Stellar Search Blog

Google once more shows that Mobile is very important to them! The last few years Google is focusing on mobile a lot by helping website owners to make their website more mobile friendly. The latest approach is by Google Sites, they launched a new feature where business onwers can create a simple mobile site within minutes.

They offer six different templates depending on the site you would lke to create with different options for colours. The sites are aimed for small businesses giving them an easy option to create a mobile website for free and with no coding skills.

 

The video below showcases how easy is to create a mobile website:

The second market we visit (following the first part) is Russia. Another market where Google is trying hard to gain more market share but so far it has been unsuccessful (Google has about 21.9% of search engine generated traffic).  The main search engine in Russia is Yandex www.yandex.com . Yandex recently launched a new version with the option to search in English, German, French and other European languages.

According to research studies conducted by TNS, FOM, and Comcon, Yandex is the largest resource and largest search engine in the Russian Internet market, based on audience size. Yandex currently has over 64% market share in search and has over 10 billion web pages indexed. Recently opened their first offices in US and they have plans to expand to the US and other European markets in the coming years.

Yandex Numbers

• In Russia: the leading portal according to independent research;
• For Russian-speaking audience: 57 % (world), 86% across Russia, 92% across Moscow
• In Europe: №3 in TOP-10 European Search Engines
• Yandex growing at the fastest rate among the top ten – 94% per year

Yandex use their own alogirthm which according to some analysts is more robust due to the complexity of the Russian language. They do offer PPC ads on a CPC model, the interface is available in English and simple to use. So far we have found that with the right optimisation some good results could come out from Yandex.

PPC Ads In more detail

Ads placed via Yandex.Direct can be found on the right side of the Yandex Search Results Page (up to 9 ads can appear simultaneously and 1-2 above Search Results).

The text consists of a header (up to 33 characters in length including spaces) and the description (up to 75 characters in length including spaces). The header contains a hyperlink to the advertised site.
If there are more ads than ad space for the same keyword by different clients, only the ‘best’ 11 ads will appear when the user types in a matching keyword as part of his/her search request. You have an option to advertise in the premium position above search results or run your advertisement in the guaranteed 1st (top) position on the right or guaranteed positions below that. The lowest right position with no guaranteed placement appears in rotation with other advertisers. Usually, the higher positions cost more per click.

The ads from different clients with the same keywords are in an auction, thus the ad with the best bid (the price paid for each click) has a better chance to be displayed. The ad’s CTR (click-through-ratio, the average possibility for a user to click on a particular ad) is also counted when selecting the ‘best’ ads to be displayed.

The last few weeks I have noticed that two of the major cash back sites started advertising on TV and Radio. Both site Topcashback.com and Quidco have been heavily promoting their products online for the last few years. Also relying on word of mouth and user recommendations by offering £5 to £10 to their users if they recommend their sites to their friends.

The TV ads are very simple (to be honest to simple) and both try to explain their business model and the advantages within 30 seconds.They use logos and mentions to some of the big merchants in order to add trust and the fact that millions users use them already.

 

 

For TopCashback the final strapline is very interesting “besides, you’d have bought it anyway”. For the cosnumer this is great, not sure about the merchant. This is something we have been hearing a lot the last few months as merchants start to question the value of a cashback site!

It’s very interesting that both sites use TV but also Radio advertising at the same time. One explanation for this  is that when we look at the traffic volumes we can actually see a drop in traffic for both sites during March-April.  This is when Google released their Panda algorithm updated for their search index.

Topcashback.com

Quidco

 

Another explanation is that cashback sites are facing a stagnation, there are a few strong players, a few white-label solutions which makes it very difficult to acquire new users. Moreover users are not loyal as they switch websites depending on the best offer available! This makes it very difficult for the site but also for the merchants as they need to offer exclusive offers and as a result lower margins.

 

We got an email yesterday from Google Adwords letting us know that now the +1 button will be availble on the PPC results.

In the coming weeks, your search results and ads on Google will include a +1 button, which users can click to recommend your ads. You don’t need to make any changes to your account in order to take advantage of them. The final landing page URL of your ads can also appear on the Google profile of any user who +1’s your ad.

Think of the +1 button as a way for fans of your business to recommend what you offer, for all their friends and contacts to see. By helping searchers see more personal, relevant ads, we believe you’ll see more qualified traffic. You can also add the +1 button to your site to give your customers the opportunity to +1 your site after visiting it.

We started seeing the button a few weeks ago on the search results and now we can see it on almost all our searches. Unfortunately Adwords didnt mention anything about reporting and if we are going to be able to see how many people click on the button or even which ad/which URL.