‘google’ Posts
At Last! Week and Month Views in Google Analytics
Friday, April 4th, 2008
Just launched in beta is week and month views on the data. So glad for this as it was something I had asked some of the Analytics team that I met with last year.
Tags: analytics, google
Posted in analytics, Web | 1 Comment »
Google AdWords Display URL Policy Hasn’t Taken Effect…yet
Friday, April 4th, 2008
According to Google the change in display URL policy was meant to come into effect on the 1st of April 2008. Now its the 4th of April and I am still seeing ads with an invalid display url.
In New Zealand and searching for plumbers
When clicking through this ad it takes you to “http://sites.yellow.co.nz/site/tricklebanks/”
The display url is missing the .nz, allowing them to run multiple ads for the one keyword. This is what the policy change was to eliminate, wasn’t it?
I’d like to hear your views on this.
Tags: adwords, google, google adwords
Posted in advertising, search, Web | No Comments »
Google AdWords All Messed Up
Thursday, March 6th, 2008
Sometimes people get the fundamentals of keyword insertion so wrong when creating ads for google adwords. I have seen this done a few times, usually it is because the dynamic keyword insertion hasn’t been implemented correctly.
This is such a bad look. Especially when you get some high profile site such as compete.com. The good thing about this is it makes the rest of us look good. 🙂
Another fundamental issue that I see all the time is when the display url isn’t consistant with the destination page. This here is going to catch so many people out when Google update their display URL policy on April the 1st.
Sometimes the little things count for so much.
Tags: adwords, google, google adwords
Posted in advertising, search, Web | No Comments »
Google Chat Now On My Blog
Wednesday, February 27th, 2008
With the new development for google talk you can now chat to me online. Just click my little speach bubble to the right ->
Be interesting to see how long it stays on the site
Edit: Removed as it wasn’t working well
Tags: chat, google, google talk
Posted in Ramblings | No Comments »
Does Google Love You?
Monday, January 21st, 2008
How can you tell how well Google likes your site?
I use these 3 quick indicators to assess how Google see’s your site. Especially useful when starting out optimising a website.
Pages Indexed
A simple Google search will instantly give you an indication of how well your site is recieved by Google.
Depending on the nature of the site and the actual number of pages contained on the site, the closer the number of pages contained within googles index and the actual number of pages on the site the better. This shows the extent of the information on the site that Google has reached.
Cache Date
I always use the homepage as an indicator here. After doing a site seach click on the cached link below your homepage result. This will bring up Googles cache of your homepage. This shows us the latest date that Google had cached the homepage.
PageRank
The most basic and easily accessible piece of information from google. Looking at the Google pagerank contained in the Google toolbar gives an indication of link popularity to the page being viewed.
Comparison
Using these indicators can give you an indication of how your site compares to others and which area’s are either doing well or that need to be worked on to better your site and Googles relationship
How do you compare? I’m interested to hear your views, feel free to post comments on your experience
Tags: google, seo
Posted in seo | 4 Comments »
Google Webmaster Tools New Functionality
Monday, December 17th, 2007
With the release of some new functionality in Google Webmaster Tools I had to check it out. If found there to be some very useful information.
- You can now see issues regarding issues with title tags or descriptions. From indicating on long/short tags, missing or duplicate. Basically saving you time on checking these yourself.
- We can also see more information on the xml sitemap, from telling you the number of urls in the sitemap through to the number of pages indexed from the sitemap. Very valueable information for any SEO
I’m interested in seeing whats next on the cards for Google Webmaster Tools
Tags: google, sitemaps
Posted in seo | No Comments »
My Favourite Google Search Function “intitle”
Friday, November 9th, 2007
You can find just about anything on the internet through Google.
Including:
- PDF’s
- Mp3’s
- Movies
- iso’s
- and more…
Using a simple search string you can get results that you’re after:
“{Search Text}” intitle:index.of {file type} -html -htm -php -asp -txt -pls
e.g. “britney spears” intitle:index.of mp3 -html -htm -php -asp -txt -pls
Depending on what you’re searching for it can return a lot of results that you may need to scan through to find what you’re after. Usually you’ll find what you’re after
Happy searching
Tags: google, search
Posted in search | 3 Comments »
8 Valueable Adwords Tips
Thursday, November 8th, 2007
1, Sales, Traffic or?
Define on the purpose of the adwords account. Having a defined goal gives you something to work towards and aid in how you go about things.
2, Track Results
Use website analytics to track the account. This is extremely important as it will show if the goal is being achieved. You should be able to tell which campaigns, adgroups and keywords are your most valueable.
3, Create Tightly Themed Adgroups
Doing so will increase the quality of the ads and help the quality score resulting in lower CPCs and higher placement.
4, Optimise the Destination Page for the Keywords in the Adgroup
Doing the basics of on-page-optimisation will help increase the quality of the ads and help the quality score resulting in lower CPCs and higher placement.
5, Don’t go for top spot
Aiming high is a cause for inflated cost per clicks. My experience shows that being placed around 3-4 give a much better quality of visitor and increases the chances of better ROI.
6, Incorporate a Call to Action
The creative needs to be written in a way to coach potiential customers into completing a goal once the click has been receive.
7, Add Keyword Insertion into the Ad Creatives
The use of keyword insertion helps to increase the click through rate. Increasing the click through rate helps to increase the quality score of the ad.
8, Create Multiple Ad Creatives
Testing variations of ad creative will help you get the best from your campaign. With tracking in place you will be able to make strategic decisions on which creative is working best based on results.
Tags: adwords, google, google adwords
Posted in advertising | 1 Comment »
Google Sitelinks – New and Improved
Wednesday, November 7th, 2007
For sites lucky enough to have sitelinks in Google. I found this interesting article.
For those that don’t know. Sitelinks are links that show up below a listing when a site name is searched. Like this search. Unfortunately this only happens for some sites and the links only show up if Google identifies important pages through their algorithm.
Anyway recently Google increased the number of links from 4 to 8, what that means for sites that have these links is more exposure, more chances people are going to land on the different pages when performing the search.
But what happens if the links they identified are not in your site or visitors best interest?
Well Google has released a tool in google webmaster tools that allows you to block links from showing. This will help you to improve these links.
Tags: google, seo, sitelinks
Posted in seo | No Comments »
Google Analytics Now With Site Search Tracking
Monday, November 5th, 2007
Google has just announced that the site search tracking is now available in analytics. See here
This new functionality adds more power to the free service and allows the ability to see:
- When visitors use site search
- How visitors who search compare with those that don’t
- Which search terms get used
- Which dragon city hack categories visitors search on
- Where the visitors start there search
- Which pages visitors find
I look forward to implementing and really investigating this feature as the more you track the more you can know about your site and your visitors
Tags: analytics, google, tracking, visitor tracking, website tracking
Posted in analytics | Comments Off on Google Analytics Now With Site Search Tracking