We’re down at SMX and eMetrics Melbourne at the moment listening to some really interesting conversations around new trends in social media. Our favorite comment so far…’Q: where do narcissists, stalkers and the socially inept convene? A: Twitter!’

Mark Baartse, Head of Consulting at First Rate spoke about some thought provoking points about multi click attribution yesterday and is about to lead a Social Media clinic at Online Marketer Boot Camp.

BTW Mark has just come out of a session on LDA  (Latent Dirichlet Allocation) and his head is spinning, huge things to come.

P.s We’re also giving away an iPad to a lucky someone down here at the event.

Say tuned for a copy of Mark’s presentation and pics of the conference and winners.

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When building an international SEO strategy, the debate most webmasters face is what strategy to pursue when going global…

The choice is normally between having a ccTLD (country code top level domain e.g. .co.uk, .co.nz) plan vs. a sub-domain approach (uk.domain.com) vs. a sub-folder (.com/Spain or .com/India) strategy. There is no right or wrong answer in choosing one of these strategies as each has its own advantages and disadvantages, some of which are mentioned below.

ccTLDs

Advantages

1.       Local Country TLDs present an advantage in penetrating the local market as they can be perceived to be more trustworthy from local visitors to the site

2.       Benefits from targeting in local search engine as attaining various types of local links may be slightly easier

3.       Provides the strongest geo targeting signal used by Google

4.       Server location is less relevant as a geo targeting factor

5.       This approach works best if your company has a smaller footprint or a simple product offering.

Disadvantages

1.       Can require more maintenance to manage all these sites and can be more expensive

2.       Link building scalability is tough since more link building would be required to cover all the different domains

3.       There may be cross-domain tracking issues or complications when setting up web analytics.

Sub-Domains

Advantages

1.       Easier to set up and provides an effective way to establish sites as different identities while still retaining the global corporate branding

2.       Can rank alongside the main domain in search engine results for two/more very similar pages

3.       Possible to “host crowd”, i.e. have more than 2 results of the main domain in search results (although recently sub-folders can now rank too)

4.       Sub-domains can be treated as a semi-separate site and can be hosted on a different server; therefore links from these can have slightly more value

5.       Global brands with bigger product offerings and larger footprints might be better to use this approach.

Disadvantages

1.       Sub-domains can be treated as a separate site, therefore don’t inherit the main domain’s SEO benefits and require their own link building effort

2.       Can be more difficult to setup and more expensive

3.       There may be cross-domain tracking issues or complications when setting up web analytics.

Sub-Folders

Advantages

1.       Content is hosted on one site which is easier (and likely cheaper) to set-up, handle and maintain. Tracking can also be easier

2.       Easier to manage when dealing with a country speaking different languages (e.g. Canada)

3.       Sub-folders can be registered individually in Webmaster Tools and geo-targeted to the country you are working in

4.       Link juice is flowing to sub-folder within just the one domain (that probably already has good site authority) which only enhances the value of the sub-folder and the site as a whole

5.       Similar to sub-domains, global brands with bigger product offerings and larger footprints might be wise to use this approach.

Disadvantages

1.       Ranking in local SERPs can potentially be hard because of competition from local country players

2.        Perception from search can vary. For example, some European countries prefer a ccTLD over a .com domain when clicking on a search result. Hence a sub-folder might not be preferred over a ccTLD in this case.

3.       There is a small chance that duplicate content issues can arise (different websites targeting multiple countries and languages with largely the same content). The likelihood of this is minimal especially if your site is geo-targeted properly.

Personally I think “perception” or the “trust” factor is the most important element. Trusting a local domain (especially for long-tail terms) is likely to have a higher click through rate (leading to higher traffic and greater conversions) especially if you want to be perceived as an international brand. However, if you are restricted by a CMS, a sub-folder strategy is another option that you can work with. To determine what works best for you, consider a Cost-Benefit analysis for all three strategies and always remember to apply and follow the general principles and tactics that are usually recommended by search engines when optimising your site.

Rohit Padgaonkar
Senior Internet Marketing Consultant

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I recently headed to sunny California to attend the 3 day Google AnalyticsCertified Partner (GACP) summit at Google’s headquarters in Mountain View. It was an exciting journey that took 14 hours of air time to get to, meeting GACP & WOAC partners from all around the globe, engaging with the Google Analyticsteam and definitely checking out Google’s cool offices and facilities!

Although I cant go into the exact details of the summit’s content (yes, they have Google alerts monitoring me right now, perhaps even my phone!) but what I can say is that it is great to know Google is focused and determined to make Google Analytics into a really kick-ass enterprise level web analytics product.

Main highlights were the development roadmap for Google Analytics, future features and also the collaboration between the Google team and the GACP partners on strategies on how to make Google Analytics and the partnership better.

Many things were learnt through the summit and I’m very exciting and proud to be a part of this great product and global team. Look forward to the GACP Summit 2011! Until then, happy analysing.

p.s we liked the Google cookies… points to those who get it…

Danny Ng

Consulting Manager

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Mark Baartse, Consulting Director at First Rate will be presenting a session onCross Channel Attribution at the upcoming eMetric summit in Melbourne 16th – 17th November. Mark will speak about how to optimise the true value of every click on the path to conversion.

We know that users cross channels, yet we continue to do a bad job of reporting on and optimising to multiple clicks that cross channel. Mark will speak about case studies that use cross channel and multiclick attribution to get a true view of the value of each click – regardless of the channel used. After the session you will be able to optimise your media spend, to the real contribution of different channels, helping you to get the most for every media dollar.

We’ll also be running a Search Marketing Bootcamp session for eMarketers wanting to understand practices better or to brush up on their skills.

It’s free! and will take place in the exhibition hall – check it out here

Chat to the First Rate team in the exhibition hall about any niggling issues or find out what’s next for the future of search and performance.

Take your personalised code from the First Rate flyer in the delegate bag to stand no. 5 to see if you have won a nifty iPad.

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Did you know that the top position in the paid search results can increase your click-through and conversion volumes exponentially? This report draws on intelligence from over 1,000,000 Google searches across 10 large search engine marketing campaigns to shed light on the relationship between ad position and click-through rate.

Why Ad Position Matters

It’s common knowledge that ads appearing in the highest paid positions usually experience a higher click-through rate (CTR). However, surprisingly little research has been published on this subject. Few people know how fast CTR falls for ads that appear lower down the page, or even what is the distribution of CTR across ads beyond their own campaigns.

In an industry first, First Rate has conducted research using the paid search accounts of ten of its clients. Our research revealed that ads showing in position #1 experienced an average CTR of 17%. In other words, an advertiser can expect to attract 17 clicks for every 100 impressions when his ad appears in the top spot. Ads that showed in position #2 also drew significant attention, with an average 13% CTR recorded over the period. Interestingly, click-through rates flattened across positions 4 to 7, before tailing off.

This has produced some interesting insights:

• If an advertiser is appearing in position #4, then can they reduce their bids and maintain their CTR even at a lower paid position? Our research suggests this is be possible;
• If the advertiser is appearing in position #3, then how big an increase in CTR could they secure by lifting their paid ad position? Our research suggests ads in position #1 experience more than double the CTR of ads in position #3.

The Long-tail Generates Higher CTR

Ad position is only one the factors that influences click-through rates. Other factors include the relevance of your ad to the search query, the number of competing ads, and the quality of organic search results.

Our research shows that long-tail search queries experience substantially higher click-through rates. This result holds true across all paid ad positions. For example, ads appearing in position #1 can record an average CTR of 32% for long-tail searches featuring 4 words and more. Conversely, the same ad can attract up to 12% CTR for short-tail searches featuring up to 3 words.

Short-Tail vs Long-Tail Searches

Short-tail searches on non-brand keywords typically occur in the early stages of the buying cycle, when people are driven by informational needs. Longer tail searches arise further down the buying cycle, when people are likely to pay more attention to ads and convert.

First Rate research indicates that 3-word searches compose 30% of all searches. Long-tail queries featuring 4 words or more account for 58% of all searches.

Interestingly, few marketing managers know how to successfully capture long-tail searches through paid search campaigns, preferring instead to bid on short-tail, high-volume phrases. Based on this research, they would do well to expand their search campaigns beyond the short-tail, with a campaign and ad group structure that capture medium- to long-tail searches.

How to Reach the #1 Paid Spot

Appearing in the top spots above search results can have a transformational impact on your Internet marketing campaigns. If your focus is on brand-building, a top position will help grow your impression share and increase brand awareness.

If, however, your focus is on conversions, a top position will maximize traffic to your landing page and grow your bottom line, as long as you have struck a balance between your cost per acquisition and revenue per conversion. Importantly, if the incremental cost of bidding to the top ad position is not offset by a higher conversion rate, you could end up blowing out your CPA, making the achievement a hollow one.

Advertisers often ask us how they can target the top placements above search results. For any given search, AdWords opens these positions to the highest ranking ads only if they meet a certain Quality Score and CPC bid threshold. Reaching out to long-tail queries with compelling ad text is one of the ways you could get there.

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