Personalization: The Basics, the Google Ethos, and Optimization
SMX TorontoApril 2010
Rob GarnerStrategy Director
iCrossing
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About iCrossing
• iCrossing is a global digital marketing agency that combines talent and technology to help world-class brands find and connect with their customers
• Company background– Founded in 1998– 550 employees – 12 offices in the U.S. and Europe– Headquartered in Scottsdale, Arizona
• Digital marketing services include; paid search, search engine optimization, Web development, social media, mobile, display, research and analytics
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MediaResearch &Analytics
WebsiteDevelopment
SearchOptimization
Social MediaMobile
Marketing
• Paid search media
• Display and rich media advertising
• Online to offline integration
• Global campaign integration
• Market research
• Campaign analytics
• Integrated dashboard reporting
• Linguistic Profiling
• Experiential Mapping
• Site development strategy
• User experience development
• Creative and technical design and development
• Natural search optimization
• RSS Feeds
• Content syndication
• Social media audit
• Reputation management
• Word-of-mouth campaigns
• Mobile strategy development
• Mobile site development and optimization
• Mobile media campaigns
Technology
• Merchantize™ Paid Media
• Interest2Action™Search Analytics
• Network Sense™ Reputation Monitoring
• Network Sense™ Social Media
• Sharp View™ Marketing Dashboard
Agency services
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with clients including…
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Top 25 Interactive
Top Digital AgencyTop Search Agency
Fastest Growing Companies
Top 25 InteractiveNumber One Search Agency
Search Agency of the Year
Awards and Accolades
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THE BASICSPersonalization
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Personalization is a significant philosophical shift,
From the objective results
To the subjective results
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But the reality is that the current state of SERP changes are somewhat subtle
• 20% displacement of organic rankings based on session activity alone (lower ranking displacement not shown)• This search preceded by “arkansas things to do,” “arkansas vacation,” “arkansas hot springs rock and mineral shops”, etc.• “We're generally not changing the entire character of the page” - Brian Horling, Google, SMX West 2010
Turned-off Session-based, signed out
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Personalization impacts both paid, natural, and feed submissions
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As a user, you can turn it off, but it’s not easy
• Add “&pws=0” to the end of your URL string in the address bar
• Signed-in searches, you must remove all Web History
– http://www.google.com/support/accounts/bin/answer.py?answer=54067
• Signed-out searches, click on “Disable Customizations,” and/or clear browser cookies
– http://www.google.com/support/accounts/bin/answer.py?answer=54048
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Personalization algos can vary for multiple users on the same machine
• Theme and interest based
• Session data can shape results, and help differentiate between multiple uses on one machine
Happy couple who might be searching on the same computer. Google sees them as two different people Photo CC - Flickr
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Personalization is available worldwide, in 40 languages
• ArabicBulgarianCatalanChineseCroatianCzechDanishDutchEnglishFilipinoFinnishFrenchGerman
• GreekHebrewHindiIndonesianItalianJapaneseKoreanLatvianLithuanianNorwegianPolishPortugueseRomanian
• RussianSerbianSlovakSlovenianSpanishSwedishUkrainianVietnamese…And others
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/12/personalized-search-for-everyone.html
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You can click on some searches to view customizations
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Ranking reports are no longer fully stable
• Can be biased towards – IP address– Applied user history on machine– Other personalization factors
• Objective rankings can be taken via proxy– But it still doesn’t tell the whole story on personalized referrals– Overall, scraper-based rank checking software should remain a directional
datapoint of performance
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But ranking reports won’t die…
• … They will just shift to analytics-based tracking• Personalized results will pass a ranking variable in the Google
referring string “cd=1”, with 1 equal to the organic page ranking
• Actual average position may become the norm for organic rankings
• Full implementation would enable natural position reporting to become more effective and accurate
– http://analytics.blogspot.com/2009/04/upcoming-change-to-googlecom-search.html
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Other fun facts
• Personalization encompasses mobile, geography/local, theme, user behavior, and web search history
• 180 days of history are considered for non-logged-in users• If you are logged-in to any Google service, then you are
receiving personalized results– Adwords, Orkut, Gmail, Adsense, etc.
• Site data is a signal, measured from the URL string and also the Google Toolbar
• Yahoo and Bing also have some personalization elements, but are not as robust as Google
• Personalization is nothing new– So don’t freak out
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THE GOOGLE ETHOS AROUND PERSONALIZATION
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Google’s “obligation” to use your data
• At the first SMX Advanced in Seattle, June 2007, Matt Cutts stated that Google had an obligation to leverage the personal data provided by its users into something useful. Personalization is one outcome of that obligation.
• Google’s Craig Silverstein once painted a futuristic portrait of personalization in his description of “search pets” – essentially these are robots that know you and can complete various tasks on command
Bottom line: Hyper-personalization is a core goal at Google, and will continue to impact the results – we may just be seeing the beginning
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Bryan Horling of Google, interview with The Register
• March 3, 2010, SMX West :
• Google personalizes 20% of all web searches, based generally on web history, location, and social factors.
• “As it stands today, just about every user who is engaging with Google search today is affected [by personalization].”
• "For years, we've been personalizing for an entire continent [or country],"
• "You should be creating compelling and interesting content that's focused on the user. Your website should be fast. It should be clean. It should be understandable. It should be compelling enough that users want to return to use it."
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/03/03/google_personalized_search_explained/
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OPTIMIZING FOR PERSONALIZED RESULTS
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There are many different signals related to personalization
• Geo– IP address– Google Nearby
• Time of day• User behavior
– Session data can differentiate between users on the same machine– Web search history– Toolbar data– Bookmarks– Clicks
• Social– Links in your Google Profile– Links to your social network profiles (ex. Twitter)
• Technical– Device
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Optimizing for Personalized results
• Do the basics very well– Clean tech hygiene, know your analytics, good page markup, thoroughly
tested keyword targeting
• Optimize for search with personalization turned off• Develop both high-level themes, and long tail
themes• Build up your social networks, and use them to
disseminate and promote relevant content• Know your target user through market research• Develop compelling content strategies
“On The Impact Of Personalization And Real-Time Search”http://www.mediapost.com/publications/index.cfm?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=118830
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Knowing your target audience is now more important than ever
• Inform your personas through interviews, and ask subjects to talk about how they search; or, better yet, observe how they search online
• Map keyword learnings into more complex scenarios for the process of finding
• Leverage learnings from paid search and analytics data early on
• Remember that often the real gold mine in all of market research is finding and leveraging just one new word or linguistic cue
• Get out of the habit of making assumptions based on what you think your target audience will search for.
• Look to social networks for linguistic cues
• Use internal searches to help inform campaigns and future designs
• Consider the various types of digital assets, and how your target audience searches for them
“The Days of Guessing at Keyword Research Are Over”http://www.mediapost.com/publications/index.cfm?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=121839
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Use search data and ask search questions when developing personas
“More About Search In The Web Design Process” http://www.mediapost.com/publications/index.cfm?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=120971
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Engaging your target is now more important than ever
• It’s about content, content, content• Content is text, images, video, applications, conversation, feed
streams, widgets, etc.• Base content strategies on what your research tells you about
your audience
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Getting back to basics:Internal SEO considerations that a site owner controls
• Article Syndication• Body Content• Canonicalization Issues• Cloaking• Digital Assets• Directory Presence• Document Accessibility• Duplicate Content• Frames• Hidden Text• Internal Linking Optimization• Javascript & Flash Navigation• Market Research • Meta Descriptions
• Micro Sites and Sub-Domains• Obtaining Links from Relevant Sites• On-page Javascript and CSS• Optimizing Images• Page Titles• Redirecting• Requiring User Actions• Robots.txt Files• Secure Servers• Server Location• Sites Built in Flash• Splash Pages• URL Structure• Using Ajax
“22 Considerations for Improving Natural Search Performance”http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=73550 “Hot SEO Trend for 2010:Getting Back To Basics” http://www.mediapost.com/publications/index.cfm?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=123631
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It’s worth repeating
To succeed in a personalized world of search…
Do the basics very well
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THANK YOU SMX Toronto
April 2010
Rob GarnerStrategy Director
214.676.2089@robgarner
www.facebook.com/garnerGreatFinds.iCrossing.com Linkedin.com/in/robgarner
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