Gift Focus - May/Jun 2018 (Issue 107)

web pages and websites using many different quality markers, this data then being fed back to Google to enable better quality search engine algorithms to be built. The manual review teams therefore provide feedback to the Google staff tasked with writing the complex code which powers the Google search engine, helping Google to give the best search results to Google users. A read of the latest document doesn’t really give any surprises to a seasoned web marketer, but is useful for underlining why we, as web marketers, do the things we do. It’s all about quality! No surprises really where the content of pages is concerned. Google loves quality content and will actively penalise pages that fall below a certain level. What most may not know is that the layout, design and functionality of a website plays an important part of Search Quality Rating reports and can make the difference between a very high rating and a poor rating. Examples of poor layout mentioned in the Quality Rating Program document includes ‘poor quality design’, ‘bad navigation structure’ and ‘potentially deceptive layout’. Whilst these wouldn’t affect a recent e-commerce website using modern frameworks like the Intelligent Retail Connect software, Magento, Actinic or similar e-commerce websites that have been around for several years, would naturally get altered over time. This could potentially introduce some usability issues that could be construed by a quality rater as being below the quality required for Google. It’s always a good idea to look at what the bigger e-commerce retailers like ao.com are doing and compare this to your own website – if you notice a big difference in functionality and user experience, it’s probably time to bite the bullet and get a new website for your business. Copied text – why you shouldn’t One thing that is mentioned quite strongly in the reasons for giving a page a ‘lowest’ rating in the Google Search Quality Rating Program document is the use of copied text. We have been advising clients for several years that using supplier descriptions alone without some effort to personalise is a bad idea as we have noticed rankings for product level keyphrases slipping for those clients who choose to do this. Google states that, “We do not consider legitimately licensed or syndicated content to be copied.” However, given our own experience when writing one-of-a-kind product level copy for clients, the results are hard to argue against. If you want a ‘before and after’ snapshot, how about bottom of page two in Google results for a product page using supplier sourced description against number one in Google for a product utilising unique page copy written by a professional copywriter. As the number one spot gets the bulk of clicks from organic results, writing a good product description and an informative product title really is a no-brainer, even factoring in the effort required. See this Google result https://goo.gl/XH2Xo1 – you should see the Jeanstore page at the top of organic results. I’d recommend that anyone who is serious about their website read the Quality Rating Program document; it gives real insight into what Google is looking for when rating websites and can really reinforce the advice given by a good search engine marketer. If nothing else, once you have read and absorbed the document you will be able to recognise a bad website from a really good one! David Fairhurst is Head of Creative Online Marketing at Intelligent Retail. David has been involved with search engine optimisation (SEO) and web development since 1999 and has spoken at many different retail and SEO conferences including Spring Fair and SES London. Call David on +44 (0)845 680 0126 . the Google game 108 giftfocus