Our experts' posts on all things Natural Search (SEO), Paid Search (PPC), Social Media and Integrated Marketing. Hydra www.onehydra.com/blog/ Thu, 19 April 2012 11:00:00 Thu, 19 April 2012 11:00:00 Becky Hayward /blog/posts/2012/hydra-2012-survey/ The 2012 edition of Hydra's survey assessing the state of Search integration is now live. To ensure the results delivered from the survey are valuable, we need as many Search specialists and digital marketers as possible to take the survey.  Please take five minutes out of your day to take the survey and to be in with the chance of winning a great prize! One lucky winner will get to use Hydra for a three month period free of charge. That's the equivalent of adding multiple Search staff members to a team at no extra cost. Take the survey now for your chance of winning the opportunity to see how The One Platform can help maximise your Search effectiveness, delivering real ROI.  The 2012 Hydra Survey: The State of Search Integration    /blog/posts/2012/hydra-2012-survey/ /blog/posts/2012/hydra-2012-survey/ Thu, 19 April 2012 11:00:00 Becky Hayward /blog/posts/2012/seo-for-huge-sites/ Scaling SEO for massive sites - Our most recent White Paper focuses on the unique challenges faced by large sites in scaling their Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) activity across millions of pages, and doing so without experiencing an unacceptable impact on project costs and time to delivery.  The value of technology The SEO performance of a website is determined by how well its web pages satisfy various technical, relevancy and credibility conditions. For websites with three hundred pages, this is a manageable task; however in contrast, optimising a website which consists of a million web pages or more becomes very expensive and time consuming. Not only does Hydra's White Paper delve deeper into how a huge website can be managed effectively, but it also provides a solution on how to deal with these issues. /blog/posts/2012/seo-for-huge-sites/ /blog/posts/2012/seo-for-huge-sites/ Wed, 04 April 2012 00:00:00 Becky Hayward /blog/posts/2012/leading-high-street-retailer-debenham’s-takes-the-one-platform-route/ The Hydra team is delighted to be working closely with leading UK high street retailer Debenhams as it embarks on implementing Hydra's One Platform.  It has already enabled Debenhams to uncover an additional 16 million potential searches it can now target. The One Platform will ensure this high street retailer can target areas to leverage greatest success, identify and target problems efficiently and rapidly boost its search rank performance. Read the case study to learn more.   /blog/posts/2012/leading-high-street-retailer-debenham’s-takes-the-one-platform-route/ /blog/posts/2012/leading-high-street-retailer-debenham’s-takes-the-one-platform-route/ Wed, 07 March 2012 16:00:00 Ruth Zohrer /blog/posts/2012/integrated-search-dynamic-ads/ We have been advocating the management of Natural and Paid Search campaigns as a joint strategy since before the launch of The One Platform.  In fact, it was precisely this notion which led us to create a technology that could facilitate this.  Why?  For us there is a simple reason: potential and existing customers experience Search as a seamless list of relevant results to their query - few differentiate between Natural and Paid results.  There is another incentive to run these two channels cooperatively, if Google's moves in the market are anything to go by.  Over the course of the past few years we have seen changes in the search engine result pages (SERPs) that are further blurring the line between Natural and Paid Search channels; we have also seen metrics such as Quality Score increasingly rely on what have traditionally been perceived as Natural Search metrics such as Relevancy.  A recent development, the introduction of Dynamic Search Ads (albeit in Beta for the U.S. from October 2011) further confirms this rapprochement between the two disciplines. What are Dynamic Search Ads? As the name suggests, Dynamic Search Ads are ads that are generated dynamically by Google predominantly based on a website's content.  Google takes natural search information gathered by its crawl and defines the keywords that your site could potentially appear for in Paid Search results.  When a user types a query, Google determines (very much along the same lines as with Natural Search results) whether your site is relevant to that query and automatically generates and serves an ad based on the site's content and the ad template criteria predefined by the advertiser. (See below) Source: http://adwords.blogspot.com/2011/10/introducing-dynamic-search-ads-beta.html Dynamic Search Ads can be run in conjunction with non-dynamic campaigns (i.e. campaigns that a Paid Search specialist has defined in the standard way) to supplement impressions and clicks to the website or uncover new queries not previously targeted.  They are also meant to simplify the management of AdWords campaigns for those who simply don't have the resource to plan, deploy, monitor and update multiple campaigns covering thousands of potential keywords. However, running Dynamic Search Ads without the appropriate reviews and checks in place has an inherent risk: potentially decreased Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) for the advertiser.  But the interest of this post is not to delve in the advantages or disadvantages of Dynamic Search Ads.  We are instead much more interested in the paradigm shift that Dynamic Search Ads appear to confirm. Why do Dynamic Search Ads matter to Search Engine Marketing? Leaving the benefits and downsides of running Dynamic Search Ads aside for a second, Dynamic Search Ads matter because the ability to run such ads successfully entirely depends on the overall state of a website from what has traditionally been a Natural Search point of view: -          Without good performance from an Accessibility standpoint, for example, the indexing of content that defines whether a website could be used for x or y query in Dynamic Search Ads could be severely affected. -         Even if Accessibility issues are not a hindrance, the lack of good quality, relevant content can severely affect when and for which queries a Dynamic Search Ad is generated.  Relevancy may take a whole new level of importance as it sways Quality Scores and defines the ads that could be potentially served using the alternative: Dynamic Search Ads. Neglecting areas such as accessibility and relevancy of a website could limit the choices for testing and discovering new opportunities online that could be potentially derived from running Dynamic Search Ads.  Today, it may not seem of great value to pass on this chance; however, if anything can be deduced from previous feature releases in AdWords, we should expect Dynamic Search Ads to become more prevalent by 2013.  This is important since it changes the priority assigned to the tasks performed by the Natural Search specialist and emphasises cooperation between Natural and Paid Search teams.  In fact, this may also point at the need to not only encourage cooperation but instead, create the right environment for knowledge transfer between the two disciplines.  Personally, I believe that the days of planning Natural and Paid Search strategies are coming to an end.  It is becoming incredibly apparent that if a company or agency wants to succeed in search marketing, they will need to think of it as a single medium with a specific set of goals - and plan the strategy and tactics accordingly. If you want to learn more about how to manage, optimise and monitor Natural and Paid Search campaigns as a single integrated strategy, get in touch .    /blog/posts/2012/integrated-search-dynamic-ads/ /blog/posts/2012/integrated-search-dynamic-ads/ Tue, 28 February 2012 11:36:00 Becky Hayward /blog/posts/2012/hsbc-selects-hydra's-the-one-platform/ We are very excited to announce that HSBC have selected Hydra to assist in its next phase of Search Marketing activity. Working closely with both Greenlight, (the agency that manages various elements of HSBC's search activity) and the bank itself, the Hydra team has deployed The One Platform enabling HSBC to discover ways to increase the effectiveness of its Search Marketing activity. Our visualisation tools provide a 30,000 ft view of the sphere of opportunity which can then be drilled down into in order to assess trends and new opportunities at a keyword level. Read the case study to find out more. /blog/posts/2012/hsbc-selects-hydra's-the-one-platform/ /blog/posts/2012/hsbc-selects-hydra's-the-one-platform/ Thu, 23 February 2012 11:00:00 Becky Hayward /blog/posts/2012/optimising-the-buying-cycle-part-ii-tying-keywords-to-desired-outcomes/ Following on from part one of our recent White Paper - Optimising the Buying Cycle, we now release part two of the paper which focuses on tying keywords to desired actions. For years, SEO specialists have been used to managing just a handful of keywords, and ordinarily without the combination of Paid Search data and insight. Recent technological developments however have evolved to such an extent that marketers can now view both SEO and PPC data side by side in an integrated view allowing them to achieve better ROI. Our new White Paper considers keyword research, prioritisation and management of keywords across the disciplines, discussing how they fit into the various stages of the buying cycle. By using technology to better understand the buying cycle, its various stages and how to optimise search marketing campaigns within it - marketing specialists can better define which keywords elicit which responses from prospects. In this paper, we give tips to assist both natural and paid search specialists in fine-tuning the language used within campaigns across the different channels to ultimately enhance effectiveness and increase results.   /blog/posts/2012/optimising-the-buying-cycle-part-ii-tying-keywords-to-desired-outcomes/ /blog/posts/2012/optimising-the-buying-cycle-part-ii-tying-keywords-to-desired-outcomes/ Thu, 26 January 2012 13:38:00 Ruth Zohrer /blog/posts/2011/optimising-the-buying-cycle/ A consistent presence across all digital channels that helps to sway a prospect's decision in their favour is something that online marketers aspire to achieve. However, budget constraints and fierce competition combine, creating an obstacle that is difficult to overcome. Help is now at hand! By understanding the stages of the buying cycle, the channels that are more suitable and the phrases most commonly used for each of these stages and chan­nel combinations, online marketers can now easily determine the most suitable cross-channel spend and tactics to help them achieve their goals. Achieve greater ROI At Hydra, we have developed a solution for this challenge. Using the science of algorithms and predictive analysis, the One platform aggregates data from Natural Search, Paid Search and Social Media, meaning users can now better optimise the buying cycle and achieve greater ROI.   Our new White Paper " Optimising the Buying Cycle " discusses the various elements of the buying cycle and how approaching them in a planned way can increase search related revenue, significantly. /blog/posts/2011/optimising-the-buying-cycle/ /blog/posts/2011/optimising-the-buying-cycle/ Wed, 26 October 2011 11:30:00 Ruth Zohrer /blog/posts/2011/can-natural-search-specialists-benefit-from-paid-search-insights/ A common challenge faced by digital in-house and agency teams is that most of their channel specialists have grown accustomed to working in silos.  In an environment where online actions are becoming more intertwined, the risks of isolation far outweigh its benefits (see our 2011 Integration Survey if you want to learn more).  However, it is difficult to transition into a more integrated model without incentives for channel specialists to make the switch.  For this reason, we have explored some of the areas where specialists could derive value from other disciplines for planning and executing their campaigns. As a start, we have highlighted the Top 5 areas where Natural Search could derive additional insight from Paid Search: 1. Optimising budget allocation: Shifting budget from a group of keywords to another based on the relationship between Natural and Paid Search performance in SERPs     2. Researching competitors Understanding your competitors' priorities based on their Natural and Paid Search spend 3. Benchmarking campaign performance  Identifying which changes are caused by seasonality, cannibalisation between channels or mere Natural Search performance fluctuations 4. Discovering new keyword opportunities Unearthing new language being used by customers through Paid Search reports 5. Assessing landing page quality Using Quality Score (QS) factors as additional metrics to identify areas of improvement To read the detailed overview of these opportunities for integration, download our latest white paper Natural Search Specialist, should Paid Search matter to you? /blog/posts/2011/can-natural-search-specialists-benefit-from-paid-search-insights/ /blog/posts/2011/can-natural-search-specialists-benefit-from-paid-search-insights/ Mon, 05 September 2011 12:00:00 /blog/posts/2011/hydra-app-in-app-store-now/ Hydra's Rank Check App went live in the Apple app store over the weekend. Its a free App that allows you to see Keyword ranking for upto 5 domains, with 5 keywords per domain. A simple to tool to allow you to check your performance on the move.   /blog/posts/2011/hydra-app-in-app-store-now/ /blog/posts/2011/hydra-app-in-app-store-now/ Mon, 11 July 2011 00:00:00 Ruth Zohrer /blog/posts/2011/the-discovery-phase/ A few weeks ago, I had lunch with a friend who runs a brand management consultancy.  Like many other successful consultants who have been mainly involved in traditional marketing campaigns, she expressed an interest in understanding what digital marketing had to offer better than she currently did.  One of her clients was due to appoint a search marketing agency and she wanted to provide the best advice possible.  She was hesitant to evaluate a search marketing agency on the same aspects as a creative above the line agency, which was essentially the reason we were sitting at the table.  Rather than simply focusing on how to select a provider, our conversation began with a much more fundamental set of questions: how do I know whether my client should be spending money on search marketing or not?  What if we are better off using that budget in other areas?  If it is worth an investment, how do I define my search marketing priorities?  Giving her some background on how most search marketing campaigns begin - on the discovery phase - seemed to be the place to begin. And this conversation was the inspiration behind our recent paper, Where to start - the discovery phase , in which we cover the how-to's of: Creating an initial keyword set for the products that you aim to promote Refining the initial keyword set to ensure you are using the same language as potential customers Uncovering the size of the opportunity on a keyword-by-keyword basis to define whether spend is warranted Prioritising the refined list of keywords based on commercial potential and business targets Setting realistic performance expectations based on the site and its competitors Setting a process for a constant feedback loop to ensure continued campaign success and ROI growth Register to access this content or Login .   /blog/posts/2011/the-discovery-phase/ /blog/posts/2011/the-discovery-phase/ Fri, 01 July 2011 13:00:00 Ruth Zohrer /blog/posts/2011/the-one-o-one-series/ The One-O-One is a series of dedicated posts addressing how integration can help innovate on existing optimisation methods across Natural Search, Paid Search and Social Media and improve overall campaign success.  As such, we will be parsing through some of the key topics involving strategy development, campaign planning and implementation, and performance analysis and reporting.   Why does the One-O-One exist? Because digital marketing disciplines have been developed in silo and so have its best practises.  As we move to a more collaborative environment where channel integration offers competitive advantage to marketers willing to take that step, the arsenal of best practise guidelines must reflect this new approach.  In the One-O-One we will highlight how traditional channel-specific methodologies can be adapted to successfully work hand-in-hand with an integrated approach and help maximise the return from overall digital marketing investment.    What does the One-O-One cover? It generally covers methods currently applied by marketers at the planning, implementation and review phases of a campaign but with a twist.  This twist essentially explains how current best practises and methods can be modified or supplemented to incorporate insight from other channels to refine its outputs and improve their effectiveness.  Our aim is to consider the main pain points of digital marketers today and propose solutions to either eradicate them altogether or at the very least make them less painful.    When is the One-O-One published? It is published on a monthly basis as a planned series to give us enough time to prepare insights of quality and value.  However, as it is often the case, new topics of interest emerging in the media or requests from our readers may trigger additional posts that would increase the frequency of publishing to fortnightly.  Any topic suggestions or requests for comment can be emailed through our Contact Us form (just ensure to put One-O-One in the subject).   Who is responsible for the One-O-One? Though all posts are reviewed by Hydra as a team, the main point person for this section of the blog is our Senior Solutions Consultant, Ruth.  To find out more about her and other members of our team, you can visit the Meet the Team section and put a face to the name.  /blog/posts/2011/the-one-o-one-series/ /blog/posts/2011/the-one-o-one-series/ Fri, 01 July 2011 12:00:00 Martyn Jobber /blog/posts/2011/2011-hydra-survey/ There's much talk about the rise of the practise of bringing together Search Marketing and Social Media. Without a shadow of doubt, the practises work hand in hand: they use the same medium, the language of the customer they are time sensitive, campaigns working hand in hand supporting each other But how easy is it to do? What are the challenges businesses face today? How effectively has it been deployed? We decided we would find out, with some interesting results. Without question the trend of bringing it all together is active and occurring as I type this, and it's great to see this happening. But what is the real state of play? Working together: 34.9% of organisations surveyed said they at best rarely bring together this data to identify new opportunities. Identifying the ROI: As would be expected, Paid Search is the easier of the channels to identify ROI, and Natural Search shows great leaps in identifying the value created by the channel. But Social Media is still proving a struggle to assign real monetary value to.   Being "on trend":   This really struck me as interesting, look at the massive differential between those who do share keywords and phrases and those that do not, in how "on trend" they feel they are. Clearly sharing gets you more in touch with the language your customers use.   Need for technology: I think we can safely say that's a resounding "yes" vote from those surveyed that a single place to manage these channels is required. Have a look in the Survey detail, it's surprising to see just how many tools companies need to use to be able to achieve the goals they have.   Competitive landscape: There's a lot of competitive activity out there, and knowing your competitors and understanding how you perform against them is crucial to success. Yet 55.7% of those surveyed struggle to get access to competitive information. Conclusion Have a look at the results for yourself by downloading the Hydra Survey 2011 , for us it's clear: Sharing keywords and phrases yields direct business benefit Technology is required to handle the task as it's a big job Understanding competitive activity is a challenge All of this reflects the world we live in today, and why we have designed The One Platform the way we have. Contact us to find out how we can help eliminate these issues in your business.   Download the Survey /blog/posts/2011/2011-hydra-survey/ /blog/posts/2011/2011-hydra-survey/ Fri, 01 July 2011 09:00:00 Martyn Jobber /blog/posts/2011/free-sector-data-from-hydra/ Dating back over 12 months, and updated every month, see how your sites have behaved and who has been doing well in your sector. This data is a guide, and is collected to allow you to understand your placement. Its important to understand how it is created, so you can understand what you are seeing, so here is a brief explanation of how we do it: Methodology We use industry data to classify a selection of the most popular search terms that customer use within that sector. We also take a set of generic, general sector specific keywords that are used when searching. This gave us an indication as to the size of the audience that used search engines. For natural search, we analyse the natural search rankings on Google to see which websites and brands are positioned on page one for each term. That way we were able to build up an aggregate view of the most commonly appearing and prominent websites, as well as the respective size of the audience they are reaching as a result of having that keyword-specific visibility. For paid search, we monitor the advertisers appearing in the sponsored links for the top 90 of the terms analysed. Data was retrieved from the Search Engine regularly on a daily basis during the period to ensure a fair assessment of the paid search space and to take into account the ad rotation system employed by the Search Engines. This data iss then collated and league tables of the most visible websites in both natural and paid search were created for the sector. In our reports you will find market view data for the industry as a whole, as well as by segment: generic keywords, and specific product/service types. Currently this data is UK specific, but we plan to role it out on a more general basis over the coming months. Access free sector report data today /blog/posts/2011/free-sector-data-from-hydra/ /blog/posts/2011/free-sector-data-from-hydra/ Fri, 01 July 2011 09:00:00 Martyn Jobber /blog/posts/2011/introducing-the-one-platform/ Hydra is the culmination of many years of best practice in the Search Marketing and Social Media space. It takes all combinations of words and phrases your customers are likely to use and then gives you tools to push marketing directly back into the channels you need to be in to get customers to engage with you. Hydra is all about bringing channels together into one place and talking to your customers in the language they use to discuss your area of business. We call our technology "The One Platform." For years we have seen Natural, Paid Search and Social Media treated separately by both client and agency alike, often seeing one company with an SEO agency and a PPC function working completely in isolation. Times are changing however, the growth of Social Media as a proportion of online marketing spend and the need to see a clearer and more refined ROI from investments is driving a more collaborative approach to such activities. This is natural and makes sense as customers don't silo their activities into such buckets, they, "go to Google" or "have a look on Bing" or "post a status on Facebook to get friends opinions." There is a commonality between all of this, "the words" and "phrases" they use in these discussions. We call this "Phrase Marketing." So what is Phrase Marketing? Phrase Marketing is the next evolution in online marketing. As we naturally gravitate to a more collaborative environment, sharing keywords and phrases across teams, learning about how customers discuss our products and services, it's essential we enable greater creativity and productivity across the organization and leverage the expertise of our agencies. The One Platform from Hydra IS Phrase Marketing. Taking word and phrase feeds from ANY location, be it, SEO keyword lists, PPC Campaigns, Inventory of stock or Page content and querying that against Social Media to see the sentiment, or leverage phrases customers use in discussing your products and services, enables Hydra customers to build more specific, targeted keyword and phrase lists to take to the channels. Essentially our WordBank becomes the ultimate authority on what is being used today in your business, how well it is doing, what new opportunities exist, and how we could improve and beat our competitors. This is why The One Platform has been created, because the task of amassing, and analysing the opportunities that exist is vast and is not manageable in real terms without enormous teams of people to deliver the outputs. Need for Technology Technology has revolutionized the life of the Online Marketer over time. You can now buy a tool to: Help SEO work better Manage PPC Campaigns Optimise Social Media However, inherently this approach of point solutions further silo's and disaggregates the best practice in your organization. In a recent survey we conducted 72% of respondents that don't share keywords and phrase across teams, didn't feel they were "on trend" when it comes keywords and phrases used today. We view this as a big problem, and one that shouldn't exist. All we are talking about is bringing these technologies together on top of a database to manage and create a more targeted list of phrases your customers use. So we put our money where our mouth is and built it. Other inherent issues of scalability of campaigns are even a struggle with some of the point solutions in the market, where you are hamstrung on your creativity by being restricted to the number of words and phrases your tool will let you manage. This makes no sense to us; technology should empower scale and creativity by driving more depth with greater focus by letting the processors do the hard work. So we have decided to let the tool do the work, and you can manage as many keywords as you want. Enterprise class Technology at this level is different, it needs to scale, it needs to automate processes and should be able to scale to allow as many users as possible to improve the work they are doing. We've worked with a variety of Cloud platforms to work out what will work best for our customers, and we are delighted to say we have found a robust Cloud environment that allows us to scale to levels not experienced previously. This massively parallel computing allows us to deploy complex algorithmic logic into our systems, but still return results on a real time basis. We are also conscious that technology without expertise is pointless. So with a fully integrated training programme, and vertical specific deployments, designed to increase your speed of ROI, we believe we can show you results of using our technology very rapidly.  But what of those companies who are using an agency today? The depth of expertise and knowledge in your agency will by its very nature always be hard to replicate internally, even if you are lucky enough to have a rock star digital specialist, they will often be brow beaten under a pile of Excel spreadsheets. Technology at an Enterprise level should: Remove the monotonous but tedious tasks that a machine can do faster: Take the VAST tasks that a human simply cannot do, and automate it Apply logic and process to calculations that a human cannot do en masse. When all of this is deployed, it means you and your agency become more efficient, with less time and money burnt on the mundane, and more time and money spent on the innovative.   /blog/posts/2011/introducing-the-one-platform/ /blog/posts/2011/introducing-the-one-platform/ Thu, 30 June 2011 09:00:00