Not always seeing your title tags in Google SERPs? Last week there was a post on the Google Webmaster Central blog entitled Better page titles in search results where the blogger, Pierre Farr, explained how Google chooses the title tags to show in their search results. He says Google may choose to display an alternate title for your page using algorithms that generate alternative titles to make it easier for users to recognize relevant pages in the search results.
As with most things related to Google’s search results, it all comes back to relevancy. Read more…
According to Google, “… rich snippets provide you with the ability to help Google highlight aspects of your page. Whether your site contains information about products, recipes, events or apps, a few simple additions to your markup can result in more engagement with your content — and potentially more traffic to your site.” Most of us are familiar with rich snippets and know they can increase click through rates for search results.
We know rich snippets are important, but implementation can be daunting and confusing. I’m not going to attempt to discuss the technical aspects of rich snippets or go into a how-to lesson — I’ll leave that to the experts. Google Webmaster Tools recently published a series of instructional videos about rich snippets. Video topics include a general introduction, types of rich snippets, product searches and troubleshooting, among others.
Not sure if you have rich snippets? Google also has a rich snippet testing tool that allows you to see if a web page contains a rich snippet markup, and, if so, preview the search result for that page.
Does your site contain rich snippets? Use the tool and find out (it’s painless, I promise). Yes? Good for you! No? Try them out and see whether rich snippets have an impact on your click-through-rates.
In an earlier post, I discussed how to use Google Website Optimizer for A/B testing, and now I’m going to briefly touch on conducting multivariate tests with Google Website Optimizer. As with A/B testing, Google’s tool takes away much of the grunt work. Before you get started, consider these tips to help your test run smoothly – choose a page with high traffic, start off small by testing only a few elements, and pick a high volume type of conversion. Also, as I mentioned in my last post, the more variations you have, the longer it’ll take to declare a winner.
To begin, you’ll need the following:
- The URL of the page you’d like to test
- Identify the sections of that page you’d like to test
- The URL of the conversion/success page
Read more…
At first glance, one might think landing page A/B testing and multivariate testing are long and involved processes. However, Google Website Optimizer takes much of the pain and manual work out of the picture and simplifies the process. Today I’m going to talk specifically about A/B testing, and I’ll discuss multivariate testing in an upcoming post.
To begin an A/B test, you need the original landing page URL, the variation landing page (or pages) URL and the conversion page URL. Keep in mind, the more variations you have, the longer it’ll take to declare a winner. When you set up the experiment in Google Website Optimizer, Google will give you different tracking scripts to include on each page of the test. A set of control and tracking scripts will need to be implemented on the original landing page, and a tracking script needs to be implemented on each page variation. Lastly, you also add tracking script to the conversion page. Once all of the tracking scripts are in place, Google validates the pages. Next you can preview the versions of the pages you’re testing and launch the test. Voila – your A/B test is ready! Read more…
Categories: Google, Online Marketing, Paid Search, SEM, SEM General, SEO, Search Engine Marketing, Usability, User Experience Tags: landing page testing, landing pages, usability
I’m asking this as a personal question about your search habits – this isn’t a blog post on how to actually conduct an online search. Stop and think about it for a second. Step back a bit and think about how you use search on a personal basis on the weekends and at night when you’re not working. And this isn’t a rhetorical question – really think about it. You might learn something.
My search habits have evolved quite a bit during the five years I’ve been a search marketer. I used to pride myself on the number of ways I could conduct a search on the same topic and find all sorts of different results. I’d show off to my family – “Look honey. Here’s a BETTER way to search for a condo at the beach.” And then I’d launch into a tutorial of how to conduct searches and get the most relevant results. I’d explain about relevancy to the search query, ramble on about backlinks and how sites get ranked organically, and pontificate on the differences between paid and organic results. My family and friends were astounded by my abilities – or at least I think they were.
Now, however, I must admit I’ve become a lazy searcher. Read more…
