Engage-Digital

E-D talks to Amanda Davie, MD of Boolian Ltd and member of the cScape Customer Engagement Unit

1. What is Bing?

Bing is the new name for Microsoft’s search engine. We’re talking largely about a re-brand (from Live Search previously). My guess is that Microsoft felt that a new brand was required – something that sounded more ‘funky’ and independent to the Microsoft the Live brands. Microsoft are going to be ploughing a lot of money into this new branding and consumer marketing to try and get Internet users to give Bing a try, because so far its search technology alone hasn’t managed to entice many people away from Google.

2. What’s so special about Bing?

What sits behind Bing in terms of its capabilities is the culmination of the last few years of Microsoft investing very heavily in their search product. But rather than trying to compete directly with Google in terms of ‘the Google formula’ Microsoft have sought to understand semantic search, search behaviour, and are trying to return the kinds of results that you would want for different kinds of vertical searches. Rather than have the same format and formula for every kind of result, as Google generally does. Microsoft is incorporating more answers in its search results. For example, search for “weather forecast London” on Bing, and you get the weather forecast for the next few days. I know that Google can do this kind of thing too, but Microsoft lay it out more nicely, using more imagery and icons. Some of the vertical search pillars that Microsoft have really focused on in terms of R&D, over the last few years, are image search, entertainment search, map search (through its acquisition of Multimap) and shopping search. So try some related searches to these verticals, and you might be pleasantly surprised!

3. And what about that left hand column listing related searches?

The related results on the left – again, Google do these too now, but Google put them at the bottom of the page. This is what we in the industry refer to as semantic search results i.e. trying to suggest common or relevant themes to the individual words or phrases that people might type in. Recognising that people don’t always say – or type – what they mean! For example, a search for “windows” could signify a need for a Microsoft product, a window cleaner or new double glazing.

4. Will the “related search” results present new challenges for SEO specialists?

I think it’s probably fair to say that most SEO specialists still tackle keyword/phrase targeting in the same way as they’ve done since the mid-90s – and it’s not particularly sophisticated. These techniques don’t yet necessarily allow for an in-depth understanding of semantic search language. But yes, it does present a big challenge because we (search and digital marketers) will need to get a lot closer to the behaviour and language of the searcher, and look beyond the keywords in terms of understanding what relevant themes we need to develop and optimise our web content around.

5. How do you think language pathways will help with SEO for the semantic web?

The Online Language Pathways (commissioned by CDA) research identifies that web users use different language during their search journeys – from their original language of intent, through their online search, to engaging with the websites that they choose to visit. We also tailor and filter our online language according to what we think will work best when searching, and also we adapt our language to the brand messaging that we see in the search results and again on the destination content. Understanding the semantics of search and indeed of the broader web has to be a key planning principle for search marketers moving forwards. It’s simply not enough to analyse keywords anymore; we have to understand the meaning behind the words – the language of intent.

Search engine optimisation is seen by many as the Holy Grail of online acquisition. If done properly it’s considered to be the cheapest and most effective way of driving high quality traffic to a web site. Many people obsess and probably loose sleep over their favourite search term(s) reaching the cherished number one spot in Google’s “organic” rankings. A tweak in Google’s algorithm can have a significant impact on some small and mid sized businesses. When Google sneezes others get the flu.

Understanding the impact of organic search is the first useful step to improving rankings and driving increased volume of organic traffic. All web analytics tools provide reports which show the top referring search terms and phrases but in most cases these reports will need some configuration before they become useful.

To begin with if a pay per click campaign is being run it’s normally necessary to split out paid for search traffic and organic search traffic. This is done in most cases by setting up the paid for search traffic as a campaign in your analytics tool. Most tools will then automatically do the rest of the work for you by splitting out the two sources of traffic and dumping them in separate reports.

From here it becomes possible to view which organic search terms and phrases drive the greatest volume of traffic, which are the best converters, which pages they drive traffic to and what the bounce rate is. Being able to directly compare organic and pay per click in this way helps highlight gains that can be cross pollinated between PPC and SEO.

Most sites have a few terms and phrases that drive the core of the organic traffic but they also have a longer tail of terms and phrases that when combined form a significant but often ignored source of high quality traffic. Exporting this data means that these little gems in the long tail can be wheedled out based on their high conversion rate and nurtured until they make a greater contribution to overall volume.

Other measurement tools such as Hittails and Advanced Web Ranking will help in identifying search terms to focus on and monitoring actual positioning in search engine rankings.

Finally, due to the long term nature of search engine optimisation patience and trended data are key to happiness and enlightenment. It’s unusual to move up the search engine rankings and drive more traffic to a site the day after making a few changes. Quite often it can take months to rise up or fall from grace.

If you use Google Analytics and you’re hot on your SEO and your site has an internal search functionality then you may be faced with a dilemma.

This post is about the apparantly confilcting relationship between URL rewriting and tracking internal search using Google Site Search and why it’s an issue worth addressing.

SEO & Dirty URLs
Everybody wants to optimise their site so it appears high in Google’s SERPs. “Dirty URLs” produced by dynamic web pages are considered harder for search engine bots to read, additionally they are harder for visitors to understand so there is also a usability argument for cleaning them up.

URL rewriting and associated best practice rules effctively turns a dynamic URL with all its query strings into a nice clean easy to understand URL. For a (very basic) example: www.site.co.uk/?page=SearchResult&SearchInput=widget&search=yes into www.site.co.uk/searchresult/widget . As a result the rewrite URL will obviously mask the original URL. The practice of using URL rewrites has been gaining some momentum over the past few months so keeping this in mind now consider internal search on your site.

The importance of internal site search
Internal search is one of the primary ways a visitor will find something on a site. Collecting insight from internal search can help inform and drive action; it’s as if the visitor is marching up to the e-store keeper and asking where to find to ketchup – or whatever. Internal search gives valuable insight on what visitors are actually looking for, in their own words. As a result it can drive tactical and strategic decisions ranging from words and phrases used in the pay per click aquisition strategy to product placement and stock control.

So, both URL rewrites are popular as part of the grander SEO strategy and internal search analysis is important for gaining deep insight into a visitor’s wants and needs as they browse a site.

Google Analytics has recognised the importance of internal search by introducing an internal search tracking function to its product, it’s called Site Search. But like the funnels in GA it needs to be set up using elements from the page URL. In this case it is the search query parameter that GA needs and therein lies the rub. If dynamic URLs are hidden using URL rewrites in order to optimise for SEO, then it is not going to be possible to see the search query parameter in Google Analytics – even though the rest of the data will be easier to understand. GA support confirm the proplem. In their own words:

“To set up Site Search, you’ll need to enter the query parameter. You may not be able to set up Site Search if the query parameter is masked using a URL rewrite.”

The tyranny of the “or”…
It seems like a choice needs to be made, but naturally the best of both worlds is most desired. The answer should in fact be relatively simple. Avoide using URL rewrites for internal search results. By doing this the search query parameter will remain exposed and therefore should be visible in Google Analytics. As a result it can then be used in setting up Site Search tracking.

Getting this sorted out will depend on how the rewrites are set up and the content management system in place but in most cases it should be possible to achieve.

The object of this post has simply been to draw attention to an issue that some may already be facing and which may become more prevelant given the ubiquity of Google Analytics and the increasing usage of URL rewrites on sites with dynamic pages.

The solution should be fairly simple and although it means that uniformity across all URLs will have to be forgone, the ends will most definately justify the means. If there are any other alternatives to solving this please feel free to comment.