The Clickable Search Engine Marketing Blog

A little over a week ago Google announced their upcoming update; “Caffeine.” This update, as described by Google’s Matt Cutts, is primarily driven by “under the hood” changes to improve Google’s crawling and ranking technology and allowing the engine to be more flexible and efficient in the way it collects pages. Matt goes on to say that although power-users may notice some minor changes to SERPs, no major UI changes are to be expected with this update.
 
Based on Matt’s description of the Google algorithm changes, we shouldn’t expect to see vastly different search results immediately. However, it sounds like Google is putting itself in a position to crawl pages faster, to be more effective in ranking real-time updates (from blogs and social media), and better able to match local searches. These changes will remedy some of Google’s current shortcomings and put it in a unique position that over the long term could change the user experience within Google significantly.

 What Does This Mean For PPC Managers?
 
Any change brings with it some level of uncertainty, and the “Caffeine” update is no exception. Fortunately, for PPC managers this update should only affect organic listings and will not directly alter your CPCs  in any way. But this does not mean you should ignore this development.
 
Most search marketing managers have multiple responsibilities, including maintaining SEO and PPC campaigns. A well-balanced search marketing campaign includes a strategic mix of SEO visibility complemented by PPC listings and vice versa. In some cases, SEM managers don’t feel the need to bid on certain terms due to outstanding organic visibility. But over the next few weeks, monitor your SERP positions closely. No one is 100% sure how the latest update will turn out, so your best bet is to run a position report on key terms and watch for any fluctuations – not to mention the fact that it is generally a good idea to track your SEO positions from time to time. If you are one of those managers that have shied away from bidding on keywords (because you’ve felt that your SEO visibility is sufficient) you may want to start supplementing your organic efforts with PPC listings.
 
Google is responsible for the Lion’s share of traffic for many online businesses. While it’s great to have a reliable traffic source, it’s also extremely risky to rely so heavily on one source. To mitigate this dependency and in the spirit of reducing risk, diversify your SEM campaign (create campaigns on Yahoo, MSN, adCenter as well as other niche vertical search engines like Business.com).   

The next tip should go without saying, but paying attention to your competitors is also very important. I’m not suggesting that you increase bids simply because your competitor has (you should base bid-management decisions on CPA and ROI metrics). However, it is always useful to know how your competitors are reacting to changes in the market.
 
To summarize, with every change to the Google algorithm comes a level of uncertainty, and by taking proactive steps to monitor and minimize your risks, you will be in a better position to make smart decisions for your PPC accounts.

Tony Soric, Clickable SEM Guru
Note: Clickable employees volunteer several hours a week to helping other search marketers succeed. "Clickable Gurus" participate in numerous online search communities to provide straightforward answers to numerous questions, and, each week, one of the gurus posts a search marketing tip to the Clickable Blog.

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