Tag Archives: Search

Google Suggest Direct Links

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Over the past couple of days there has been alot of chatter about the changes to the Google Home Page. These include:

  1. Enlarged Font in the search box.
  2. CSS Search Buttons (fancy).
  3. An enlarged text field for searching.

Now those are nice enough updates -  I wouldn’t call them earth shattering as they are not likely to change the way a searcher interacts with Google.com. If a change in the Google UI changes how a web searcher (read: potential customer) finds sites then it can significantly affect the traffic generated to your website.

The newest change that we have seen over here at Honeypot Marketing is the addition of URL‘s into the Google Suggest Drop Down while you type in a search. Check out these screen shots:

Direct Links in Google Suggest
Direct Links in Google Suggest
http://news.google.com/news?q=gordon+nelson+investments&output=rss
More Direct Links in Google Suggest
"Amaz" triggers Amazon.com - slightly presumptive.
"Amaz" triggers Amazon.com - slightly presumptive.

We have not seen this until literally about 10 minutes ago and we are constantly checking the Google UI and SERPs as part of our day to day work.

This is a significant update as it can lead to your web visitors bypassing a Search Engine Result Page all together.

This makes a #1 ranking even more significantly important for your business (depending on your point of view). Please post your comments and/or screenshots if you have them!

Additional Observation: This seems to be triggered inconsistently and is triggering domain name matches rather than any kind of semantic or meaningful match. We could be wrong but that seems to be the case at this moment.

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Posted in SEO.

Conversion Optimization – Why Bother?

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Image representing Google as depicted in Crunc...
Conversion Optimization Reigns Supreme

“Hal Varian [Google's Chief Economist] believes that a new era is dawning for what you might call the datarati—and it’s all about harnessing supply and demand. “What’s ubiquitous and cheap?” Varian asks. “Data.” And what is scarce? The analytic ability to utilize that data. As a result, he believes that the kind of technical person who once would have wound up working for a hedge fund on Wall Street will now work at a firm whose business hinges on making smart, daring choices—decisions based on surprising results gleaned from algorithmic spelunking and executed with the confidence that comes from really doing the math.”

The question is frequently asked: What is conversion optimization?

Well, looking up at Hal Varian’s quote (he is helping run arguably the world’s most innovative company, so we’ll listen to him), it is the analytic ability to use your data and benefit from a structured website optimization and formal testing program. Here are a few tips and tools to get your optimization programs off the ground:

  1. Start making decisions based on data, not on opinion.
  2. Get analytics set up well, so you really know which pages, products, acquisition sources, etc, your money is coming from. Knowledge is power (and profit).
  3. Start carrying out split tests (A/B tests or multivariate tests) on different aspects of your website.
  4. Use advanced heat maps and user videos to see what your users are really doing. Use ClickTale or CrazyEgg.
  5. View the data and the interpretation of that data from a neutral position. Far too often employees are fearful of poor results, when in fact poor results were likely always occurring.
  6. Remember a Click to Conversion increase from 1.5% to 2.0% for a company doing $1 million a year sales translates to a sales lift of 25%. That’s fantastic business growth based on testing and acting on those tests.

Lastly and most importantly:

Create a culture in which people are rewarded for carrying out tests, and not punished for making mistakes.

Want to get your Conversion Optimization program off the ground and start increasing sales? Contact Us Now!

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What About PageRank?

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Image representing Google as depicted in Crunc...
Image via CrunchBase

Well interesting story that :)

We recently moved our entire site over to a new CMS, moved IP addresses and update quite a bit of the site content. Our toolbar PR has slipped off but we fully expect it to rebound fairly quickly as we are adding the following:

  1. New Site Services Pages.
  2. Interactive Content and Screencasts.
  3. Regular Blog Post Columns and Updates.
  4. Updated PDF versions of case studies, services and client tools.
  5. A new and improved client backend for reporting and other fantastic features.
  6. Guest blogging and guest posting columns.

Although it might appear to be a bad thing that our site has slipped it’s in fact a good thing: Google, Bing and Yahoo have been spidering the site aggressively and we’ve been making tweaks to all of our XML sitemaps and the enclosed content.

Also as a note for anyone redirecting inbound links. When you 301 you index pages and page that had previously has inbound links it will take sometime for the engines to learn that the moves are permenant. This normal and should cause you no reason to panic. Search Engine Optimization is a marathon, not a sprint.

We fully expect a nice little rebound in the near future!

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