Category Archives: SEO Tips

Google Confirms “Mayday” Update Impacts Long Tail Traffic

Posted on by poonambhatt

Google made between 350 and 550 changes in its organic search algorithms in 2009. This is one of the reasons I recommend that site owners not get too fixated on specific ranking factors. If you tie construction of your site to any one perceived algorithm signal, you’re at the mercy of Google’s constant tweaks. These frequent changes are one reason Google itself downplays algorithm updates. Focus on what Google is trying to accomplish as it refines things (the most relevant, useful results possible for searchers) and you’ll generally avoid too much turbulence in your organic search traffic.

Google Makes One Change Per Day To Search Algorithm

Google’s Matt Cutts just posted a video on YouTube answering the question, “how many search algorithm changes were made in 2009?” In response to that question, Matt said Google likely makes a change per day to the search algorithm. They don’t necessarily release those changes each day, but they will release them in batches. But overall, he hopes to average at least one change per day to the algorithm. He said in 2009, they probably had between 350 to 400 or so changed to the search algorithm.

A few months ago we covered a Wired story on Google’s algorithm where Udi Manber, Google’s head of search said Google has introduced 550 “improvements” to the search algorithm in the past year alone. So I guess Matt was being conservative with his math?

Here is the video:

However, sometimes a Google algorithm change is substantial enough that even those who don’t spend a lot of time focusing on the algorithms notice it. That seems to be the case with what those discussing it at Webmaster World have named “Mayday”.  This is an algorithmic change in Google, looking for higher quality sites to surface for long tail queries. It went through vigorous testing and isn’t going to be rolled back. It was a rankings change, not a crawling or indexing change, which seems to imply that sites getting less traffic still have their pages indexed, but some of those pages are no longer ranking as highly as before.
Based on Matt’s comment, this change impacts “long tail” traffic, which generally is from longer queries that few people search for individually, but in aggregate can provide a large percentage of traffic.

This change seems to have primarily impacted very large sites with “item” pages that don’t have many individual links into them, might be several clicks from the home page, and may not have substantial unique and value-added content on them. For instance, ecommerce sites often have this structure. The individual product pages are unlikely to attract external links and the majority of the content may be imported from a manufacturer database. Of course, as with any change that results in a traffic hit for some sites, other sites experience the opposite.

Based on Matt’s comment at Google I/O, the pages that are now ranking well for these long tail queries are from “higher quality” sites (or perhaps are “higher quality” pages).

Before, pages that didn’t have high quality signals might still rank well if they had high relevance signals. And perhaps now, those high relevance signals don’t have as much weight in ranking if the page doesn’t have the right quality signals.

What’s a site owner to do? It can be difficult to create compelling content and attract links to these types of pages. My best suggestion to those who have been hit by this is to isolate a set of queries for which the site now is getting less traffic and check out the search results to see what pages are ranking instead. What qualities do they have that make them seen as valuable? For instance, how amazon.com has faired during this update, but they’ve done a fairly good job of making individual item pages with duplicated content from manufacturer’s databases unique and compelling by the addition of content like of user reviews.

They have set up a fairly robust internal linking (and anchor text) structure with things like recommended items and lists. And they attract external links with features such as the my favorites widget.

From the discussion at the Google I/O session, this is likely a long-term change so if your site has been impacted by it, you’ll likely want to do some creative thinking around how you can make these types of pages more valuable (which should increase user engagement and conversion as well).

Update on 5/30/10: Matt Cutts from Google has posted a YouTube video about the change. In it, he says “it’s an algorithmic change that changes how we assess which sites are the best match for long tail queries.” He recommends that a site owner who is impacted evaluate the quality of the site and if the site really is the most relevant match for the impacted queries, what “great content” could be added, determine if the the site is considered an “authority”, and ensure that the page does more than simply match the keywords in the query and is relevant and useful for that query.

He notes that the change:

  • has nothing to do with the “Caffeine” update (an infrastructure change that is not yet fully rolled out).
  • is entirely algorithmic (and isn’t, for instance, a manual flag on individual sites).
  • impacts long tail queries more than other types
  • was fully tested and is not temporary

10 Easy Ways to Optimize Your PPC Landing Pages & Increase Conversions

Posted on by poonambhatt

It’s common knowledge that a professional website design can increase conversion rates and sales.  A professional website design ensures trust and credibility with your users. But website design and landing pages can play a part not just in SEO, but in PPC too.

Actually, there is an entire procedure to optimize PPC campaigns including writing successful  PPC Ad Copy, Optimizing Your AdWords Campaigns Now, back to PPC landing page optimization.  The tactics I describe in this post will not only improve your Quality Score which can increase your ad position for a lower cost, but can also help convert more people that come to your website.

Now, I will admit that most of these tips are for lead generation, not all of these tips would apply to an ecommerce website.

  • Minimal Navigation – The key to successful PPC landing pages is keep the user to from getting too distracted.  Remove the top, left or right hand navigation from your main site on your PPC landing pages. Simply have your company logo at the top left of the page with a link to your homepage.  That will be enough for people to click on if they need more information before converting.
  • Important information above the fold – Some people who are searching for a service like yours are sometimes in a hurry. If they enter your landing page and don’t see what they need to do within the first 5 seconds, they’re likely to bail.  Be sure that your call to action, button, or form is above the fold.  Be sure to check Google analytics to see what resolution size the majority of your users are currently using. This will help your designers make the important information above the fold for most of your users.
  • Easy-to-scan copy – I’ve worked on clients before that use way too much industry language in their PPC landing pages.  You have to think that if an executive is looking for a service they’re likely to ask their assistant, intern or even a receptionist to do research before they engage in anything. While the executive may know all the industry jargon the assistant or intern may not.  Also, these people who are searching for many companies are in a hurry, and simply just scan the copy on your landing page and don’t necessarily read through it all the way. So break up your copy into several paragraphs instead of one large paragraph. And I like to use the rule of thumb to put your benefits or advantages of choosing your company in a bullet list or numbered list so it stands out more prominently.
  • Few images to convey professionalism – Some PPC landing pages I have seen have a lot of well, dorky images that don’t convey any professionalism whatsoever.  This can really turn off a potential client and make you look untrustworthy.  Have one to 2 images on your PPC landing pages that show professional looking people, smiling as if they have just engaged in yoru services and are incredibly happy.  Also having too many images on your PPC landing page will make your load times longer.
  • Fast loading times – One factor of the Google Adwords Quality Score is the load times of your pages. If it takes more than 10 seconds to fully load your pages that’s way too long. It should take less than 5 seconds. Large flash files, too many images, or animated graphics could hinder your fast load times. Also, if I have to wait for a flash animation to load before I can get information about your services, I’m more than likely not going to stick around or come back.
  • Dynamic headlines – Using dynamic headlines on your PPC landing pages is a great way to better target what the user is actually typing in the search box.  Dynamic headlines are generated by tracking URLs that will insert the specific keyword into the headline. This is like using dynamic keyword insertion in your PPC ads, only it’s for your landing pages. If the page headline is more targeted to what the user typed in the search, they’re much more likely to continue reading and complete an action.
  • PPC keywords in your landing page copy – Many people think this is only true for SEO, but you still need to include your PPC keywords in the copy of your PPC Landing page. This will not only help improve your Quality Scores, but will also help your users connect better to your copy.
  • Short contact form – You could potentially be driving away qualified leads by having a contact form that is too long. If your contact form is running below the fold, it’s too long. You should be able to see the ‘submit’ button above the fold.  Look at your current forms and only require the information you truly need. If someone sees a very long form, they may think, ‘This is going to take too long to fill out’ and could possibly skip that process altogether.
  • No Clutter – This is really a no-brainer, but unfortunately too many people make the mistake of dumping too much content on their PPC landing pages.  You should have one main goal of your PPC landing page, not 3, 4 or 5.  Remove any extra copy that isn’t necessarily useful to the user.  Remove any unnecessary images or icons.

    If you need any persuasion to make changes to your existing landing pages, just take this for an example:  if you were to make changes on your landing pages, and increase your conversion rates by .5%, add that to your current sales and see how much of an increase that is. You would be surprised how much additional revenue .5% would drive.

    If you have any additional PPC landing page tips that will help increase conversions that I have not mentioned feel free to add them in the comments section!

    URLs and SEO: SEO Best Practices for URL Structure

    Posted on by poonambhatt

    URLs and SEO: Various Strategies for URL File Names: Below are various strategies for URL file naming.

    1. Why do we care?

    URL is undoubtedly one of the most important aspects that affect both SEO and usability.

    It affects:

    • Rankings (placing keywords in the file path is one of the most effective ways to make the keywords more prominent);
    • Click-through: a “clear”, “readable” URL can be another reinforcement signal for the user to click it;
    • Usability: a good “obvious” URL helps the user understand what the page is about even before entering the page.

    2. Keywords in the file name

    There is no doubt that keywords in the URL matter (so far they even matter a lot). However this doesn’t mean that you need to stuff your URLs with only keywords. The best practices would be:

    • Keywords in the file path occur naturally;
    • Keywords in the file path help make the URL easier comprehensible and memorable;
    • URLs do not consist of only keywords: here’s a good point expressed by Onreact in his post on top 10 fatal URL design mistakes:

      Recently bloggers tend to shorten their URLs in as much as their posting becomes totally boring. I won’t click /2008/06/27/google if I see only the URLs (like, say, in an email) but I will click google-files-for-bankrupcy

    3. Word separators

    While Google has become much smarter when it comes to identifying separate words in the file path, a dash is still considered the best choice:

    Word separator Disadvantages Example
    Space URL encoded as %20 (makes the URL not easy to read). This may also prevent from sharing the URL in some social bookmarking services. /word1%20word2
    & URL encoded as %26 (makes the URL not easy to read). This may also prevent from sharing the URL in some social bookmarking services. /word1%26word2
    Comma (,) or period (.) Abused by spammers /word1.word2 OR /word1,word2
    Underscore Traditionally it isn’t seen by search engines as a word separator (this is slowly changing now) /word1_word2
    Hyphen NONE /word1-word2

    4. URL length

    While it is still considered the best practice to stick to shorter URLs, the factor is becoming less and less important:

    • Usability: Very few people manually type a URL in the address bar. They either use bookmarks or search history (e.g. FireFox / Chrome smart address bar that shows URLs while you start typing the title of the page) or just use Google to find the page again;
    • SEO: Google can handle very long URLs (though it is still rumored that it prefers short URLs, I personally don’t see any big difference);
    • Click-through: Google now breaks long URL in SERPs smartly: it only shows the parts which use the search term or even substitutes the URL with breadcrumbs.

    5. Case sensitivity

    We have discussed this before: URLs are case sensitive. That being said, if you have two versions of the URL live and linked to (which is only possible if your site is on Windows server), this means that both lower- and higher-case URL versions return 200 OK status when queried. This will cause some duplicate content issues but Google will most likely be able to figure that out (by choosing one of them). What’s more important is that you are wasting plenty of link juice spreading it between the two versions.

    It is recommended to always choose lowercase pattern (just because there will always be people who will link to a more traditional, plain-text version) and to use 301 status code to redirect all other (capitalized, upper-case, etc) versions to the lowercase one.

    6. URL Extensions

    We’ve discussed URL extensions previously and come to the conclusion that it doesn’t matter too much if an URL have one or not. There are some pros and cons (listed below) but these are rather minor arguments:

    Argument for using an extension: intuitive browsing: seeing an .htlm people may understand that is a page with content, seeing / people may assume that’s a folder. Although there is no direct impact on rankings, an URL extension makes it clear both to a user and a search bot whether this is a page or subdirectory.

    Arguments against using an extension:

    • Reduce the overall URL length, which is just better overall. Not that the 4/5 characters that are in the .html or .php really add a lot, but sometimes small things can make a difference.
    • No problems with any technology changes (moving to anew CMS, etc): no need to redirect the old URLs to the new ones.

    7. More URL tips:

    • Cool URIs don’t change
    • Don’t put dates in the URL.