VijayWeb.com

Google announced that landing page loading time is soon to be incorporated into the quality factor that decides how much you pay to google for each click in the campaigns you are running on Google Adwords.  http://adwords.blogspot.com/2008/03/landing-page-load-time-will-soon-be.html 

I think this is going to be another factor that SEM landing pages have to compete with those of competition. We would need to compare the landing pages with the ones that are competing in each of the keyword category…well that’s again a reverse engineering and require a lot of resources. Instead, I would prefer to build light speed web pages…light speed web pages? again that is also going to be dependent on network speed. 

Anything Google comes up is mainly to increase their revenue and their business continuity(TCE-Total Customer Experience which most established businesses measure and monitor to see any pitfalls that effects their business over-time) as a search engine. All these factors are closely inter-related that directly impact their top line.

For example, assume all other factors remains constant…Google has a potential of 100 adwords clicks a day for each of the keywords “discounted widgets” and “cheap widgets”

 www.widgetstores.com would like to pay $3 each for the two keywords i.e. $3 * 100 clicks * 2 keywords = $600 in total

www.widgetshop.com would like to pay $2 for each of these two keywords i.e. $2 * 100 clicks * 2 keywords = $400 in total

Now Google has to send all these 200 clicks (100 clicks * 2 keywords) to www.widgetstore.com for optimium benefit.  So, Google has a potential of making $600 on these two keywords assuming it’s searchers would be 100% satisfied (TCE) with www.widgetstore.com which is important factor for their business continuity as a search engine.

Lets say there are users visited Google.com and peformed a search with the keyword “discounted widgets” and adwords results being…

Link 1 position: http://www.widgetstore.com ($3 per click)

Link 2 position: http://www.widgetshop.com ($2 per click)

If good no. of people click on www.widgetshop.com in the link 2 position that means..Google’s recommendation in Link 1 alarms that it has a negative impact on their TCE which will definitely influence their revenues over a period of time.  To avoid this google will make the following adjustment algorithmatically.

Link 1 position:  www.widgetshop.com ($2 per click)

Link 2 position: www.widgetstore.com ($3 per click)

Now www.widgetshop.com being in link 1 position, it has the higher potential to get all 200 clicks for $400…This is what Google calls it as Click Popularity. 

After this…let’s imagine the searcher with “discounted widgets” clicked on www.widgetshop.com and visited the landing page and found that it is irrelevant to his search.  And he comes back to Google and does another search with “cheap widgets” and clicked on www.widgetstore.com.  Again their TCE is effected… And, there will be some revenue Google will be loosing as part of discountng multiple clicks for the advertisers.   

That is the reason “Accessability, Usability and Relevancy” should be the high prioirty things for everyone in the web business. I am sure all your website design and development guidelines are sorrounded among these three.

Conclusion: Building faster loading pages would be an excellent thing but that alone doesn’t contribute for the success in Google.  For example, assume www.widgetstore.com has a homepage that loads in less than 2 seconds and www.widgetshop.com has a home page that loads in 50 seconds…so Google likes www.widgetstore.com here. 

But, on a 2-second home page www.widgetstore.com can only provide a little text content that may not be targeted for everyone visting this page which will have an higher page abandonment…Here Google likes www.widgetshop.com. 

Ultmately, We will have to help Google success in getting higher revenues and TCE for our success in terms of traffic drivng to www.widgetshop.com

Pls. note that the above is only an illustraton, the actuals may vary when putting together various other factors.

When we all go to Search Engines like Google and do a search - we obviously expect the relevant results.

What should Google deliver as the results in order to satisfy the searcher’s needs. How would Search Engines know exactly what the searcher is looking for with a mere keyword that you have provided in the search text box? Have you ever disappointed with the results that Search Engines deliver for you?

Imagine I went to Google and just typed a keyword phrase “web analytics” in the Google’s search text box and just hit the “Search” button - Google does know that I am looking for something related to web analytics which is evident from the search keyword I have just entered in the search text box and it can also know since I am doing this search geographically from India, it would know I may be looking something related to “Web Analytics in India”. But, how does it know exactly what I am looking for?

Am I looking for what is web analytics or what it means? Am I looking for how web analytics works? Or Am I looking for where in the world this web analytics stays Or Web Anlaytics Tools Or Web Analytics Vendors Or am I just looking for Web Analytics Blogs or Articles on Web. When we target a generic keyword phrase like “web analytics” there could be hundreds of intentions could be related even from Search Engne Marketing (SEM), Search Engine Optimization, Web Reporting & Web Analysis, and many more online marketing functions.

How would Google going to satisfy my search intention by providing relevant results which it always says it would when I can relate my intention to many of the above mentioned web analytics topics. What do you think that Search Engines would give me as the top 10 results that would satisfy my search need? What happends if Google give me results about Web Analytics Companies but I am looking for Web Analytics Reporting Techniques, what happends if Google gives me results on Web Log Analysis Software but I am looking for Web Analytics Jobs in United States - so it never matches.

The answer is Search Engines provide relatively different results that means it would provde a mixture of all the topics that can be highly related and commonly searched. The sites that can answer most of the search intentions or provide links to the resources can get the advantage to be ranked in the top 10 results of the search query.

The Search Results page for the keyword “Web Analytics” would normally look like 1 or 2 results on what is “web analytics” and 1 or 2 results from web anlaytics tools or vendors or web analytics companies and 1 or 2 results that can provide links to most of the web analytics topics such as a wikipedia or a directory listing.

But, that may not be the right always for satisfying the searcher needs - the probablity of not satisfying the searcher’s intention would always be 50%, that is the reason Google gives related searches at the bottom of the results page as you see in the above screen shot. When we do more specific search we many not get the recommendations from Google on Related Search but how Google ranks the top 10 results would remains the same - “Relatively Different” and unique content that can answer many of search intentions or provide links to the similar resources would always have an advantage to be ranked in top 10 results.

Lot of times, I have seen SEO’s spending time in analyzing the competitors results and their keyword relevancy and proximity to guess what works for optimizing their web pages (Tools like Webposition Gold, WebCEO provide similar analysis and reports) but I personally say a big “NO” and it is recommended to provide unique but relative content on the web pages. If we try to provide the same content that is already ranked in the top 10 there is likely to be filtered from top 10 results for that search query unless we convince Google that you have better content than the competition on the same topic.

Click Here to read Formula for Search Engine Optimization

SEO = Relevancy + Usability + Accessibility + Popularity

RED ALERT: Don’t Optimize Your Web Site for Search Engines , But Optimize For Your Users ——Read On….

Ask These Questions Yourself:

1. Do You Know What Your Users Are Looking For?

2. Do You Know What Keyword Phrases They Are
Using To Find What They Want?

3. Are You Providing What They Want?

Answers to these three questions are the key foundation for Your Website Success !!!

That’s what I call it as “RELEVANCY”

The Next Important Step in SEO:
After you have the content ready that users are looking for,?the big challenge is providing this content to the user in a usable manner.
That’s where the Information Architecture plays a key role.

Let’s say you have developed the website with all relevant content that users are looking. When user visits your website, you have less than 1 second to tell the user that the content is there on your website what they need. How do you do that?

Place relevant titles at relevant places. Make the content look like what it is meant. And, there are many more..that’s all the job of an Information Architect.

What makes the content & website Usable:

1. Appropriate Titles
2. Indent and Bulleting
3. Font Size and Color
4. Page Breaks
5. Right Links at the right places,
6. Descriptive Link Text
7. Navigation and Site Architecture
8. Size of images and alt text
9. Design of your website and much much more….( Google says there are hundreds of factors…read here: http://www.google.com/webmasters/4.html?). Who knows all of them?

The more accessible it is to search engines, the more accurately they can predict what the site’s about.? The samething is true with users too.

To read more on USABILITY & ACCESSIBILITY, check the below link:
http://www-306.ibm.com/able/guidelines/web/accessweb.html

Hey, the last and important step in SEO is making your web site popular on Web. Don’t participate in link campaigns or submit to 1000’s of search engines and directories. Do it in an honest way…by passing on thru your friends, press releases, by providing free reports and do everything that makes people talk about your site on web.

Read more on what Google is talking about on SEO’s.
http://www.google.com/webmasters/seo.html