This is great for the existing established brand and is a good measure of brand equity. For example vastly more people search “eBay” than “online auction” and more people search “Skype” than “VoIP”. But for brands that are emerging and even for the development of new brand concepts the thought of building a brand “through the line” and not putting a target’s search language at the core is missing a huge opportunity.

However, in the traditions of good advertising if you spend enough on media and that your idea sparks imagination and engagement with your customers, then the market will adopt your language and this will lead to strong SEO benefits.

There are undoubtedly many good examples, but here is one.

Brands in The Insurance Market

In the insurance market comparison sites can offer brands good referring traffic but at the same time they compete in search engines for the acquisition of the searcher and positions.

Chart 1 – Here we can see a range of comparison sites, brand sites and product sites positions in Google over a 4 month period on the search term “Home Insurance” in 2009. There are some good performers but on the whole the category is very volatile and competitive. We see Halifax drop from a page one position to page 5 in just one day, a massive drop, and we see Aviva emerge successfully to take over where Norwich Union left off (good redirecting work).

Chart 2 – Here we see an interesting tussle between www.confused.com and www.comparethemarket.com over a 9 month period with both site getting to page one.

So while the dog fights continued with each site competing for position on the core category terms www.comparethemarket.com is working on a creative idea that has nothing to do with Insurance language. “Compare the Meerkat”.

Chart 2 – This Google Insights chart illustrates how during the “compare the Meerkat” advertising campaign search popularity on the term “compare the meerkat” was equal to that of “home insurance”.

While the market is competing for the share of 10 page-one positions on “home insurance”. www.comparethemarket.com enjoy 100% real estate on page one for an equally competitive term.

In this case the old brand principles have resulted in a definable, unique and all encompassing SEO performance. – Simples.

If we take a look at one of the ‘key’ search terms that many voters will be using over the course of the day that could potential sway an undecided voter – election 2010:

Hardly ground breaking stuff from any one of the political parties hey? This could have been an opportunity for any one of the parties to target, considering the popularity of the term. However, all four party websites have chosen to ignore this and concentrate on pushing their own party terms – rather than targeting the majority. If we take a look at the term ‘Conservative election’ we can see a pretty strong position for the Tories:

The website has been pretty consistent at the top of Google over the past two months, however if you take a look at Labour, they have only recently ‘peaked’ in April:

This improvement coincided with Gordon Brown releasing information on the General Election on May 6th, however prior to this the Labour Party were not visible for a party specific keyword term. On the other hand The Liberal Democrat Party are a little more erratic than both parties:

The Liberal Democrats have a number of subdomains, including European specific URL and Manifesto URL – which is causing a conflict with the main website. One of the main obvious issues is the constant deleting of pages across the website, rather than 301 redirecting to a useful page. For example, the following URL was being returned at the end of April:

http://www.libdems.org.uk/noidcards/

An interesting piece of data we’ve extracted from our tools is that the Conservative party are actively targeting the ‘Manifesto’ keyword terms of the other two main political parties as highlighted in the chart below:

Moving along to the Newspapers, its clear to see that the top performers online since the Election news came about at the start of April – with the Guardian constantly performing on page one for the keyword term ‘Election 2010′:

Its interesting to see that since the announcement that the Guardian are backing the Liberal Democrats they have occupied top positions within Google UK, whilst Conservative supporters, The Daily Mail, only appear within the SERPs for a negative piece on the party entitled:

General Election 2010: Liberal Democrats and the dirty tricks of the real nasty party | Mail Online

Lastly, looking at the broadcasters, its no surprise to see the BBC on page one for the keyword term ‘Election 2010′, whilst ITV have improved over the past four weeks:

The BBC and ITV have a dedicated section, whilst Channel 4 have an individual article returning in Google’s SERPs. It is clear to see that each political party has ignored the potential to rank highly for a selection of generic keywords terms, focusing on party specific terms – which core voters would search for anyhow. The Guardian and Telegraph perform very well for a number of election keyword terms across the board.

Google insights data for Pizza keyword terms

Google obviously believes that we will continue to feed our expanding waistlines by predicting searches will continue to grow over 2010. It is debatable whether or not these figures will actually happen, however we only have to take a look at profits made by Domino’s Pizza to see what an impact our searching online is having. Dominos have successfully managed to market its online service by improving sales by 38.9%. Although their spokesperson may credit the most used excuse of ‘Economic turmoil’ – there is no doubting the combination of a successful brand and good organic positions within Google have aided this growth in 2009.

Take a look at a the following chart that highlights the current positions www.dominos.co.uk has achieved in Google UK to date:

Dominos web radar chart

It is extremely clear to see the dominant position www.dominos.co.uk has achieved within Google, Yahoo! and Bing. If you’re interested in finding out how www.dominos.co.uk achieved these positions and obtaining even more competitive insight, please do not hesitate in contacting us. As you’ll see from the next chart, these positions aren’t an overnight success but have been consistently high for over a year:

Historical Pizza data in Google

This chart indicates a monopoly in Google for a wide selection of Pizza keyword terms – with Pizza delivery being a very competitive term. Of course there are many other Pizzerias and delivery services that we can choose from, including Pizza Hut, Papa Johns, Pizza Go go and Perfect Pizza. All of these products range in price, service and overall taste – however, perform at very different levels online.

If we take a look at the keyword term ‘Pizza Delivery’ and assess the impact of the major Pizza suppliers in the UK – it is clear to see who are the market leaders:

Industry overview of Pizza delivery market online

All major Pizza brands appear on page one in Google UK for the keyword term ‘Pizza delivery’, however it is clear to see that only two URLs have dominated the top two positions in Google for over two years. Papa Johns, Pizza Gogo and Perfect Pizza have all entered the top ten following the major algorithm change in June 2009, which saw a number of URLs improve dramatically in positions due to the authority of their backlinks. Prior to this date all three URLs were lingering between positions 70 and 100, but now are in a good position to challenge both Pizza Hut and Dominos.

Of course with this type of keywords there are opportunities to rank for local keyword terms, including local business results for generic keyword terms also. Below are a number of tables highlighting the current position of each URL for a number of ‘city’ terms. Bear in mind that each URL is now competing against local Pizzerias who aren’t too concerned with generic keyword terms.

Date: 24/03/10

Pizza Hut

Local keyword terms - Pizza Hut

Dominos

Local keyword terms - Dominos

Pizza Express

Local keyword terms - Pizza Express

Perfect Pizza

Local keyword terms - Perfect Pizza

Pizza Gogo

Local keyword terms - Pizza Gogo

Papa Johns

Local keyword terms - Papa Johns

A bit of a mixed bag from a local search point of view, however both Dominos and Pizza Hut are performing well – with Pizza Go Go trailing behind.

If we take an entry in the SERPs for ‘Pizza delivery’, lets see if there are any basic things we can do to it to make it more appealing to click on and improve in rankings further. Lets take a look at Papa Johns:

Papa Johns SERPs snippet

The URL is currently returning in 8th position in Google for the keyword. If you’ve searched for a particular keyword term, you would kind of expect it to appear somewhere in the entry on the SERPs page. Both the title and META description do not contain the term and it would be beneficial to the company if they modified both these tags to include the term. Take a look at a snapshot from one of our unique tools:

Keyword density versus SEO tool

www.dominos.co.uk are represented by the pink bar, whilst www.papajohns.co.uk do not feature due to the omission of the term from both elements. This screenshot shows us that the title tag for www.dominos.co.uk is made up of eight words and 25% of those eight words are the keyword term ‘Pizza Delivery’. We have a wide selection of these SEO tools that can help refine your copy to be more appealing to users, which in turn will aid organic rankings. If you’re interested in finding out what our SEO tools can do for your business, then please do not hesitate in dropping us an email.

Note: This study is purely an analysis of the Pizza sector online and not a case study.

Anyway this morning I did this for “Yahoo” – lo and behold Google couldn’t find any results for this search term.

It didn’t work on several colleagues machines, but did on others. Well it amused me. Is it to do with the Ajax results?

However, when you search on UK results it gives you millions of answers. Is this to do with the Google Geo search? Or Yahoo’s new localised redirect? Or just a glitch?

Yahoo seems to have implemented a redirect to http://m.uk.yahoo.com/ – which is new, and has only got a PageRank of 4. Google obviously doesn’t rate this page.

This needs more digging.

UPdate:
Whilst doing a search on Bing for Yahoo, all seems fine. However my Stumbleupon toolbar gives it a category it probably shouldn’t be in. See below. Poor old Yahoo, what’s it done to annoy the other search engines?

The algorithm change happened around the end of June. Some are calling this Vince, however it is unclear, as previously Vince was attributed to a Brand algorithmic change by Matt Cutts, not a locality or regional search one.

If you have ever wondered what the Google algorithm shuffle looks like check out the chart below. Here we see a consistent set of results for the search Travel Insurance, each site happily sitting in its same position. Then all of a sudden at the end of June Google has changed its Algorithm, and mayhem ensues. But its happy days for the Post Office on the term “travel insurance”.

google algorithm change

The problem with shopping online, is that it’s not really like shopping for real. Your searches are restricted to what the search engines throw up or which stores you can remember to visit direct (which are usually the same as what the search engines throw up).

Shopping online Today

Then when you go to a single store, you have to rely on the quality of their site and their imagery. And if you’re anything like me (unlikely) you’re not totally sure what you’re after, but you will know the look you’re going for, but expecting the right item when you type in “shirt” “shoes” or “bag” is usually disappointing.

Visual Search from Pixsta

Pixsta Visual Search

The Pixsta powered visual search at Empora.com changes all of that. You click on an image which then performs a likeness search and the clever technology returns similar features of new products from the image you selected. Then you can window shop though all your favourite brands and stores whilst searching by the style and colours that catch your eye. All with no description required – just point and click on the images you think are close to your ideal and narrow it down that way. See here when you buy women’s bags online.

The idea is simple: instead of relying on tags that may or may not have been added to the images, we try to understand what the image depicts based on a pixel-wise analysis.

Have a go and see how easy it is to buy women’s clothes online and get the clothes you want, be it designer items or finding a total outfit that suits you – all in one place. You know you want to.

Well Done Empora and Pixsta.

Woolworths – Company Focus. Woolworths has obviously had a bad time of things lately.
With the company going into administration and the 1000s of employees facing unemployment just weeks before Christmas, it’s not been happy reading. Woolworths Decline.

However, one shining light for the Woolworths brand over the last 12 months has been their online presence. Whether or not they have been selling products through their website is another discussion, but their positioning in the search engines has been good –

and for certain keywords, it has been excellent.

But then this happened:

The Reason: Woolworths Website holding page throughout the site

This appears on every page linked to. So all the readable content has gone, all meta and all internal links. This blank page is all Google sees. Furthermore bounce rate is therefore 100% and we all know what that means.

Woolworths' keywords fell off a cliff in mid November in Google UK

Previously Woolies was in the top five SERPS for “Toys” “Outdoor Toys” “camp Rock” and many other children’s related purchases. At Christmas, these would be searched millions of times and the purchase rate is for many retailers better in December than for the rest of the year put together. So why did they take the site down?

As you will see above from our Keyword line tracker Woolworths.co.uk the effect of the maintenance page is stark. Woollies online has now taken the same hit as its fellow High Street Stores have – and fallen off a cliff.

Is there a way back?

The Woolies site was getting some very good positons, and closing it down like this, before the business has properly shut-up shop, seems premature. Furthermore, the site itself had a PageRank of 5, certainly a sellable asset to anyone in retail.

But what we can conlude from this is that links, by themselves, will not get you good results.

In a recent news release John Lewis stated it has achieved record figures for online sales:

“Internet sales were driven by demand for gifts, Christmas decorations, furnishing accessories, home electronics and toys.” The Release stated, But how do they get on in the SERPS?.


The John Lewis website is of a high standard, in both design, content and for many keyword related searches. It ranks highly for a wide variety of keyword searches, reflecting its diverse product range.

Using our tools we can see how John Lewis has done for those sectors stated, within Search. John Lewis does well for “electrical appliances” – one of their stated successful terms, but do not perform well in the other areas offering no real consistency. In fact for some, they have even taken a drop over the last few months.

The first chart shows Johnlewis.com performance in Google UK, for the selected keywords over a period of 6 months, from position one to positon 100.

Competitors such as Tesco Direct, perform much better across these diverse product areas showing consistency and generally keeping on page one and two.

Chart 2 shows direct.tesco’s progress in the Google UK.

John Lewis obviously achieves results on the back of its brand equity and from online shoppers who have already experienced the high quality of service. Traffic and repeat custom would rise if they performed better in the SERPS. Having a successful SEO service would undoubtedly help.

For more information please do not hesitate to get in touch.

The travel sector is one of the most competitive arenas on the Internet and for the most successful sites it’s certainly one of the most lucrative.

The Internet has perhaps changed the travel industry more than any other. We no longer need to visit the travel agent to help us book a holiday and a flight. We conduct the research ourselves and regularly buy separate flights either for a city break or business trip.

With the advent of budget airlines such as Ryan Air and Easy Jet, price has become one of the main purchasing factors for the online user, and the airlines and online travel agencies know it. Unlike almost any other industry, the word “cheap” is one of the most sought after and prized keywords. (“Cheap” on Google)

Dominance and Fluctuation
As you can see from the chart below, Skyscanner and CheapFlights, two of the biggest names n online travel agencies have been consistently in the top 10 over this period. Travel supermarket has enjoyed similar success other than a slight blip in November 08, a fall that Easyjet also succumbed too. What did Google dislike at that time?

Keyword: cheap flights, search engine: Google UK | period: 01/04/2008 - 14/12/2008

More gradual success has come for flights.monarch which has been climbing since it went through a URL rename in the Summer of 2008, losing ground from its previous high before that time. Most surprisingly is Ryanair, who has not appeared in the top 100 of Google UK since July for this keyword.

The dramatic drop for Ryanair may be connected to this policy to punish 3rd party screenscrapers (Screen Scraping article).

However there are other reasons we have identified that have and will continue to significantly effect their positions until modified.

Ryanair.com – Line Tracker

url: www.ryanair.com, search engine: Google UK | period: 30/06/2008 - 31/07/2008

It is interesting to note that a few similar search terms on Ryanair produced very similar trends, a climb in early July and then a drop on 24 July. This would suggest that there is a site wide issue.

Bumpy Ride
Looking more closely at the November fluctuation, we notice that a lot of brands took a hit on 8/11/08 and then more so on 12/11/08. What was Google looking at?

Keyword: cheap flights, search engine: Google UK | period: 25/10/2008 - 26/11/2008

Google Trends

Google Trends
Below shows that “Cheap Flights” as a search term has a similar search rate as “Airlines”. This shows that the market as a whole has split into two sectors. The conventional carriers tend to position themselves in the Airline section, and the travel agents and budget airlines fight it out for “cheap flights”.

What we can tell from this data however is that both keywords are on the decline from their peak in 2006. One factor could be the fact that today the online searcher is more knowledgeable and undertakes more a descriptive search hoping to get a more accurate return.

If you would like to find out more and to receive a PDF of the IP-SEO Travel Sector watch, please contact us.