While the Royal Wedding was excitingly romantic and the Occupy Movement was, well, less than moving, these happenings did not earn spots in the Top 10 Internet Marketing Happenings in 2011.  The ten things that did rock the internet marketing world this year, starting with number 10 are…

10. Going Mobile

From Androids to iPhones and tablets to eReaders, the availability of “smart” devices is increasing almost daily.  With more hand-held and portable options, mobile searching in 2011 is way up! The downfall to this increase is the negative reflection you may see in your analytics’ bounce rate given that many websites have yet to accommodate to the mobile trend with a mobile website design.

9. Plus One it

Though it’s incredibly difficult to compete with the social giant that is Facebook, Google is giving it a pretty good stab with the Google+ network. In 2011, Google+ went from invite-only mode to public, and now boasts over 62 million members.  With social signals becoming an increasingly important ranking factor, the 2011 addition of a search engine powered social network without-a-doubt makes the list.

Image provided by Bruce Clay, Inc.

8. Facebook Timeline

We love to hate it but it happens anyway – Facebook rolled out yet another major change to its design and function in 2011.   New partnerships with other online media organizations and an increase of sharing vocabulary that goes beyond the traditional “Like”, makes this new version of Facebook even more valuable to the social media marketing world.

7. The Not-So-Cute-And-Cuddly Panda

How could the Google update that seemed to last all year long not make the Top 10 Internet Industry list? The Panda update impacted nearly 35% of search queries this year and made it quite evident that Google plans to enforce the notion that “content is King”. While it is almost certain history will continue to repeat itself with 500 or so Google algorithm changes in the New Year, the bizarre impact of Panda that plummeted rankings of sites like today.com will not be soon forgotten.

Image provided by Michelle Grimord Egger

6. Keep it Fresh

Just after the dreaded Panda update, the Freshness update comes in at number six. This change spurred on an increase in blogging and social outreach that constantly attempted to add current, relevant information to websites in an attempt to grab those “fresh” ranking spots. The 2011 Freshness Update could be a double edged sword: while qualified current posts may be rewarded with higher rankings, over-shared and under-qualified content won’t be so lucky.

5. End of an Apple Era

October 5, 2011, the world was robbed of a truly unique mind. Steve Jobs forever left his mark on not only the music industry, but in the Internet sphere as well. With such Apple creations as the iPhone family and the birth of the iPad, Jobs pioneered a competitive market focused on innovation, spawning others into the creation of competing smartphones and tablets. As this post is being written on an iPad, my preference and appreciation of Mr. Jobs’ brilliance is quite tangible and deserving of the Top 10 list.

Image provided by David Gomez-Rosado

4. Analytics, analytics, analytics

Another Google change makes the list, no surprise. The global search engine recently introduced “Real Time” analytics as well as a Visitor Flow filter letting SEOs drill deep down into traffic sources finding more, powerful information. Of course, with great power and information comes great responsibility – “Real Time” data shows the impact of online efforts more or less instantly which could easily tempt those with a weaker constitution to overdo it, especially in the social sphere.

3. “Bloggers Beware”

As if losing a $2.5 million libel suit wasn’t enough, Crystal Cox, an investigative blogger, lost the journalistic right to Shield Law. Big deal? Yeah big deal! In denying Crystal Cox the right to withhold the identity of her confidential source of information, Judge Marco Hernandez began drawing a deeper line between online publication and offline publication. This could be the beginning of a slippery slope where online journalists continue losing the rights guaranteed to print media journalists.  Are bloggers journalists that should be protected as such? 2011 suggests not.

 
Internet Blacklist Legislation, SOPA, H.R. 3261…call it what you want, it is censorship. In an attempt to protect the capitalist ideas of our country by working to prevent online piracy, the bill potentially gives private companies and the government an amount of power to block or remove “questionable” content that is borderline unconstitutional. This legislation will force every person to reconsider what he or she posts online and have us typing on eggshells!
Image provided by Katie Tegtmeyer

1. SEO’s Living Nightmare

From bad to worse, the biggest 2011 change for the Internet industry is the introduction of secure Google searching and the disappearance of up to 20% of search data…“[not provided]”. While searchers logged in to Gmail or Google+ can enjoy the options of blocking or sharing sites with the +1 feature, SEO practitioners are not so lucky. Now instead of seeing completely useful analytics for the actual keywords leading traffic to a site, the troublesome “[not provided]” pops up at the top of the list. Getting creative with segments and filters can still give back some insights into the mysterious data, but until you see how keywords are performing in AdWords, your guess is as good as mine!

There you have it, the Internet’s Top Hits of 2011. Whether you agree or disagree (and please, let me know!), here’s hoping to positive changes in 2012 that will far outweigh the negative ones. Happy New Year!
Image provided by SpaPax

Do you currently feature an internal site search for your visitors? And if you do, are you sure you’re taking advantage of its potential? What you may not realize is how valuable it can be for your SEO and PPC campaigns and, more importantly, your website’s conversion rate.

As an SEO and PPC manager, I’m often asked how I begin my keyword research process. While it’s difficult to break it down to an exact formula,  since each website is circumstantial, regardless of the website, I always do my due diligence on what visitors are looking for upon entry and when browsing that particular site. Doing this puts me in the proper mindset to understand the most useful keywords to the site and to its visitors. How do I do this? Naturally the keyword traffic sources report is quite helpful, but one extremely valuable report that I find is often overlooked is the internal site search tracking report in Google Analytics.

Having this internal search data helps a great deal when it comes to setting up an effective campaign. When this reporting functionality is set up properly in advance, I know I have a solid foundation to the SEO or PPC keyword list. By understanding how your visitors who are engaged on your site (as opposed to simply landing on your site and may end up bouncing anyway) perform searches, you can have a better understanding of keywords you should be targeting with an SEO or PPC campaign.

Besides the keyword data, an internal site search has plenty of other advantages as well. Because so many sites offer this option and with expectations set by popular search engines, users have become acclimatized to the idea of search quickly providing exactly what they are looking for. They count on search for immediate and accurate results.

Visitors to your website should be able to find exactly what they’re looking for as quickly and efficiently as possible. Bridging the gap between your visitors and the information on your site is made possible with the implementation of a site search.

In fact, many companies claim that search is the primary means of navigation on their site while a large percentage of web users admit to using site search to find the information they need – many who admit to abandoning a site with poor search functionality. By connecting your visitors to products and information quickly and easily, you increase the likelihood they will perform a desired action on your site. This can even reduce customer service costs by connecting users to the product and service support information they need.

Benefits of Site Search

Do you want:

• An increase in revenue?

• An increase in conversions?

• Increased average order size and value?

• Increased frequency of purchases?

• A decrease in bounce rate?

• Increased cross-sell and up-sell opportunities?

•An increase in the length of each visit?

• A solid foundation to your keyword list?

Performing Site Search

Here’s an example. Our site search on webpagefx.com provides visitors with a whole page of results based on what they are looking for. For example, I typed in email design in our search, of which elicited an entire page of web pages on our site that mention our email design services. This is extremely beneficial not only for our users, but for us as well. By looking at the data, we know that users were either 1) interested in our email design services, 2) were not aware that we offered such a service or 3) could not find it on our site as efficiently as they would have liked.

Setting Up Site Search Analytics

Configuring the tracking is easy.

In Google Analytics, simply navigate to your profile settings and main website profile information.

Here is what you’ll see:

Or if you are in the old version of Google Analytics, you’ll see this:

Obviously, you’ll want to mark “do track site search.” Then the query parameter is what Google should look for when determining the search query. It’s easy to figure out what yours is, simply perform a search and look for your search query.

When you perform a site search on webpagefx.com for example, it will elicit a URL like this:

http://www.webpagefx.com/search-results.html?cx=001301597750837549631%3Apftfbnocxlm&cof=FORID%3A11&ie=UTF-8&q=email+design&sa=Search&siteurl=www.webpagefx.com%2Fsearch.html#920

Look confusing? Allow me to break it down for you. All you need to know is the search query parameter. You can find this by finding your search query (“email design”) in the URL string and looking at the parameter directly in front of it. In this instance it is the “q=”, in other words, “query=”. The ‘+’ simply represents a space. This tells me that the query parameter in Google should be set to “q” – as we’ve done.

Reading and Acting on Your Site Search Data

Once it’s implemented and you’ve acquired some data, navigate to the content section in your Analytics  to the site search “search terms” report. This report provides you with the exact search query users typed in when taking advantage of this additional feature on your site. Simply drilldown to Site Search > Search Terms (illustrated below):

And in the old version of Google Analytics:

And there you have it, an entire list of search terms your visitors used not to find your site, but to find information within your site.

From there, you can drilldown to see which page those users found the most relevant and voila, you have the information you need to know which page should be ranking in Google and the other search engines for that specific search term.

Are You Turning Away Potential Customers?

I’m not saying it’s absolutely paramount to have site search functionality on your site, especially if your site has very few pages, but I’m also not saying there aren’t ramifications to not having one.

This data is incredibly valuable, and by neglecting its implication, you’re ignoring visitor feedback readily available to you. It can certainly provide actionable data well beyond keywords to use in your SEO and PPC campaigns.

Understanding how users interact with your site can do wonderful things for your conversion rate. If a particular search query is searched often, you may be able to conclude that 1) information on that particular product or service is not easy to find or does not provide enough information to your visitors or 2) that a large percentage of your visitors are looking for that product or service in particular when they browse your site. You can then use this as actionable data to provide either more information or making that information more obvious in the navigation. Keep in mind some users automatically perform a site search as a part of their nature regardless of how easy it is to find what they’re looking for. However, if there are dozens of searches for one particular product, that should certainly tell you something.

If your online store has hundreds of products, you may want to consider implementing a site search to help your customers find what they need quickly. I truly believe if you have an ecommerce store, particularly with hundreds or thousands of products, if you don’t provide your visitors with a site search and they can’t find what they’re looking for in a matter of seconds, they will be onto the next site that is easier to navigate. The implementation of a site search can help your online shoppers quickly filter through thousands of products in a matter of a few mouse clicks.

Let’s face it, these days people are impatient and lazy and don’t want to search for anything, and if they can save time to get what they’re looking for faster, they’ll do it. Can you really blame them?

Users aren’t used to having to manually search through hundreds of category listings to find what they want. When they are ready to make a purchase, they know exactly what they want. Why not help your visitors out and help them find what they’re looking for faster, letting them make a purchase from you before they become frustrated and leave?

Perhaps you’ve tested versions upon versions of your main navigation, and you have the best navigation you could possibly have. While that’s all well and good, there are still some users who are accustomed to always using the site search because they know what they’re looking for and they want to get there fast. Even with a smaller inventory or amount of pages, your navigation could suffice, but why not offer this functionality to users who look for it?

As on online retailer, you can benefit greatly from this simple addition to your site by experiencing increased conversion rates, increased average order value and increased customer loyalty. By implementing a site search, you can also decrease the likelihood of visitors abandoning your site upon entry and possibly downgrade that pesky bounce rate. Site search helps shoppers find the product they’re looking for much more quickly and efficiently, significantly increasing their satisfaction and likelihood to ultimately make a purchase. If site visitors can find what they are looking for quickly and easily, they are much more likely to make a purchase. On the other side of the spectrum, they are more likely to abandon the process and try another site if they can’t find what they need within a few minutes.

Within the site search results, you can also index an entire directory of products relating to the user’s search query, which could potentially increase the user’s order value. This encourages browsing-to-buying behavior, which can certainly increase your conversion rate. And by offering highly personalized search and recommendations to a specific shopper, advanced site search can help increase customer loyalty.

Make Sure It Works For You and Not Against You

Substandard internal search results equate to lost sales. Your visitors often do not have the time (or want to take the time for that matter) or the patience to try different variations of search keywords and phrases.  If you currently have a site search in place, it’s possible that it is too basic and actually frustrating your visitors or providing inaccurate information. You want to ensure your site search has the ability to understand typos, spelling errors, synonyms and ambiguous search queries. Search functions have the tendency to elicit the “no matches found” result simply due to common blunders like spelling errors for products that are actually carried. When this happens, many users become irritated and ultimately end up abandoning a site altogether. Make sure you’re not losing potential customers because they are provided with inaccurate information upon searching your site!

Are you taking full advantage of the site search functionality on your website?

Facebook’s platform has allowed thousands of companies to get a piece of the “social media” pie where a Facebook fan is said to be worth $8 and the value of having a fan share your company’s content on Facebook is worth $14. A “fan goal” looms over any business present on Facebook. Having more fans not only improves your company’s “social status,” it increases the interactions on your Page and the chance of those fans sharing your content.

Hands down, the most common question we get is “How do we increase our Facebook fans?” There are a million and a half ways to do this, but we’ve come up with a few specific methods that generate lots of quality fans without breaking the bank. Below are a few specific examples from one of the Facebook pages that we manage.

However, there is only so much that businesses can do to drive fan numbers on Facebook. The usual Facebook Ad campaigns, although important for growing Facebook awareness, may sometimes seem stale. Companies and marketers across the globe struggle to gain a solid ROI from Facebook Ads. According to Webtrends, an average Facebook ad click is now up to $1.07. That is $1.07 per fan, which Mashable.com reports, was an increase of 40% for 2011.

Non-Profit Outreach

We recently launched a Facebook initiative where every new fan for our client’s Facebook Page turns into a donated $.10 to a national non-profit organization. We chose an organization that had a great following, a nationally recognized name and the same values as our client’s company – and voila! The results have been outstanding!

Before the promotion launched, the Page had 4,301 fans. During the first 22 days of the initiative, the page has gained 1,720 new fans. We are now at 6,021 and growing at a rate of almost 700 fans per week.

Let’s say, based on the current rate, we gain 25,000 fans in six months. The organization will receive a check for $2,500 and, at only $0.10 cents per fan, our client will have a fan base of people who share their values and who will build an active online community with each other. Everybody wins!

Acquiring fans for $0.10 is a lot more cost effective than Facebook Ads. This non-profit outreach lessens the reliance on ads and allows Page managers to utilize the social channel itself to gain fans.

Effective Facebook Ads

Admittedly, a Facebook ad campaign is running for this Page as well. While Facebook Ads might not be the most cost effective promotion tactic, you can’t just ignore them either!

Currently, one ad is running to complement the promotion and it has contributed 661 fans in the 23 days. The most effective ads include the Like button directly on the ad, which allows users to like your Page without stopping what they are doing on Facebook. Effective ads also include a call to action, most commonly including a line that states “Like this Page” or “Like us on Facebook” to encourage users to click the Like button.

Social calls-to-action

A very important part of the campaign’s landing page is the ability for users to share the idea on their own Facebook wall to let their friends know about this easy way to raise money for a cause. A number of people have shared the page with friends and, in turn, increased our client’s social reach. Similarly, there is an option on the landing page to “Tell your friends” which opens a window showing all of a user’s Facebook friends which sends a private message for them to like the Page on a more individual basis.

Nothing is more powerful in social media than recommendations and suggestions by people you trust. Having direct and clear social calls-to-action on the page provides a simple way for users to get involved and engage in a cause that they are passionate about. Regardless of industry, there are passionate people willing to share your brand’s message online. You just need to find a way to capture and engage with that passion through your social media campaign.

A win-win!

The crux of this promotion tactic is simple: like the Facebook page and the company will donate $.10 per new fan to a related non-profit organization. It has worked to increase fans in a cost effective way while also promoting the brand to a new audience of people. Non-profit promotion through social media leverages passion and naturally encourages users to share with their friends. It also helps build a community of like-minded and caring people that will become brand advocates and fuel a successful social media campaign for a long time.

Photo by Mooi