How to unGoogle Yourself:

I used to manipulate the search query string itself in the URL bar to make it do what I wanted. Now, I’m too lazy for that, and there are ways to automate the process. But first, let’s look at the search query bar to learn what all the moving parts are:

You could technically just play around with this search bar until you get the results for the country and languages you’re targeting. But not everyone knows what the country and language codes are, and so here are some work-arounds.

There are a few methods to manually set this up:

• Sign out of all your Google accounts
• Clear your browser’s cache and cookies
• Change your location in Google using the Search Tools box. Note: you have to set your location according to the country-coded top-level domain that Google is currently using. So if you are on google.com, you can only select a location within the USA.
• Use the Incognito Browsing mode in Google Chrome. When you fire up Chrome, click the icon on the far right of the search box that looks like three horizontal bars, and then select Open New Incognito Window. You’ll know you’ve done it correctly when you see:

One of the easiest ways to automate this process is to go to http://www.impersonal.me, put in your site, and then select one of the presets that matches the country you want to target, or select Options in order to change the interface language, the TLD, and the location of the search. Then impersonal.me does the rest. An alternative is http://isearchfrom.com.

A more advanced option is to use a proxy, or alternatively, a VPN. Make sure you are using a trusted proxy, not one of the freebies.

Let’s Just Talk About Daniel Day-Lewis for a While

Why the British Daniel Day-Lewis was the unbelievably perfect role for Abraham Lincoln, my American brain will never understand. Anyway, I did some digging around between the US and UK Google search results to find some interesting results on my favorite actor.

The first thing I noticed is that, regardless of whether I was signed in or out of my Google accounts, nothing in the search results changed. This means that no one in my Google+ circle cares about Daniel Day-Lewis and hasn’t shared anything about him that Google thought I might like to see. In other words, my Google+ friends need to focus more on what really matters in life, like fine method acting.

The second thing I noticed while searching on Google.com, is that the 11th result (below the in-depth articles) was an article from the http://www.dailymail.co.uk titled “Daniel Day-Lewis to receive a knighthood,” which shouldn’t have surprised me because if Sir Elton John is a knight, Day-Lewis deserves to be one too.

This search result is puzzling because the rest of the first page results all come from US top-level domains, but not too puzzling when we remember that Day-Lewis is British so there’s bound to be some British articles that float to the top, even in the US.

Sure enough, when I switched over to GB (Great Britain) as my location, the dailymail.co.uk result was #2, behind the British newspaper The Guardian, which had also made an appearance at #7 in the In-Depth Articles section on the US results. The Guardian is a bit of an interesting exception because they recently migrated from .co.uk to .com, so I am assuming that Google thinks they swing both ways.

So, the 2 British sites that made it onto the first page in the US also dominate the search results in the UK. But other than those two results (and the resource box on the right), there is no other overlap in organic listings.

The US results:

The UK results:

The most important thing to notice here is that if you are searching from the US, you get a fairly different set of search results than if you search in the UK for the same thing. Also, it appears that in the US, search results are more oriented towards Daniel-Day Lewis as an actor, while in the UK, the search results are more oriented towards him as a person. Intriguing.

Tools for Tracking Keyword Rankings Globally

There are some great tools for tracking keyword rankings in different locations across the globe. Advanced Web Rankings and SEMRush are two that come to mind.

In Advanced Web Rankings, or AWR, you can use their online web app or their desktop tool to create custom reports. You can create a project in which you can designate websites to track, such as your website alongside your competitors, your targeted keywords, and specific search engines.  You can target search engines by country or by region, such as Google Organic USA (loc: salt lake city, ut), which means that AWR will look at keyword rankings specifically as if they were located in Salt Lake City. You can also select different languages for the search engines. For instance, German search results in Switzerland as opposed to French results in Switzerland.

In SEMRush, when you login to your online account, you can view the organic positions report and then click through the different country tabs to view your rankings in those regions. But you can’t select different languages, so you don’t have as much flexibility as with AWR.  SEMRush has 26 countries to select, while AWR has hundreds, including major search engine indexes in the main regional languages for each country. Besides, in AWR you can select multiple search engines per project, while in SEMRush you have to create a separate project for each search engine you want to track. So AWR wins this battle.

Parting Thoughts

People all over the world might be searching for your product or service and are probably seeing very different results based on their location. It would be a false sense of security to think that your global rankings are as good as the results in your neighborhood. In order to determine what your customers are most likely seeing on Google, you need to go incognito. This is just the first step in evaluating and tracking your SEO success on a global scale, but it’s a crucial one.

The post How to Go Incognito for International Search Queries – and Why appeared first on Portent.

PPC, at times, can feel a bit like going to Vegas and pumping nickels into the slot machines. Except imagine the nickels are dollars, or sometimes several dollars. Ouch! Pretty soon you’ve squandered your dinner money, and the forgiving 7-7-7 has eluded your grasp all night.

Fortunately, there’s a way to hedge your bets in Pay-Per-Click Marketing. A way to avoid the slot machines and move your money over to the poker tables, so to speak – where at least you can influence whether you win or lose.

You can’t make people click your ads and you can’t make them buy your products, but you can put your monetary resources where they’re more likely to. That’s where geo-targeting for revenue comes in.

Go for the Green

Google Analytics has a neat little feature: A map of the USA (or other countries, depending on where you’re marketing) that gets greener where you get more traffic. And even better, data naming your top revenue-generating areas. [see fig.1]

Fig.1

So how do you apply that precious knowledge? First, set a wide date range in Analytics to get all the revenue data possible (up to a year’s worth, if you can). Then, take these findings with you to your PPC venue:

• Start a new keyword-targeted campaign in Google AdWords.
• Call it “Geo-Targeted” and use your 2-3 best converting ads, and around 10 to 15 of your best converting keywords from the most successful campaign(s) in your account.
• Target your Top 5 revenue earning states/provinces to start out. [see fig.2]

Fig.2

• Set the new campaign budget at a percentage to your existing highest revenue campaign(s). (NOTE: For my example, I set the budget at 1/6th of my most successful campaign.)
• Use “Rotate” ad display, and if you have ad scheduling settings you normally use in other campaigns, set those up too.
• For tracking the results of this test most accurately, use auto-tagging in your AdWords account. But if you can’t, just ensure that your new campaign is manually tagged before you take it live.

The Proof Is in the Revenue

Test your new “Geo-Targeted” Campaign for at least 2 weeks to 1 month before judging your success. With any luck though, you should start to see that reserving a bigger piece of the budget specifically for the states/provinces that buy your product most really pays off.

The client in my example showed improvements in every critical AdWords stat. [see fig.3] But those stats don’t pay the bills, right? Money talks, and that’s where this technique really shines. From April 1st to April 15th, I spent only 1/7th the amount of my (previously) best-performing campaign and I made nearly half what that campaign did in revenue! [see fig.4]

Fig.3 Fig.4

Give it a shot and play to your geographic strengths. You don’t have to be a high roller to win big.

This tutorial assumes you have a certain level of knowledge in setting up a campaign in AdWords and digging for data in Analytics. If you get lost though, use the screenshots provided in the post.

The post Hedging Your PPC Bets: Geo-Targeting for Revenue appeared first on Portent.

Search Engine Marketing Should Emulate Your Business Model.

What do I mean by Search Engine Marketing Should Emulate Your Business Model? Chances are good that your website and your larger Internet presence (You do have a larger Internet presence, don’t you?) does not match your company’s business model.

Most business websites are designed for one audience, the sales & conversion audience. These are your company’s prospects, leads and current clients. The website content for this audience typically consists of extended brochure content for products and services, basic customer support such as manuals
and some type of a Q&A process, plus information about your company. This focus is so pervasive that, as an SEO Analyst, when I recommend expanding website content the immediate reaction is to add additional sales pages.

Does this reflect accurately how your company operates in the physical world?

• Does your sales staff only fill-out order forms or do they spend time networking and building relationships.
• Do they limit their networking to prospects and leads or do they communicate with others as a part of their search for those leads?
• Does your company engage in increasing brand recognition and building awareness of your company?
• Do employees attend industry conferences, either for your own business or the businesses of your prospects and your prospects’ clients?
• Do people in your company speak at events or engage in other activities that demonstrate industry leadership?
• Does your firm lobby lawmakers or work to influence regulations and standards?
• Is your business engaged in community development and charitable causes?

Okay, that’s enough, almost. Let me ask you two more questions.

• Would your company be successful if it did not do all or many of the things in my list of questions?
• How many of these activities does your business engage in on the Internet?

I understand it is rather difficult to attend a conference or trade show online. The point is that your business is about more than sales.

• It relies on building your brand or company reputation so people will know about your company and think of it favorably when they need your product or service.
• It relies on networking and building relationships throughout your industry and your clients’ industries.
• It relies on being an industry leader and an active business citizen.

Marketing a business online is no different than marketing a business offline. It requires enthusiastic interactive communication on multiple fronts.

How does this affect search engine marketing?

Search engine algorithms are designed to identify relevance, trust and authority. Trust and authority are measured using signals from other websites like links to your website. When you engage vigorously in building conversations on the Internet, on and off of your website, you dramatically
increase the opportunities for search engines to raise the level of trust and authority that they assign to your company’s website. That will increase your rankings across a variety of relevant search queries and, in turn, generate leads and sales.

That is why I say Search Engine Marketing Does Not Affect Your Business Model. I say it because Search Engine Marketing Should Emulate Your Business Model.

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