Google Organic Rankings Quality Score

Is there such a thing? I’ve always wondered whether Google‘s organic search algorithm factors in clickthrough rate (CTR) and SERP ranking (normalised) to provide a quality score for organic listings.

This is similar to how Google Adwords’ quality score works. The higher CTR you have and normalising it against the ad position gives you a higher quality score which translates into lower CPC bid. This is how Google rewards advertisers that focus on quality and relevancy instead of just pure bidding.

The understanding is that the better optimised your text ad is (relevancy) for the actual search query and the bid term, the higher CTR you’ll receive which means searchers are taking an action and making a decision (i.e. they’ve found what they’re looking for!).

This in turn rewards Google as well because they’ve provided quality advertisements from advertisers and thus, more people continue using Google and more revenue is made through CPC ads.

So the question is, does this theory of quality score from Adwords apply to organic rankings? If I optimise my site so that it gets equal or higher CTR than what the average is for the SERP position, in Google’s eyes, is my site more relevant to the user thus rewarding my site with a higher ‘quality score’ and a higher quality score means my site would generally rank higher/better for the theme surrounding the search query?

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Google Analytics: Advanced Filters Guide

Thought I’d share a post on how to use advanced filters in Google Analytics and what are some scenarios where they can come in handy.

Advanced filters are very useful for extracting information from available fields (i.e. campaign source, campaign term) using regular expressions and then using the extracted information to manipulate other fields in Google Analytics so that you can customise how data is recorded in your reports.

First of all, before you use advanced filters, it is important that you have some kind of basic knowledge on regular expressions. If you don’t, then perhaps it’s a good idea to read up on what those cryptic symbols mean and how they’re very useful in pattern matching.

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Update to Adwords Cost Data Import

If you’ve read my previous post about the GAIQ exam tips, you’ll notice in the section called Adwords Information, I talked about how the initial update by Google on how their cost data import update affected traffic reports in Google Analytics and how we’ve been debating in the GAAC forums about accounts that don’t have cost data import enabled treat Adwords traffic as direct instead of cpc. This will affect the traffic reports by over inflating direct traffic and slowly diminishes cpc traffic.

This really isn’t good as it doesn’t give you an accurate representation on how your online marketing activities are performing. With high direct traffic, you’d probably think, “Holy cow! My website brand really rocks and I don’t have to spend much money on online advertising anymore. Thus, you decide to cut down your Adwords spend or other forms of online advertising.”

One way to overcome that was to manually utm tag your destination URLs which would’ve been a big pain in the butt if you’ve got a large Adwords account with many campaigns and adgroups.

So finally Google made a post about a week ago about another update to the adwords cost data reporting that reverts back to how Google Analytics originally reported traffic from Adwords.

Now if you’ve got your Google Analytics account linked to Adwords, have auto tagging enabled but don’t have Adwords cost data applied, your Adwords traffic will now show as google/cpc, as it was originally.

What you should expect is a drop in direct traffic and a gradual increase in cpc traffic in your traffic reports.

Google Geek Night

Hey guys, sorry I haven’t been updating this blog. Been a busy little bee! Thought I’d do a quick update and share with you guys my trip to Google‘s office tonight for an event called ‘Google Geek Night’.

It’s basically a short meeting between Google and their agency partners to give a presentation on the online search demand and insights into user search behaviour, more specifically focused towards online shopping. Oh yeah, after that it’s all about drinks, cannapés and socialising. I was happy that they served Becks beer, one of my favourite beers and didn’t go cheap with local beers.

Each of us also got a Google pack which consists of a Google cap and some Google ‘goo’. Yes, really it’s goo. I’m too lazy to take photos so you’ll just have to use your imagination :)

Above is the First Rate team after a few drinks and posing with our Google pack. Produce placement there, hehe.

We also got a tour around the Google office but unfortunately I wasn’t allowed to take photos. It’s their brand spanking new office located at Pyrmont, just opposite Starcity Casino. As expected, they had pretty cool decorations all around the office and a beautiful view overlooking the harbour.

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Goal & Funnel Setup Guide in Google Analytics

Working in a Google Analytics Authorised Consultants (GAAC) accredited company and also having a Google Analytics Individual Qualification (GAIQ), it is essential that I master the art of setting up goals and funnels in Google Analytics for our clients.

A goal can be a very important metric for a client to track such as sales, newsletter sign-ups, and registrations. Of course goals are not just limited to those but can be extended to whatever you would define as an important action on the website to track. Not only is tracking important, but it is also vital that you gain insight into what’s going on in the goal process from funnels.

A funnel is a visual representation of what’s happening during each step of your goal. It gives you great insights into the drop off rates of each step so that you can make informed decisions on improving your goal process and landing pages to increase conversion rates. You can accurately pinpoint which step of the goal process are you getting high drop off rates.

This can help you identify problems such as the checkout button not working, too many call to actions that lead to other goals, not best practice usability and so on.
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