2008-12-23

2008 PPC Learnings

2008.
With 2008 coming to a close,have you reflect back regarding your search campaigns in 2008 ? What can you learn and leverage for 2009 ?

Here's some learnings to share for 2008:

Daily Budget:
How better to blow your budget overnight ?
- Setting a newly revised daily budget and going for a holiday, going for a few day retreat, ignoring the budget over the weekend. Get ready to burn off your budget when you try the above mention.

Keywords
- Bidding on high click through keywords which has zero or very low conversion rates.
- Over bidding on keywords without having taken into consideration of your revenue / profit per conversion.
- Paying for negative keywords without knowing (Failure to run the reports in identifying the negative keywords which are costing you money but zero / low conversions)
- Lumping all your keywords all onto a single ad group when you should be segmenting them individually onto respective relevant ad groups.

ZERO testing:
- Simply just running your only ad copy without any alternative copy in testing which has a better conversion rate. No split / AB testing conducted.
- Which elements of the landing page are better enticing the prospects in converting ? (Call to action button, colours, hero image, form fields, copy content)

Generic Landing Page:
- Simply send all your potential customers to a generic page without a goal in mind; paying for all the clicks but zero conversions. When you should be sending them to respective product / promotions / information page.

Your Turn.
PPC search campaign learnings to share ?

2008-12-12

Optimize your PPC campaigns

2008.
The year is coming to an end.
How much are you spending on search marketing ?
Are your marketing dollars well spent ?
Or are you throwing your $ out of your window ?

So how do you better optimize your ppc campaigns ?
Enough said, here's some quick tips to implement now.

PPC elements optimization:

Negative keywords
* Removal of non-performing keywords which are not converting but costing $

Split testing
* Any split test conducted on a on-going basis ?
* Which ad group is converting better ? In individual countries ? In seasonal period ?
* How long is the test conducted ? Too long ? Too Short period ?

Historical keyword performance
* What's the historical keyword performance of individual ad groups / campaigns ?


Other on-page elements to test:

Call to Action Button
* Colour - which colour on the cta button converts better ? In different countries ? In different seasonal period ?
* Copy on cta - which copy on cta converts better ? In different countries ? In different seasonal period ?
* Shape - Which shape coverts better ? In different countries ?

Web Form
* Which part of your web form field is actually necessary ? Or which part of web form fields are hindering conversion rates ?
* Shorter web form field, have you tried testing the conversion after alteration ?

Landing Page Load Time
* How fast is your landing page loading ?
* What is the landing page individual document size ?
* What is the average Internet connection speed of your visitors ?

Landing Page Copy Font
* Is your landing page fonts visible ? (Even though visitors / potential customers scan web pages)
* Which Font size / colour converts better ? In different countries ?

Landing Page Friction Elements
* Which element of your landing page is actually hindering conversion rate ? (Don't make the visitors / potential customers think !)
* Are there any substantial claims or testimonials to support your copy content in reducing friction,thereby increasing trust factor ?

Implement this:
> Try using Google Website Optimizer, let the consumers test / decide for you, which on page elements work best at which country, for which seasonal period, for which promotional campaign, etc.

Test, Test, Test
Learn.
Optimize.
Re-Test, Re-Test

Are you testing ?

2008-11-16

SEO / SEM: Online Tools Collection

Alright, here we go....
A collection of free online SEO / SEM tools
ready to be BOOKMARK !!


SEO Tools:

Search Engine Analytics
Simply just enter any Url into the search query and voila you get a trend report from link popularity, PageRank™, Alexa Rank, keywords.

Head Checker
This tool will check any web page's header tags.

Search Combination Tool
This tool will generate all possible combinations of two separate lists of search phrases.

Keyword Density Analysis Tool
Enter a page URL and this tool will tell you the keyword density of all the phrases on the page.

Spider Viewer
Wonder how your page is viewed by a search engine spider / bot ?

Index Rank
Check and benchmark your website indexation against your competition

SeoDigger
Find out for which keywords your site ranks high enough to be in Google Top 20. Registering for a free account at SeoDigger gives you information per entire domain as well as per separate pages.

Site Comparison Analysis
A useful tool in benchmarking your website against a competitor via a radar diagram.


Stomper Ranker
A firefox plugin in finding out how well your site fare against the competition in Google, Yahoo, and MSN/Live.


SEO Site Audit Tool
A quick audit on your website or competitor on how well your website is faring on search engines, social bookmarking, etc


SEO Audit Report
Free SEO audit which provides score that incorporates things like website traffic, SEO, social popularity and other technical factors on how your website can be improved from a marketing perspective.

Backlink Analysis
Find out all the important information about your competitor's links. This free tool reporting includes pagerank, anchor texts, no-follow information , etc.

Website Analysis
Another tool in digging out everything regarding a website



SEM Tools:

Keyword Tool
The free keyword tool from Google
Find out how competitive your particular keyword is / are; Crawl your own website to determine which keyword / s are getting higher traffic

Traffic Estimator
The free Traffic Estimator tool from Google
Get quick traffic estimates for keywords for your sem campaigns

Keyword Competition Tool
Find out how competitive the particular keyword /s is for your sem campaigns.

Search Radar
Search for topics relevant to your search query



Landing Page Optimization Tools:

Loading Speed of your website
How long does your website load in various web browsers ?

Website Speed Test
Another tool in testing your web site loading speed

Page Size Calculator
Useful in calculating the size of your web page and the estimated time it would take to download on a 56k Modem.


Heatmap Analysis
Identify how people view your website, photo or ad and which areas are getting most of the attention.

If you know of any SEO / SEM tools that were not mentioned here or missed any goodies, drop a note and I will update the post.

Bookmark.
Share.

2008-10-01

Test Your Call to Action Button

Before we begin for today,
lets do a little test below should we ?







Yes, which call to action button would entice you to click onto it if you were a student signing up for your degree program ?

Have your answers ready ?

As a business owner / marketer, which copy would you put onto your call to action button ?

  • Would a generic copy on the button entice more clicks from your users / visitors ?
  • Or would a copy which inform your users / visitors on the next step or what's IN for them once they click onto the the call to action button ?
Why not implement a simple A/B testing and let your users or visitors decide for you. Let them decide which copy; which colour of the call to action button; which size entice them better to click onto the call to action button.

This is only part of the equation, make sure you test your landing page elements in an integrated approach, taking into consideration the following elements as well:
  • Body copy
  • Hero shot images
  • Sign up form fields
  • Landing page load time
Are you testing your landing page ?
Or are you sitting in the cubic room guessing ?
Are you optimizing your landing page ?
You decide.

2008-08-04

Insight in Creating a Profitable Startup Company

Startups.
Have you thought of starting your own business ?
Or have you already started your own business ?

You have a great idea.
You have a great team to start with (Best case scenario)
You are ready to gear up and kick start your startup.
So you have everything in place....
What else is required ?

Idea + team + ? = Profit

In the following video,David Heinemeier Hansson,
creator of the Ruby on Rails framework and Partner at 37Signals
will be sharing his insights in creating a profitable startup company.

Your Turn.
What's your view ?

2008-07-21

Tim Ash Interview: Landing Page Optimization

An interview conducted by Sage with Tim Ash on his book: Landing Page Optimization



Highly Recommended book written by Tim Ash:
> Landing Page Optimization

2008-07-19

How crawable is your website ?

How does a search engine spider crawl your website you say ?

Here's an analogy of how a spider might crawl your website: Imagine yourself visiting a newly constructed mall down by your town, what might you do when you first find yourself inside the mall ?

  • Navigating around ? For something of interest to you ?
  • Looking around ? For something of interest to you ?
  • Which varieties of stores are available ? Which is / are relevant to your needs ?
  • Where are the restaurants / fast food outlets / restrooms ?

You decided to locate the restroom but to your surprise.....the door to the restroom was locked when you reached it.

One week later, you came back to the mall and when you went to the same restroom...the door was locked once again.....

Another week later.....history repeats itself.....
Will you still try using the same restroom the next time round ?
Yes ? No ?

Similarly the search engine bot faces the same issue when their navigation is blocked either by your password protected content areas; your graphical images which displays nothing when being blocked by ad block programs, missing images....etc...

So what could you do to prevent such mishaps ?
  • Adding appropriate ALT attribute descriptions to your graphical image; Making sure the surrounding copy / text around your image clearly sets the context.
  • Having password protected content area only for those content that would require registration such as pay-per view content / subscription based premium contents.
Your turn.
What could you ensure the crawl-ability of your website ?

2008-07-13

Ads on PDF ?

Ads on Adobe PDF ?
A recent partnership between Adobe and Yahoo allows PDF
publishers to embed Yahoo ads in it and earn revenues
based on the ads click through.

To get started, Publishers simply just upload their
PDF files to Adobe for ad registration. After which ,the PDF is
than analyzed and relevant ads will be placed.

Users
So how will this have an impact on the current users ?
Will they be enticed to click onto the relevant ads while reading
through the PDF file ? Or will they find it an intrusion ?
Only time will tell whether this model work or fail.

Advertisers
So how will this have an impact for advertisers ?
How could you tapped into this new ad placement channel ?
How can you better optimized your ad copy and content for PDF ?

Your turn now.
Your thoughts.

2008-07-09

A day in Twitter

Ever wonder how Twitter's office is like ?
Here's the video from Technology Review providing us with the peek into Twitter's offices days before they prepared for a move to a more grown-up space.

2008-07-03

Search Engine Optimization Daily Digest - Issue 2


Related Posts:
. Search Engine Optimization Daily Digest - Issue 1

2008-06-28

Analyse Your Top Ranking Keywords

What are your website's top ranking keywords ?
Which keyword phrases do you rank well for ?
Which keywords are your competition ranking well for ?
How could you better optimize your website and content ?

Try SeoDigger, a free keyword utility tool which helps you in identifying the keywords your site ranks well to be in Google Top 20. In addition, data showing you the search popularity of the phrase are also determined from Wordtracker and Overture results .

However, this free unregistered version only analyze a single page of your website.Sign up for the free registered version, in identifying the rankings of all the pages on your website.

Take action now: Type in your website URL and let SeoDigger show you which phrases that website ranks for with-in the top 20 results.

Analyze.Test.Optimize.

Related Posts:
. Keyword Analysis
. Competitive Analysis Tool - Part 1
. Competitive Analysis Tool - Part 2

2008-06-25

SEO Tip of The Day

Here's a tip from Google Webmaster Central blog:
If you want to prevent search engines from generating
snippets based from the Open Directory Project.

Use the following meta tag to prevent search engines
from using the snippet information for the page's description.

META NAME="GOOGLEBOT" CONTENT="NOODP"
However, do take note that it takes some time for the snippet changes to place.

2008-06-24

Google I/O Session: Search Friendly Development

In this Video and Presentation slide from the Google I/O session,
Maile Ohye will be sharing techniques in helping bring your site more users through search engine traffic. She will be covering on how to maximize your site, your content, and your application's exposure to search engines.

Session covering on:
* Make sites with Flash, AJAX/JavaScript, and images better crawled and indexed by search engines
* Create a strong, crawlable foundation through URL and site structure
* Deal with duplicate content caused by URL parameters and dynamic pages (help search engines determine the canonical version)
* Check that your site follows SEO best practices



View the Search Friendly Development presentation slide document

2008-06-23

Search Engine Optimisation Myth

"We Will Guaranteed Number One Ranking"
Sounds familiar ?

Ever receive calls from so called "SEO Experts or Companies"
whom are self proclaiming they could help get you to the
Number One rank in Google or any other search engines ?

What they could possibly help you in becoming the number one
ranking is coming up with phrases that wouldn't even be
relevant to / with what your consumers or customers are
searching or seeking for.

Here's a quick question for them, should you receive calls
from them again:

  • Does your company own the search engines ?
No one could predict what's coming up next in the various
search engine algorithms except the search engine owners themselves.

If they promise you they could do so, kindly thank them for their
crystal ball predictions and bid farewell to them.

2008-06-22

Search Engine Optimization Daily Digest - Issue 1

2008-06-18

Optimize Your Email Marketing, Part 2

Have you tried utilizing the last email optimization
tips which was shared in the last post ?

More to share you say ?
Alright let this post be the Part 2
of Optimize Your Email Marketing

Less talk...here's some additional
optimization tips to share:

> Allow your readers to opt in or opt out
from your email communication conveniently.
Yes, you definitely do not want your readers to
labeled your emails as SPAM just because they
felt frustrated of not being able to opt out from your
email offers conveniently .

> Instead of bombarding them with everything at once,
try communicating relevant content with your segments
at different stage of their relationship with you.
Build an on-going relationship with them step by step and
NOT a one-way dialogue.

> Track all the clicks in the emails...be obsessed with
tracking the readers' clicking behavior. Let them help
you determine what works and what don't with your copy,
colors, hero shot to call to action buttons.

> Remember to instill a control and variable group
for your email marketing testings efforts. In order to
track which or what new elements work or don't in the
variable group as compared to the control.

Your turn.
Share your optimization tips with us.

Related Post:
> Optimize Your Email Marketing, Part 1

2008-06-17

Optimize Your Email Marketing

Email marketing.
Are you utilizing it ?
If so, are you communicating it effectively ?
Are you communicating relevant content to
your segment of existing or potential customers ?
How could you do better ?

Here's some optimizing tips to share:

> Call to action above the fold
According to research, not many tend to scroll down the
entire email communication offers they receive, thereby missing
out on the call to action found at the end of the email. So be sure to
include a compelling call to action above the fold to entice them in
taking action.

> Reduce graphic intensive email

> Having ALT-text tagging embedded onto your graphic
image in your email helps ensure your readers getting to
read your message even if it's block by the email client.

> Consistent layout
Since readers spent considerable time learning your email
layout and structure, so don't make them having to
relearn your new layout every now and than.

> Test Test Test & Optimize
Conducting A/B testing and let your readers decide for you
what works and what don't in ensuring you are delivering
relevant content to them.
Yes test every element from copy to call to action.
The testing doesn't ends here...
Test...Test...Test...on a on-going effort

Your turn.
Are you taking action in optimizing your email marketing efforts ?
You decide.

2008-06-15

Landing Page Optimization Daily Digest - Issue 1

Landing Page Optimization Daily reads will be the first of daily readings.More daily reads covering from Search marketing, PPC to web analytics to come.

Optimizing Your Landing Page Part 1 - Case Studies from Marketing Experiments

Optimizing Your Landing Page Part 2 - Case Studies from Marketing Experiments

Uncovering Site Problems for Landing Page - From landing page expert Tim Ash

Your turn now to suggest any good reads that you
would like to share with us.


Share. Read. Learn. Optimize.

2008-06-06

Vinton Cerf talks about Web 2.0 and beyond....

What's next for Web 2.0 and beyond ?
What's the next 50 years for internet development ?
What impact will the internet be hitting us now and tomorrow ?
How are our life intertwined with the technology and beyond ?
Are you ready for it ?

The VP of Engineering and Chief Internet Evangelist of Google, Vinton G. Cerf shared his perspective on the current trend and the future of internet development on an interesting evening held at Suntec City in the Lion City on 23th May 2008. In case you missed the event or just want to recap the fantastic event, how's the video:

“Tracking the Internet into the 21st Century”



Your turn.....
What's your perspective on the future of Internet ?
Are you ready for it ?
Is your company ready to make the leap ?
If not, how could you leverage it into your business / communication strategy ?

2008-05-29

A Conversation...

Corporate man X : How could my brand / company tap into
social marketing buzz that is happening now ?

Agency Y: Oh Facebook will do the work !

Corporate man X: (Getting excited) Really !! Get my company
a Facebook page ! What a great idea !

Does the above sounds familiar ?
Without a doubt, Facebook is one hot place where you would want your brand to be in, leveraging the social community within. But in reality, what do you really hope to achieve through Facebook or any social community websites ?

Here's some points to ponder:

  • What's your end goal through tapping into the social aspect ?
  • How does it relate back to your business goals & objectives ?
  • How are you going to measure it ?
  • Are there any measurable metrics in place ?
  • Is your back end team ready to support it ?
  • Or are you just simply following what everyone else is doing ?
Next time, when your creative agency recommends you without
considering the above....FIRE THEM !

Now its your turn....
Follow the hype ?
Or ?
You decide.

2008-03-22

QR codes embedded on grave stones ?

In Japan, it is common to find QR everywhere and anywhere.
But now a memorial stone maker Ishinokoe in Japan is taking that technology to be embedded onto grave stones soon. So the next time round, the visitors can simply just scan the code embedded on the grave stones with their mobiles and immediately getting information on the deceased.









The decease's family can upload content such as pictures, videos and family information on what visitors can get to view on their mobile through the QR coding. Will this really work in other countries in the near future ? Or will it be widely accepted ? Only time will time.


































Have you thought of how you could integrate the QR technology into your communications ?
If so, how can you better utilize it ?
You decide.

2008-03-09

Optimize your Keywords

To begin with today's topic....here's some questions to ponder
How do people land onto your website ?
Where do people land onto your particular web page ?

If they came from search engines;
What is / are the particular keywords that they keyed in that brought them into your website ? Are you finding out about which particular keywords that is most popular among your visitors with regards to your particular product or product lines ?

If its a NO for the above....time to take action
If its a YES for the above....congratulations
Whether its a YES or NO for you.....here's something to share with you today on optimizing your keywords.

Generic Keywords or niche keywords ?
You might be thinking that generic keywords are the best approach. As a rule, it's better to focus on niche keywords related to your product or service. Even though highly targeted and specific keywords doesn't bring in as much traffic as compared to generic ones, however having target those niche keywords you can expect visitors to find what they want and have a higher probability of converting into customers. If someone searches for the specific name of your product, there is a high possibility they are looking to make a purchase. These keywords are too important to be ignored.

Localized search terms
So how does localized search terms helps you ?
Let's say you're a Italian cafe in Suntec, Singapore. Using keywords like "Italian cafe Suntec Singapore" or "Italian cafe Singapore" not only make people easily locate your cafe but also helps search engines refer most people from Singapore to your site.

Here's the recap for this post:

  • Finding out what are the general terms with relations to your business, then determining the relevant / specific keywords and optimizing your respective webpages for the most specific search term.
  • Localized search terms characterizing your business.
  • Don't stop at just one page; optimize all your webpages for localized search terms.

2008-03-06

Free SEO Analysis Tool

How well does your website or blog fare ?
What's your website or blog score out of 100 ?
Try this FREE tool by Website Grader to find out.

What this tool does is it measures the marketing effectiveness of your website / blog based on 5 broad search engine marketing factors. So what are the 5 factors taken into consideration ?

The 5 factors taken into consideration namely:

On-Page SEO
* Your page titles - What is your website about ?
* Headings - Is your heading relevant and friendly to both human and search engine spiders ?
* Content - Is your content relevant and interesting ?
* Meta tags - What is website about ? What are your keywords ?
* Alt Tags - How do you want the search engine spiders to see your image ?
* Readability level - How reader friendly is your content ?

Off-Page SEODomain Info
* Google PageRank - How well does your web pages fare in Google search ?
* Google Indexed Pages - Spider crawling frequency ?
* Last Google Crawl Date - Spider crawling frequency ?
* Inbound Links - How many other sites are linking to your website ?

Blogosphere
If your website is a blog or you have a corporate blog, this might be useful information for you.
* Blog Analysis
* Blog Ranking - Ranking based on Technorati
* Subscription Methods - How people can subscribe to your blog easily either through RSS feed or an email subscription form

Social Mediasphere
Your web presence outside of your own website is also vital.
* del.icio.us bookmarks - Is your website bookmarked by many ?
* Digg.com Submission Summary - How many of your website articles are being submitted ?

Competitive Intelligence
* Competing Websites
* Historical Data Available

Try this tool to determine how well your search marketing fare.

2008-03-01

Optimize Your Organic Click Through Rates

Your Pay-Per-Click (PPC) ads carefully deployed and optimize.
You are found on the top search rank for the relevant search terms or keywords keyed in by your visitors and leading them to the respective relevant offer/ landing page.

Now you have done all of the above, so what's next you say ?
Are you stopping the process here ?

Are you tracking your organic click rate as well ?
How are you measuring your organic click rate ?
And are you conducting any tests in optimizing it ?
Or are you taking your search optimization driven traffic for granted ?

If you're not taking any action in measuring and running tests to optimize SEO-driven traffic to your website, here's a lab test ran by MarketingSherpa which resulted in a 250% more Search Marketing Clicks which might just get you started:

In the lab test, Search Marketing Benchmark Guide, MarketingSherpa conducted a study with business professionals. Through the test conducted on Google search, it is discovered that executives are 250% more likely to click on an organic listing if it:

(i) had a fairly short URL and
(ii) appeared directly below a listing with a long URL.

So what does this meant ?
Time to optimize by keeping your URLs short and precise.

Time to take action
Conduct a search on your website in comparison with the relevant keywords.
And compare your organic listing URLs with your competition.
How are you faring in comparison with the competition ?

Short URLs ?
You decide.

2008-02-26

Evaluate your Website

When was the last time you conducted your website evaluation ?
Or did you even conducted any at all ?

Even if you are saying "My company don't have the time or resources in maintaining the website even since it is last launched", it is inevitable to do an evaluation on your website on a on-going basis. You don't need the entire team to throughly check through it however, you could allocated a developer or programmer in conducting the evaluation.

So how do you go about conducting your website evaluation ?

Here's some elements to look into:

Broken or outdated links
One of the most commonly overlooked issue is your outdated links still lingering around live on the web. It will be bad should a potential visitor do a search on any search engine looking for information and landing on the outdated link containing obsolete or incorrect product or service information. Broken image links which doesn't help solve your potential visitors' need for the particular product picture or information.

  • Checking your path to the particular image link or whether does the image still exists on your server.
  • Verifying whether there are any outdated page /s still lingering live on web that needs to be taken off from your website.
Alignment of Layout
Conducting a routine check on whether the layouts of your website is misaligned in different web browsers. Since it is common for web browser providers, constantly updating their web browsers versions for users.

Verify your website goals and objectives again
It is good practice to ask yourself whether you are moving towards the desired goals and objectives set earlier constantly. Identify where you are now and where you're going to be heading after reaching the planned goals and objectives. If you're not setting any website goals or objectives, it is vital that you start identifying it immediately.

Don't stop after this evaluation. Make it a commitment to spent some hours monthly or even possible an hour weekly to ensure the consistency and quality of your website.

2008-02-19

Optimize Your PPC

Where does all your visitors coming into your landing page or website ?From you PPC (Pay-Per-Click) ads ? Or from your organic search ?

If most of your traffic are coming based on your PPC ad campaigns, how can you increase the conversion rate or optimize it ? So as to allow your PPC ad campaigns to not only be cost effective in driving visitors and customers but also increase your overall conversion rate.

So how do you optimize your PPC (Pay-Per-Click) ads campaign ?


Deep Linking:
Don't lead your visitors to your default homepage or try to cross sell them. Instead lead them to the relevant or unique landing page related to the PPC ad. Try this and compare how your conversion rate increases as compared to leading them to irrelevant web page.

Relevant keywords:
Instead of targeting a general keyword term, target keywords that are specific and relevant to your product or service offering.

Deploy search term suggestion tools:
Try researching on your specific search terms with the suggestion tools offered by Google and other third party vendors and compiling your search terms research before submitting.

Listing on relevant sites that offer PPC ad service:
Having your PPC ads placement on relevant sites or your industry, you can be sure to be targeting the relevant visitors or audience. Thereby, maximizing your return on investment on your PPC ad and not wasting any dollar on blasting to visitors whom are not interested.

Relevant Copywriting:
Having relevant copywriting on the descriptions and headlines specific or relevant to the product or service you are offering rather than general terms.

Biding on lower value keywords:
You might be thinking why should I bid on lower keywords. Although biding on these keywords generate lower traffic as compared to higher value ones, however it does allows you to get the top position with just a very low bid. Though the traffic is low, you can be sure that the visitors coming to your website or landing page with their keyed in keyword is much likely to know what they are looking for.

Research Research:
The research doesn't stops here......you have to kept on researching and researching to understand what's the latest keywords or search term that are relevant to your keywords.

Research + Optimize

2008-02-18

How are your agencies sharing with you?

How are your creative or media agencies sharing the mistakes, successes and experiments with you ? Or are your agencies even sharing their experiences with you ? Are they telling you ONLY the good or nice stories and NOT the real truth behind it ? So how how can you foster a more open sharing and learning relationship with your agencies ?

Today in this video, bought to us by Marketing@Google;
Hashem Bajwa will be talking about how marketing can become a profit generating business asset through sharing successes, mistakes & experiments from their work with their clients such as HP, Got Milk and other brands that are open and loving change. Hashem Bajwa is the digital planning director at Goodby, Silverstein & Partners.

Marketing@Google: Hashem Bajwa
Are / Is your creative or media agencies sharing honestly with you ?
You decide.

2008-02-16

8 Landing Page Optimization Tips

How do visitors come to your website ?
Did they came from search engines when they click onto your paid ads? If it is so, what are they searching for ? Have you optimized your landing page or website to conforms according to meet their needs? Are they searching for something specific which leads them eventually to your website or landing page. Are they here looking for information or are here to shop for a product or service ? If your website or landing page doesn't relate to their needs, don't blame them for immediately clicking away from your website.

It is too much of an importance to overlook or leave this very vital optimization action. Don't bring all visitors to your default home page which doesn't relate to the pay ads or PPC. Simply put your visitors don't really care about your company's history or what you are trying to tell them, what they are interested in is why they link or came to your website or landing page in the first place.

Take them directly to what they want and where they are interested in. (e.g. If your visitors are looking for business laptops, don't lead them to all of your laptop selections.)

So how do you optimize your landing page ?

  1. Leading your visitors to your unique landing page.
  2. Leading your visitors to the specific page of your website in relation to the PPC or search term.
Having determine that, what are the design elements that are essential to increase your conversion rate ?

1. Landing Page Design
  • Is the landing page design appealing ?
  • Is it browser friendly ?
  • Does the design took too long to load ?
2. Copywriting
  • Which are the key-phrase that leads them to action ?
  • Repeating the key-phrase within the headline is the easiest way in which to do this is.
  • Does your headlines captivates visitor's attention ?
  • Are your headlines prominent and bold ?
3. Content that leads to Action
Is your content related to your PPC ad ?
Simply put, why do you want your visitors to land on this particular page ?
  • Why they would be interested ?
  • What is the product or service offering ?
  • Why would they be enticed to take action ?
4. Web Forms - If your desired actions from the visitors is leading generation, is your required fill-in form too lengthy or asking too much of information in this initial stage ? What are the most important fields that is only required for this first stage ?
  • Name
  • Email
  • Contact
  • Desired interest area
5. Call to Action Buttons
  • Where is the best place for your "Submit" button ?
  • Is the "RESET" button even required ? Why you say it is not required ? Do you wish your visitors to fill up the form only to accidentally hit the "RESET" button instead of your "Submit" button and not refilling up the form and eventually leaving the site ?
6. Where are the Clicks
  • Where are the visitors clicking on your landing page ?
  • What are they clicking on ?
  • Have you tried using third party software like crazyegg for the heat map tracking, are they clicking onto what you want them to and where are they actually clicking on your landing page.
7. Testing
You will never know what works and doesn't until you track the visitors' behavior in your landing page. If you're serious about increasing your landing page conversions, you have to keep on testing and testing. Some of the landing page elements you should keep in mind when conducting your tests are:
* Hero shots picture (placements and type)
* Testimonials or Endorsements
* Calls to action button (Colors and placements)
* Headings and headlines
* Web Forms
* Product or service price range
* Copywriting
* Colors

8. Thank You Page
Have you taken into the consideration of inserting the Thank You Page after your visitors have completed the required action ? Don't leave this opportunity to thank your visitors for their time and first touch point.

Are you optimizing your landing page ?

Related Posts:
. Optimization #01: Call to action button
. Optimization #02: Test ! Test ! Test !
. Optimization #03: Landing Page


2008-02-13

Reasons why you're not testing and optimizing your website

Before we begin with today's topic....
Are you testing and optimizing your website ?
Yes ?
If yes....how often ?
On-going basis or a one time basis ?
Daily ?
Weekly ?

If your answer to the above mention is a NO.
Read on to see if you can find the reason/s why you're not testing and optimizing your website.

  • I don't have the time or resource to commit in testing and optimizing my website.
Sounds familiar ? Instead of saying you don't have the time or resource, have you tried justifying the returns on having invest your precious time and resources into testing and optimizing your website ? Why not try monetizing the potential revenue gain or lost to the management, should they fail to take action. To begin with, you could try starting testing small or particular areas of your website and show the improvements to the people involved and try to get them to recognize the benefits of testing and optimization.
  • Thinking that all visitors to your website are similar.
The most dangerous thought to harbor is thinking that all the visitors coming to your website have similar surfing habits and behavior. Similarly for consumer products from around the world, even if the products are similar in function, there is still a need to adapt the products accordingly to the local needs and wants.
  • Arrogance - Thinking that your competitors are slow to change and catching up.
  • Thinking that the web channel is just another corporate brochure.
More "NO /s" I left out ?
Or more "NO /s" to share with us ?

Time to test and optimize ?
Or ?

Related Posts:
. Optimization #01: Call to action button
. Optimization #02: Test ! Test ! Test !
. Optimization #03: Landing Page


2008-02-10

Live streaming web analysis tool

How do you know what's going on in your website ?
When someone comments on your blog ?
When someone posts in your forum ?
When someone purchases an item ?
Or ?
Using an web analytics tool you say ?

How often do you track the activities that is going on your website ?
How often do you conduct your website analysis ?
Is it possible to streams website and blog events to you live, in real-time ?
Yes ?
No ?
Now it is possible, thanks to reinvigorate Snoop.




What's so special about Snoop you say.
Simply put, Snoop is a desktop application streaming website
and blog events to you live, all in real-time.

  • If you're new to tracking your website activities, here's Snoop that you might want to give it a try first before eventually venturing into more advanced third party web tracking tools available.
  • Or if you're already have an web analytics tool up and running, you might want to consider having this add-on tool in tracking your website activities.
Alright here's 3 steps to get you started:

1. Simply just download the application,
available for Mac OS X or Windows XP / Vista

2. You will need to register at reinvigorate.

2. Once installed, it will be running in your System Tray (Windows) / System Status Bar (Mac)

3. Before it will be ready in tracking the activities in your website, you will need to insert the tracking snippet on any page you want it to be tracked.

Once the 3 steps are done, you're ready to track your website activities in real time. The next time round, whenever someone makes a comment on your blog, posts in your forum, purchases an item, gets referred from another site or a new unique user appears, Snoop will trigger an unique sound to let you know.

On top of that, Snoop also features an automatic integration with name tags so you'll know exactly who your visitors are.

Alright enough said, time to start Streaming.
Time to start Tracking.

2008-02-08

36 Facts on how to tap into the Youth Market

How are you tapping into the youth market ?
How much do you know about the youth markets ?
Which of your communications channel works and doesn't work in reaching the youth ?

Here's a interesting video brought to us by the threebillion project:

36 Youth Facts in 159 seconds



Still not convinced you say ?

Here's the 36 Youth Facts again:

  • There are 3 billion people under 25 on this planet
  • 61% of them live in Asia
  • 67% of young Asians have downloaded music in the last month
  • Only 27% paid for it
  • Hong Kong youth spend the most time online per day (4.7 hours)
  • Indonesian youth spend the least (0.9 hours)
  • Young Filipinos watch the most TV per day (6.2 hours)
  • Young Chinese watch the least (3.2 hours)
  • There are 37.5 million gamers in China
  • 90% play online games
  • Weekly, Korean teenagers will spend
    • 14 hours on the computer…
    • .12.8 hours watching TV
    • 0.7 hours reading newspapers
  • Taiwan has the highest teenage birthrate in Asia
  • South Korea has the lowest
  • 45% of young Japanese women said they were in love
  • Only 30% of young Japanese men said the same
  • 82% of Japanese teen males said they used contraception the first time they had sex
  • Only 12% of Japanese 20-year-olds use the home PC to access the internet — the same level as 50-year-olds — they’re using their mobile phones instead
  • 26% of all youth deaths in China are from suicide
  • In India, 50% of girls will be married before they are 18
  • In Nepal, the rate is 60%
  • 85% of Korean teenagers own a cell phone
  • They send an average of 60 messages per day
  • 46% of students send messages in class
  • “Our children are seriously addicted to cell phones” — Parent’s Union Spokesperson
  • Chinese people spend 10x more money on the internet than people in the west
  • It represents 10% of their monthly income
  • Who prefers a laid-back hassle-free lifestyle?
    • 14% of Chinese teens
    • 22% of South Korean teens
    • 43% of Japanese teens
  • 99% of Saudi teens use Bluetooth
  • 99% said that the device had broken social taboos
  • 85% said it was safe for communication with the opposite sex
  • 69% of messages exchanged by Saudi teens were pornographic
So are you ready to not tapped into the Youth Market ?
Or are you already tapping into it ?
How can you better communicate your message ?
You Decide.

2008-02-05

Open Source Web Analytics Tool

Today, I will be sharing an open source (GNU /GPL) web analytics tool, phpMyVisites. It is FREE to download for use. The best part is it being an Open source project which means the source code is readily available and you could also participate in the project as well. (Such as (creating new modules, personalize the interface or etc.)













So what are some of the features found in this web analytic tool versus the other FREE web analytic tools ?

phpMyVisites provides you with the required information on websites visitors, visited pages and not forgetting their very own clicks heatmap!, which shows you where your audience are clicking on your website. All the information are portrait in their relatively user-friendly GUI. With many clear graphics to present data as required.

  • Visitor statistics over a period of time (day/week/month/year)
  • Visitor Frequency: new visitors, regular (known) visitors, and how often visitors view the web site
  • Web site page classification available
  • Geographical Statistics: Classification by continent/country (quite similar to Google Analytics)
  • Technical Configuration Statistics: Web browsers, resolution, managed plug-in, etc.
  • Web Site Discovery Tools: Search Engines, Web Sites, Partner Sites, Newsletters and Direct Access
  • Multiple Web Site Overview, a summary of important web site statistics for all managed web sites. Multiple web sites may be added.
  • Receive web site statistics everyday by e-mail, by RSS feed.












ClickHeat: visual heatmap of clicks on a HTML page, showing hot and cold click zones.

Want to try an alternative FREE web analytics tool ?
Or new to web analytics ?
Try phpMyVisites

2008-01-31

Wisdom to Share

For today, I will be sharing with everyone on Online Marketing lessons-learned stories collect from entities ranging from BMW to Motorola etc....all found on MarketingSherpa.

Enough said, here's the goodies:

  1. Marketing Wisdom 2007: Lessons from BMW, Motorola, GMAC and Savvy Tot on:
  • Email campaign segmentation tests and results
  • Blogging, podcasting and mobile marketing tips
  • Search marketing tactics and offline advertising
  • Web site design and social networking done right
2. Marketing Wisdom 2006: Lessons from American Red Cross,
CompUSA, Cox Communications, Deloitte & Touche,
Palo Alto Software, and The Motley Fool:
  • Email campaign segmentation test results
  • Search marketing lessons (especially combining PPC and SEO)
  • Offline advertising and marketing lessons
  • Web site design and landing page lessons
  • Business-to-Business marketing campaign lessons
  • Office politics and job searching tips for a successful marketing career
3. Marketing Wisdom 2005: Lessons from Timberland, Pacific Shaving, and ING Direct:
  • Email tests that worked
  • Search marketing tactics
  • Site design to raise conversions
  • Direct mail, radio, & telemarketing stories

2008-01-27

The Lucrative Business of Online Porn

Which is the highest search terms or keywords keyed by a typical male?
What does a typical male normally surf online ?
For latest information ?
For purchasing intents ?
For reading blogs ?
For checking the latest financial updates ?
For social networking ?
Or ?
For PORN ?

So, how lucrative is the the online porn industry ?
Just how much cash those clicks are bringing in ?

According to the research conducted by GOOD magazine:

  • 12% of all websites are pornographic
  • 25% of all search engine requests are pornographic
Alright time to let this video do the talking. In this video,GOOD magazine investigates just how much big cash these sweaty clicks are bringing in.

2008-01-24

Optimization #03: Landing Page

How are you optimizing your landing page ?
Does it ultimately leads your audience....
Signing up for your newsletter ?
Downloading your trial software ?
Signing up for latest product updates ?
Or....?

High conversion or low conversion rate ?
How can you improve your conversion rate ?

Or are you going by your "Gut feeling" ?

In this post, I will be sharing my humble tips on optimizing your landing page, which hopefully will help drive your conversion rate. All the elements found in your landing page, plays a role on driving your overall conversion rate success . So what are the elements ?

1. The Layout for your landing page:

  • 1 vertical column layout.
  • Or 2 vertical column layout.
  • Or 3 vertical column layout. Or ?
  • The placement of your copy (top of the page, middle, bottom or ?)
  • The placement of your image (top of the page, middle,bottom or ?)
  • The placement of your call to action button (top of the page, middle,bottom or ?)
2. The Copywriting:
  • The message / s that entice your audience in taking action. Which version converts better ?
  • Longer or shorter copy ? Which version converts better ?
  • Product benefit or key benefit copy ?
  • Quotes, testimonial or 3rd party endorsement ? Does it help convert ? Which version converts better ?
3. Call to action button:
  • The copy on the call to action button that entice your audience in taking action.
  • The size of the call to action button. Bigger or smaller ?
  • The color of the call to action button. More color or one color ?
4. The image:
  • Portraying human or graphic design ? Which version converts better ?
  • Flash or static version ? Which version coverts better ?
So what works and what doesn't works ?
Let your audience decide for you.
Lastly, even with the data, nothing is going to happen unless you test it !

Take action: Run the Multivariate page testing.
  • Evaluate your control versus your variations.
  • Let the data do the talk.
Gut feeling or your audience telling you what they want ?
You decide.

Related Posts:
. Optimization #01: Call to action button
. Optimization #02: Test ! Test ! Test !

2008-01-23

Want to maximize your website ROI ? Read this

How are you designing your website ?
Is it driven purely just by art ?
Or is it driven by science ?
Or is it both ?
Are you maximizing your return on investment (ROI) ?

Web Design for ROI













In this book, Web Design for ROI, by Lance Loveday & Sandra Niehaus, shows you how to make your web sites accountable. With design decisions based on metrics and business goals. Not just driven either by art or science separately but having both the art + science working hand in hand, in achieving both your financial returns and competitive advantage.

The authors also shows you concrete design guidelines from Landing pages,Home pages,Category pages,Detail pages,Forms to the Checkout processes. Lastly, the book is packed with helpful real examples from a wide variety of sites which makes it easier for you in understanding how to apply it onto your website.

Now time to take action and drive your returns

  1. Find out more at the book's site at Web Design for ROI.
  2. Get it at Amazon.com.

Optimization #02: Test ! Test ! Test !

Are you testing your website ?
If so, how are you testing it ?
A/B or Multivariate testing ?
Utilizing your in-house expertise or 3rd party software ?

Even having all the available tools, in helping you determine the audience insights, nothing is going to happen unless you take action testing it. The simplest way of finding what what works and what doesn't is just this: Let your audience determine for you.

  • Which of your message work or doesn't work ?
  • Which copy works ? and doesn't work ?
  • Which color/s on your call to action button is having a higher conversion rate ?
  • Which image works ? and doesn't work ?
  • Which headlines work ? and doesn't work ?
  • Which has a better conversion rate ? flash or static image display ?
Let your audience determine for you.
Let the testing do the walk.

First time testing and don't know where or how to start ?
Try Google's FREE alternative, Google Website Optimizer.It might not be as sophisticated as other 3rd party software providers, but it provides just the essentials required for first timers before moving onto other alternatives.
  • Sign up for Google Adwords account and you're ready to go.
  • Determine your key areas of your website.
  • Test it !
Related post:
. Optimization #01: Call to action button
. Optimization #03: Landing Page

2008-01-21

Optimization #01: Call to action button

How are you testing and optimizing your web channel ?
Are you optimizing at a on-going effort ?
Or are you even testing and optimizing at all ?

Testing and optimizing your web channel or web site should never be a one-time process or effort, instead it should be a continuous process. Keep up the good work if you're testing and optimizing your web on an on-going effort. If you're don't know where or how to start, starting from this post and forthcoming posts, I'll be sharing some of my humble optimization hacks in helping you optimize your website.

Optimization #01: Call to action button

  • What is the message on your call to action button ?
  1. Are your visitors or audience even clicking it at all ?
  2. Even if they are, do they ultimately convert into dollars and cents ?
  3. How are you enticing your visitors towards the desired outcome ?
  • What does the call to action button meant to them:
  1. Why should we(visitors) click on it ?
  2. What's IN for us(visitors) ?
How to optimize it ?
Instead of having those overused messages or words like "Click here", "Find out more", "Click here to read" or "Read more here".
  • Build your call to action button that persuades them in taking action, which contains the "Why should we click on it" and the "What's IN for us" instead of those overused words which don't convert.
Related post:
. Optimization #02: Test ! Test ! Test !
. Optimization #03: Landing Page

Highly Recommend book on call to action:
. Call to action by Bryan & Jeffrey Eisenberg

2008-01-19

The next gen-multi media online search engine challenge

Singapore's Agency for Science, Technology and Research, A*STAR, recently just launched a global contest,open to all,in creating the next gen-multi media online search engine.

Also known as "The Star Challenge 2008"

  • The Challenge: Create a multi media search engine, that can identify search terms found in text as well as different types of media (voice, video).
  • Applications: Open to all. Each team may comprise a maximum of 10 members.
  • Participation: Free of charge.
  • Finalist: Top five teams will be flown to Singapore for the finals at Fusionopolis.
  • Grand Prize: US$100,000
  • Entry Deadline: 29th February , 2008
More details found at: The Star Challenge 2008

Are you ready to build the next generation
multi media search engine ?

2008-01-18

Search traffic analysis

In the last post on Keyword analysis, I've shared with everyone on the various FREE keyword analysis tools that are readily available, so before we begin on today's post. Let's put on our thinking caps and....

Ponder this :

  • How are you utilizing the available free tools ?
  • And how are you optimizing your keyword search ?
In this post today, I'll be sharing a tool in analyzing your natural search traffic. Without further delay, here's the indispensable FREE tool for your search engine optimization (SEO) and search engine marketing (SEM) : 103bees, The all in one tool in analyzing your search engine traffic.








So, what does the tool provide you with ?












Latest search hits

Providing you with latest search engine hits for your website,
along with the landing page and search engine information.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------












Top query keywords
What are the most popular keywords used by your visitor in finding your website.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------














Search engines
Understand where search traffic is coming from
(google ? Yahoo ? Or ?) and how you can optimize
your search based on that.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------














Search engine rankings
Identify the top search terms rankings for your website and optimize your search efforts.

Related keywords
Identify the related keywords in search queries.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------













Long Tail

Identify whether your website search term popularity is a Short Head’ (few search terms that bring lots of traffic) or a ‘Long Tail’ (many search terms with only a few search hits each).

Top landing pages
Identify which are your top landing pages.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So, how do you start analyzing and optimize your search ?
Register for a FREE account and simply just tag the single line of Javascript code provided by 103bees onto your desired web pages.

Now isn't it time to take action and try it out for yourself.
Time to optimize your search.

Here's the previous post:
. Keyword analysis

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