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See details of post Wanted: Session ideas for SMX West below

We want your input to help us plan our upcoming SMX West conference, which will be taking place on March 13-15, 2018. Specifically, we’d love to hear from you if you have an great idea for a session that you think should be on the agenda. And if you’re interested in speaking at the show, the absolute best way to improve your chances of being chosen is to get involved at this point, by suggesting an awesome idea that really catches our attention.

We’re looking for two types of suggestions:

Session ideas for regular SMX sessions. Most sessions at SMX conferences are 60-90 minutes in length, and feature 2 to 3 speakers. Here, we’re not looking for solo presentations; rather, your idea should be a topic where multiple speakers can each weigh in with their own point of view, opinion and suggested tactics. You can let us know if you’re interested in speaking or would just like to see the session idea considered without nominating yourself to speak.

Session ideas for solo presentations. Solo presentations are keynote level, Ted-style presentations from industry visionaries. We’re looking for the best of the best: seasoned professionals, acknowledged thought leaders, inspiring communicators. People who will wow attendees with their insights and motivate them to chart new territory in their own online marketing campaigns. If you pitch to speak on a solo session, you really need to wow us to be seriously considered. Solo sessions are typically 22 minutes long.

New: Focus On Online Retail Track

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i wish you like this post on Google Testing Mobile First Index In The Wild

Google’s John Mueller confirmed yesterday in a hangout at the 15:38 mark that Google is indeed testing the mobile first index in the live search results. He did not explain what percentage of searchers are seeing these live test results but I have to imagine it is really small. With this test, Google is not only looking to see how much it impacts the searchers and current rankings but they are also building new classifiers for debugging purposes.

John explained that these internal classifiers are designed to label which sites have equivalent desktop to mobile pages and which do not. This way they can see if there are any common problems they are noticing across the live web where they can communicate to webmasters what changes they need to make. These forms of communication can be done via blog posts, direct communication from Google, Search Console messages and other means.

John Mueller would not give a date on the release but he did say they are testing things.

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See details of post Will chatbots become part of the consumer search experience? below

When thinking about the future of organic search, common considerations include the impending mobile-first index, machine learning, AI, natural language processing, voice search, site speed, HTTP 2, personalization and consumer behavior changes led by the Internet of Things and digital assistants.

However, during an inspirational Future of Search meeting with the Bing team and Rik van der Kooi, corporate vice president for Microsoft advertising worldwide, discussion focused on a different topic — how chatbots could form a much greater part of the consumer search experience. Van der Kooi explained that since May in the US (Seattle area), Bing has been testing chatbots directly in paid and organic search results, as shown below.

While chatbot integrations have been in the news over recent months, most people outside of the Seattle area won’t have seen them in action or truly considered how such integrations could be used.

For instance, if chatbot integrations within search results become a future reality, they could be used to carry out the following without ever leaving search results:

• Book a test drive
• Engage with customer service
• Order products and services

The possibilities are vast and shine a light on the importance of APIs and data integrations to enable the next generation of consumer interaction.

The challenges of a chatbot future

For a moment, let’s assume Bing’s testing is successful, and we see chatbots roll out in search results. Getting brands to a point where they can leverage the technology is going to be a challenge never before experienced by owned performance and marketing teams.

Do brands have the data infrastructure and customer service setup to make this happen? Who leads these teams, and are they willing to cooperate? What reporting metrics will be required? New relationships and process will have to be forged and maintained.

Measurement and reporting will also pose new challenges, as consumers will interact with brands through search results pages rather than on-site. Analytics platforms will need to find a way to track these interactions.

If chatbots are to become a part of the consumer search experience in the future, agencies and in-house teams have to set expectations with brands about the level of resource and data integration requirements.

For instance, being an early adopter and investing in new technology may produce underwhelming results until consumer usage becomes mainstream; however, at that point, you’ll be a front-runner with an advantage over competitors.

On the other hand, you can wait until consumer adoption has reached high levels, but you’ll then be playing catch-up to earn visibility within search results.

Prioritizing the short-term, middle and long-term future

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i wish you like this article on October 2017 Google Webmaster Report

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See details of post Beat high-cost paid search clicks by sweating the details below

In some industries and sectors, the per-click cost of search keywords is notoriously expensive — so expensive, in fact, that it dissuades some businesses from even stepping into the fray. When a click can cost you $200 or more, that reluctance is understandable.

At the same time, the costs of not stepping into PPC might be just as pricey, even if they’re not as obvious. In industries where competition is stiff, you could stand to lose a lot by being conspicuously absent from PPC.

So, what’s a business to do?

Fortunately, expensive clicks — even really expensive clicks — don’t have to stop you from venturing into PPC. You just have to make sure that every click counts.

Industries where clicks are costly

Before we get into a discussion about how to make sure every click counts, let’s get clear on the industries and sectors we’re talking about.

Though most advertisers aren’t paying more than a few dollars per click, some industries have average CPCs of $50 or more. Which keywords are garnering these high rates? Here are a few:

1. Business services
2. Bail bonds
3. Casino
4. Lawyer
5. Asset management
6. Insurance
7. Cash services & payday loans
8. Cleanup & restoration services
9. Degree
10. Medical coding services

My agency has clients in education, insurance and legal sectors, and I can attest to the sky-high rates. In fact, I’ve seen click costs of $200 or more with some clients!

How can a business justify playing on this field? Mostly, it comes down to sweating the details to make sure every one of those clicks counts. And by sweating the details, I mean doing the following:

1. Pay more attention to Quality Score

Normally, my team doesn’t manage to Quality Score. This is partly because most of our clients already have excellent Quality Scores, so it’s a non-issue. But sometimes we onboard new clients that have Quality Scores that are just okay.

Usually, we won’t worry too much about these scores because we know they’ll improve over time as a byproduct of good account management. But when a client is in an industry with high costs per click, we give these Quality Scores more attention.

As you know, Ad Rank is determined by a combination of factors, as stated in AdWords Help:

We combine the components of Quality Score (expected clickthrough rate, ad relevance, and landing page experience), the max. CPC bid, and the expected impact of extensions and other ad formats to determine Ad Rank. When estimating the expected impact of extensions and ad formats, we consider such factors as the relevance, expected clickthrough rates, and the prominence of the extensions or formats on the search results page.

Consequently, in a high costs-per-click environment, we’ll look closely at ad extensions, keywords, ad relevancy and landing pages to make sure everything’s set up perfectly to boost the Quality Score.

Recently, we went through this with a law firm client. The firm came to us with a decent Quality Score, but we wanted to get it even higher. We ended up creating additional landing pages to make sure that our keywords lined up perfectly with our landing pages. In fact, we ended up creating one set of landing pages for “lawyer” themed pages and another set of “attorney” themed pages to make the match seamless.

2. Keep a tight handle on location targeting

Again, this is something my team does for all accounts, but it becomes even more critical in a high-click-cost environment. Obviously, you want to minimize “wasted” clicks as much as possible — and having your client’s ad display in areas they don’t serve is a big waste!

You might think this point is self-evident, but we recently on-boarded a new client and found that its ads were showing up across the US, even though the bulk of its business was in one particular city. Needless to say, we quickly clamped down on location targeting.

The lesson here? Target the geographic radius of the company’s business, and check traffic periodically to make sure nothing extraneous is getting through. Then exclude as necessary.

3. Look for lower weekend bids

Amazingly, some advertisers turn off their ads on weekends. I can’t fathom why this is. Perhaps they think no one researches universities or lawyers on the weekend. However, weekends can present an excellent cost-saving opportunity.

In some cases, we’ve lowered bids by as much as 75 percent on weekends, and the ads continue to display in the second ad position. More importantly, we haven’t experienced a dip in leads over the weekend or during the week.

4. Focus on what’s converting

Generally, it’s better to have a handful of well-converting campaigns with generous budgets than a wide swath of campaigns with limited budgets.

The problem with campaigns with limited budgets is that those budgets can get used up quickly. In fact, a severely limited budget might not even meet minimum bid thresholds. Consequently, your campaign ends up sitting there, doing nothing.

It’s much better to cut back on the number of campaigns and give more generous funding to those that are actually converting.

To give a simplified example: You have 10 campaigns with a total budget of $100. You assign each campaign a budget of $10. If clicks rise to $12 each, nothing is going to happen.

Instead, pick your one or two top-converting campaigns and assign them appropriate budgets so they can actually convert.

5. Experiment with shared budgets

Another way to address the above scenario is to set up a shared budget. A shared budget is a single budget that’s shared among several campaigns. With a shared budget, you don’t have to try to guess which campaigns are going to convert. It’s also an excellent option when costs and campaign volume vary significantly from day to day.

We’ve deployed this strategy with some of our university and law firm clients, and it’s worked well. It avoids scenarios where some campaigns have used up their entire budget allotment, while others have budget remaining but aren’t seeing any action.

6. Lean into the Google Display Network

Often, we find that costs per click are lower on the Google Display Network (GDN) — sometimes much lower. In fact, I’ve seen $200 Search Network clicks priced at $5 on the GDN!

In addition, the GDN has all kinds of options for placement and targeting, which allows you to get super-specific and thereby minimize waste.

That’s why we’ll often suggest starting on the GDN before moving to the Search Network when industries are hypercompetitive, and clients are competing against big brands with big budgets.

7. Choose your devices wisely

Sometimes, clients feel they should run their ads across all devices: desktop, tablet and mobile. But this isn’t always the case.

Sometimes, click costs are lower on some devices (e.g., mobile) than others, which can create another cost-saving opportunity.

We recently came across a retailer who was running all of their campaigns on mobile — and just mobile. This may seem surprising (especially for a retailer), but for this client it made sense. They were getting great performance on mobile — and cost per acquisition was lower there, too.

8. Spend more time looking forward than back

We constantly look at comparative month-over-month and year-over-year data. But when clicks are super-pricey, there’s a danger in putting too much emphasis on this data. Things always change. New competitors enter the market. Google raises their prices. Or any other number of things can happen.

So rather than getting tied up in knots wondering, “Why are we paying $59 per click when we paid $50 last year?,” you’re better off spending your time on the things you can control.

Don’t stop sweating the (right) details

Sweating these details won’t turn expensive clicks into cheap clicks. But it can sometimes bring down costs a bit and, more importantly, help make sure that every click counts.

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