3 Ways Ecommerce Websites Can Grow or Maintain Organic Search Traffic

Given the measurement, SERP, and PLA challenges, what can an e-commerce site do to maintain or even grow their organic search traffic? Three things:

1. Adjust for Tracking Issues

To quote Tony Stark, "It’s an imperfect world, but it’s the only one we’ve got." In this imperfect world of attribution, it’s important to recognize that:

• You can’t rely purely on your analytics system;
• You must adjust your organic search reporting to estimate "no query" and "mobile" traffic properly for more accurate numbers; and
• All attribution models have inherent biases, so interpretation and intuition are critical - don’t just rely on last click. Ask questions about your assumptions and the implications of each attribution model you use. Last click is a poor representation of the value of organic search given that consumers may begin their journey on organic search, but end it via an affiliate program or a branded paid search ad. Plus, with more consumers beginning their purchasing process on smartphones, connect the dots between a first click on mobile and a purchase in-store or elsewhere online.

2. Measure and Mitigate Cannibalization

Rankings alone won’t cut it if the starting line for organic results is further down the page. So, periodically test a sample of queries (ideally from the head, torso and long-tail) to see how the SERPs evolve over time.

Looking for relationships – correlation and causation – between the locations on the SERP, organic ranking for that query, conversions and revenue can be quite revealing. As many have noted, ranking first in both the organic and paid results for any given query solidifies the brand’s reputation with the customer and increases conversions. Also, as you’re thinking about organic, work with agencies and solution providers that have technology and expertise across both organic and paid search.

3. Get Strategic

Continuing the status quo without any creativity and optimization will yield diminishing returns and/or increasing costs-per-acquisition. If the head and torso clicks are drying up, look to the long-tail to make up ground.

In the long-tail, there is less competition (both for organic and paid, which means there’s often less downward pressure on the organic-listing location on the SERPs) and stronger signals of customer intent. Strategically targeting the long-tail in a scalable way can pay dividends.

If faced with less organic traffic, make sure those clicks you do get turn into customers. Work with the rest of your e-commerce team to make it effortless for those prospects to find what they are looking for, whether on the desktop or mobile device.

When you measure and optimize, net-new customers will still come walking through your virtual door. Plus, in an age when Amazon reigns over many categories, acquiring, converting and cultivating net-new customers is the key to unlocking more revenue potential.

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Designers Spring Into Action to Fix Apple Earbud Flaw

Apple’s industrial design team seems nearly infallible, and its few false starts—such as the hockeypuck mouse, G4 Cube, and Apple Hi-Fi—all stand out like dings on an otherwise flawless glass and aluminum surface. Their stock headphones don’t fall into the flop category, but even after being redesigned for a better fit, the rechristened EarPods can still slip out with a small jolt or jostle.

A simple accessory called the Sprng, created by Ohm Industrial Design, could mean musical salvation for millions of Apple fans. The Sprng is a rigid plastic clip that attaches to the EarPod stem and an overmolded rubber spring that hooks under the concha of the ear, creating an extra point of contact and a more secure fit. The $10 add-on can be adjusted by changing its position on the EarPod, making it useful for high-performance athletes or kids who just want to watch an episode of Yo Gabba Gabba on a long car ride.

A multibillion-dollar industry has been built creating stylish covers for Apple devices and dongles to expand their functionality, but very few gadgets are expressly designed to fix product flaws. “It feels a bit sacrilegious,” says Kirk Mosna, a cofounder of Ohm Industrial Design. “We’ve been using Apple products since the early ’80s — my son is a certified Apple fanboy — so it feels a bit awkward creating a fix for one of their products.” He notes that the Apple designers, though deified by fans and the press, are in fact human and the staggering variety of the human ear is too great for any standardized design to satisfy—necessitating a solution like the Sprng.

The Sprng was a self-directed product developed in between design assignments, and the team was so passionate about the idea that they decided to take a huge financial risk and fund the product’s manufacturing without a partner. Then disaster struck.

“We had a concept for this product designed, tooled up, with pre-production parts that were being reviewed for Apple’s original earbud, when Apple announced the new version,” says Mosna. “We had to scrap the tool and make adjustments to the design to deal with all of the new constraints.”

Fortunately, the product made it to market, but it remains to be seen whether the setback was bad timing or divine retribution for design hubris.

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How do artists get paid from iTunes?

With iTunes, Apple implemented its own revenue-sharing model: Apple would get 30 percent upfront, which is actually a smaller cut than the 42 percent that went to retail stores and distributors under the compact disc model. Meanwhile, the songwriter gets $0.09 per song, while the payment to the performing artist is negotiated between the label and artist (15-to-20 percent is still an industry standard).

How come label execs hate iTunes so much?

Because after iTunes, no one would pay $17 for an album ever again. Not only that, the emphasis on singles over albums hurt record labels’ bottom line. While the impact of Napster on CD sales was negligible, each year since iTunes premiered the industry has been stuck in a freefall, with sales revenue from albums and singles, both digital and non-digital, dropping from $11.2 billion in 2003 to $5.4 billion in 2012.

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Ubuntu Edge: Crowdfunding a Super-Smartphone

Alexey Miller, the chief executive officer of Russian natural gas exporter Gazprom, seemed to be having a megalomaniacal moment when he took over the company's website on July 16 and demanded a tablet computer that could mimic all of the functions of a PC. While Tweeps were quick to rib Miller when he said he would pay $3.7 million for the device, that's nothing compared with Mark Shuttleworth's offer.

Shuttleworth, a South African software billionaire looking to break into the mobile operating system market, is pursuing a $32 million effort to develop a smartphone that can replace a desktop computer. Unlike Miller, he's not paying for the project himself; instead, he's asking other people to contribute on crowdfunding website Indiegogo. Shuttleworth says he wants to push developers to test the limits of processing power, storage and screen technology. "It's sort of like a concept car," he says. "But instead of waiting three years to see if something like it gets built, we're going to try and build it now."

The phone's specs call for the fastest processor on the market, as much memory as a laptop (at least four gigabytes), and 128 GB of storage, twice that of a current high-end iPhone or Android smartphone. Also on Shuttleworth's wish list: a super-vivid 4.5-inch screen made of sapphire crystal, which only a diamond can scratch, and a battery based on high-capacity silicon anode technology. "The only place we couldn't find anything really futuristic and classy was with sound," he says.

Shuttleworth got rich during the dot-com boom by selling a security software company called Thawte to network infrastructure giant VeriSign for about $600 million. He used part of that money to finance a 10-day trip to the International Space Station and, in 2004, to launch a company called Canonical. Few people outside of geekdom recognize the name, but Canonical makes a version of the Linux operating system called Ubuntu that's used by millions of software developers and data center servers. Canonical has been in talks with smartphone makers to release other phones running Ubuntu next year that can connect to a keyboard and screen to simulate a home or office computer. Shuttleworth's project would cut out the hardware companies.

Only donors willing to contribute at least $725 to the Indiegogo campaign will get an Ubuntu Edge, Shuttleworth's phone, from the first batch of 40,000. The project has already set a handful of crowdfunding speed records and stands as the largest such campaign to date. Still, it's only raised $7 million of the $32 million goal. (Canonical lowered the going rate for the phone to $725 from the original asking price, $830, after the initial surge of backers slowed.) "It's like a marathon where there are people in tutus and dressed as bears at the start," says Shuttleworth. "That's the fun part, but it gets tougher as you go."

The superphone may also have a tough time appealing to a broader audience. Longtime industry analyst Roger Kay of Endpoint Technologies points out that $725 can buy both a pretty good phone and a pretty good laptop. "They still haven't sold me on why it's better to have both things on the one device when there are cheap, kick-ass alternatives," he says. The Ubuntu operating system also limits the device's appeal, he says: "Most people aren't Linux jockeys."

Shuttleworth argues that the Ubuntu Edge is aimed at early adopters who want a cutting-edge level of technology in which most smartphone can't justify investing. (Most developers spend about $50 million to produce a new device.) "If you pick an exciting component, and it causes you to have problems in the production line, then you're out of a job," he says of the hardware makers. If the campaign falls short of its goal, Shuttleworth says he won't use his own funds to make up the difference. "The people either want this or they don't," he says. "Let's find out."
Image: Ubuntu, Indiegogo

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Backlinks and reconsideration requests

When talking to site owners on Google Webmaster Forums we come across questions on reconsideration requests and how to handle backlink-related issues. Here are some common questions, along with our recommendations.

When should I file a reconsideration request?

If your site violates our Google Quality Guidelines or did in the past, a manual spam action may be applied to your site to prevent spam in our search results. You may learn about this violation from a notification in Google Webmaster Tools, or perhaps from someone else such as a previous owner or SEO of the site. To get this manual action revoked, first make sure that your site no longer violates the quality guidelines. After you've done that, it's time to file a reconsideration request.

Should I file a reconsideration request if I think my site is affected by an algorithmic change?

Reconsideration requests are intended for sites with manual spam actions. If your site’s visibility has been solely affected by an algorithmic change, there's no manual action to be revoked, and therefore no need to file a reconsideration request. If you're unsure if it's an algorithmic change or a manual action, and have found issues that you have resolved, then submitting a reconsideration request is fine.

How can I assess the quality of a site’s backlinks?

The links to your site section of Google Webmaster Tools is a great starting point for an investigation as it shows a significant amount of your site’s inbound links. If you know that you ran an SEO campaign during a particular period of time, downloading the latest links can come handy in slicing links created at that time. Using the links found in Google Webmaster Tools, we recommend looking for patterns that point to general issues that are worth resolving. For example, spammy blog comments, auto generated forum posts or text advertisements with links that pass PageRank are likely to be seen as unnatural links and would violate Google’s quality guidelines. For individual examples and hands-on advice we recommend getting help of peers and expert webmasters on the Google Webmaster Forum.

How do I clean a bad backlink profile?

Make sure to identify poor links first, then make a strong effort to get them either removed or nofollowed. Then use the Disavow Links Tool to deal with remaining unnatural backlinks. We recommend using domain-wide operator for sites with a complicated URL structure, very obvious spam sites, such as gibberish content sites or low quality sites with content that shows no editorial value. See our video on common mistakes when using the disavow tool for more information.

How much information do I need to provide?

Detailed documentation submitted along with a reconsideration request can contribute to its success, as it demonstrates the efforts made by the webmaster and helps Googlers with their investigation. If you are including a link to a shared document, make sure that it’s accessible to anyone with the link.

How long does it take to process reconsideration requests?

Reconsideration requests for sites affected by a manual spam action are investigated by a Googler. We strive to respond in a timely manner, normally within just a few days. However, the volume of incoming reconsideration requests can vary considerably, hence we don't provide a guaranteed turnaround time.

What are the possible outcomes of a reconsideration request?

Upon submitting a reconsideration request, you will first receive an automated confirmation in Google Webmaster Tools. After your request is processed, we'll send you another message to let you know the outcome of the request. In most cases, this message will either inform you that the manual action has been revoked or that your site still violates our quality guidelines.

Where can I get more guidance?

For more information on reconsideration requests, please visit our Help Center. And as always, the Google Webmaster Forum is a great place for further discussions as well as seeking more advice from experienced webmasters and Google guides.

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Google's Matt Cutts On Using ccTLDs

Matt Cutts, Google's head of search spam, in another video answer, responds to the question about using ccTLDs (country code top level domain names). The question was "Should I use ccTLDs for sites not targeted to those countries?"

 The answer is pretty straight forward. If it is part of the list of generic ccTLDs that Google has specifically said there is enough use to warrant them to be generic, then go ahead and use them. If they are not on that list, then be warned, the site on that ccTLD may be localized to the country of the ccTLD.

In the Google+ post, one person brings up the domain youtu.be, which I used above to link to the video. In that case, it would be a ccTLD that is NOT generic, according to Google's own list. But since it redirects (well, a 302 redirect), it doesn't matter much. But if the main site was youtu.be and not youtube.com that would be an issue.

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Why do reconsideration requests fail?

Here are the most common reasons for a site to fail a reconsideration request:

• Not properly identifying which links need to be removed.  It is really hard to identify what is a natural link and what is not.  Remove too many links and you’ll harm your site’s rankings even more.  But if you don’t address enough of your links then Google will not reconsider your site.
• Not making a big enough effort to get links removed. It is not enough to just disavow your bad links.  Google wants to see that you have gone to great efforts to get links involved.  This means contacting webmasters via available email addresses, whois addresses and contact forms, documenting those attempts at contact and then communicating this to Google.
• Improper use of the disavow tool. Once you’ve gotten all the bad links that you can removed, then it is very helpful to use the disavow tool to ask Google to disavow the rest of the bad links.  If you don’t format your disavow.txt file correctly then it won’t work. Google doesn’t tell you whether or not your file is correctly formatted. They simply ignore it if it is not created properly.

No automated tools are used in the process of deciding whether links should be removed. Each domain is visited and each link is manually evaluated. This is the best way to ensure that all of your GOOD links are kept which gives you the best chance at regaining rankings once the penalty is removed.

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Google AdSense: Responsive Design for Ad Units

Everyone is asking? What took so long?! Google has finally announced a beta of a new ad unit designed for responsive designed web pages.

In the past, Google said you can modify your ad code to make it work for responsive design web pages, but now, you have the option of using a native AdSense ad unit specifically for responsive design web pages.

To access this, go to your AdSense console, login and create a new ad unit. Then from the drop down of ad sizes, select "Responsive ad unit (BETA)." Yes, Google warns this is a beta.

Google AdSense Responsive Design Ad Units

For most serious publishers, they have already come up with a hacked solution to make their AdSense ad units work on responsive designed web sites or avoided it. But now, many will begin exploring this new beta option.

Google does warn:

Be sure to specify fixed pixel values when setting the width and height of the ad to be served.
Make sure that the specified width and height match one of our supported ad sizes. Please note that link unit sizes aren’t supported at the moment.
The new ad code is responsive on initial page load only. Subsequent changes to the ad size, such as a screen orientation change, will not cause a new ad to be displayed. We know that this is an important feature for many of you and we’re currently working to address this.
Always set a default ad size in case some media queries aren’t supported.

Forum discussion at Google+ & WebmasterWorld.

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