Search engine marketing for e-commerce websites - whats new in Google SEO and AdWords in 2014

@AnnStanley
Using Search
Marketing for
Ecommerce Sites -
What’s New!
By Ann Stanley
Managing Director of Anicca Digital

@AnnStanley
Understanding the Digital
Marketing Landscape

@AnnStanley
Overview of ecommerce marketing channels
Search
marketing
(PPC, SEO,
Merchant Centre)
Traffic to your site
from other sources
(email, affiliates, display ads, social,
mobile ads, shopping comparison,
voucher sites, lead generation)
Shopping platforms
and market places
(Amazon, eBay, Play, NOTHS)
Other
off-site sales/leads
(Social, Mobile Apps,
daily deals sites)
Conversion
optimisation
On-site Sales/Conversions
Off-site Sales/Conversions

@AnnStanley
POEM – Paid Owned Earned Media

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Experian data on source of traffic to top
500 USA retail sites (Dec 2013 vs 2012)

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Online ad spend by EU country 2012 vs 2013

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Ad spend KPI by country (growth,
total spend and per head)

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Paid search growth by country

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UK online ad spend

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The importance of search – 14.2% increase!
£3.49 billion was spent on search in the UK in 2013 (55% of total)
Advertising spend by category
Search
Display
Classified
Others
Google?

@AnnStanley
Google results for ‘luggage’*
Pay per click
ads
Pay per click
text ads
Organic or
natural search
results
Shopping Ads
(previously
Product Listing
Ads)
Local business
listings
*luggage chosen to illustrate different types of results
Local business
listings

@AnnStanley
Growth in Product Listing Ads (PLA’s)
- Data Courtesy of Marin Software
PLA Spend
PLA Share
of Spend
PLA CPC

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22% increase in Display Advertising

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Mobile advertising by format
Search
Display
Classified
SMS & Other

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Google Algorithm Updates
Google regularly changes its search algorithm to ensure
only the most relevant and authoritative websites are
shown at the top of the search results.
The majority of algorithm updates target spammy
techniques and low quality sites.

@AnnStanley
Google Penguin
Update

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Interflora and
Google’s Penguin 2.0 Update

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Penguin 2.0 Update May 22nd 2013
Links should be a by-product of great content and
should not be obtained ‘unnaturally’ - the emphasis is
on quality over quantity.
Websites should stay away from:
• Paid advertorials
• Link exchange networks
• Over-using exact match anchor text for generic
keywords e.g. in online PR and guess blogging sites
• Poor quality outreach campaigns

@AnnStanley
Penguin 2.1 - 4th October 2013
• Affects 1% of all searches
• Looks for “unnatural links” deeper into your website
not just the homepage
• Have you received an “unnatural link warning” in
your Webmaster Tools account?
• SEO traffic could drop by 50% for a partial warning –
more for a full warning
Penguin 3.0 update expected October 2014

@AnnStanley
What are “unnatural links”
• Unnatural Links are links that you control, create or buy; as
compared with natural links which are generated by real users
who value your content enough to link to it.
• Typically found in sites where you can upload the link yourself
e.g. unedited directories, article sites
• Often contain “exact match keyphrases” in the anchor text of
the link or may be present on every page on the site
• Examples of unnatural links already on the “black list”
– Buying links using exact match anchor text
– Blog/forum comments (which are done solely for the link)
– Guest Posts which are posted on irrelevant sites (which are low-quality)
– Article directories (which are used to create a link)
– Online PR/syndication (done solely for SEO purposes with no valuable
content)
– Web designers with exactly the same link at the bottom of every site
they build

@AnnStanley
Corrective action (disavow)
• Use Webmaster tools to identify all the links to your site
• Create a spread sheet and click into each link
• Classify each link according to type and grade each link as natural or
unnatural
• Collect contact details for each webmaster and contact all webmasters
to remove link, keeping copies of all correspondence
• Log removal or feedback, if necessary try again (and possibly a third
time)
• Provide all the data to Google with evidence of your attempts to clean
up your link profile and requests to “disavow any remaining unnatural
links”
• Wait to see their response and if necessary you may have to remove
further links and try again
• It takes 1-2 days to review and clean up around 500 links and a couple of
weeks to get webmaster tor help you (if at all)
• Takes a number of weeks for Google to review and re-index
• Drop of traffic can only be made up by using AdWords (if affordable)
• Re-build your link profile with good links from reputable sites

@AnnStanley
Don’t forget about Panda!
• Latest update Panda 4.1 September 23rd 2014 impacting 3-5%
of search
• Google has incorporated Panda into Google’s main indexing
processes, which means penalties are less noticeable than
they were previously
• Websites should display unique content and not duplicate
mass-produced content
• All poor quality content should be separated then blocked
from crawlers
• You need to consider your site as a hub for content marketing
and publishing to stand out as an expert in your field
• Invest in the quality and usefulness of your site rather than the
old world view of SEO “where you just add a few keyphrases
to your content”

@AnnStanley
Hummingbird – August 20th 2013
• Released to coincide with Google’s 15th birthday
(August 20th)
• Major change which focuses on the way we ask a series
of questions in context (“semantic search”), rather than
us searching on a deliberate string of keyphrases
• This will help with the use of voice search, as it is similar to
the way we speak rather than what we type in
• Results often include the knowledge graph which
contains the answers - so users can get what they want
to know without leaving Google (especially when using
Google Now on a mobile)

@AnnStanley
Examples of Hummingbird
• Transamerica building images
VS.
• Give me pictures of the Transamerica building
• Height of Transamerica building
VS.
• How tall is it

@AnnStanley
Voice-enabled Search

@AnnStanley
Pigeon update – July 24th
• Updated that surprised search community
• Affects local results
• More of a closer ties between core algorithm and
local algorithm

@AnnStanley
Payday Loan 3.0 June 12th 2014
• Designed to target specifc sectors like payday
loans and porn
• Official statements suggested that 2.0 targeted
specific sites, while 3.0 targeted spammy queries.

@AnnStanley
Other Google Changes

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Not-provided search phrases
Tools are available to extract this data from Web Master Tools

@AnnStanley
Structured data and rich snippets
• Less than 1% of site used Schema or structured data
• Identify any elements of the site that can be marked up using schema (refer to
schema.org for more information).
• Highlight and additional information that could be marked up.
• Mark up individual elements such as business name, address, phone number,
opening times and reviews.

@AnnStanley
Authorship before and after photo and
byeline removal (June 28th/August 28th

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HTTPS/SSL – secure websites –
ranking factor?
• August 6th 2014
• Google announced that they would be giving
preference to secure sites
• Adding encryption would provide a
"lightweight" rankings boost!

@AnnStanley
Examples of SEO activities
(especially for ecommerce sites)

@AnnStanley
Optimise for the user –
not search engines
• Good levels of interaction on site (low bounce rates, inbound
links to ‘deep’ pages, social mentions etc.)
• No spam (keyword stuffing)
• Avoid link schemes and develop “Natural links” – e.g. a higher
proportion of links should have anchor text with your brand
name or URL (not just your exact match or target keyphrase)
• If you can create the link yourself then it is probably classed as
spam. Your links need to be earned not built!
• Many sites received penalties for unnatural links (automatic or
manual) resulting in significant drop in organic traffic.

@AnnStanley
Optimised static page content

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Ecommerce category and sub category
content

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Engaging product descriptions

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Ongoing ‘Fresh’ content
(blog with social plug-ins)

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Use of infographics to provide useful
content and “link bait”

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User-generated content
• User-generated content, or UGC, is still a great way to add unique and
relevant content to web pages – especially product pages in the ‘post-
Panda’ search environment.

@AnnStanley
Video integrated within web pages

@AnnStanley
Recent Changes and
Tactics for AdWords

@AnnStanley
Introduction to Shopping ads
LINK
Create & Export
Product Feed
from your website
Set up Shopping
Campaigns
and Ad Groups
Set Max CPC Bids

@AnnStanley
Example Product Group hierarchy
Brand (Campaign)
Product Type
Item ID
Product Type
Item ID

@AnnStanley
Product ratings (stars) in Shopping ads from
October (via Reviews.co.uk and BizaarVoice)

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Expanded PLA on mobile

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Local Inventory Ads - stores with stock
Set-up

@AnnStanley
European Anti-trust Ruling Against Google -
“Alternative Ads” to Include Comparison
Shopping Engine Results (CSE)

@AnnStanley
Shopping Ads – Automatic item
updates (30th September)
• Currently product feed is updated daily (unless you
use an API)
• This can cause discrepancies in your product feed
due to updates on your site which currently causes
ad to be disapproved
• Going forward Google will scrape your updated
Schema information on your site in order to update
item information in your Shopping Ads e.g. price,
• This will help avoid ads being disapproved

@AnnStanley
Top Tips for Shopping Ads
• Shopping Ads replaced Product Listing Ads in August
• Design your hierarchy in advance – the more granular the better, e.g have a
campaign for a brand and product type – Bosch washing machines, Hotpoint
washing machines
• Improve relevancy by:
– Using Custom Labels
– Adding lots of negatives
– Improving Feed quality
• Use benchmark data for optimisation:
– Pause Product Groups with low CTR’s (use “Excluded” next to bid change)
– Check CPC – change bids at Product Group level
– Check Impression share
• Use “Segment” to determine performance on devices and networks – you may
want to use bid modifier for mobiles and/or pause Search Network
• Get Stars in your Shopping Ads by using Reviews.co.uk or Bizzare Voice to get
your Product reviews to display in Shopping ads when they launch in October
• Use Schema on your site with updated product information so your Shopping
feed is automatically updated

@AnnStanley
Other Key Changes

@AnnStanley
Exact Match Targeting Settings
• Previously default campaign setting was to show
your Exact match phrase for plurals and mis-spellings
• However you could select campaign settings so
that exact match meant you were only shown for
exactly what was typed in
• This option is no longer available

@AnnStanley
Google Certified Stops now in UK
(September 28th)
• Will show in Shopping
ads
• Large amount of
information needs to
provided

@AnnStanley
Mobile ad format changing
• Have at least 1 ad opted for mobile in each ad group
• Call for action needs to be on the first description line

@AnnStanley
Ad Customizers (dynamic
parameters)

@AnnStanley
Planning for Christmas – Courtesy of
Google

@AnnStanley
Our brands
ann@anicca.co.uk 0203 0518070

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