Web Search & Marketing Newsletter - May 2016

Welcome to the latest monthly issue of our regular newsletter which features news, tips and advice on effective website marketing, with a particular focus on search engine marketing techniques and trends.

In the first article this month we look at how Google recently provided more information about ranking factors for 'Google My Business' listings. This should be of interest to any businesses, or SEO managers who are setting up or managing these listings to target a local market.

We also look at the identification by Google of the new and emerging threat of 'Clickjacking'. This is a sophisticated form of online threat to Cost-Per-Click display ads, so Google's defence against it should interest any business running AdWords campaigns.

Finally we look at the latest online advertising expenditure report from the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) Australia for the 2015 year, which increased to over $6bn and saw an increasing importance of mobiles and, more recently, videos in the online advertising space.

You can read more below, or you can also browse through previous editions of the newsletter, either by month or by subject.

You can also follow us on Facebook or LinkedIn, as well as our occasional updates on Twitter.

On to this month's edition...

Google Updates Details on Improving Local Ranking

In an interesting development from Google - who are usually notoriously coy about releasing detailed information about how to achieve good search rankings - they recently added more details to their help page, named 'Improve your local ranking on Google'. This provides more insights on how to achieve better visibility with local search results.

As reported in our September 2015 newsletter article 'Google Changes Local Search Results', the reduction in the number of listings displayed from 7 to 3 has led to increased competition for those spots. Therefore these recently updated details are welcomed by small business owners and the SEO industry, as any information provided by Google about these factors is always useful.

Google does still do their best to keep the specific details of their search algorithms confidential, to make the ranking system as fair as possible for everyone. Previously, the help page had about five paragraphs of text around relevance, distance and prominence for ranking in the local results. Now, Google has vastly expanded the document which now covers the newer local '3-pack' results, as well as how to be included in that pack and how the ranking positions are determined.

In terms of these rankings, Google still outlines relevance, distance and prominence, but expands upon each of them. Here is a summary of the key points in the revised content:

• Relevance - this refers to how well a local listing matches what someone is searching for. Adding complete and detailed business information can help Google better understand your business and match your listing to relevant searches. Relevant terms in a business name can be important but this should still be the correct name for the business, plus selecting the best category/ies and using a good business description can all help.
• Distance - just like it sounds, how far is each potential search result from the location term used in a search? If a user doesn't specify a location in their search, Google will calculate distance based on what's known about their location, which tends to be more accurate if on a mobile device.
• Prominence - this refers to how well-known a business might be. Some places are more prominent in the offline world, and search results try to reflect this in local ranking. For example, famous museums, landmark hotels or well-known store brands that are familiar to many people are also likely to be prominent in local search results. Prominence is also based on information that Google has about a business from across the web (like links, articles and directories).
• Reviews - having Google reviews, including the number and rating score are factored into local search rankings. More reviews and positive ratings are likely to improve a business's local ranking. A business website's position in the main search results can also a factor, so SEO best practices also apply to local search optimisation.

You can read the updated Google help file here. If you want to know more about how ranking well in a local listing could help to improve your business, contact us now.

 

Google Rolls Out More Defenses to Thwart Clickjacking

Google recently identified 'Clickjacking' as an emerging threat to cost-per-click display ads. This is a type of web attack where the appearance of a website is changed so that a victim does not realise they are clicking on one or more ads. For example, a user may intend to click on a video play button or menu item, but instead clicks an invisible ad unit. They reacted quickly by rolled out new defences to protect advertisers against this threat by using a combination of technology, operations, and policy.

Earlier this year when Google's operations team identified Clickjacking activity on the display network, they moved swiftly to terminate accounts, removing entities involved in, or attempting to use, this technique to trick users. The engineering team worked in parallel to quickly release a filter to automatically exclude this type of invalid traffic across display ads.

This approach delivered a two-phase solution to publishers who violated Google's policies: firstly, the operations team cleaned out publishers from the ad systems; secondly, engineers built a new filter as a durable defence to protect against Clickjacking traffic.

The combined Clickjacking defences operate at considerable scale, analysing display ad placements across mobile and desktop platforms, evaluating a variety of characteristics. When the system detects a Clickjacking attempt (or an normal 'invalid click'), Google zeros-in on the traffic attributed to that placement, and removes it from upcoming payment reports to ensure that advertisers are not charged for those clicks.

Ad traffic quality has always been a priority to Google, which has consistently put in place sophisticated technology to detect and not charge for, or eradicate, 'invalid clicks'. It's swift to respond when such emerging threats appear and the combined defences work well to combat those.

If you want more information about how 'invalid clicks' and Clickjacking could impact your AdWords campaigns, please contact us now.

 

Online Advertising Expenditure in Australia Increases to Over $6bn

In their latest report for the twelve months ending December 31st 2015, IAB Australia stated that the Australian online advertising market experienced a significant surge in the final quarter of 2015, growing by 25% over the previous year, to finish the year at over $6bn. That's a major milestone for the industry, which has now achieved year on year growth of at least 21% since 2010.

The data, which comes from the latest IAB/PWC Online Advertising Expenditure Report (OAER), shows that all online advertising segments experienced double digit growth in the financial year, with General Display and Classifieds leading the growth at 46% and 22% respectively. Search and directories remains the largest sector of spend with 46% share of the market, and this sector ended the 2015 year at $2.8bn, up by 14% on 2014. However, as usual this figure remains an estimate as Google doesn't reveal their actual figures for this report and this would comprise the largest part of this spend.

Most notably, mobile advertising continued its meteoric rise, increasing 81% to reach $1.55bn in 2015. Mobile advertising now accounts for 40% of all General Display advertising, up from 25.5% in 2014. This is a significant increase, which should be noted by all online marketers. Device category share for 2015 showed that smartphones increased their share of mobile advertising at 65% for the year and tablets at 35%. This represents another increase in smartphones' share of mobile advertising over time and further emphasises their rapidly growing importance in online advertising.

Video advertising also delivered a significant year of growth, up by over 75% on the previous year, reaching $484 million in 2015, up from $276.5 million in 2014. It now accounts for 23% of General Display advertising.

The total online advertising expenditure in Q4 2015 reached $1.7 billion, an increase of 28% on the same quarter in 2014. This growth was driven largely by General Display, which increased 47% in the quarter, with Search and Directories growing 18% and Classifieds posting a 22% increase.

You can read more here. If you would like more information on how these figures can be used to improve your online marketing, contact us now.

 

We hope you've found this month's newsletter useful. Please contact us if you need any more information on the items covered, or our advice on any aspect of your website's performance. Also, if there are any issues you would like to see in future editions of this newsletter, please submit your suggestions to us.

 

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