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May 23
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Penguin 2.0 – What Was Penguin 1.0 Again?

By | Google News, SEO | One Comment

Penguin 2.0Today Google launched Penguin 2.0 – not just an update of Penguin but a whole new version. Matt Cutts says it goes deeper than Penguin 1.0 and will impact more webmasters. Rand Fishkin (on very early thoughts) says he thinks it is a lighter impact than Penguin 1.0.

 

Since the update is less than 24 hours old, it is kind of hard to tell what the impact has been over a broad number of sites, but site owners will definitely be able to see if it has impacted their own site or not.

 

What we know for certain is that it aims, like Penguin 1.0, to fight web spam, with a focus on websites with dodgy backlink profiles. (Whereas Panda was about fighting crappy content).

 

If it was like Penguin 1.0, then there will probably be two main prongs of attack (of which the outcomes look very similar):

1. A Devaluation of crappy links which will result in a drop in your rankings

2. A penalisation from crappy links which will result in a drop in your rankings.

 

The other way that Penguin 1.0 and 2.0 might be related is that perhaps the dodgy links that SEOs fed to Google after Penguin 1.0, through the Disavow Tool, might now be the fuel for Penguin 2.0.

 

Without seeing the impacts of 2.0 yet, you can guess what the Penguin 2.0 advice is going to look like:

  • Link diversification – diversified in relation to linking domains, link types and link anchor text.
  • Avoiding anything promising VOLUMES of links, like link networks, blog comment spam, or article spinning .  This kind of volume would be easily detected by Penguin Robot – I mean look at him, he will hunt those things down like a sea lion on his non-robot brother!
  • Speed of links – Google have likely become expert at spotting spikes in linking efforts, which look unnatural, and may indicate spam.
  • Authority – there has been a bit of talk about promoting authority sites, which is kind of related to Panda, and that old cliche “Content is King”. Authority is about quality, but it could also be about…
  • …Social. There’s not a lot of evidence here, but social signals are another good way of indicating authority, and that’s why more and more SEO’s are getting involved on the social side of things.

Of course, there is no hard out evidence for a lot of this, but we’re pretty sure that these tips will “First do no harm”,…and then help keep you out of the way of that crazed Robot Penguin.

 

Apr 30
0

Helping Businesses Get Online With Australia Post

By | MooMu News | No Comments

By Tracy Mu Sung

Australia Post and MooMu Media

Australia Post is encouraging it’s business customers to get online, and we are helping them.

On Monday this week I presented at a joint initiative between Australia Post and Google to try and help more small businesses get online. This is a priority for Australia Post because traditional mail is in decline and a huge proportion of their business is in delivering purchases from online retail.

 

As a search marketer, I was representing the ‘Google’ side of the presentation, and covered topics around how to increase your sales through search marketing. My presentation included;

  • What is search marketing?
  • Customer Journey
  • Your Business on Adwords; and
  • Why Work with an Agency? (Call me and I’ll tell you!)

Australia Post discussed all the products they have available to both a) help businesses get online and b) make purchase deliveries easier. For example

  • Their simple content management system for online retailers called “MyShopInABox”. Uniquely, for a CMS, you can pick up a copy at your local Post Office!
  • SecurePay – the Government backed online payment system bought by Australia Post
  • Click and Send – easy way to create the documentation you need for sending parcels to your customers, as well as an easy way to organise and pay for deliveries
  • Reply Paid Returns – a way of increasing customer confidence is to allow them to return goods to you free of charge. Online retailer StyleTread uses this to excellent advantage.
  • Local business hubs – Post offices dedicated to helping their business customers
  • They also covered a bit about direct marketing, and their ‘lifestyle’ survey of householders.

I think you would be surprised at what Australia Post now offer, so if you are an Australian business, I would recommend getting on to their website and checking it out.

 

One of the most interesting topics, for many online retailers in Australia, is the hot topic of free shipping, which Australia Post was well placed to discuss. I think this deserves its own post, so I will cover that separately.

Apr 24
0

Universal Analytics – Should Everyone Upgrade?

By | Analytics | No Comments

Universal AnalyticsCheck out this graphic image created by Google to promote the public beta release of Universal Analytics. What does it tell us? It looks like a mobile device, a shopping cart, a tablet, desktop, cash register and game console – all linked in to Google Analytics.

That’s because this is what Universal Analytics is here to do – give business owners better and more complete information about how all their touchpoints work together to achieve outcomes (like sales). Universal Analytics has just been rolled out in a public beta, meaning anyone can now start using it. It’s free to use, but you should know that it’s also quite complicated and not necessarily going to be the magic marketing bullet for your particular business.

 

What is Universal Analytics?

Universal Analytics is Google Analytics but with new features which allows businesses to get more understanding about how their customers move from offline to online, from mobile to desktop, between browsers and more. It is basically following your customer through the many touchpoints they use to interact with your business.

 

How To Start Using It?

Like I mentioned – Universal Analytics is free, and now available in public beta, so in theory you can start using it now. All you need to do is;

  1. Set up a new web property (can’t be your existing one)
  2. Update your tracking code

In relation to updating your tracking code – you can use Google Tag Manager to do this, and it is also a good idea not to remove your existing analytics tracking.
 
What New Features Does Universal Analytics Provide?

  • Custom dimensions and metrics – which means you can add new dimensions like phone calls, point of sales and other offline interactions.
  • Online/offline data sync capabilities – you can upload/import offline data into your Google Analytics
  • Multiplatform tracking – allowing you track incoming data from any device

  • Simplified configuration controls  -access to options within the Google Analytics interface that were previously only available in the development environment

How Will It Track Customers?

To track customer activity from offline to online and across browsers, you will need to assign customers a unique ID and have this associated with all their transactions on and offline. For example, you might use a sign-in form online to track across devices, or you might have a customer membership number to track offline and online(e.g. loyalty card).

If you can assign an ID to an action, you can track it and follow user behaviour. E.g. if you had people swipe a card at your event, at your store, or use the number in your mobile and on your site or on a phone call – you could understand their behaviour across all those touchpoints.

Accordingly, you will need to update your privacy policies and allow people the option of opting out.
 
Measurement Protocol

How will Google Analytics get all this data? It will use their new Measurement Protocol to allow developers to make http requests to send raw data directly to the Google Analytics servers.
 
What Should I do with Existing Analytics Profiles and Code?

Because Universal Analytics is in beta, doesn’t have a lot of community experience/support yet and is quite complicated – it’s best to keep your Google Analytics code running as is for now. You can put the new snippet on your site alongside your old one, and have both running simultaneously.

You will also want to maintain your current profiles in analytics to maintain your history.

Before diving into Universal Analytics it would be a good idea to map out all the data you want to integrate, how you would do it, and what your reports might look like. If this is then considered valuable information to your business, you can go ahead and implement.

 

 

Mar 21
0

Lessons From Google Panda – Don’t Forget

By | SEO | One Comment

It’s no secret that in 2013 Google is going to continue making both Panda and Penguin updates to further clean up search results and reduce spam. Google has already made 24 Panda updates altogether, and at SMX, Matt Cutts admitted that there were more to come (with one update very ‘soon’).

Google Panda Update No End in Site

Google Panda Update – No End In Sight

If you thought you got away scot free from the first (and subsequent) Panda updates, it doesn’t necessarily mean you will continue your good luck. Google’s aim is to continuously improve search results, so you won’t be able to hide your site forever. Remember, the Panda updates all began with human users, so the best way forward with SEO, the most sustainable strategy, is still to have a high quality site that appeals to human users. If you want to make double, or even triple, sure that you won’t be negatively affected by future Panda updates, we have put together a reminder list of everything we learnt from Panda, and what you need to do to keep your site safe. (We will be doing a Penguin version of this post very soon).

 

Panda updates focus on the quality of the content on your site. In particular, it is thought to penalise ‘thin’ content. What is thin content, and does your website have it? Let’s see:

  • Do you have pages where advertisements outweigh normal content?
  • Do you have a heavy template, with only a small ‘unique’ content area on each page?
  • Is your content riddled with links?
  • If you cut and paste your content into a Word Document, do you get multiple grammar or spelling problems?
  • Did you pay a pittance for outsourced content writing?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, there’s a chance you have thin content on your site, and you really should fix it. Unfortunately there are no cheap/quick solutions and if you are serious about improving your site you probably know, deep down in your gut, what you need to do. We’ll spell it out, just in case you need a Panda refresh:
 

Be Panda Ready!

  • Reduce the density of advertising and ‘SEO’ links on your pages.
  • Take the time, or spend the money, to edit your existing content.
  • Fatten up your thin pages by adding relevant content – be it text, image or video
  • Look into your analytics and find pages with a high bounce rate and/or low time-on-page. Is that content thin? Better give it a refresh.
  • Look for duplicate content across your site, remove it (you might even want to redirect pages)
  • Undertake regular SEO audits to ensure you don’t have broken sections, broken links or ‘empty’ pages (This can happen in big, complicated CMS’s, like those used in online retail).
Let us know if you learnt anything else from the previous Panda updates which should be kept in mind in 2013.

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