Category : SEO Blog

Image from this article: https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/third-party-cookie-phase-out

How Blocking Third-Party Cookies Affects Digital Ad Campaigns

The shift to tighter privacy has caused browsers to block third-party cookies. Safari and Firefox have blocked third-party cookies since 2013 and now Chrome, the browser with half of the global web traffic, has also chosen to phase out cookies in 2022 which raises concerns for online marketing. We have included a quick overview and recommend 2 articles linked below for more information on how the move to block third-party cookies will affect advertising on Google and Facebook publishing platforms.

Here is the first paragraph of the Vox.com/recode article which introduces the topic well:

Google announced that “third-party cookies are over — at least, as far as its ad networks and Chrome browser are concerned. This represents a significant change for the ad business and seems to be a step forward for privacy, but it’s also a limited one. It doesn’t mean that Google will stop collecting your data, and it doesn’t mean the company will stop using your data to target ads.”  – Source.

In a nutshell, third-party cookies improve targeting for online ad campaigns. A clear example is remarketing campaigns where a third-party cookie in your browser will trigger remarketing ads based on sites you have visited in the past. For this reason remarketing will be most affected by this change. Cookies are also used for advertising in the Google Display Network (GDN) where ads are displayed not only based on the context (the topic of the site it the ad is on) but on information from third-party cookies to determine what is relevant to a user.

Google uses cookies, but doesn’t need to. Google has enough first party data to continue providing similar services without using third-party cookies. Someone who wants to stay private and not be tracked will now more easily be able to avoid services that big advertising companies can get data from. So essentially you would not be able to target those users as accurately and not be able to do remarketing to those users who take steps to remain untracked. But you can still advertise using search ads which are keyword-based, contextual ads and Google and Facebook still have a wealth of first-party data to target ads on its publishing platforms. Note also that users can already opt out of Google ads personalization using Google’s ad settings.

“Google will still collect your first-party data — that is, what you do when you’re using its products, like YouTube and Search — and it will target ads to you based on it. That first-party data becomes even more valuable to advertisers as third-party data sources dry up. This is great for Google, whose platforms get billions of hits per day. In fact, the bulk of Google’s revenue comes from ads on Google Search — more than half of it, according to its most recent quarterly earnings report, and far more than it makes from its ad network that currently relies on third-party cookies. And because Google Search won’t be affected by the cookie ban, that data-based revenue stream will continue to flow.  – Source.

More reading on this topic:

The Death of the Third-Party Cookie: What Marketers Need to Know About Google’s Looming Privacy Pivots
https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/third-party-cookie-phase-out
Hubspot put together a good overview of what third-party cookies are and how online marketing will adapt once they are phased out.

Google is done with cookies, but that doesn’t mean it’s done tracking you
https://www.vox.com/recode/2021/3/3/22311460/google-cookie-ban-search-ads-tracking
Focusses more on how Google will adapt to a third-party cookie ban

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Learn About Website Marketing

In the past 2 months we have completely revamped and re-written the articles in our resources section to keep you up-to-date with changing trends and technology. (That is one of the things that I’m working on while business slowed down during the covid restrictions.) Each guide is divided into sections to easily find what you are looking for. It is a great education in website marketing provided by experts in the field. It will help you understand the tools available to promote your business online. Give it a read – it is like a free class!

Here are links to our articles for you to browse.

  1. SEO & SEM Glossary
  2. SEO Basics
  3. Advanced SEO
  4. Intro to Search Ads
  5. Facebook Ads
  6. Google Search Ads
  7. Google Display Ads
  8. Google Ad Extensions
  9. SEM for Managers 
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SEO Ranking Factors Analyzed

It has been a while since I’ve seen a big switch in factors that affect search engine ranking. SEMRush has released a report based on the scope of 600,000+ keywords, in order analyze the importance of ranking factors.  The results are that the number of direct website visits to your site is the most important factor!  So basically sites that already have a lot of traffic from people typing the URL in the address bar will rank higher in results. This is hard to take for someone trying to improve ranking by adjusting the website – as it is not an on-site factor.  But it makes sense that Google would show the most popular sites at the top.

Other factors that score higher than total referring domains are:

  1. Time on site
  2. Pages per session
  3. Bounce rate

So if your site is engaging and people spend more time on it you also stand to benefit with a higher ranking.

The take away from this is that anything that could increase your direct visits will also increase your visits from organic search  because more direct visits will increase your position in search results.

See the report here: https://www.semrush.com/ranking-factors/

Ranking Factors Analyzed

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New Client Feedback

See our new client testimonial regarding Facebook Ads to recruit participants for research on memory.

We were looking for participants experiencing memory loss to sign up for research studies in our lab in Sherbrooke. We had little success getting enough participants using traditional means. Red Carpet Web Promotion proposed a web strategy including a new website and targeted Facebook ads…

Google’s New Planning Tool: Databoard for Research Insights

Google recently launched a new tool to help marketers create meaningful and insightful infographics for clients.  Based on the statistics compiled from completed Google research, marketers can easily build presentations with the information provided. Topics vary from Youtube marketing data to understanding mobile search by consumers.

 At the moment, only 8 studies are available meaning that content is limited however we hope to see more added soon. Also, though you can easily share your nicely designed infographic via social networks and email, Google hasn’t made it easy to save it as a file!

Here’s an example of an infographic regarding the impact of a non-profit organization’s online presence on potential donors. It was pulled together in less than 10 minutes.

Try it out and let us know what you think.

Web Statistics for Dummies (part 2: Referrers)

Do you know how to use referrers to increase your traffic? How to increase your conversions? This article is the second in our series on learning how to analyse and understand your website’s statistics. The goal of this series is to help you increase your site’s revenue.

Part one was about using your sales statistics to enhance your web business (part one can be found here: www.redcarpetweb.com/promotion/0509.html#feature). Part two is about using your referrer statistics to increase traffic, ranking, and conversions.

Part 2: Referrers
A referrer is a website that directly sends you traffic. The bulk of your traffic is referred by search engines, but other sites send you traffic as well. These referring sites will help you increase your position in search engines because by linking to you, they are essentially “voting” for your site. The search engines take these “votes”, and count them towards how popular your site is. The more popular the site, the higher the site will rank on a search. Of course it is not that simple; content actually plays a more important role, but everything should be taken into consideration when fighting for your hard-earned placement within the search engines.

Referring domains
So to get back to our main point: How can you use referring sites to help you make more money? Simple. By looking at your statistics, and finding out who is linking to you, you can see trends or patterns and capitalize on your site’s strengths. For example, if you sell real estate, who is linking to you? Local businesses? Government sites? Other real estate sites? Is it only sites you have swapped links with or are there a pleasant amount of unexpected sites linking to you as well?

If you do not have many sites linking to you, than maybe you should consider posting more useful information on your site. Try to make your site useful for anyone who wants to know about your industry (not just potential customers) by writing new informational pages. This will do two things:

Your potential customers can find out about your industry without leaving your site, thus increasing your site’s professionalism and usefulness.
Other sites in your industry will start seeing your site as a useful resource to link to. You will become a leader in sharing information about the industry online.

This can only lead to more links, more traffic, and ultimately more people talking about your site.

Exchanging links is a good idea too, but it should only be done if the site is appropriate to link to. Do not link to sites that are unprofessional, or sites that are just a gathering of links (link farms); it will make your site lose its authority.

Finally, there are directories. Directories like www.dmoz.org will link to you if you have good useful content on your site. Even if people do not actually search for your site on those directories the links from them tend to propagate your site throughout the web. Take your time and read the directory’s instructions carefully before submitting. If you submit to them haphazardly, they will simply ignore you.

Search Engine Referrers
Looking at your site’s statistics, you can find out which search engines are sending you the most traffic. Usually the search engines that show up in statistics are Google, Yahoo, MSN, and Ask Jeeves. Find out with search engine sends you the most traffic, then take a look at what keyphrases the surfers are using to find you. These keyphrases will tell you what your clients are looking for. For example, here at Red Carpet Web Promotion, we get a lot of searches for carpets. Obviously we do not want or need this traffic, but due to our name it cannot be avoided. For us, it is important to keep track of this “carpet” traffic because it skews our numbers. If traffic doubles one month, is that because our position for “carpets” went up, or is it because our position for “web promotion” went up? It is important for us to figure this out, because if our position for “web promotion” went up but we did not get more sales, than we would need to update our website to convert these potential clients into paying customers.

By verifying the keyphrases that people are finding you with, you will better understand why people are coming to your site. If you are a plumber and most people find you with the keyphrase “sump pumps”, you’d do best to make sure your site, or the section of your site they are arriving at, offers them sump pumps! Likewise, if they are coming from a site that is referring you as a great deep well repair man, than make sure that that section of your site promotes your deep well repairing skills.

Conclusion
Look at your stats regularly, see where your traffic is coming from, and make sure your site caters to these people. If they are coming looking for sump pumps and you do not sell sump pumps, either start selling them, or sell something of value to these people. If you do offer the product that these people are looking for, but they are not buying, than figure out why. Is it your price? Is the shopping cart too complicated? Do people not see the “Buy a Sump Pump Here” link? Figure it out and fix it fast, because the Internet is so fickle that your “sump pump” traffic might be gone next week, and you would have missed out on the easy jackpot.

Shawn Campbell

Shawn Campbell is the co-founder and Chief Search Engine Optimizer at Red Carpet Web Promotion, Inc.
www.redcarpetweb.com

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