Fionn Downhill – Digital Shenanigans

A recent study by Think Eyetracking shows that visitors are less likely to look down the SERPs than they were 3 years ago. They are significantly more concentrated on the top of the results than ever before.

Anyone in organic SEO knows how hard it it to get into the top 3 for an even remotely competitive term.  In the past traffic could be gained from lower positions but the trend is now moving towards real success only coming from the top 3.  That’s the bad news for SEO.  In a later post we will be looking at how you can capitalize on other traffic from multiple channels and reduce your reliance on Google organic.  Reliance on Google organic was never smart but the reality is that when you are in the top spot it can be very lucrative and sends many companies chasing the prize.

Is Google Becoming More Relevant?

While this question is subjective and beyond the scope of this post, the results from this study seem to indicate that people have become more used to finding the answers to their queries within the first few search results, which in a way means they’re more relevant to them. Searchers have become so confident in Google to answer their query that they no longer place the burden of proof on the search engine to come up with the right answer. If what they are looking for does not come up in the first few results of Google, searchers have assumed they are at fault and not searching correctly. Many will refine their query instead of digging deeper into the search results.

“… when asked afterwards what they would normally do when they couldn’t find their desired search result on the first page of Google, 87% respondents replied that they would modify the search terms or refine the search by category.”

Searchers Trust in Google Makes SEO More Difficult

Before Google dominated search, it was possible that high rankings in Yahoo and MSN would drive significant traffic. Over time there will be fewer organic listings that will generate search traffic as Google has carved out a dominant share of the search market and users look at a smaller share of the search results due to amount of confidence they place in Google to show them the best results at the top of the SERPs. The amount of traffic achieved from high rankings in MSN and Yahoo don’t seem to drive as much traffic as they once did, making those spots in the search results continually less valuable. As searchers continue to become more accustomed to finding what they need at the top of the SERPs and Google continues to gain an even larger share of the search market, there will be fewer and fewer spots in the SERPs that matter.

Naturally this makes those top spots significantly more competitive. The days when mechanical SEO could get you to the top of the search results are over. To compete going forward it will take creativity and building a site that people want to talk about. As usual those that adapt will thrive and those that continue to do what they’ve always done will be slowly pushed down the SERPS to anonymity.

I have been meaning to download the new Google’s new Chrome Browser still in Beta.  Part of me wants to try it out and part of me says “Is this another step in Google’s web world dominance plan”.  In this interesting article titled “How to Chrome your business” from  Harvard  Business Publishing, Umair Haque sees Google’s chrome as an excellent way for a company to grow its brand and provide free sharing that benefits all.  I am not so sure about Google’s motives.  Google is one the smartest innovative companies on the planet.  However, I feel that Chrome is more about their dominance of the online ad space and beating Microsoft than to use  Umair’s own words  “Chrome is a shared resource that ensures the sustainable growth of a larger ecosystem” 

Google makes money one way and that is through its ads.  I believe Chrome is part of their overall strategy to collect more information, more data and make their ad serving more relevant leading to their own bottom line performance and profits. I agree with some of the respondents on this blog post who feel Google would have done the OS community a greater service if they had invested in Mozilla Firefox instead.  This is why my suspicion about Google’s real business objectives are a little more cynical than Umair’s

Walt Mosberg wrote an intereting article in the WSJ on the 3rd of September about his test of Chrome.  It is very detailed and a good read. 

All in all though I think I am ready to test Chrome I doubt I will ever me as detailed as Walt but its worth taking a look at. 

I attended what turned out to be one of my favorite sessions at Search Engine Strategies, San Jose recently called “Why does search get all the credit”  Bill Hunt who was moderating started the session by saying that that major brands are still only spending a small percentage of overall ad dollars on search as little as 7.6%.  You can read more here.  This is very disheartening and its hard to figure out why the major brands are still not moving more budget to search given the high value of search how easy it is to measure success and ROI.  Measurability was discussed in detail and some very interesting points were made.  Search often gets all the credit  as its the last house on the block.  However, it is essential to track the actions through the cycle to ensure budget is being allocated correctly.

There is still friction between traditional marketers and online and the siloing of departments causes many problems in measuring the succes of campaigs through multiple channels.  Bill talked about double counting of sales and in one instance search was not getting any credit for leads as the leads where being allocated to the individual sales rep in the CRM and the original source (search) was completely lost. 

The key messages I got from the session were:

1. Ensure your tracking is set up correctly, 8 out of 10 analytics are deployed incorrectly.
2. Create and attribution model.  Measure succes at the different touch points, for example if there is a huge spike in traffic after a T.V. ad then that credit should be shared with the T.V. campaign. 
3. What will you measure, pre-metrics, impressions clicks cpc, post metrics, orders, sales, customer lifetime value.
4. Define your goals what is the end game, although many other channels push the visitor to search ensure that everybody is on the same page about how they got there.
5. How they get there is important but what they do while they are there is the bottom line.  Did they buy, did they go away in ten seconds.  Anyone can take credit for a 5% click thru rate the real pro can reduce a 95% exit rate.
6. Looks for tools or indicators that you have in other media to help indicate impact and success.  IBM has introduced the word green into some of their ads  and it has created great success.
7. Standardize tracking and marketing apps on one system.
8. Measure all views 1st last and shared.  Create a baseline using last, did they come from a press release, a site with a lot of banners. 
9. Do not overwrite the metrics and objectives track seperately, 1) Aquire visitors, 2) Conversion, 3) Remarket
10. Bring the stats to the budget conversations they tend to take the emotion out of the decisions

There still appears to be a long way to go to make the traditional marketers believers in search however, progress is being made and there is more awareness amongst the C-Level than ever.