Month: April 2016

Google testing new longer look for text ads has online marketers taking another look at their mobile ad campaigns. Right-sided text ads are no longer being used. The new format for these tests has been dubbed Expanded Text Ads, and displays longer headlines. Presently, when a line of description copy ends with a punctuation mark, the headlines can still expand to include the first line of description copy. Up until now, this format has only been available mainline ads. Now that right-sided ads are out, however, the convention text ad formatting can now be changed, or adjusted by Google across the system.

Google Testing New Longer Look for Text Ads

Description Copy

With this new formatting, text ads will now feature an extended headline that displays all 80-characters of the description copy, which means even better results for advertisers. The previous formatting allowed only a 70-count for description copy, but these new tests have been formatted for 80-characters, which gives more of an advantage to advertisers.

URL Format

Google has changed the URL format for these tests. Unlike before, advertisers can now append up two paths, or directories to the domain name. For example, a search utilizing two paths like “/Chicago” and “/Food” may end up with a search result that reads, “Chicago Food – Best Local Dining Spots in the City.” A new field where you can enter a second headline is now available in the AdWords user interface. Here the user can enter a second headline, a single field for description copy, or new fields for the Display URL paths.

Closed Beta

According to a spokesperson from Google, “We regularly test different ad formats with the goal of providing useful information to users and driving even better results for advertisers. Beyond that, we don’t have anything to announce at this time.” There has not been an official announcement regarding the launch of this test.

Consider Long-Tail Keywords

This can be considered good news for those trying to hone down on longtail keywords. With more characters for headlines, advertisers will be able to drive home specifics. Long-tail keywords are of course, more specific than short-tail, but aren’t considered as valuable. When it comes to searches, the more concentrated results means better results for the user.

Take some risks with your keywords to see if longer headlines pay off.

Server log analysis has become one of the most crucial components of technical SEO audits. By analyzing your server logs, you can gain a valuable insight on your SEO. You can obtain a better understanding of how search engine crawlers interact with your company website. If you are proficient and skilled using Microsoft Excel, you can follow the BuiltVisible guide to conduct your analysis. This route may be the most ideal method because you have to upload your collected data to Excel later on in order to output the data to a format that is simple to compare to other data sources like Google Analytics.

Open source tools – such as ELK-stack from Elastic – are useful if you do not have a big budget for analysis tools but you do have the technical resources to configure the data. If you do not have support, paid tools like Splunk and Loggly are probably your best choice. When you begin your analysis, make sure that you focus on actionable SEO items. Check off the seven tasks below to ensure that you analysis is complete thorough.

7 Elements to Check in a Server Log Analysis

Check for spambots or scrapers to block

You should check out the activity of search bots and potential spam-bots when conducting a first-time analysis. These can cause performance issues, pollute your analytics erase your content. Observe suspicious bots’ behaviors watch their activity time, the number of events they have in the selected time period if their appearance coincides with performance spam issues. You should block any that are can or are presently causing these issues with .htaccess.

Check that your targeted search engine bots are accessing your pages.

Once you identify bots arriving at your site, you can apply a filter to focus on those you want to analyze. Your goal here is to make sure they are accessing your pages and resources successfully. Once you have applied the filter, select a graph option to visualize the activity over time. This will help you ensure they are crawling the right pages that they coincide with searches you aim to rank with.

Check for pages with 3xx, 4xx 5xx HTTP status.

You can select the HTTP values of the pages you wish to analyze by searching for your desired search bot and then applying the ‘status’ filter to narrow your options. Look for those with 3xx, 4xx 5xx status codes to see pages that have been redirected or shown as ‘error’ to the crawlers. After that you can identify top pages generating most of the redirects of errors, export data prioritize these pages for your SEO recommendations.

Check that the top crawled pages from each search bot coincide with your site’s most important bots.

You can select the ‘requestURl’ filter to get a list of the top web pages or resources that bots are requesting from your search results. The interface will allow you review these directly, or export them to Excel for you to check that they coincide with your high-priority pages. If these are not among the top crawled pages, take appropriate actions to improve your ranking with internal links and a new sitemap.

Check that search bots are not crawling pages they should not be.

You should check for pages that are not supposed to be indexed or crawled. Use the same filter to see your top requested pages then check that these pages and the directories you have blocked withy robots.txt are actually being crawled for pages that are not blocked but should not be prioritized for crawling.

Check your Google crawl rate over time track how it correlates with response times and serving errors.

The data obtained through Google’s ‘Crawl Stats’ is very generic, therefore analyzing your own logs to identify Googlebot crawl rate, you can validate the information and make it actionable. Knowing when what type of HTTP requests occurred will show if errors or redirects were triggered that could generate non-effective crawling behavior on Googlebot’s part.

Check the IPs Googlebot is using to crawl your site that they are correctly assessing the relevant pages and resources in each case.

The last thing you want to do is ensure that your content is being crawled on foreign IP addresses. Often times, websites will block access to these sites or dictating which version they can use. Filter your content by IP so that you can verify the site is serving the right version of each page to the crawlers from other countries.

First announced last May, Google is finally releasing its specialized mobile search ads for automotive manufacturers and dealerships. That means that eligible advertisers in the United States now have access to Model Automotive ads and Dealer Automotive ads. Searches for automotive makes and models will now feature Model Automotive ads provided by OEM (original equipment manufacturer) automotive advertisers. These ads feature performance details regarding the vehicles, links to the manufacturer’s website,  large-format images of the vehicles and other nearby dealers, plus other information.

Google Launches Giant Mobile Search Ads for Automakers in the US

Proof in Numbers

According to Google, engagement rates on Model Automotive ads are, on average, 30 percent higher when compared with standard text ads. That said, major automotive hubs like Ford and Toyota, who are currently running the new ad formats, have seen even better results. Dionne Colvin-Lovely, director of traditional and new media for Toyota Motor Sales, reported to Google that across their core line of car models, the company has seen a 45 percent increase in conversion events and a 30 percent decrease in CPA over standard text ads.

Dealer Automotive Ad Features

The new Dealer Automotive ads by Google are available to franchise. They include the dealership location, directions to the dealership and a click-to-call button for nearby dealerships. They appear at the very top of the search results and may also integrate with the Model Automotive ads that can be accessed from the ‘Dealers’ tab in the ads.

This will be a great enhancement to businesses looking to utilize Pay Per Click advertising, as it will be able to give a greater focus to the attention of the buyers, and further entice them through potential re-targeting ads.

Going Mobile

According to Google, half of automotive searches that are conducted on Google are now happening on smart phones. Automotive searches on mobile devices are already up 51 percent from last year. More specifically, image searches for car and truck brands and searches for ‘car dealerships near me’ have gone up by 37 percent and 50 percent from last year. 80 percent of those search spikes occurred on mobile devices.

Web users are now relying on their smart phones and mobile devices for much more than simply navigating their way to the coffee shop and looking for deals on Groupon. As users continue to rely on mobile-based searches, SEO and online marketers will come to depend upon these ads to acquire new leads and customers.

If your company is affected by these changes, it may be time to get your team together to see how your online business can grow organically. You can do this by posting original content. A blog is never a bad idea.

However, if you can afford to amplify your spending, you should. It goes back to the old adage, you have to spend money to make money. As long as you have an adequate strategy, you’ll yield the results your looking for.