An SEO and PPC competition is running from January next year with the entrants judged over a one year period. I’m not entering (for a start the entry fee is $5000 per category) but I’m interested in the criteria and the sample questions for a bit of self evaluation.

In the PPC category, entrants are judged on customer satisfaction, depth of knowledge, reporting methods, internal principles and competitive advantages.

There are sample questions here.

There is a great thread on cre8asite forums about creating user personas.

The discussion focuses on how to create a better website by thinking about the types of people who might visit the site. The technique is to invent a fictional person or persona for each type and then analyse how that person might interact with the site. The more real or fleshed out the persona, the better able you are to gain insights into what their experience might be on your site. You then use that information to improve the site and better cater for users’ needs.

That’s a quick summary and there are some good explanations and links to other resources in the thread.

Search marketers could benefit from applying this technique. Here are 10 thoughts.

1. People are at different stages in the buying cycle.
2. Each person will probably be doing multiple searches to find what they want. With each search they may learn something that has an influence on the next search.
3. People notice brand names familiar to them.
4. Some people are looking for aggregators first to make their task easier.
5. Often people get the comparison information they want from the aggregators and then seek more information from individual suppliers.
6. Some people ignore anything that they recognise as an ad.
7. Some people go straight to the ads particularly if they have previously found them more relevant to their needs than the organic results.
8. People trust authoritative sounding sites.
9. Some people will select video or images over text.
10. Some people are looking for free information and have no intention to buy.

Google has just introduced a new facility in Webmaster Central to record the geographic location of a website.

This could be useful for businesses in Australia because the majority of people here use Google Australia (google.com.au) and Australian websites rank highly compared with overseas ones.

The domain name is primarily used to determine the geographic location so a .com.au site is recognised as Australian. Other factors are also considered such as where the website is hosted. Problems arise when the domain is a .com and especially if it is hosted overseas. The new functionality will allow the correct geographic location to be recorded.

All good except I wonder if we’ll see increased competition in Google Australia and “pages from Australia”?

The new feature doesn’t allow multiple countries to be specified at the top level but it does allow a different country for a sub-domain. So, an overseas site can have www.something.com/australia.

I don’t know whether it will make any difference to the rankings but it will be easier for global companies to nominate a portion of content to be specifically targeted in Australia.

Vanessa Fox has all the details.

A month ago I noticed local business results appearing in Google Australia. I’ve been keeping a close eye on it and doing some analysis of the results to get a feel for when these results are coming up and clues to how they are ranked. It’s still unpredictable. For the same industry type the local business results appear for some locations and not others. What you see one day is often different from the next.

I saw local business results for a regional area as opposed to one postcode for the first time yesterday. The area was “Sunshine Coast” and for a variety of business types.

The first three results are clearly very advantageous for businesses. It usually means a spot right at the top of the organic listings with the added advantage of information such as the business phone number on display on the first page and more information such as reviews and images one click away.

Businesses that have detailed, consistent information in a variety of places are given prominence. Information types consist of an overview, details, reviews, photos and web pages. In all the examples I looked at, businesses that have a spread of information across these data types did the best. So businesses that have listings in several of the sources used by Google and also have photos and reviews are ranked highly.

Common reasons for not being present at all in the local business results are:

• The business details are not included in Google Maps Australia. The listings in Google Maps are currently provided by Truelocal so this generally means that the business isn’t listed in Truelocal.
• The business is in Truelocal but the business category is incorrect or the business isn’t listed in all relevant categories.
• There are inconsistencies with the business name and/or the address across multiple sources

I spoke with Truelocal today and was told that they have a data team currently cleaning up the categories and fixing errors. Individual businesses can call and get their listings updated and corrected where necessary. Businesses can also put their details into Google Maps Australia but there is a verification process and a 4 week time span to see the full details.

This week I searched for “mooloolaba accommodation” in Google Australia and was pretty excited to see local business results at the top of the organic results. This is the first time I’ve noticed local results in this onebox format and in this position. The Beach Club Mooloolaba are clients of mine so it’s very satisfying to see them at the number one position (I have permission from them to use this example in the post).

The implications are significant:

1. It changes the first page of results considerably. The local listings are at the top and take up quite a bit of space. 3 results are pushed onto page two whenever Google chooses to display local business results. For example, the “mooloolaba accommodation” search returns three sponsored links in the yellow box followed by 3 local business listings. That’s pretty much all the space taken above the fold. I imagine it will have an impact on PPC advertising.
2. It’s a great opportunity for smaller businesses who have found it tough to compete for a top 10 position
3. In addition to the page one presence there’s a lot of information provided for each business including contact details, descriptions, payment options, photos and reviews

Clearly, it’s now going to be very important to pay attention to local search. There’s been some discussion centred around when local business results are displayed, how to get a business listing there and how to optimise for the top 3 results that are displayed on the first page.

When do you see local business results?

If the search query contains a business type and a location, you may see local business results but not always. The narrower the geographic area the more likely Google will show results in the one box format. Mooloolaba has one post code. A search for “sunshine coast accommodation” encompassing several post codes doesn’t display local business results.

How do you get a local business listing?

There’s a link for business owners at the bottom of the local business results page. It takes you to Google Maps where you can create a listing.

Information is currently being pulled in from a variety of local directories as you can see by clicking on “more information” associated with any business listing.

The important question - how do you optimise for local search?

This post speculates on 10 likely elements of Google’s local search algorithm. Here’s a summary of the main ones:

• the business has a presence in several of the sources from where Google is pulling local search information and where the details match across all sources so that Google is more likely to trust the information (keep your local business listings up to date!)
• the web site is optimised for local terms eg a physical location and phone number on the web site (every page?)
• The number of reviews for the business included in the local listing may also play a part.

Any observations on local search examples, particularly in Australia, or any thoughts on the impact? I hunted around to see if I could find any recent mention from Australian bloggers and found this post on the Rave About It Blog.

Google has announced the removal of the “supplemental index” label in their search engine results pages (SERPs). For the time being the labelling appears to be all that has changed and there is still a difference in the way pages in the supplemental index are treated. However, the announcement states that this difference will narrow and that changes are underway to narrow the gap between the main index and supplemental.

To recap on the main issues, supplemental pages don’t rank very well and they are not crawled as often. Consequently the supplemental index has been given a lot of attention by search engine optimisers with much debate about how to get out of “Google Hell” as it was named.

Now it seems that the issues are still there but it’s harder to determine which pages are not in the main index. One method appears to be to search for a unique expression from a page and see if the page comes up in the search results. If it doesn’t then the page isn’t in the main index. The label was easier and more convenient even if there was much disagreement on what to do with the information.

So, the causes and remedies are still relevant for the time being. No doubt there will be more discussion over the next few weeks as the promised enhancements are rolled out.

1. Search in google.com

No bias towards Australian websites

2. Search in Google Australia

Google Australia is biased towards Australian sites - you’ll see more .au sites in the top 10

3. Select “Pages From Australia”

“Australian” pages only based on the domain name (.au sites) and the hosting location (.com sites hosted in Australia are usually included)

4. Personalised Search on by default

If you are logged into any Google account such as gmail, gtalk, adwords, analytics etc then you will get results biased towards your search history. Personalised search is activated by default.

5. Natural Fluctuation

The top 10 for any given search fluctuates all the time due to algorithm changes, changes to web pages and even different Google data centres delivering different results.

6. Universal Search Arrives in Australia

It doesn’t look like universal search has fully arrived yet for searches in Google Australia. When it does, expect a different top 10 for many searches.

There was never an easy answer to the question “How do I get in the top 10 in Google?”. Now even the question itself is making a lot less sense. I’d like to see Gord Hotchkiss follow up on this post “Planning for Personalisation“.

Edit: When i wrote this I tried to find stats on the numbers using google.com.au compared with google.com. I couldn’t find any so i emailed Google Australia and got this reply.

” We don’t disclose specifics, but the vast majority use google.com.au.”

Search Engine Land spoke with Seth Godin on the subject of search marketing. Seth has been critical of search marketers in the past and dishes out a fair bit of criticism in the interview. For example he makes this assertion:

“Spending money on ads or commodity-focused SEO is the last gasp of someone who is short on innovation, imagination and great stuff!”

Well I do spend money on ads, for my search marketing business and for my clients. Same with SEO although I’m not quite sure what is meant by commodity-focused SEO. If there’s a better way then I’d rather be doing it so I made a summary of Seth’s points to consider how to be more innovative.

1. SEO isn’t a replacement for doing the right things (the right things being building remarkable products, getting your best customers to talk about those products, building relationships and playing the long game without being too impatient to get a quick sale).
2. Personal recommendations are better than any alternative so the future is in blogging, private channels such as RSS, and human controlled sites such as squidoo. Search in its current form is broken.
3. Many advertisers are lazy. They don’t customise offers to match ads and instead send people to generic or home pages.

At the core of all this is trust, credibility and relevance. If someone we trust and whose opinion we respect recommends something of interest to us then we are quite likely to take action. If the outcome is good to the point that it’s worth remarking on then we are likely to be motivated to tell someone else.

We know this to be true when we’re talking about actual human interaction. I’ll try a restaurant if a friend tells me she had a fantastic meal there.

However, just because something on the Internet has attributes that might indicate a degree of trustworthiness and credibility doesn’t mean that it can actually be trusted or that someone will accept it as being so. I’m talking about attributes like putting a name and perhaps a photo to blogs and comments, or a third party recommendation for a product rather than the company’s own endorsement. These factors can help but we know social media can be manipulated, abused, and used for short term gain. Social media participants can “cheat” just as search engine optimisers can use aggressive tactics to rank highly.

Seth Godin claims that “search is broken” and elaborates by saying:

“Well, if search worked, then you wouldn’t need a strategy! People would find you when you needed to be found, and find someone else the rest of the time. Of course, search is always going to be a bit broken (though it keeps getting better) and the more human person to person recommending that gets included (including squidoo.com), the better it’s going to work.”

Introducing a human element for recommendations isn’t going to mean the true deservers rise to the top. Search and social media are just different mediums. They can both be manipulated and in both cases the “best” content (whatever that means) can remain hidden because the right things weren’t done to get the most visibility.

The search landscape is certainly changing and there are many more opportunities to get a message out other than ranking highly in Google. As Seth says the message may best come from enthusiastic advocates rather than self promotion. I don’t disagree with that.

Seth does actually say what he’d do in place of unimaginative ad placing:

“If I ran a travel site, I’d engage my best customers to build blogs and Squidoo lenses and to use Digg to point to reviews and insights and things that would make people WANT to seek me out.”

A good proportion of my clients’ prospective customers have never even heard of blogs, squidoo lenses and Digg never mind actually created content or looked at any examples.

I manage a paid search campaign for a travel site. We’re always looking at different ways to promote the products and are starting to see a lot more referrals from sites with consumer generated content such as tripadvisor.com. The reality though is that if someone wants to book accommodation online they are most likely to search using Google. A proportion of these people will find the paid ads to be more relevant than the organic listings. And yes when they click they get to an appropriate page and often a custom landing page if it’s a specific offer. Spending money on ads might not be the most innovative, imaginative thing to do, in comparison with say, creating a squidoo lens, but the good thing is, it works.

By way of some background, Google has two indexes, the main index and a supplemental index. The supplemental index has been given the name Google Hell amongst others. There are some good reasons why you don’t want pages of your website or blog to be in the supplemental index.

• Pages from the main index show up first so if you are stuck in supplemental your pages will be way down in the rankings for anything competitive
• Google doesn’t crawl the supplemental index as often so once there it can take a long time to get back

To ascertain whether your pages are in Google Hell use the search query site:www.yourwebsite.com.au

The supplemental pages will have supplemental result after the url.

Top 5 Reasons

1. Duplicate or Similar Content

Pages with very similar or duplicated content are likely to end up in the supplemental index. Blogs can have a problem if posts are short and therefore pages are similar to each other with elements such as navigation, blogrolls etc repeated on each page. Longer posts with unique content will fix this as will comments.

2. Similar Page Titles

Give each page a unique page title. With blogs beware of generated page titles that are all very similar because the blog name is prefixed to the title. This is more of a problem with long blog names. Don’t leave these titles as they are or Google will determine that all your pages are about the same thing and will regard them as duplicates. There are plugins for wordpress blogs that allow you to customise the page title. Seo Title Tag is one.

3. Similar or Duplicated Page Descriptions

The same applies to the description metatag. Make sure that you enter a unique description for every page. The Seo Title Tag plugin has this feature for wordpress blogs.

4. Poor Quality External Linking

One of the the top reasons for a page being in the supplemental index is a lack of relevant links from quality sites. Write good quality content that is worth linking to and get trusted links. Don’t take part in link exchange programmes.

5. Poor Internal Linking Structure

It can be hard at first to get good quality external links but you do have control over links to pages from other pages on your website or blog. If a page ends up in the supplemental index a few internal links pointing to it, in addition to fixing any duplicate problems outlined above, can get it out.

(This post is part of the problogger group writing project. I’d like to welcome any first time visitors who clicked through from problogger).

PPC advertisers learn how to target their ad copy to get qualified clicks. There are recognised principles such as repeating the keywords in the headline, using words your target customers respond to and inserting a call to action. In addition, good advertisers test different ads on an ongoing basis to improve the ROI. Good click through rates are rewarded with a higher quality score which means cheaper costs per click. The incentives are there to put the work into targeted, compelling ad copy.

So do the same principles apply to the organic listings? More people click on the organic listings anyway and there is no cost per click but there is still competition for each click. There’s no point having a good ranking and then not capitalising on the opportunity to then attract targeted visitors in the same way that paid advertisers do.

If you take a look at this listing from Wotif in the organic listings, it has a lot in common with the paid ads. The search query is for “mooloolaba accommodation”.

Compare this with another unpaid listing for the same search query.

In both cases the two lines of text after the title is from the description meta tag for the web page. Wotif have worded their description to state their offer and attract clicks. The second example is a throw back to when meta tags were important for good rankings and were stuffed with keywords in order to help this aim. Now Google ignores the meta tags for ranking purposes so its time to optimise them for targeted clicks and not for the search engines.

1. Every web page should have a unique description designed to attract targeted visitors.
2. Keep the description short enough so that all the information is displayed. Google displays about 155 characters including spaces.
3. Be aware of how the title and description work together in order to maximum the available space.
4. You don’t have complete control over whether Google uses the description meta tag or uses something else instead such as text from the web page itself. If the keywords from the users search query are in the description meta tag then it is likely that this is what will be used. Therefore, even though keywords in the description are unimportant from a ranking point of view, it does affect when the description is displayed.
5. Test to see what gets the best results.