Why don’t we search for the best?

According to Google, interest in search queries containing the word “cheap” have steadily declined over the past 15 years in the UK, while interest in “best” has increased with an impressive degree of negative correlation. The chart below is taken from Google’s “Messy Middle” research paper published in 2020.

However, this data only shows the trend – it doesn’t provide the actual search volumes for these terms. Using Google’s own Keyword Planner tool or SEMRush shows that in absolute terms, we don’t seem to search for the “best” in huge volumes - at least compared to core terms without modifiers.

Take the term “electric cars”. The average monthly search volume in the UK is 110,000.

Search volume for "best electric cars" is only 33,100

And for "cheap electric car" it is 22,200.

So Google’s assessment of the trend is correct – but without the absolute volume, you might be led to an erroneous conclusion.

This is just one example – but the same pattern plays out irrespective of the product or service.

People are often surprised by this kind of finding (or indeed will question the data). Surely more people would want to search for the “best” of anything?

The data suggests otherwise. Never make assumptions about search behaviour.

Media coverage and SEO

In a similar vein, assumptions are often made about the type and kind of content that ranks in Google search for non-brand generic keyword terms. The view is that brand content can always rank highly in Google search results for key generic searches.

Recent research from Visably paints a very different picture.

Looking at the US consumer electronics sector in Q4 2021 (based on 67,000 page one result pages), it found that:

·      Over 94% of all clicks in the results went to non-brand-owned websites

·      Earned media sites show up with the highest frequency across all results

That latter result should be of particular interest to PR professionals. In other words, media coverage is far more likely to rank for key generic terms than brand related content – and thus far more likely to be encountered by users at the beginning of their decision journey.

As Visably suggests, prospects are more likely to learn about and be influenced to make a purchase decision about your brand on a 3rd-party website.

This also ties in with Binet and Field’s research showing that 60pc of marketing resources should be spent on building brand visibility/awareness and 40pc on activation/conversion. Brand advertising is typically used to help drive awareness and visibility – but media coverage can not only impact awareness at time of publication but can in some cases continue to gain visibility via organic search days, months or even years later.

The table below shows Visably’s findings for the top earned media sites in relation to TV related searches in the US. Any TV brand that wants to have a realistic chance of gaining upper funnel search visibility would do well to target these titles.

Thus the role of media coverage in search visibility is often overlooked. Do you actively track brand/organisational visibility in media coverage in relation to relevant generic keyword search terms? Let me know in the comments below.

Twitter Launches New 'Toolbox' Hub to Highlight Helpful Creation, Moderation and Analytics Tools

Twitter has announced a new ‘Twitter Toolbox’ hub to highlight helpful, reliable Twitter analytics and creation tools.

The new Toolbox is split into three segments: Expression tools, Safety Tools and Measurement Tools.

I was pleased see a number of tools that I have been recommending to people for years eg Followerwonk.

Well worth a look if you use Twitter as part of your overall comms approach.

Is Google rewriting over 60pc of Title Tags?

In spite of everything in SEO, the HTML title tag of a page still seems to play at least some role in terms of on-page optimisation. If you want to rank well for a given keyword, you really ought to make sure it is included in the title tag - and make sure you keep the length of the tag under 70 characters. Historically, Google has displayed the contents of the title tag on the search result page.

However, Google can "rewrite' what actually appears as the title on the SERP. New research from Cyrus Sheppard at Zyppy suggests that this is happening in over 60pc of cases. And sheds some light on what factors may cause Google to rewrite the tag.

The company found a number of common scenarios in which it became more likely for Google to rewrite titles, including:

• Length: overly long titles and short titles
• Using the same keyword more than once
• Use of title separators, such as dashes “-” or pipes “|”
• Titles with [brackets] or (parentheses)
• Identical “boilerplate” used across many titles
• Missing or superfluous brand names

Well worth reading the full article. If nothing else, if you want to have as much control over how your page titles appear in Google search results, you'd do well to pay attention to these factors

That’s it for issue #12. This newsletter is clearly a work in progress. So all feedback is gratefully received. Please do let me know what you think in the comments. I’m all ears for ideas and suggestions as to what to cover.

Thanks again for reading - and possibly subscribing. Until next issue.