In the Keyword Tool Google has modified the Search Volume columns. The two columns are now labelled `Global Monthly Search Volume` and `Local Search Volume: `. Note that Local here means regional eg UK, France, etc.

Keyword Tool Local Global Search

A quick test indicates that the data in Local Search Volume is good but the lack of historic `Local` data is a pity eg a search term may be popular globally each month but here in the UK you will be making a decision based on just one months data. I suspect that for many the reverse would be better ie the current months data for Global with Local showing historic data. Google has not yet explained how this new data relates to the statement further up on the Keyword Tool page that ” Results are tailored to the languages and countries you choose below:” My vote would be for more local data and less world wide.

Hard data on the growing popularity of social networks from Hitwise and Nielsen. Data released by Hitwise on March 5th shows that now  ” Social networks now account for 1 in every 10 UK Internet visits and 1 in every 5 page views.” To get an idea of just how popular they are “During February 2009, social networks received 13.1% more UK Internet visits than online retail websites.”  Mind you retail web sites probably did not have their best month ever in Feb !

In a separate study Nielsen noted  that  “in February the largest age group on Twitter was 35-49; with nearly 3 million unique visitors, comprising almost 42 percent of the site’s audience. ” with a further 25% aged 55+.  Note – this is based on US data.  To find 50 or 500 fans/supporters for your brand or cause now, more than ever means creating something that resonates with the target audience via social media.

The quickest and easiest way to improve performance of a Google AdWords Group is to find more keywords similar to those that are already successful. Google make this very easy via  either Quick Add or the Keyword Tool.  Simply select the AdGroup that you want to work on. Once inside the AdGroup select the Keywords tab. Once the tab is selected you will see the Quick Add and Keyword Tool links as shown.

Image showing Quick Add and Keyword Tool links

Selecting the Quick Add link will allow you to add words or phrases directly. Having selected Quick Add on the right you will now see a selection of words that Google has chosen based on your currently top performing words – as measured by CTR. Selecting the Keyword Tool link gives access to it. However unlike versions of it accessable in other ways this version has a Radio Button marked Existing keyword. As always you need to review the new keywords proposed carefully as they may not be appropriate. If they are clearly not appropriate you have the opportunity to add them as negative keywords. This will reduce the number of unwanted impressions and will hence lower your cost per click.

Note that if you are a not-for-profit organisation using AdWords via a Google Grant then you do not have access to the Search Network. The Approximate  Avg Search Volume data shown in the Keyword Tool is based on data from both the Google Network AND the Google Search Network. This means the Search Volume numbers shown will be higher than you will be able to achieve.

The TouchGraph Google Browser shows graphically the relationship between web sites. It helps make sense of the mass of data on web connections. It takes its data directly from Google – specifically from the Google `related` operator. ie for a list of web pages that have similar content to a given site, type “related: ” followed by the website address into the Google search box.                        Initially the display can be a bit confusing. I found it best to make sure that `Display`> `Filter Singles` is selected. This reduces the amount of data on display. Next step is, in the display window, select the site you are interested and from the right mouse menu select `Graph` >`Keep Selected`. Now you should have a single web site with around 10 `related` sites. You can now expand by selecting the plus sign on any web site shown which gives a further 10 results. Putting in sites that you are you know about eg google.co.uk, bbc.co.uk quickly gives an idea of what `related sites` means. Versions of it are also available for visualizing Amazon and Facebook relationships.

Google Trends allows you you to check and compare how popular a particular search term, or collection of search terms, is. Very useful when deciding which are the most popular terms in a selection you are looking to use in your campaigns. A while back Google extended the functionality to allow comparison of websites. Google Trends for Websites shows the number of Unique Daily Visitors to a web site and allows you to compare web sites too. Simply enter the site URLs separate by commas.  Useful to see how you are doing relative to your possible peers and competitors. Another couple of very useful additional pieces of information are also provided – a list of other sites that people viewing your chosen sites have visited AND the the top terms they have used. You can sort all this lot by region and vary the period of interest eg last mth, last 12 months, etc. The main drawback I have found is the lack of data on smaller sites and less popular search terms. Still, valuable data to help you get and stay on the right track.

When defining site effectiveness most of us use headline statistics such as Visits, Page Views, etc but for sites devoted to providing information and news, ie Content Sites rather than e Commerce, this does not provide an accurate or useful picture. To get greater insight into how visitors are making use of a Content site or the Content part of a site we can define two key measurements, User Loyalty and User Engagement.

First User Engagement. Google Analytics provides on the Dashboard two useful indicators ie Pages per Visit and Avg. Time on Site. Next, in the Visitors section > Visitor Loyalty there are two further indicators of how engaged visitors are with the site – Length of Visit and Depth of Visit. Taken together these 4 give a clear measure of how `engaged` users are with the site.

To measure the overall User Loyalty we can consider 3 figures. First, from the Dashboard we can deduce the percentage of returning visitors from the % New Visits figure. Second, we can determine how many visitors make more than 3, 4, 5 (whatever number we choose) visits per month from: Visitors > Visitor Loyalty > Loyalty. Finally the number of Visits divided by the number of Unique Visitors will give the average number of visits per visitor.

While average figures can be useful they rarely provide the all important `actionable insight` that we really need. To make the User Loyalty and User Engagement metrics as defined above really useful we can do two things. First we group pages or sections of interest together so that the people who author material can see clearly how the audience is responding . Secondly, segment by Traffic Sources ie direct, referring site, PPC, etc so we can see what the `best`traffic is coming from. In this way we get real insight into how each part of the site is performing.
Fortunately Google have now provided a really easy way to do all this selection of pages and sources in Google Analytics – The Advanced Segments feature. This feature allows non programmers to easily segment any group of pages and see all historical data for them. Something that until now was not possible in GA. Well worth checking out.

Google have now produced a great SEO starter guide. It covers the basic steps needed to make sure that your pages are easily found on the web. It deals clearly with things such as title and description meta tags, URL structure, site navigation, content creation, anchor text, etc. Some have criticised it for not emphasising the importance of back links in getting higher ranking for your pages but it will save endless time in trawling the web looking for beginner hints and tips.

Introduction to Google AdWords. This is a presentation that I gave in London in Sept 2008.

The updated Google Keyword Tool is probably the best starting point for SEO. If you are just beginning your keyword research you can use it to find the most popular terms and how many searches are performed on your initial set of keywords. For adwords it gets better as you can either do keyword research or enter the url of the proposed landing page. Here the Google system analyses your page and lists all the keywords it thinks suitable – nicely arranged in groups. You can enter any term you do not want the system to consider. The Google system is very fast and very accurate but like all computers it can be very stupid, so be careful. For example, I asked it to examine a page devoted to the `In the Pink` campaign at Breast Cancer Care. It insisted on giving terms related to the band Pink Floyd ! So I used the Filter Option so that all terms relating to `floyd` were excluded.

In the `Choose Columns to be displayed` field select `Show All`. To the left of this is the `Calculate estimates…` field. It is a good idea to leave this blank as you can then see the `Estimated Avg. CPC` for all the Keywords. The low cost ones with high search volume are what you are looking for – the hidden gems that can get you lots of visitors for little expense.

Note that the in the image above the columns have been sorted by`Approx Avg Search Volume`. This way you can quickly scan for high volume and low cost Keywords.

How big is the web? the short answer is very big indeed. Google recently reported that there are now  1,000,000,000,000 (trillion) unique URl`s. This is after removing all the duplicates and ignoring many auto generated URl`s. Google does not index all these pages and how many are useful is a whole different question which does not have an easy answer. But whichever way you look at it marketing your web pages is becoming more and more important.  SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) has moved from being a side issue when creating web sites and pages to being the first consideration when you first plan a web page. ie Who is this page for ? What keywords will they be using ?