Līve Ambitions

Once logged in your Google account, you’ll notice that search results will look a little different vs when  you’re logged off.  This is because Google has long been working to provide a more personal search experience for the user.  This means that when you’re logged into your Google account, Google keeps track of your online activity, such as which sites you visit and which sites you visit most often.  Google will also manipulate your search results based on your search behavior – placing sites you visit more often nearer the top of the results.

This search feature provides a better personal experience for the user, while at the same time allowing Google to capture greater accuracy in their data.  However, how does this personal search feature affect SEO and Internet Marketing?

I think personal search is changing the dynamics of SEO.  Google is getting their way, and so are the users.  We all know that on-site optimization has always been an important factor of SEO, but never more than now.  Website content and structure is the undisputed king of SEO.  Although link popularity is still an important factor of SEO, off-site optimization services such as link building will probably hurt the most in the long run.  This is what Google has been fighting for all along – more quality content and less SERP manipulation through unnatural link building.

From the Paid Advertising standpoint, business can only get better.  Because Paid Advertising such as display ads, PPC and affiliate marketing are not affected by the natural search results, you can expect this market to grow.  There is some sense of ”you know what you’re paying for” with paid ad placement, so I think advertisers will be more receptive to this type of online marketing.

I been meaning to take the Google Professional Advertising Exam for a while now.  I finally decided to take it yesterday after having gone over some of the tutorials in the Adwords Learning Center.  Fortunately, I passed – barely.  I’m a little embarrassed to share my score, but it was less than 80% and higher than 75%. 

The exam was a bit trickier than I had anticipated.  I’m not sure which questions I missed, but there were quite a few questions I had 2nd thoughts on.  You really have to pay attention to the wording of each question.  Also, there were some multiple selection questions which were a bit iffy. 

Personally, I don’t think there should have been so many questions related to billing and account information.  Isn’t the whole point of the exam to test your knowledge in setting up and managing an ad campaign?  I don’t see how billing or general account questions would help you optimize your client’s campaign and ROI.

I guess the bottom line is I passed, and I can now show off the logo.

There were a couple of things that I wasn’t aware of before the exam:

1. They require you to take the exam every year to renew it.  With so many frequent changes going on at Google, it would make sense to keep up-to-date.
2. You don’t get to show off an Adwords Certified logo until you’ve managed an Adwords campaign for at least 90 days and have spent over $1,000 within that period.

My Advice to You on Taking the Google Professional Advertising Exam:

1. Before you take the exam, go over every topic in the Adwords Learning Center.
2. Take the quizzes for each topic.  Many of the questions in the exam are similar, if not the same as the questions in the quizzes. 
3. Make sure the information is fresh in your mind.  It’s easy to forget if you haven’t looked over the tutorials in a while.
4. Pay close attention to the wording of each question.  Don’t breeze through - you may make costly mistakes.
5. Take the exam in a quiet, comfortable setting.  When I took the exam, I was in a room full of co-workers and their conversations distracted me.

I often get into heated discussions about this topic with colleagues and others in my profession.  My stance is that meta tag titles, descriptions and keywords are not as important as many make it out to be. 

I mean, think about it.  Meta tags are way too easy to manipulate.  Spammers have used it to their advantage because algorithms of the past gave too much credit to this data.  But, search engines have gotten smarter and more complex.  Gone are the days when you could easily rank top 10 simply because you plug in a bunch of keywords into the meta tag data.

Could you imagine if meta tags were weighed heavier into the algo?  We’d have all kinds of spammy sites ruling the top 10 rankings – such as porn or gambling sites showing up for “pet supplies” or “computer store”. 

Don’t get me wrong.  I’m not saying meta tags are obsolete.  I definitely think it helps to some degree.  For example, it would be the deciding factor where two similar sites are competing for the same spot, but the one with the search query matching meta tag would outrank the other.

It all comes down to perspective.  If you are selling links from your site based on PR, then it would be very important.  However, if you are not in the business of selling links, then Google PR shouldn’t matter. 

The bottom line for any business online is traffic and conversions.  Nothing else really matters.  A high PR is not necessary for a site to get huge amounts of traffic.  In fact, a high PR doesn’t even guarantee a placement over lower PR sites.

In the last couple of years, Google has made it more difficult for sites to attain a high PR.  I think it was a sensible decision because so many bogus websites were springing up purely for the sake of selling text links.  And, selling text links for the purpose of manipulating the SERPs is against Google’s policy.

Although I am not completely innocent from the practice of selling or buying links, I’ve never personally created a site solely for the purpose of selling links.  I believe that every site that is built should serve a greater purpose.  A site should work to solve a problem (product or service) or help the public answer questions (information).

According to an independent test done by SEO Black Hat, the bounce rate of a webpage plays a considerable role in determining its rankings within the search engines Google. 

For those of you who have not heard of bounce rates.  Here is the definition that Google gives:

Bounce rate is the percentage of single-page visits or visits in which the person left your site from the entrance (landing) page. Use this metric to measure visit quality – a high bounce rate generally indicates that site entrance pages aren’t relevant to your visitors. The more compelling your landing pages, the more visitors will stay on your site and convert. You can minimize bounce rates by tailoring landing pages to each keyword and ad that you run. Landing pages should provide the information and services that were promised in the ad copy.

Does this conclusion make sense?  Yes, I would agree that it does.  Google is all about user experience.  So why wouldn’t Google implement this little piece of algo to improve the experience of its users?  Not only does bounce rate help determine relevant sites, but it also helps to weed out some of the spam sites.

In addition to SEO, I believe that bounce rate also affects PPC performance, more specifically Quality Score.  By tracking bounce rates on each landing page, Google can assess whether or not a landing page is relevant to a given set of keywords.  So a high bounce rate would indicate that the landing page is not relevant, and therefore would receive a reduced Quality Score.

I understand the concept of arbitrage – buying cheap long-tail keywords and turning a profit for higher paying keywords.  And, I ‘ve also talked to people who’ve had incredible success with arbitrage in the past, but I question whether it still works today.

There are a few reasons why I question the effectiveness of arbitrage in today’s market:

1. Quality Score – With the advancement of Quality Score technology (Google), arbitrage sites would have a tougher time passing the filter.
2. Competition – With more people jumping into the game of arbitrage, we can expect to see competition in just about every niche we can think of.
3. Broad and Phrase Match – With the existence of broad and phrase keyword match, even non-arbitrage sites are able to compete for long-tail keywords.

I’m sure there are still some loop holes around it, but it’s pretty clear to see that things are only going to get tougher for arbitrage sites to make money.

Update:

I know I discussed long-tails as it relates to PPC/arbitrage, but how about SEO?  From an SEO perspective, long-tails are great!  Not only is it easier to rank for long-tail keywords organically, but also very cost-effective.

SEO is still alive and kicking, but lately its become more challenging to optimize sites for higher rankings in the search engines.  These are some of the reasons why I believe so:

• Search engine technology has improved their ability to detect unnatural links and discount them automatically.
• Ever heard the phrase “content is king”?  It’s absolutely true, and probably more important now than ever before.  Google has always favored sites that were built with the users in mind.  If you’re thinking of building a fly-by-night site just to make a quick buck, I’d rethink that strategy.
• With increasing competition in every niche and vertical, SEOs must work harder and more creatively in order to compete.
• The cost of advertising has gone up.  To make matters worse, you may be competing against big companies that have much bigger advertising budgets.

What are your thoughts?