Google Product Listing Ads are now live in UK, Germany and France

Value/Importance: [rating=3] Recommended link: Google Announcement & Key Questions Answered

Our commentary

The ability to display your products through the Google Merchant center is something most online retailers are now utilising. Google has recently launched the ability through the merchant center  & Adwords for you to display your products as part of sponsored search on a Search Results Page. This means if people search for keywords related to your product you can have your product search result displayed on the right as shown in this live search from today:

It will display your product images, price, product name & your website URL. See an example on the right. The new ad-formats take up a large portion of the sponsored area and really standout on a results page! Google's initial description of the new…

A reminder of the latest changes to Google Analytics for non-specialists

This update page is intended to help anyone who uses Google Analytics, but not day-in day-out! It's also a reminder for me when giving training courses to highlight what's new. I subscribe to the Google Analytics Blog feed to keep up-to-date and other related ones like Webmaster Tools. There are quite a few detailed posts that don't make so much difference to most users and are more for interest of GA specialists working on it all the time.

New Google Analytics version 5 - Now available to All Users - 20th April 2011

Importance: [rating=5] Our commentary: You may have missed this announcement over the Easter break that all users of Google Analytics can now try the new version without signing up for the best programme. To see the new interface just log-on and select "New Version":

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What is Google Adwords Remarketing?

Remarketing within Google is a specific use of the wider Google Display (formerly content) network (learn more about the content network). When remarketing is set up & configured it allows you to target people that visited your website with adverts on other website which have opted into displaying adverts from the Display Network. Check out this video from Google which outlines just how remarketing works... Some further reading can be found here if you are interested : Google Remarketing

Is it worth the time & effort?

The answer is yes but as with everything in life it comes with a few 'but's"... It has to be configured correctly, what I mean by this is: You HAVE to define & segment your…

A reference of major updates we think marketers involved in SEO, Pay Per Click or Social media need to know about

Each day Google makes many changes and updates to its different tools and it does a great job of announcing them through all its feeds, but it can be difficult to keep on top of what matters and what doesn't. So on this page we'll be selective and update you on algorithm updates, new tools, policies and changes to Google Analytics we think anyone working in digital marketing or marketing needs to know about, even if they're not a search specialist. Hopefully SEO or Adwords specialists will find it useful too and can let us know what we're missing!

Significant January 2011 updates from Google

Google Keyword Tool now includes mobile volumes (12/10/11)

Importance: [rating=3] Category: Search behaviour and Adwords targeting (more…)…

Google Algorithm Update?

Value: [rating=4] Our commentary: A vicious rumour or is Google preparing to launch an algorithm update during the festive season? It wouldn't be the first time Google has launched an update during one of the busiest times of the year. Reading between the lines of various search engine marketing forums and viewing clients analytics data something is definitely happening with the largest search engine in the world. Usually the type of fluctuations in traffic people have been seeing only occurs before large updates are rolled out. Google had until last year quite consistently launched algorithm update every Xmas the most famous update being the Florida update which caused widespread issues with lots of businesses online. We have obviously already had a large update this year when Google rolled out Caffeine which according to "experts" at the time was going to cause problems to lots of sites…

A simple introduction to display advertising optimization through Google

Value: [rating=4] Our commentary: Since the acquisition of DoubleClick Google has worked at integrating it with its other services such as Google Analytics etc. A more recent integration is into Google's Website Optimizer which allows you to run A/B split tests and easily report on the results. Following a similar theme, this tool from Google allows you to effectively manage your display advertising on the Google Display Network based on goals you dictate which means it can include on site activity such as sales or sign ups. Checkout the video below for more information about the concept and announcement. Recommended link: Annoucement of Display Campaign Optimiser…

How will Google Instant affect SEO and Google Adwords

Value: [rating=5] Our commentary: These brief comments on search are based on my initial comments in Twitter while listening to the announcement by Marissa Mayer Vice President of Search Product and User Experience at Google - before I went to get my tea! For the full-analysis on search implications I always turn to Danny Sullivan at Search Engine Land which is the link below. Then the more technical SEO blogs. When she promised "A fundamental shift in search" at the start of her talk I expected to be underwhelmed. When I initially hear about I thought, this is actually a fundamental shift, the most significant change since the 2007 Universal Search / Google Onebox incorporation of  images/news/video into the SERPS. Having now seen it live, I think it's more important - it is a "game changer" for…

Post updated from August 2009 to include major changes that Google makes which will affect the way businesses rank within the natural listings of the search engines. For 6 of the main updates from Google earlier in 2009, see my post: Google SEO updates H1 2009.

August - Google Caffeine preview live

Category: Index inclusion What is it? According to the official Google notification of this update, Caffeine is not intended as a major update to the way Google ranks sites for search queries, rather it's an update to the indexing and retrieval architecture to "let us push the envelope on size, indexing speed, accuracy, comprehensiveness and other dimensions". (more…)…