Google’s Local Emphasis Will Affect SEO More than PPC

Do you sometimes enter a search term in Google with a city or state name followed by a service (i.e. Boston Dentist)? If so, then you have probably seen PPC ads, followed by a map with local listings and then the organic results. Google recently announced that they will be placing a much bigger emphasis on local listings. In addition to being triggered by city/state keywords, they will also be triggered by broad keywords. If your IP address places you in Boston and you type in the keyword “Dentist”, you may see Boston local listings.

Google’s new emphasis on local listings for broad terms as opposed to just geo terms (dentist vs. Miami Dentist) seems to be applied between position 4 and 5 organically on page one. This seems to be strategic as it keeps the eye on PPC ads but definitely rocks the organic results. This is yet another move by Google that is somewhat game changing for many players who really on SEO and PPC for their stability.

Read more here…

Landing Page A/B Testing is a Must

As PPC managers, we are always thinking of new ways to optimize our accounts and to better their performance.  One very consistent, dependable approach has always been to test, test, test our text ads and landing pages.  While we are always comparing our ads and pages to our competitors  so we can try to update our campaigns with new incentives (special offers, promotions, etc.), at some time or another the question pops into our head, “how long do we have to test for?”

I read an interesting article by Melissa Kavanagh that attempts to conclude how much data we need to determine which landing page (A or B) is yielding the best results.

I found this article extremely interesting because it focused not only on the content of the landing page, but the fact that the two different landing pages being tested may impact 2 completely different groups of visitors.  For example: Melissa explains that her team’s “hypothesis is that if specials were promoted in a more visible fashion on the homepage, conversion rate would increase, as would overall revenue.”

They refer to the above explained landing page as “version B”.

Melissa and her team’s hypothesis did result as true, but from a behavior aspect, Melissa explains, “We think that because version B highlights the specials more openly than the original version, it’s possible that we are changing the way visitors are booking their vacations. Instead of going through a linear booking process, it’s possible that version B visitors are now “shopping for deals.”

Melissa and her team’s conclusions are based off of about 3 weeks worth of data.  Melissa states, “After 19 days of running the A/B test, and roughly 10,000 sample website visits, we have solid data that proves version B converts a higher percentage of specials than version A. However, the overall conversion rate of version B has now dropped even further below the control. On the upside, the data also showed that average order per reservation was 5% lower than version A (an improvement from the 6% shown a few days earlier), and average revenue per night booked is now 0.1% higher for version B (previously 4% lower).”

For advertisers that may want some assistance with these high profile testing options, a PPC marketing agency would be happy to handle all of them for you.