Google recently announced that it will now use the encryption protocol called SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) to encrypt all the searches that people do using the Google Search Engine if they are signed-in using their Google Account login.

This means that these logged-in Google users will be redirected to https://www.google.com (note the extra’s’) from http://www.google.com (non SSL) once they are signed-in with their Google account. This switch to SSL encrypts your search query which means that the sites the user visits after clicking on the results from Google will no longer contain the “Referrer data” (data which tells the destination site how it was found, whether from a search term entered into a search engine or from an external link) except in the case of ads.

Only Google and your web browser will see your searches and a third party (not even Google Analytics) will not know what is being searched. The new encryption will block referrer data, which means site owners will know that you came from Google, but won’t receive information on what the exact search was.

How does this affect SEO?

With the new system in place, Organic Traffic can still be tracked, but it will not be possible to drill down to the keywords from which the website visit was derived. Even Google Analytics isn’t spared, one will no longer be able to isolate the search term associated with the visit in GA.

However the keywords or terms Google search engine users use to find their websites will still be offered on Google Webmaster Central. Presently, Google Webmaster Central shows the top 1,000 queries that a site appeared for at Google – as well as was selected for – over a 30 day period.

Referrer Data for Ads:

However referrer data will be passed into the advertiser’s site, which means they (ad sites), will still receive information that they currently get with unencrypted search. The main reason stated by Google being that advertisers need the referrer data to evaluate their ad campaigns, to know which keywords or search terms are driving traffic in order to improve the ads which we believe is to keep the advertisers happy.

However, when the user is signed-in and clicks on an ad with the advertiser’s website being HTTP rather than HTTPS, Google will send the search term for that specific search to the advertiser over HTTP.

The encryption change as per Google will impact only the single digit percentage of search users, anyone who hasn’t signed-in will still send referrer data to the websites he/she visits which means lots of data for SEOs to do a conversion analysis to the keyword level.

With the move to SSL, Google has taken web search security to the next level; the trick is to balance data security for the web users and to keep advertisers happy.

What is Real-Time in Google Analytics?

Google Analytics (GA) has changed the world of tracking for millions of websites owners and marketers alike. GA has always given powerful insights on data/performance from the past. Now there is something new to benefit from – the Real-Time data, available on the new version of Google Analytics and for administrator access.

Real-Time starts tracking data automatically for any page that has the Google Analytics code. No changes to the tracking codes are required. It shows data with only 60 seconds delay. This Real-Time feature tracks immediate impact of the visits on your site or specific pages of your campaigns. Real-time tracking allows analytics users/owners to see what their web traffic is doing while on their website.

Benefits of using Real-Time in Google Analytics

Using the Real-Time feature marketers can now see where the site traffic is coming from, the path this traffic followed to get there and the actions taken on the site at that instant.

The Real-Time data covers three dimensions:

• Location: Provides information about geographic location of the visitor.
• Traffic Source- Showcases information about visitor’s source.
• Content- Displays information about the pages the visitor is visiting.

This feature gives access to real-time stats on:

• Visitors
• Percentage of New & Returning Visitors
• Pageviews
• Traffic Sources (referrals, direct, campaigns etc)
• Active Pages

Here are a few major advantages for marketers:

• This feature helps one understand the impact of a new campaign in real-time. When a new campaign is launched, it’s a huge benefit if we can understand the performance immediately rather than waiting for a day or more. Real-Time reports tell you in seconds if you are getting the desired performance or not.
• The real-time data helps in understanding the popularity of particular content on the site in real time. This information can be used to optimize placement of the content, or publicize the content to create buzz and optimize ad revenue.
• It helps provides visitors information by location in real-time, i.e. a geographic breakdown of where the visitors are coming from is provided.
• Another useful application of real-time is the measurement of the immediate impact of social media. Whenever a new blog post or a tweet is up, we can now see the immediate impact to the site traffic. This also helps in knowing when visits from the tweet or blogs dropped, hence giving you opportunity to reengage with your audience.
• This data provides information on the most popular pages in real-time so marketers can optimize the ads on that particular page & generate more ad revenue.

However we need to keep in mind that the Real Time reports are not filtered. Even if a profile filter is applied, the real-time data is not filtered.

Accessing Real-Time data in new Google Analytics

So how does one gain access to this great new feature?

Sign into your GA account. Make sure it is the ‘new version’. If you have multiple accounts, select the one you want to view Real-Time data for. In the ‘Home’ tab, click on ‘REAL-TIME (BETA)’ button in the drop down menu to the left. You should now have access to GA’s real-time data.

Happy analyzing!

Relevant and targeted keywords are crucial for a PPC campaign. Equally important are negative keywords (or negatives as they are commonly called). Negatives are word filters that disqualify text ads from triggering for specific search queries.

For instance if you are a iPhone reseller and “iPhone” is one of your keywords, each time somebody does a search for that keyword your ad will be displayed- this is a good thing. What is probably not good is if your ads also showed up for a search on “iPhone problems”. To avoid this and bloating total impressions with irrelevant searches it’s important to add “Problem” as your negative keyword. This way “iPhone Problem(s)” search query would not trigger your text ads.

Every search engine advertiser should use negative keywords in their Pay Per Click (PPC) account. A comprehensive list of negatives helps ensure targeted visits to your site which will in turn significantly improve not only your CTR, but also your overall conversion rate.

Not using negative keywords can mean that your ads show to users who aren’t interested in your business or service. This untargeted traffic could lower your keywords Quality Score and negatively impact your return on investment.

How to find negative keywords idea:

• Google Keyword Tool: Place your keywords in the keyword tool. Google shows keywords related to your products or services. Check the Keyword column for any search query that is irrelevant to your business and that you wouldn’t want triggering your ads. Click the downward-pointing arrow in the Keyword column for each keyword that you want to be added as a negative. Select that keyword and it is added as a negative.

• Search Query Report: Pull a search query report at regular intervals to check what keywords trigger your ads. The new Google interface has a feature which is somewhat hidden, but it helps you run a search query report at the ad group level without actually running a full-blown report to find additional keywords or negative keywords.Here’s how you can access that- under the keywords tab, click the “see search terms” drop down and click “all” or “selected” (be sure a date range is chosen). You will see the actual search queries that displayed your ads. Search queries that are not relevant to your product/services can be added as a negative keywords right from this window.  Just click the box next to a particular keyword and click “Add as negative keyword“.

• Analytics: It can be an amazing source of negative keywords. Look at your organic data and not just your PPC data. If you are unsure of any terms, do a simple search for the keyword and see what results pop up.

• Use A Thesaurus: Run your main keywords through a Thesaurus. This not only helps in expanding your negatives but also helps with main keyword list.

• Industry Analysis: Use your product and industry knowledge and think of words that are similar or spelled similarly to your product or service names. Remember that there are products released every day, so set up Google Alert for your keywords.

Conclusion:
Once you’re done with adding negatives at your campaign or ad group level, check for account performance. Look for improvements in CTR, quality score and conversions. Here’s a list 150+ Negative Keywords for Software Selling AdWords Campaigns with examples  to add to your PPC groups.

Adding negatives is an ongoing process. Depending on your product you might need to look at new negatives every day.

Until recently, the sitelinks that you have most commonly seen have probably looked something like this:

The purpose of sitelinks is to help searchers navigate a specific page they are in need of as quickly as possible. However, earlier this week, Google announced its improved and expanded version of sitelinks. The newer version is arranged as a column of links and appears more prominently on the search engine results page.

The new sitelinks is certainly helping brands dominate the search results page. According to Google, displaying more sitelinks is designed to help users quickly navigate to the most relevant section of a site. But, let’s try and understand how the changes will affect websites, and how they can adapt and take advantage of them.

For starters, the new sitelinks takes up a large chunk of the first page results thus ruling out potential competitors and other less relevant sites sneaking above the fold. Online user behavior will change as more users will want to click on the pages listed in sitelinks than look for websites listed below in search results, thus helping brand conversions significantly. Also certain is the tangible increase in organic visits and sales from keywords containing brand permutations.

Adapting to this change is critical and website architecture is really important (directory structure, URL naming conventions etc…); also, make full use of Google’s webmaster console to manage sitelinks and take Google’s humanized results page and ranking factors into consideration.

Is your software-selling website really optimized for search engines? Because -from our experience- sometimes even skilled webmasters fail to notice certain SEO issues that can severely impact their rankings.

So let’s take a closer look and find out what mistakes you should avoid at all costs – and some quick tips on how to repair the damage, if it’s already been done!

SEO Strategy

Mistake #1: You do not include SEO into site development specs

Outcome: Search engines may not be able to crawl your site, index its content and rank it accordingly. This can happen because of content included in images or Flash files, JavaScript links, too many variables in URLs and poor architecture (lack of topic categories, sub-categories and product pages).

• First and foremost, make sure your content is visible to search engines: use HTML to display important content and links throughout the site. For Flash sites it’s best to create a HTML version with a robots.txt which disallows the Flash pages, so that you don’t have duplicates.

Back in 1987, a group of independent software professionals created the Association of Shareware Professionals (ASP), with the mission of promoting the shareware marketing model and achieve a standard in the shareware industry that everybody could rely on.

Looking back at what they did, it’s obvious that they fully accomplished their mission: the “try before you buy” model is standard marketing for software.  The term “shareware” is free to use by everybody because of their efforts to protect it against trademark registration (just like SEO is free for all because of Rhea of Outspoken). The early American laws affecting software vendors have taken into consideration their say about it and correctly represented shareware vendors.