Background
The Hilton San Diego Resort & Spa is a luxury resort in the beautiful vacation destination of San Diego, California. Although managed by Hilton, they desired to create a website to communicate their unique message beyond the Hilton (brand.com) website. The solution to this problem was the creation of a vanity site, sandiegohilton.com. On July 18, 2011 sandiegohilton.com was born into the crazy Google dominated world. With the birth of the captivating new site, Screen Pilot was given the opportunity to guide it through its infancy.

The Challenge
Screen Pilot was tasked with the challenge of introducing Google to sandiegohilton.com, and teaching Google to appreciate it, love it and rank it to compete with brand.com.

Results
First Page of Google – WooHoo! 

Within one year after launch, Screen Pilot took the baby fresh domain and landed it on the 1st Page in Google for highly competitive keywords, like “san diego resort”. Not only is it competing, it’s ranking above vanity.com!

In order to understand the impact of Screen Pilot’s search marketing efforts, we’re going to compare YoY data for 30 days post launch. (07/20/12 – 8/18/12 vs 07/20/11 vs 8/18/11) Organic Traffic Increased by 431%! Total Site Traffic Increased by 44%! Organic search traffic to the site increased by a staggering 431% YoY.

Why the massive increase in organic traffic? The prize for living on the 1st Page in Google.
This massive increase of 431% can be attributed to 1st page rankings in Google for all branded terms and highly competitive unbranded keywords like, “san diego resort”. Organic traffic skyrocketed across the 3 major search engines: Google organic traffic increased by 629% YoY, Bing organic traffic increased by 480% and Yahoo organic traffic increased by 467%. The icing on the proverbial Google cake – vanity.com outranks brand.com The vanity site also outranks brand.com on branded keywords like “hilton san diego resort” in Google and there was a 286% increase in organic traffic from that keyword.

We know you’re wondering – how did they achieve such great ranking success?
The answer is simple… strategic SEO optimization and dedicated SEO experts. This isn’t rocket science (of course, we hope you believe it’s that complicated), we established our primary keyword targets list then ensured that the on-page copy, page titles, meta descriptions, etc. were well-written to target these keywords. We also put together a detailed link building strategy and implemented it. The rest of our strategies…well, that’s confidential, but I will say that we pride ourselves on squeaky clean, white hat SEO.

Final Words  
By creatively using strong search marketing strategies, Screen Pilot took the fresh domain, sandiegohilton.com and achieved ranking above Hilton.com on the first page of Google. As a result, the property has experienced exponential increases in search traffic to the site. Even with a behemoth like Hilton.com, the little guy (sandiegohilton.com) can outrank it with a team of committed, passionate search marketing experts behind it.

In summer 2012 Google introduced the communication extensions to Adwords through a limited BETA. Around the time a host of other bloggers noted that they were seeing an email capture form within their SERP’s on a variety of different ads across various industries. These were single lines that were added to regular ads that contained a box to enter your email address, a submit button (with a variety of different phrases) and a privacy policy note.

The screen shot above is a great example of the communication extension when the ad appears as the top result – Please note none of the males here are a fan of UGG boots. It was just the first example we found… honestly! Being a curious bunch here at Screen Pilot we wanted to test out the extension ourselves and gauge whether it could be of use to our clients in the long term. After a phone call and an email or three to our Google team, the extensions began to appear on a few accounts that we used to test the format. That was last October and now we have a bevy of information from our testing. Rather than keep it to ourselves we decided to share our results with you. As far as we can tell we haven’t seen any articles that document others results but if you have then please let us know. We’d be interested in seeing if our experience was common.

Before examining the results a little background on what the set up involved:

1)   Requesting access to the beta.

2)   Compiling a list of the accounts and specific campaigns that the extension should run on and send to our rep. This included:

• Account ID
• Account Name
• Campaign Name
• Link to privacy policy page on accounts website.

3)   Select the appropriate ‘button text’. We had the following to choose from:

• Get Offers
• Get Updates
• Sign Up For Newsletter
• Subscribe
• Get Alerts

4)   Select the email address where the email leads CSV files were sent on a daily basis (note: this part actually changed later in the year when leads started being sent to Google Docs, now Drive.  And only to the accounts primary email address).

That’s everything. We would have preferred to work within the Adwords platform to have more hands on control over when and where the extensions were used but this is often the case with BETA’s.

We chose buttons text based on the ad copy, what the consumer would be receiving and the industry of the account. We aren’t at liberty to say which accounts used which, but the only 3 we were able to test were ‘Get Offers’, ‘Get Updates’ and ‘Subscribe’.

Results:

To help you understand our results we’ve put together a chart with 2 clients data. For obvious reasons we can’t give you any more information about the clients other than they are both hotels/ resorts.

As you can see the data is pretty negative across the board. Both saw a fall in CTR and a rise in avg. cpc over the time periods selected. Beyond that, the main supposed benefit of the extension was adding extremely cheap leads into the email database. With only 13 and 12 leads respectively over 30 days from ads that were mostly in 1^st position that is pretty disappointing.

Conclusion:

After testing for 3 months and seeing very similar data across the board we have decided to remove the communication extension from all of our clients. We certainly believe that is has massive potential but right now the system just doesn’t lend itself to make them useful to marketers.

We believe the extensions need to be added into the Ad Extensions tab of the Adwords UI. This would enable marketer’s greater control over a number of things:

• Ability to tailor ad copy around it – Right now we need to use the same regular copy on all – with or without extensions. This likely created some confusion for the searcher about what we were promoting.
• Who receives the email leads – The system right now is confusing and makes it difficult to add the leads into the database.
• Turning the extensions on and off at will – A client’s priority isn’t always to obtain more leads. Many times it will just be plain old direct sales promotions.
• Submit button copy – The selections offered by Google were satisfactory but we’d like to test other options.

As with a number of betas Google may sunset this extension or eventually make it available to the general public. If they do we hope it’s given a significant overhaul since it could be a really useful tool for search marketers.

Every year brings something new in the digital marketing world.

2012 brought a large surge in mobile presence, social media channels, and more options to research and book online travel than ever before.

What will 2013 bring? We’ve compiled a list of some of the top marketing predictions below.

1. A focus on visual content

Videos, images, illustrations, info graphics, etc. will change from “its nice-to-have” to a key strategy in acquiring and increasing customer engagement and influence within target audiences.

Thanks to high-quality displays on computers and iPads, customers expect to see high-quality images and videos. Most people view photos and videos before booking a hotel, so make sure you outdo your competitors in this area.

2. Make sharing your businesses photos easy

Customers love to show their friends pictures of where they are going or where they have been. This is a great opportunity to grow your presence on the web visually. Include share buttons for your web visitors, or even craft an email promo to new guests with great pictures they can share.

3. Businesses will continue to build their presence on social media and blog platforms.

More people are engaging in social media than ever before. These people – trusted sources to friends and family – are sharing their opinions and feedback. This is a key element in advertising, and why social media is an ideal and very important way to reach and engage potential customers.

Social media and blogs are also great ways to make the most of visuals and capture travel opportunities. Engaging the visitor is very important, and travelers love to consume videos and read reviews before booking a reservation. 2012 brought a 15%* growth in referral traffic from YouTube, and 89%** of leisure travelers watch videos online.

4. Mobile marketing strategies will be key

Every Christmas season brings a surge in new tech gadgets. We can expect a significant increase in the number of customers using new smartphones and tablets. And new territory is always a new opportunity. Mobile will continue to be a core customer acquisition channel, especially for small and local businesses.

5. Ensure your content is optimized for a variety of platforms

Depending on the users device (desktop, laptop, tablet, smartphone, etc.), information may be viewed differently. The iPad and iPhone are by far the most used mobile device, but don’t forget about Android users too.

6. A focus on ‘context’ rather than ‘content’

Website visitors are more impatient than ever. It’s important that they are able to find what they are looking for, especially for search traffic. Google will lower the rank of a page when it sees that visitors quickly abandon. Make sure that your search traffic is able to quickly find what they came for.

There are sure to be many more exciting changes in the coming year, but being on top of the competition by enhancing your online initiatives will ensure a successful start to the New Year.

*Think with Google: Travel Video http://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/insights/library/studies/think-travel-video-one-sheet/

**Think with Google: The 2012 Traveler http://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/insights/library/studies/the-2012-traveler/

In the spirit of giving thanks this week, we wanted to take a few minutes and share the 10 things we are most grateful for in this past year. Once we’re done sharing, we give you full permission to go relax with the ones you love, eat something too good to be true, and maybe watch some football (either the NFL or soccer, whichever you prefer).

1. Screen Pilot Team

We’re grateful for each other. We are a small but mighty group of individuals who are passionate about what we do. Each day brings new challenges in this ever-changing marketing world and together we work to stay ahead of the curve. With our different strengths and collective brainpower on SEO, PPC, Social Media, etc., we work hard for our clients to help them achieve their digital marketing goals. As an added bonus, we’re fun people who enjoy working together.

2. Fantastic Clients

Maybe we’re biased, but we have awesome clients. We represent a diverse group of clients with so many different needs and goals. All year long, they listen to our ideas and trust us to achieve their goals. We want to say thanks to our clients, because without you…we wouldn’t have jobs and would end up building ridiculous, but perfectly optimized, websites about our pets.

Mandatory Cute Pet Photo

3. Google (this is a big one)

With Google holding most of the market share for search engines, we owe a lot to Google. We can’t think of a single day that goes by we don’t say the word Google, Google Places, Google+ or Adwords at least 50 times. Sometimes we love Google and sometimes we think Google behaves like a petulant child, but regardless of how we feel on any given day, it’s an integral part of the digital world.

 4. Coffee

Oh coffee, how we love thee! Let’s be frank about this, without coffee our brains don’t work correctly. We are all in love with coffee. Each and every day we are grateful for the delicious and energizing benefits of a perfectly brewed cup of coffee. (Who are we kidding?! It doesn’t have to be perfectly brewed, it just needs to be caffeinated and relatively warm and we will drink it)

5. Social Media

Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, Pinterest…. the list now goes on and on for the many social media platforms. Each one has its own value proposition and unique way of communicating your messages with the world. We love to communicate, to be social and digital media, so it’s only natural that we are thankful for social media.

6. Apple

Whether it be our iPhone 5s, MacBooks, Thunderbolts, iPads or the new challenge of Apple Maps, Screen Pilot is thoroughly involved with Apple. We say thanks to Steve Jobs and to all the fine folks who work for Apple.

7. SEOMoz

Just in case you’re not familiar with it, SEOmoz provides SEO tools and software to help us continuously improve SEO rankings for our clients. Plus it has a pretty cool mascot who is a robot named Roger…so cool.

8. Google Analytics

Ok, so we already mentioned Google and this really falls under the bigger Google umbrella, but it’s too important not to mention on its own. Thank you Google for creating Google Analytics.

9. Google+ Hangouts

Where else can you have a video conference call while wearing pirate hats and mustaches?! Without Google Hangouts our world-traveling Screen Pilot team wouldn’t be able to connect, brainstorm and create new ideas together with sound effects and eye patches.

10. Our Families

It simply isn’t ok to write a blog article about gratitude without mentioning the people who love and support us all year long. We’re certain that each of you have listened to us talk endlessly about new products, new tools, sites and Google Algorithms that are all inconsequential to you. However you sat there smiling politely and nodding, and for that we are grateful.

Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours from the Screen Pilot team!

Anyone involved in digital marketing will know that the landscape is always changing. At Screen Pilot we all dedicate a significant amount of our time keeping up with the latest industry news and trends. We download e-books, read e-blasts, keep up with online celebs like Matt Cutts & Pete Cashmore on Twitter, and follow an obscene number of blogs. So today we thought we would help you out and list some of the latest developments that everyone should know about and, if possible, be trying for yourself.  All in a blog post that should take less than 3 minutes to read!

Google Tag Manager

Adwords, Analytics, Re-marketing, Bing and many more. The number of tracking codes we are implementing in all sites, but in particular ecommerce sites, is growing all of the time. It’s time consuming and costly for teams to keep adding and changing code – Google Analytics seems to change their code once every year now. Plus the more code is added the bigger the potential for data inaccuracies.

Google tag manager is a new way of managing these codes that removes those problems. It allows your marketing/ analytics team to add their own tags and create their own rules whenever they need. It completely simplifies the system. And best of all it’s 100% free and you can even add non-Google code.

Bing Sitelinks

Bing has finally caught up with Google here. Google have been using sitelinks within Adwords for a while now and in the last week Bing have done the same.

Adding sitelinks should be a no-brainer for any PPC professional. They increase your SERP real estate, increase CTR (in turn improving quality and lowering CPC) and just make it easier for your customers to find what they are looking for on your site. Like we said… a no-brainer!

Bing is still lagging slightly behind Google though. For a few months now Adwords has allowed “enhanced sitelinks”. These give even more space for your ad and extra information about each sitelink.

I’m sure Bing will catch up by 2014!

Re-Marketing For Google Analytics

Traditional Adwords re-marketing is pretty simple – you show display ads to previous visitors that did or didn’t visit pages that you define. It’s a great way of marketing to your most relevant customers and gets superb ROI but there isn’t much that can be done to optimize it apart from stopping your ads being shown on certain sites.

But that’s all changed. You can now build targeting lists in Google Analytics based on advertiser-defined segments. These can include bounce rate, time on site, from certain sources and completing goals that you have defined. Best of all the lists are integrated into Adwords.

Communication Ad Extensions

At Screen Pilot we’re calling this the ‘email extension’ – much less of a mouthful! Right now this is a Google Beta that you can only access if granted by an Adwords rep. It allows you to grab an email lead from within the search ad itself. The cost of the click is the same as a regular ad link click so there are no extra charges to worry about.

Like site-links the benefits include extra real estate on a Google SERP. The real benefit though is an email sign up which allows you to continue marketing to the user – much more valuable than a simple visit to the site. When a user signs up you can either set it up so they get added straight to your database or have the leads sent directly to your inbox for you to add to the database manually.

There you have it. 4 new toys for you to play with this October. If you hear of any others that we’ve missed out here be sure to comment below, we’d love to hear from you.