that much needed search ‘juice’. This will undoubtedly be driven by a fusion of technical and creative marketing skills to leverage traditional and ‘new’ marketing channels which drive search performance. Understanding and utilising these creative channel relationships will be critical to search marketing success in 2013. What is the biggest challenge of search marketing in a multi-platform, multi-device environment?

Paul Martin, SEO manager, Epiphany The biggest challenge is multi-platform attribution modelling. Digital platforms

and devices are progressing all the time and we need to be able to understand users, their actions and activities in order to successfully utilise attribution modelling. As a search marketer it is important to understand the behaviour of different types of users, the buying cycle of different products, and have an understanding of the range of internet enabled devices in order to develop a successful multi-platform multi-device attribution model. Without doing so, accurately reporting on the impact different marketing channels are having will be increasingly hard to achieve.

Andy Gaukrodger, search manager, Freestyle Interactive Ensuring that we have an in-depth understanding and insight into audiences,

their changing behaviours, their media consumption patterns, and the way they interact on a daily basis with their devices and networks – these insights are ever more important in search.

Tony Booth, senior PPC lead, Stickyeyes The main challenge is understanding which platforms are best suited to which

devices and when. We currently live in a dual screen society where users are on multiple devices throughout the day and in some circumstances at the same time. Therefore, it is key to understand how consumer behaviour differs per device, the

most cost effective channel to reach your target consumer, and target your service offering in order to maximise the opportunity window you have to obtain new consumers.

Tina Judic, managing director, Found That’s simple: cross device tracking and insight. Ultimately, the ability to join up data from different user sessions, sites

and devices and crunch it with the vast amount of data generated by social platforms is a solution everyone is vying for. The companies investing in buying or building software to provide them with an integrated view of all marketing channels will be handing their analysts with the most useful and actionable insight to gain a competitive advantage.

Rob Weatherhead, digital operations director, MediaCom The single biggest challenge and the easiest to pick up is tracking. How do

you know what a user’s path to conversion looks like when they may have used four devices in three different locations and there is no way of joining the dots? Google has tried to combat this by launching cross-device tracking for signed-in users, but this is only the tip of the iceberg. This solves the issue if you always sign in on every device to your Google account (Gmail, Google Play, Youtube etc), but how many people do that? If we take not provided data as a guide (the encrypted search data for signed-in users) then you could only expect this to cover a maximum of 25 per cent of people. So tracking is a big issue.

Mike McDougall, head of search, Blueclaw The proliferation of smartphones and tablets, and the different behavioural

patterns associated with them means search marketers are going to have to be responsive to data and trends.

Ensuring that your brand has a responsive site in place and is segmenting and adapting its approach across devices is vital to success – simply lumping devices and platforms together means you will likely miss important opportunities.

Jonathan Oates, research and development analyst, Click Consult In organic search, particularly on mobile devices where the results are biased

by location, performing consistently well across a variety of platforms will become more difficult. Marketers will need to consider not only multiple platforms but also devices that are aware of their location and create accessible, quality content available on a multitude of platforms aware of their user’s location.

Getting great content to work on multiple platforms is increasing tricky too; an app designed for the desktop is difficult to use on a mobile or single-serving microsites may work well on smaller, touch devices but perform poorly on desktops with retina displays with track pads and mouse pointers.

It’s challenging to build link worthy creative content that works consistently well regardless of the device or its capabilities.

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THE DRUM 15.MAR.13 www.thedrum.com Search 19

Could this be the year of decreased reliance on Google?

Jon Myers, VP, commercial director, EMEA, Marin Software Investment in Google continues to increase year-over-year and as

advertisers continue to generate a return that won’t change. However, new channels are growing with incremental budget from advertisers. For example, Facebook continues to see budgets, and more importantly for advertisers, click-through rates increase as it develops its mobile advertising offering. Socially enabled search opportunities through Facebook Graph Search will only enhance this. Channels such as retargeting and biddable display are also seeing investments increase. Advertisers need to understand how investments in these other publishers compliment search spend on Google in a path-to-conversion.

Tina Judic, managing director, Found Google always has and always will be a dominating force for the environment in which we operate. Although recent

developments including the launch of Facebook’s Graph Search have led many to begin to question its role going forward, I really don’t think there will be a fundamental decrease in wholesale reliance on this hugely influential industry partner.

Jonathan Oates, research and development analyst, Click ConsultIt’s Google’s business to be a dominant player in whatever we’re doing on the

web, but in terms of the data it provides, the analytics available to us as marketers, then yes; we anticipate a decreased reliance on that sort of information.

Google and its associated vendors are limiting the keyword data available in Google Analytics. This poses not only an immediate, but an increasingly problematic future in organic search. Though our qualified analysts are able to recover much of this data through filtered reports and expert knowledge, as less keyword data is made available, websites will become more reliant on an authoritative and visible brand across the web to perform in organic results.

Pete Young, search strategy and social director, MediaComWe are already seeing Google’s market share falling over the last couple of

months with Bing in particular making some encouraging progress in terms of market share from Google. However, those gains remain small, and Google still dominates just under 90 per cent of search queries undertaken on search engines, according to recent data from Experian. I would suggest we are unlikely to see that trend of small increases change during 2013, although I do expect to see Bing continue to make those small incremental gains on Google during 2013 and in the short to medium term. These are likely to be small and it will be a while until we see a viable competitor for Google – however, when that happens, in my opinion, it can only be a good thing.

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www.thedrum.com 15.MAR.13 THE DRUM20 Knowledge Bank

FUTURE SEARCH

BEHAVIOURS

CLICK CONSULTT - 0845 205 0292E- [email protected]

W - www.clickconsult.com- @ClickConsultLtd

As Bob Dylan once said: “the times they are a-changin’”. Search is becoming a more tailored experience to users. First, Google’s Search Plus Your World altered search results based on

your friends social involvement and now, with Foursquare and Google Now, search is becoming smarter and is fast approaching Star Trek territories of predicting what you want before you want it. The times of just inputting a search query and waiting for the results are quickly being left behind, but just how far will search go in the future?

In 2012, Google announced Glass, their sci-fi like HUD which provides a headset view of maps, allowing the wearer to read text messages, or capture their current view. Let’s think for a moment about where Google could take Glass in the future in terms of search.

Bill Slawski, of Seo by the Sea, discovered a Google patent that aims to create a searchable history of your life experiences. For example, you may want to fi nd that song you were listening to at a recent party. By using Google you’ll just be able to easily search for the specifi c track. They plan on doing this is by allowing Glass to auto-record based on the popularity of the location or by having the recording feature always on.

Now let’s focus on location-based recording for a moment. If you’re walking down the high street, Glass could automatically notify the wearer of a store that is having a sale based upon the number of users who have shared the sale online. Or maybe it is lunch time at the beach – Glass could suggest a few places to grab a snack while you catch some rays. This type of assumed search is not anything new; Foursquare’s Explore feature and Google Now do something very similar based upon the current time, location and weather. But with the integration of Glass, Google will be making your searching decisions before you’ve even thought of them.

You know that scene in Minority Report where Tom Cruise walks in to the shopping mall and all the adverts are tailored to him? With Glass and Google’s augmentation software, Goggles, it is perfectly possible to alter a user’s view of reality. Having products or companies remarketed to customers offl ine would be a massive step and could become an integral part of Google AdSense.

What about other Google products, such as Places or Shopping? In the future, you could be able to walk down the street and see at a glance the Google Places reviews for a cafe or search a store’s stock for a product you want before you even go in-store. All the technology for this exists today – it all just needs implementing correctly.

Moving away from Google Glass, how can search engines use what they already know about us? It’s no secret that Google have a pretty good idea of the demographics and interests of users, but they can take this further. Google Analytics is the world’s most popular traffi c analysis tool and is used throughout the web. If Google were to use this tool to track specifi c search journeys they could tailor searches to users. If you were browsing forums on how to fi x a broken TV, the next time you visit the search engine, the search term “TV repair <location>” could be automatically suggested to you.

Or what if it used your interests to tailor searches? You could have breaking tech news suggested to you if you’re someone who reads a lot of technology blogs. I believe Google would like to move in this direction with search, but it opens them up to all sorts of privacy concerns. Can a search engine know too much about you?

Taking into account everything above, how will this affect the marketers of the future? A company’s online presence will directly affect their offl ine activities (something that is currently kept fairly separate). Google Places will become a must, as will Google Shopping feeds to allow customers to search on the fl y for products based on their location. On the paid side, I can imagine Google introducing a paid service which allows businesses to bid on being featured in certain locations. ‘Pay Per Location’ could rival what is currently PPC in terms of profi t for Google.

While these thoughts and ideas could be considered

pretty farfetched, you only have to look how search has progressed in the past 15 years to see how quickly things have moved in that timeframe. If someone would have said ‘back in the day’ that you will be able to search through maps of the world and zoom in to street level, that your search results will be altered by what your friends like, and you could have your face appear next to something you have written in the SERPs, you’d probably have thought they were being pretty optimistic. Technology is changing the way we operate, but we’re all determining how technology evolves. Search is more than just inputting a query, and, as I have discussed, the future of search is bright and is ever evolving. Our only limitation is our imagination.

Dave Edwards, Research and Development Analyst, Click Consult

HOW TO GET THE MOST OUT OF PLAs

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THE DRUM 15.MAR.13 www.thedrum.com Knowledge Bank 21

MARIN SOFTWARET - 0845 262 0404E- [email protected]

W - www.marinsoftware.co.uk- @Marinsoftware

HOW TO GET THE MOST OUT OF PLAs

The transition of Google Shopping to the commercial advertising model of Product Listing Ads (PLAs) in the US in October 2012, has defi ed critics by emerging as an

undeniable success. A recent study by Marin Software revealed that the paid ads – which appear as image results in Google Search product listings within Google Shopping – have built a click share, as a percent of total search clicks, which increased by 210% since their launch. Marin also found that advertisers increased their share of search budgets directed towards PLAs by nearly 600% in the last quarter of 2012; as the impression share of PLAs jumped 60%, when holiday shoppers readily used the ads to guide their purchase decision-making. The positive performance of PLAs in the US is a development not to be ignored by UK advertisers, who can now take advantage of the image-centric advertising model after its international launch on February 13th. With the arrival of PLAs in the UK, Marin has channeled its insights to provide the following tips for getting the most out of Product Listing Ads.

1. Maintain a fresh ad feed: As the experience of advertisers in the US has demonstrated, the arrival of PLAs has made the freshness of an ad feed more important than ever. PLAs don’t simply amount to “set it and forget it” ad campaigns. In order to maximise the effectiveness of the PLA, advertisers must consistently maintain their feeds and optimise on their product targets. They should also deploy granular targets and, ideally, integrate an automated bidding solution into their system.

2. Use a high-quality image: As PLAs are image-centric, the use of accurate, illustrative, high-quality images is fundamental to their commercial effectiveness. When a consumer is searching online for a particular brand or product, the images they encounter must accurately represent the goods sought in order to maximise on the advertisement’s return. Also, images with contrasting colours will drive higher CTR.

3. Publish accurate price listings: The accurate publication of price listings is even more important as an aspect of PLAs than they are for standard text ads. This is because of the competitive nature of PLAs as an advertising model. Therefore, advertisers must ensure

that the visible price that accompanies their product is favorable or competitive in comparison to ads from other vendors.

4. Take a two-pronged approach: The arrival of PLAs provides advertisers with the opportunity to gain more real estate on the search engine results pages, by running both PLA and text ads – particularly during the uncertain bedding-in period when PLAs begin to affect customers’ behavior. This two pronged approach gives customers multiple opportunities to engage with an advertiser’s brand or product; and for the advertiser to increase their share of space on search engine results pages. However, in order to preserve or cultivate customer confi dence and loyalty, advertisers must keep promotions and product messaging consistent across all ad formats.

5. Employ long-tail search: Advertisers engaging with PLAs should foster long-tail search optimisation for their goods, as PLAs appear most frequently on long-tail search queries. They should prioritise the setting-up of PLA ads on more specifi c, long-tail product searches and achieve greater traffi c based on specifi c consumer searches – as opposed to generic search queries. Advertisers are more likely to match the right image and creative content with a customer’s query by focusing on this level of granularity. In addition, advertisers should use, as standard, keyword expansion tools to identify new long-tail keywords and so expand their PLA impressions.

6. Remember – it’s early days: It is important for advertisers to realise that the PLA, as an advertising model, is still in its infancy – and that this fact presents both opportunities and challenges. It is crucial for advertisers to begin by researching and testing PLAs in relation to creative composition, imagery, and pricing in order to gain a better understanding of how the format performs in terms of their brand and market. Advertisers should take a test, refi ne and test again approach to implementing PLA ads.

Jon Myers, VP, Commercial Director - EMEA, Marin Software

7%

6%

5%

4%

3%

2%

J F M A M J J A S O N D

% OF CLICKS VS TEXT ADS

The share of search clicks resulting from PLAs increased by 210% in the last year

7%

6%

5%

4%

3%

2%

J F M A M J J A S O N D

% OF IMPRESSIONS VS TEXT ADS

In the last quarter of 2012, the impression share of PLAs jumped 60% as holiday shoppers used the ads to make purchase decisions

“In Q4 2012, some retailers allocated as much as 30% of their spend to PLAs.” Marin Software

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www.thedrum.com 15.MAR.13 THE DRUM22 Knowledge Bank

sUccEEDing wiTH sEaRcH & social

Links have long been a cornerstone for assessing the theme and authoritativeness for search-engine results. The new link frontier for search-conscious marketers is

how to master the art of social link development, because the major search engines have declared that social links are increasingly becoming a critical signal in how digital assets are retrieved and ranked. To go even deeper with the concept of social signals, Copyblogger’s Sean Jackson says that reciprocating in social spaces creates a natural effect that benefits both your search and social presence.

“One of the best ways to get social links from social-media influencers is to contribute to their efforts. Commenting on their blogs, providing a guest post, helping connect them with other influencers, and interviewing them are just a few ways to open a line of communication,” he says. “Reciprocity is a very powerful motivator and by helping them, you, in turn, will find that they will want to help you.”

It really does not matter whether you call this new concept of social signals social link development, networked links, social linking, or some other term you prefer. The bottom line is that there has been a shift in the way that search engines process network signals to help inform their search results. For this discussion, I have loosely chosen to refer to this concept as social linking in order to better illustrate the concept.

In a way, this entire book is about social linking. Whenever you publish or engage in social spaces, a trail of new links (and also pages) is created wherever the conversation goes. Your social footprint ultimately leaves signals for search engines to use as a potential beacon for relevancy.

I hope by now you have gathered that social signals are creating new links and that having a positive social presence creates positive search visibility. I’ve talked a lot about the ways that social creates links for search, so in this section I will also ping some of the smartest minds in search and social to weigh in with their thoughts and help provide a more collective view on what social linking really is.

This section will better explain how your social efforts are helping search visibility by creating social-linking signals for search engines. This section will also help search-engine marketers make a stronger

case for integrating search and social efforts, especially because social has become integral to the bottom-line returns from the natural-search channel.

Good links come and go, and many social networks that were once the darlings of link-builders have fallen out of favour. Overall, the most sustainable approach to social link development is to create engaging content that people will want to link to and share in social spaces, without your having to ask or beg for a link.

There is a variety of links produced naturally in the major social networks (regardless of whether they are no followed). These include +1s, likes, retweets, shares, profile links, and networked links (top tweets, top shares in LinkedIn, and so on). Other link types include bookmarking sites, links mentioned in blog posts, links used in guest blog posts, enabling linkability by suggestion, and RSS subscriptions in Google feed readers.

Bing has direct access to Twitter and Facebook data at this writing, so they notably have exclusivity

to the social signals in these networks, measuring velocity, trust, and link associations between users and shared content on this network. As a result, they leverage these signals to impact the Bing social search experience and inform results based on the actions of people in your network. In cases where Bing does not have direct access (for example, Google+ social data), the signals are gathered from crawled pages and by identifying the data structure.

Google obviously has direct access to Google+ social data and uses it to inform the Google search results for its users. In other cases, Google is blocked from seeing some social content in both Twitter and Facebook, where Bing has direct access.

Search & Social is out now, published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Rob GarnerAuthor, Search and Social

If you would like a free copy of Search & Social by Rob Garner, tweet #iwantthatWileybook to @TheDrum. The first ten tweets will net a copy of the book. Remember to follow us so we can let you know if you are a winner!

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BRANDED3T - 01132 60 40 10E- [email protected]

W - www.branded3.com- @branded_3

E-COMMERCE SEO IN 2013

Ecommerce SEO has always been a huge challenge for retailers due to technical constraints with legacy IT systems and the sheer number of pages that businesses

with a large inventory of products are likely to have on their websites.

One of the key challenges retailers face in 2013 is the loss of free traffi c from the Google Shopping results that migrated onto the Adwords PPC platform recently. Plenty of retailers were driving signifi cant revenue from this platform and are now looking at traditional SEO to make up for the loss.

Retail SEO has always been about technical optimisation, content and links although not necessarily in that order of priority. In the past, websites have been able to use links to overcome problems with technology or even a lack of content, but since the unnatural link penalties and the Penguin algorithm

penalties of 2012, it’s much rarer that a site with poor content and structure can rank higher than it perhaps deserves, just by building lots of links.

Technical SEO for ecommerce sites is largely about limiting page bloat and ensuring that the pages you actually want to be indexed are spiderable and well optimised. It is rare that ecommerce sites need anything more than product and category pages, plus whatever editorial pages they feel are relevant in order to be a success. If you do a site:yoursite.com query on Google and are fi nding loads more pages than you have products and categories; then this is a warning sign that you have technical SEO issues. We tend to put each page type in a different Google Sitemap so that we can monitor indexation across product pages in isolation and spot any problems easily. Perhaps the most important consideration is creating a strong category structure.

Content strategy for ecommerce websites is a big undertaking, but is simply the most important part of SEO once the technical issues are resolved. Google launched its Panda algorithm in early 2011 and lots of ecommerce sites were affected simply because they were using duplicate content (e.g. manufacturer’s product descriptions) on their product pages. There are very few sites that can get away without writing unique content on product pages, and category level pages need even more care and attention with regard to content.

However, content strategy doesn’t end with product descriptions; we always recommend clients have a strong review strategy with a focus on incentivising all customers to leave a review after their purchase. Certain websites also achieve great success with Q&A content on product pages and the impact this can have on conversion rates is staggering. Other clients have done very well after adding an expert’s opinion next to each product, with a different writing style to the product description text.

The fi nal hurdle that ecommerce website owners need to cross, is understanding how to implement a safe and future-proof link strategy across so many product and category pages on a website. Most ecommerce sites have too many pages to worry about link building on a page-by-page basis which means a strategy of building the overall site trust and authority is the only way to proceed. Amazon has adopted this approach with great success along with most other large ecommerce sites.

The key point to note with an ecommerce link campaign is to focus category by category, so if you are selling TVs and washing machines you might do some online PR or blogger outreach to technology blogs one month and eco blogs the next month. Making outreach based on real product and business news is a far more natural approach than just placing links with no strategic vision.

Ecommerce SEO certainly isn’t easy, and the fact that there are often dozens of websites selling the same products at the same price makes it a real challenge to rank consistently higher than your competitors. Conversion rates are usually key to unlocking the potential of SEO because sites that convert better can allocate more marketing budget and often dominate the sector.

In 2013, SEO for large sites is only going to get more challenging, but major brands and savvy SME’s who have built a business via good quality SEO are being rewarded week after week as other sites drop down the rankings due to poor quality SEO or lack of content. We’re predicting even bigger changes in Google this year and, as ever, it will be the best sites that will win.

Patrick AltoftDirector of Search, Branded3

SUCCEEDING WITH SEARCH & SOCIAL

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