The impact of Google’s recent over optimisation penalty, swifty followed by the role out of the Penguin update 2 weeks ago, have created confusion about the long term impact on SEO rankings, how Google will evaluate  website authority in the future and how link building for major brands should be managed in a safe ethical way. SEO opinion is split between these changes being a typical Google update, devalueing spammy links such as buildmyrank, to those who believe the cause is routed in more serious anchor text adjustments. The truth is probably a mix of several factors but one of the best courses of action is to keep a close eye on the leading bloggers to keep up to date on this this update might unravel.

We have compiled a list below of the best blog posts on what these updates will mean for online marketeers in the future:

1) Dave Naylor’s blog post announced on the 18th April that Google Webmaster tools had been emailing over 800,000 notices to website owners that Google had detected spam on their websites: detected unnatural links

2) The authority SEO blog Search Engine land, run by SEO rock star Danny Sullivan, publicly announced a potential major Google update on April 24th titled Google launches update targetting webspam  

3) Blogstorm, the popular UK SEO blog site, written by Patrick Altoft, published a post explaining the new link algorithm here:

4) Matt Cutts, Head of Google’s web spam team remained relatively silent but did announce on his Google plus page that part of the recent update and resultant penalisation was caused by a “classifier for parked domains reading from a couple files which mistakenly were empty”

5) SEO Moz posted a very useful blog post here on how to survive Google’s unnatural links warning 

So how should you be managing SEO rankings and your link building in the future? The severity of this update has yet to be fully realised but it will be critical to regularly keep up to date on Google’s own blog  as well keeping up to date as specialist SEO blogs to measure the likely impact so that this news can be professionally communicated back to the clients and any negative impact can be minimised.

What are Breadcrumbs you may be wondering… remember the story of Hansel and Gretel who wanted to find their way home?! That’s exactly it. During May 2012 Google are set to launch their Breadcrumb trail as a set of links that will help searchers understand and navigate a site’s hierarchy.

Currently Ads are formatted with Headline, Display URL and then the Ad Description as shown below. In many cases advertisers include /Keyword to the end of their Display URL in order to make the URL appear more relevant to the searchers query, and boost the likelihood of acquiring clicks.

Breadcrumbs will help make ads appear even more relevant and user friendly. They do this by enabling the searcher to understand exactly where they’ll be directed within a website and what that journey will entail, prior to clicking on an ad.  Every Breadcrumb will be clickable and charged at the same price to that of a searcher clicking the Ad Headline. This will help direct searchers to the most relevant page dependent on what they are searching for. Not everyone follows a logical route when searching for a product or service, and so providing more options is likely to increase Click Through Rates.

Now it wouldn’t be ideal to set up Breadcrumbs without testing the performance would it? Fret not! Google will also be launching a new segmenting option to enable you to view the overall total number of clicks on Breadcrumb links. To view this you’ll need to go to the Ads tab, and select the Segment button and choose to segment by Click Type. The Click Type will appropriately be called Breadcrumbs. Unfortunately within these reports it isn’t confirmed Google will identify exactly what Breadcrumb is working best, but then again we can’t have everything.

It will be really interesting to see the Breadcrumb performance in comparison to Headline, as you may very well find that you haven’t been directing searchers through to the most relevant pages after all. And so it is advisable to keep an eye on Conversion Rates if you decide to go live.

If you wanted to make sure your ads are eligible to display Breadcrumbs there’s a few things you need to be aware of:

1. Your AdWords Ads must be ranked in positions 1-3
2. Breadcrumbs will initially be live for Desktop Devices
3. You will need to Display a Top Level domain with no /keyword
4. Your Landing page must have a mark-up from which Google can extract breadcrumb information. This basically means you need to provide the right information to Google so they know what Breadcrumb links to display.

To ensure your landing page mark-up is accurate you will need to insert Breadcrumb information in the body of your web pages so that Google can identify it and use it to understand and display the information in the search results.  Google recognises the properties below:

The HTML code below explains a Breadcrumb for a product page on a Shoe Website:

<a href=”http://www.exampleshoes.com/shoes”>Shoes</a> ›

<a href=”http://www.exampleshoes.com/shoes/womens”>Women’s Shoes</a> ›

<a href=”http://www.exampleshoes.com/shoes/womens/black”>Womens Black Shoes</a>

To Using the HTML above the Breadcrumbs will display like this:

Shoes   >  Women’s Shoes  >  Women’s Black Shoes

Breadcrumbs can hold a number of variant properties which can be labelled using microdata or RDFa mark-up.

If you would like to discuss how to improve your paid search performance using the latest Adwords updates please call David for an informal chat on 0207 592 1841

The new Timeline on Facebook profile pages is a fantastic new feature that has been in place for a few months now. While there are lots of people who have opinions on how good it is in conjuncture with their personal profile page, it is hard to argue against its benefits for Brand pages.

Being able to go back any number of years has allowed some brands to really build on their heritage, strengthening their brand identity and developing the origins of the character that surrounds their product as it is known today.

A great example of this is Burberry, who have created posts that go back through the 1900’s, allowing you to take a journey through their historical products that have become a staple of modern fashion.

The Timeline acts as a seamless filing system that can hold immense amounts of information, all of which can be interacted with and shared amongst friends.

Another important aspect of the Timeline is the possibility of having lots of colourful images all the way down the page, which can engage a visitor and encourage them to tell others about it. As posts are listed down the left or the right, or spread across the width of the screen, the Timeline allows a brand to display itself in an interesting and user-friendly manner.

There are many great examples of this, but one that really stands out is Ford, where they have utilised the many different talking points that their cars have conjured up, allowing for an infinite amount of information that can be created and shared between its fans. All of this is posted to their Facebook page, to create a vibrant wealth of information that can be scrolled through for hours on end.

Content has a lot to do with the levels of engagement that a page will receive and a Brand can do a variety of things in order to make that content as interesting and sharable as possible. For example, Starbuck’s core brand value is its sense of communal duty; making sure that their stores don’t just sell quality coffee, but make their mark on the communities they serve as well.

They do this by selling local artists’ music in their stores and by donating large sums of money to community projects and public causes. This value has been replicated on the company’s Facebook page, and has been accentuated by the Timelines ability to do so. If you scroll down the Timeline, you will see a variety of content from their different products to their community initiatives, combining to offer an insightful Facebook page experience.

Not only are they creating great content for their Facebook fans, they are also advertising the good causes they support in a forum seen by millions of people.

A much ignored facet of Facebook pages are applications. While the phone companies battle it out to provide consumers with the best quality apps, Facebook has quietly offered the opportunity for companies to produce enticing apps for visitors to their page. They can be a very effective way of directing traffic, and linking the different social media platforms that a brand may have, as Macy’s illustrated below.

In this instance, Macy’s have bridged their Twitter and Facebook accounts to make it as easy as possible for customers to get involved with both, or with their preferred choice of social networking site. The aim is to get people involved, and applications are a handy way of doing exactly that.

Finally, let’s look at the most obvious addition the Timeline brings with it. The banner photo at the top of the page is one of the most important parts of the page, as it is going to be the first thing that people see when they click through to the page. It can set the tone for the user’s page experience, and help to illustrate a brands sense of fun and purpose.

Have a look below at the Fanta banner at the top of their page. They have incorporated it with their profile picture to create a design savvy first impression of their page, and therefore their brand.

And besides, look at the difference between a Timeline page…

And an older style page…

Do you see the difference?!

Overall, Facebook Timelines can be used to great effect in enhancing someone’s perception of a brand. Their Facebook presence is important as a person’s appreciation of it will be highlighted to their friends, and this will therefore make them more like to become fans too.

Google introduced a new upcoming AdWords feature this week which is said to improve the way phrase and exact match types work. The idea is that misspellings occur quite often while users search for a brand, product or service, and advertisers can’t possibly take into account all the different variations and add them as exact or phrase match keywords to their campaigns. The only way around this is to keep some broad match or modified broad match version of the main keywords in a campaign and regularly add exact and phrase variations based on your Search Query Reports. The new feature will potentially take this extra maintenance work off your shoulders.

Is this a kind of broad match?

No. Broad match keywords allow not only misspellings and plurals but also synonyms to trigger your ads. In other words, broad match targets what Google THINKS is a synonym to your keyword. But Google sometimes associates very surprising terms with your actual keywords, which can negatively impact your ads’ relevancy. This new improved exact and phrase match option should provide advertisers with more control over their keyword list while catching otherwise potentially lost traffic due to misspellings.

How to enable it

The new option can be switched on a campaign level and you can do it in the campaign setting tab by scrolling down to Advanced Settings, clicking the matching options link and selecting “Do not include close variants” in the “Exact and phrase match” section. This may not yet be available in all accounts, but should be soon as the feature will be rolled out mid-May according to Google. In the accounts I tested it, it was already available.

It’s important to mention that it seems to be enabled by default, so you have to check your campaigns in time and switch it off if you want your keywords to keep triggering your ads only when there is a 100% match.

Search Query Report

As a consequence of this change, the new match types will begin to appear in the Search Term Match Type column as “Exact match (close variant)” and “Phrase Match (close variants)” in the AdWords Search Query Reports.

Potential implications

I’m pretty sure that this will be a strongly debated topic because of several open questions, such as

• How tight these match types will be? Will Google keep its promise and match only close variants really? We will have to keep an eye on our search query reports.
• How will it affect competition? It sounds like everybody will be appearing on more search queries all of a sudden.
• How will it affect CPC? Will it go higher?

We will see as it unfolds in the upcoming weeks if it is just a step from Google to maximize profits or it is actually a useful new function. Probably worth a follow-up post!

The problem.

Have you ever run into a case when you were looking at your advertising campaigns in Google Analytics and, annoyingly, the campaign list was partly populated with your old, long-since paused  AdWords campaigns? Like many others, you must have first thought that something is wrong with your memory, and rushed back into the AdWords interface to double-check your campaigns. After finding out with a relief that you weren’t a complete idiot, and the campaigns are paused indeed, you probably started wondering, then what is wrong with Google Analytics? You may even have started questioning its reliability.

The Why

In fact, there was nothing ‘wrong’ with GA. These discrepancies are a direct result of the way Google Analytics operates in the background. Unfortunately or excitingly, there are some scenarios when interpreting Google Analytics reports requires a seemingly twisted logic, or rather an understanding of what is going on under the hood. The key to this particular issue is hidden in campaign attribution.

Campaign Attribution explained

Anyone who is just a little bit familiar with the Google Analytics Multi-Channel Funnel reports introduced last year will be bored to read this a 100^th time, but the truth is, that user journeys – whether they convert or not – are rarely limited to one advertising channel. Users tend to interact with your site several times before making up their mind to do or not to do something with it. The traffic sources through which they enter the site often vary from visit to visit and the number of possible combinations is almost limitless.

The standard Google Analytics reports (and by this I mean every report except for the Multi-Channel Funnel reports) normally attribute visits (and the conversions during those visits) to the last traffic source. However, there is one exception from this rule, which confuses a lot of people who don’t know about it. When the last interaction is a direct visit which was preceded by some other entrance source, the last source before direct will get the credit for all the activities during that visit. A new visit will still be recorded, hence the overall number of visits incremented, but the source will reflect the last touch point before direct.

But I see new unique visitors coming from these campaigns. Why?

As all these visitors are returning, you will probably see a very low percentage in the %New Visits metric next to these old campaigns. In an ideal case it should be 0.0%, but in my experience it usually isn’t, which is a little confusing. Here is a little background for that. Google Analytics stores the unique visitor ID in the __utma cookie, while the type of referral and campaign names are stored in another cookie called __utmz. One rather unlikely reason the %New Visits metric is higher than 0.0% for these campaigns may be that somehow the __utma cookie gets deleted while the __utmz doesn’t. In a much more probable scenario the visitor arriving through a paid click bookmarks the URL with the “glicd” parameters included, and at some point deletes all the cookies, and then returns through that bookmark. Because the “glicd” tag is still in the URL, the visit is attributed to the original campaign, but the visitor is counted as a new one because a new __utma cookie has to be written.

How to make direct traffic override the previous campaign

It can be argued that this behaviour from Google Analytics is justified or not, but I fully understand if some people get annoyed as a result of confusion over this. If you are one of them, here is the good news for you: you can force Google Analytics to override the original traffic source/campaign with direct traffic. The solution below was worked out by Allaedin Ezzedin.

<script type="text/javascript">
    var srcPage = get_referrer();
    var parameter = get_parameter();
    function get_referrer()
    {
        var source = document.referrer;
        if (source == null || source == "")
            return "direct";
    }
    function get_parameter()
    {
        var urlstr = window.location.href;
        var results = urlstr.match(/[\\?&#]utm_source=([^&#]*)/);
        if (results != null)
            return "tagged";
    }
    if (srcPage == "direct" && parameter != "tagged")
    {
        window.location.hash = "utm_source=(direct)&utm_medium=(none)&utm_campaign=(not set)";
    }
</script>

What this script does is detecting the original referral and/or if the URL was tagged, and if the referral is NULL and the URL wasn’t manually tagged, then it utpades the page URL with new UTM parameters setting the source to “direct”.
What you need to do is place this code above your Google Analytics snippet in the page source.

Click here to see the full script.

utm_nooverride

It’s worth mentioning that if you prefer you can prevent any of your campaigns (PPC, email, etc.) to override the original. To do this, you simply need to add the “utm_nooverride=1” tag to your destination URL’s. In this case, when a user arrives from Campaign A and then returns by clicking another ad from Campaign B, then converts, the conversion will be attributed to Campaign A.

Redefining brand search terms as direct traffic.

If you have worked with a couple of Google Analytics accounts you surely noticed that brand name and the site URL often takes up a large percentage of the search queries visitors use to find your site. You may want to consider these visits as direct instead of organic because of the nature or intent of these searches. It is possible to do that by a slight customization in the Google Analytics tracking code. You need to use the _addIgnoredOrganic() method for each keyword you want to redefine as driect traffic. See example below.

<script type=”text/javascript”>
var _gaq = _gaq || [];
_gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-xxxxxx-x']);
_gaq.push(['_setAllowAnchor', true]);
_gaq.push(['_addIgnoredOrganic', 'yourbrand']);
_gaq.push(['_addIgnoredOrganic', 'yourbrand.co.uk']);
_gaq.push(['_addIgnoredOrganic', 'www.yourbrand.co.uk']);
_gaq.push(['_trackPageview']);
(function () {
var ga = document.createElement(‘script’); ga.type = ‘text/javascript’; ga.async = true;
ga.src = (‘https:’ == document.location.protocol ? ‘https://ssl’ : ‘http://www’) + ‘.google-analytics.com/ga.js’;
var s = document.getElementsByTagName(‘script’)[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s);
})();
</script>

That’s it, for now.

I hope this article was helpful in eliminating some confusion in many of you, as this was the purpose of writing it.

If you have any questions/comments, do not hesitate to get in touch.

Social Media has become one of the most integral aspects of our Internet experience. The need to share with each other has created a market in which Social Networking Sites are able to accrue vast numbers of users, whose information can then be used for business and financial gain.

With so many different platforms out there, it can be difficult to distinguish between them and ascertain which one is the best for achieving yours digital aims. This article profiles the 5 most popular Social Media sites and examines how they can used effectively to deliver your Digital Marketing objectives.

1. Facebook (www.facebook.com)

Facebook has an unrivalled wealth of user information which allows it to offer very accurate and specified demographic targeting. This allows digital marketers huge numbers of options in making sure that precisely the right people are being exposed to their advertising. It also allows comparisons to be made between different demographics, meaning that a product or service can identify its best type of customer.

One of the strengths of Facebook marketing is the incorporation of features into their adverts, such as being able to ‘like’ something, enabling people to see friends’ engagement with brands. Below is an example of an advert that has incorporated a feature of the site. A friend of mine has ‘liked’ Volkswagen, and because of this, it has been shown to me. Due to my friend’s preference, I am more likely to take notice of Volkswagen’s advert, and therefore more likely to share my appreciation for the brand as well.

One thing to consider with Facebook, however, is that most people on the site are not looking to purchase anything at that point in time. This means they are not at the ‘point of purchase’, and therefore are less likely to spend money. Because of this, it is perhaps better to advertise on Facebook in a way that doesn’t encourage people to part ways with their money. For instance, building a brand by getting people to ‘like’ a page is a great way to spread brand awareness, and doesn’t deter people from getting involved because they have to spend money.

2. Twitter (www.twitter.com)

Twitter has been an unmitigated success in its format as a micro blogging site, however, they have struggled to turn that usability into profitability. The commercial marketing side of it has yet to really take off, but does this mean it should be ignored by digital marketers?

No. Twitter has its own unique selling points as a tool for marketers. The stream of information that it offers is current and up to date, offering a detailed landscape of any given environment, be it current affairs or what people think about a particular brand. If brands manage to keep abreast of what is going on around their given market, they can utilise Twitter to plant their product or service into the heart of what people are talking about.

The way they would do that is by engaging with the services that Twitter provide, such as a ‘Sponsored Tweet’, ‘Sponsored Trend’ or a ‘Sponsored Account’ in order to establish themselves in conversations that are relevant to them.

The image below is of O2’s ‘sponsored tweet’, which will be shown at the top of a particular trend, meaning it will be the focal point of everyone involved with that topic.

Another interesting aspect is celebrities product endorsement, like Snickers’ ‘You’re Not You When You’re Hungry’ campaign. Rio Ferdinand and Katie Price both posted a series of tweets that alluded to behaviour that wasn’t normal of themselves, then revealed their association with the campaign, creating huge exposure for Snickers.

3. Google+ (www.google+.com)

Google+ is the result of huge investment by Google to combat the grip that Facebook and Twitter hold over the social networking market. Links to Google+ will start to be seen in the search results pages of Google, which could prove to be an extremely important tool for Digital Marketers in aiding their Google PPC campaigns.

By being able to link their social networking page to the top of the search results, a brand is able to reach customers who are not only at the ‘point of purchase’, but who can also see friends’ preferences. If a brand has a well-managed Google+ page with lots of fans, this could have massive implications in a customers purchasing decision.

Another aspect of this is that if a brand does not have a Google+ page, they will not represent any search term in the results page. This could allow their competitors in and hijack potential business, even if a consumer has typed in another brand as a keyword.

4. Linkedin (www.linkedin.com)

Linkedin is the fastest growing business social site, and therefore works best when offering advertising on a B2B level. It has important demographical information about its users but more to do with their professional background as opposed to Facebook’s more personal angle.

By being able to select between different professions, wage brackets and job titles, a Digital Marketer can be assured in reaching a defined target market. Linkedin has also been developing its site over the last few months to include the ‘like’ feature, and having status updates, which means it is easier for a topic to accrue interactions from Linkedin members.

5. Pinterest (www.pinterest.com)

The new site on the scene is Pinterest, the picture sharing website. It is proving to be very popular, as becoming one of the top 20 websites according to Alexa in under a year proves, as its users feel there is less pressure than on Facebook in expressing what pictures they like. It is yet to release marketing tools, but it will be interesting to see how this utopia of image appreciation will be harnessed in order to advertise to its user base. Perhaps it will offer the chance of a return to form of the simple image advert, instead of crowded video streams. That remains to be seen.

In the meantime, if a brand sells a wide range of consumer goods, create a page on Pinterest and loads photos of your products; this content will then begin to be shared around the site and lead to brand and product awareness. And it’s free!

In conclusion then, it is clear that every platform offers a different way of engagement to the members of its site. Which one is the best? Well, in actual fact it could be a combination of all of them that offers the best advertising opportunities. Just because you have a comprehensive campaign set up on one, doesn’t mean that you cannot expand and cover a different angle with another.

If you have any interest in what has been said above or you have any questions for me or any of the Barracuda team, then please get in contact.

Phone: 020 7593 1848|Email: henrym@barracuda-digital.co.uk

How many times have you taken action based on average position? If you are advertising on Google, you surely are aware of the fact that falling out of the top 3 slots will tremendously impact your CTR in most cases. In the case of some advertisers, especially big ones, you simply can’t afford not to appear among the top three even if the keyword in question is quite generic and not the best converting one.

You have to be careful, however, when looking at the average position metric in AdWords. Have you ever wondered how it is calculated, and what it actually means? Haven’t you ever done it the easy way blindly trusting what it says, and bid up or down based on it? Well, maybe you shouldn’t have.

How average position is calculated?

Google (and in fact, other search engines) calculate the average position the easy way. It is called mean average. It summarizes all the positions you appeared in, and the emphasis here is on the fact that you appeared in those positions, then divides this number by the number of impressions.

And what if I had lost impression share?

That’s the right question to ask here. In some auctions, your Ad Rank simply won’t be high enough and your ad won’t make it to the first page at all. The ‘Lost Impression Share due to Rank’ metric indicates how frequently this happens to your ads. Generally the higher you bid the less frequently it happens, especially if you have good Quality Scores, but it can still happen. So what is your average position in these cases? As it basically means that you don’t appear in any of the 11 ad slots on the first page, your position can be anything over 11. But did your ad get an impression? Of course not. Does it distort the average position that Google reports to you? Of course it does!

To illustrate it, imagine an extreme case when you had 50% lost impression share due to rank. In 50% of the auctions you were in positions worse than 11. And let’s say you ranked in an average position of 2 in the rest of the cases.  As only that 50% generated actual impressions, you will see an average position of 2.

In summary, if you have any amount of lost impression share, that will mean your average position is reported higher than it actually is.

The below screenshot was taken from actual search campaigns. I highlighted the lost impression share of two of them because they illustrate our case perfectly. Both campaigns have a decent average position yet we can see that the ads don’t make it to the first page in nearly one quarter of the auctions. How can we trust those the average positions then? Well, we can’t.

If you have no lost impression share whatsoever, that’s a very lucky case, you are not affected by this. But how often does that really happen? More importantly, you can only view impression share data on a campaign level, and Google plans to roll it out to the Ad Group level. But you still can’t be sure how accurate (or inaccurate) data you have on individual keywords!

But my impression share is 100%, can I lay back?

Not exactly. You should always be careful about taking average position at face value. Instead, try to find out what it really means. You should ask questions like: In what positions did my ad appear? How frequently did it appear in a specific position or a specific range of positions?

If you know Google Analytics well you may be familiar with the report that shows you this data.

However, this only applies to the auctions when your ad was clicked. You can’t be sure about impressions. Again, you are in the dark.

The below chart shows you three examples of distribution of ad positions. The vertical axis represents the number of impressions and the horizontal axis represents the position.

In all of these cases, you can be misled by the average position metric. It’s 6 in all 3 cases. But you can see that the distribution of ad positions is very different although the number of impressions is exactly the same.

Not to mention an asymmetrical distribution as shown below.

The average position in this case is 4.85, however, just by looking at this number in AdWords, you will have no idea that your ads are actually appearing on the top of the page half of the time. Average position won’t give you any information on that.

The alternative

We are back where we started: we need to make sure that our ads appear in one of the top 3 slots, but we saw average position simply too unreliable to hold onto. So what can we do?

The best alternative is the Top vs. Other segment. You can use this segment in AdWords from campaign level down to the keyword level. It basically tells you in what proportion your ads appeared on the top of the page or on the side.

If you see that a significant proportion of your ads are on the side, you can be sure that you are not achieving nearly as good a CTR as you could.

The below example shows clearly how it impacts click through rate (CTR), hence the total number of clicks. Only half of the impressions were on the top, with a great CTR, but the other half on the side, with a CTR that’s 97% lower than on the top. Those impressions could have generated 37 times more clicks on the top of the page. And yet the overall average position is 2.9, indicating that everything is going well.

So if it is crucial for your ads to appear on the top  positions with as high CTR as possible (and it can easily be 10-100 times higher than the side) then Top vs. Other is what you need to keep an eye on.

With almost 500 million people actively using the internet in China to search for products and services and with plenty of room for growth (less than 40% of China’s total population is online) (Source E-consultancy http://econsultancy.com/uk/reports/asia-internet-statistics-compendium), it’s a wonder that more ambitious brands and businesses who want to expand overseas haven’t considered search marketing to China.

In this article we examine the steps one has to take to set up a search campaign-be it SEO or PPC in China.

Which Search engine engines to use?

Unlike in the UK and US, Google is not quite the giant that dominates the search engine market.

Google only takes around 17% of the market and Sougou and other search engines take the remaining 3% of the market.

The most used search engine in China is Baidu.com. Around 77% of internet searches are done through this native search engine. For marketers and brands looking to tap into the Chinese market, Baidu is the gateway that search efforts should be focussed on.

Language

Your landing page should be in Chinese, and if you are targeting mainland China this should be Simplified Chinese. A study shows that over 70% of consumers are more likely to buy online if the information is available in their first language (Source: Common sense advisory http://www.commonsenseadvisory.com/Resources/FactsandFigures.aspx).

Censorship

After a high profile feud with China’s leadership over censorship, Google withdrew their operations (to some extent) in China.

This should serve as a warning to those looking to either rank for or display information that doesn’t stay within the Chinese Government’s censorship guidelines.

Baidu is heavily censored by the Chinese Government and this means brands looking to market products to do with politically sensitive events (such as The Tiananmen Square Massacre) and any material slating the Chinese government is a no-go if you want to search market in China.

Search Engine Optimisation in China

For brands looking to appear in the search results organically, there is a wealth of information about how to SEO for Google.com so this information applies when optimising for Google.hk. Since the same algorithm is used across Google, a brand only has to apply the tactics from their existing UK based SEO campaign in Google China to get results.

If you’re looking to rank organically in Baidu, Baidu’s algorithm is somewhat less developed than that of Google so a lot of techniques that are ignored by Google’s crawlers would help page rankings in Baidu.com.

Things that help:

Meta tags

Domain names

Hosted Locally

Things that aren’t weighted so much:

Inbound links

An SEO should also be aware of how connectivity issues in China will affect the Baidu crawlers, for example they will often only crawl the first 100 to 120k of content on a page.

PPC

Paid search works the same way for Google.co.uk and Google.hk and you can learn more about paid search from our blog.

The bidding system and even the editor used for managing Baidu ad campaigns are remarkably similar to Google. Phoenix Nest, also known as “Baidu Professional Edition”, is used to manage paid search campaigns in Baidu.

In terms of display, if your advert qualifies to be triggered for a search term exactly, it appears on the top position above the natural results. Adverts that you have made a bid on that are a broad match are displayed on the right hand side as shown in this example:

These are the basic things for a marketer to consider if they are looking expand into China. The key takeaways from this post are that it is relatively easy to appear in the organic results of the most used search engine in China, it is easy to set up a paid search campaign in Baidu and finally, China is an untapped market as we speak.

If you would like an informal chat about how to set up a paid search campaign in China, or if you would like Barracuda to launch and manage your search campaign in China, please call us on 0207 593 1841.

Lots to get excited about in Google Adwords at the moment with the launch of a great new innovation: new enhanced Site links.

Back in November Google launched  Ad Site links for our top performing ads to make them even more bright and shiny in the sponsored listings. They have boosted click through rates on average by more than 30%.

Google techies have been testing away and their latest innovation comes in the form of Enhanced Ad Site links…

The way that Enhanced ad site links work is by incorporating text from ads in your account that are related to your site links. Here is one I made earlier:

Say for example you have created site links for your pizza restaurant campaign, and your ad displays site links as shown here:

Now, let’s say your account also includes the following text ads:

With this enhancement, your ad could now look like this:

So, what’s the impact on performance? I have been informed that click through rates were significantly higher than the same ad with traditional 2- and 3-line site links. In order to get these going you need to have ads closely related to the site links in your campaign. The only thing that is unclear is whether Google will incorporate any other ad extensions already set up on the campaign in the ad, such as product extensions or location extensions, or will always run independently. Will the others just be put underneath the carpet or will Google multiple test all site links with all creatives to find the winning formula?

Let’s wait and see shall we…

Promote your brand by sending a little love – Valentine’s Day Apps:

Love it or hate it Valentine’s Day is here again giving brands the great opportunity to captivate
consumers with their latest offering straight from Cupid’s bow. It would be madness to not try and
stay ahead of the game, and Valentine’s is no seasonal exception, within the USA alone there is an
average annual spend of $13.19 Billion. There is huge scope for increased brand awareness and sales
if a clever campaign is undertaken, with social media once again to the fore.

So let’s have a look at three great ideas from this year’s offerings. First arrow whistling from Cupid’s
bow, smoothie giant Innocent Drinks.

Innocent have created a little app for their website that allows the customisation of their bottle
labels, allowing a very witty and healthy way of telling that special someone that you think they’re
pretty great. The app is easy to use, with many funny pre-set phrases to tailor your bottle to
win your crush’s heart. It is this ease of use, and clever simple idea that will strike a chord with
consumers, as they say “it’s way better than a naff card”. It is so easy in fact that here at Barracuda
we knocked up a quick design…

The utilisation of social media gave Innocent a quick publicity buzz, via likes, shares and comments, and if people start creating and printing they are sure to see a rise in bottle sales around the 14^th February.

The next arrow out of Cupid’s quiver is courtesy of Starbucks who are embracing mobile technology in their latest campaigns. Between 6^th and 16^th February, via augmented reality and Starbuck’s Cup Magic app for android and iPhone, customer’s coffee cups can come to life.

This “everylove” campaign is being coordinated across Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, and the app also rolls in the ability to send Starbucks Card eGifts to buy a cup of coffee for a loved one on Valentine’s morning. This astute use of technology will create both exposure and increased sales for the coffee superpower.

Finally, Heineken have launched “The Serenade” campaign, creating a sense of fun around a good old fashion serenade, challenging users to reignite the date and to ask someone out “in a legendary way”. The Facebook app has proven popular with men and women, and has also raised highly positive product discussion. Consumer-to-consumer engagement around a brand has once again been successful, as demonstrated on both Facebook and Twitter.

People are taking up the challenge and relating to Heineken in a very positive manner. Who knows, this could lead to a whole host of date acceptances that might include a Heineken or two to celebrate.

What do you think? Will you be using any of these ideas for Valentine’s? Or have you seen any great ideas that you are banking on to be a hit with the ladies on the 14^th February? Let us know.