A quick live blogging coverage of SMX East 2009 Day 2
Organic Search
Future of Search
Paid Search
Link Building
Local Search
Ecommerce
Measurement
Integrated Marketing
2009-10-07
SMX East 2009 Day 2 Coverage
Future of Search
Paid Search
Link Building
Local Search
Ecommerce
Measurement
Integrated Marketing
2009-10-06
SMX East 2009 Day 1 Coverage
A quick live blogging coverage of SMX East 2009 Day 1
Organic Search - SEO
PPC
Mobile Search
Analytics
Keyword Research
Search Copywriting
Optimization & Conversion
2009-08-14
SES San Jose Day 2
Coverage from SES San Jose Day 2 as follows:
Search Engine Optimization
Conversion Optimization
Website / Landing Page Optimization
Web and Data Analytics
B2B Buyer Behaviour
In the following video Gord Hotchkiss discuss about how buyer influences maybe online or offline but they all play a part in determining how purchasing decisions are made
Social Media
2009-08-12
SES San Jose 2009 Day 1
Coverage for SES San Jose 2009 Day One:
Web Analytics Coverage
Website Optimization
Search Engine Optimization
Ecommerce
Matt Bailey uses Star Trek anologies to discuss ecommerce shopper behaviors in this video.
Somebody who comes to your website looking for a digital camera are not going to behave the same way as when they come to your website looking for an mp 3 player - Matt Bailey
Social Media
Lee Odden states that social media participation produces content, which others can link to, in turn helping your search engine ranking by providing more inbound links in this video:
Clay Shirky, the author of 'Here Comes Everybody' discusses the shift in user behavior in a Web 2.0 World in the following video:
2009-08-04
Optimzing your Landing Page Conversion
In this video interview, Scott Brinker shares his thoughts on landing page features that could help double the conversion rate of standard landing pages.
Where do you normally drive prospects / visitors clicking onto your Generic keywords to ?
- A Generic home page ?
- Category page ? Or ?
How to create 2-step landing pages ?
- First step is a 1-click segmentation choice - Offering the generic keywords prospects / visitors an option in selecting the appropriate segment (self-segmentation) that relates to them.
- Second step is the selected destinated landing page which is of relevance to the generic keywords prospects / visitors.
Why create 2-step landing pages ?
- Ads messaging relevance to individual segment - Through this segmentation, data could be obtained in having a better understanding on which of your ppc ads are attracting the particular segment.
- Segment Conversion Rate - And through the second click, we would be able to determine which segments are converting and which are not.
- Will you still drive your generic keywords prospects / visitors to generic landing pages ?
- Or start testing and increase your conversion rate ?
Action:
- Why not create a simple 2-step landing page in testing your conversion rate ?
- And share your testing results with us
2009-08-03
Advanced SEO Strategy Collection
Collection of Advanced SEO Strategies:
How search and user friendly is your website ?Are you testing and optimizing on a on-going basis ?
2009-07-14
Landing Page Optimization Collection
Collection of Slides on Landing Page Optimization:
How are you optimizing your landing page ?What is / are the end goal of your landing page ?
2009-07-05
How the Mighty Fall ?
Jim Collins, of How the Mighty Fall ?, shares on how to spot the subtle signs that your successful company is actually on course to sputte in the following interview:
What,how and why does your company exist ?
How do you prevent your company from going obsolete ?
Your thoughts ?
2009-05-24
Are we in control of our own decisions? Seriously ?
According to research findings,we're not as rational as we think when we make decisions. So does it really affect our purchasing behaviour when trying out a new product or service ?
Dan Ariely, author of Predictably Irrational, shares with us why....
Are you in control of your own decisions when purchasing a new product or service ?
Your thoughts ?
2009-04-08
Before you say "Get my Business on Twitter"
Before you start saying "Get my business on Twitter, I want to be where all the buzz is happening now, sounds so exciting" to your marketing team; technology team or agency, here's some quick to do list:
Identifying where your customers are REALLY
Accessing where and how your customers (prospects, existing,brand loyal, passionate evangelists) are engaging with your business or brand through digging into your business intelligent data (CRM, Web analytics, other internal data, external data, channel data) and mapping it out.
- Are they on Twitter ?
- How are they communicating about your business or brand with others ?
If you thought of using Twitter as the way you blast promotions and deals you did with TV, forget it, it doesn't work this way in Twitter. Want to understand how a business communicate with its customers ? Need a live example ? Here's Zappos, take a look on how they are engaging and communicating with customers and non customers alike.
Track > Learn > Understand > Repeat
Identifying which messages and post are generating response through url link trackers like bit.ly or the recent Twitter Data Tracking tool found in Omniture.
- Calculating your url link CTR (Click Through rate) = individual post clicks / number of followers (in identifying which post / message generates higher or lower response)
- Measuring the desired response after which (i.e. site visit recency, depth of visit, visitor loyalty, blogpost comments,newsletter signup, software download, etc)
- Finding out how often your business is mentioned on Twitter;
- Who are the individuals mentioning most about your business or brand and who are their audience ?
How are you Listening and Learning about your business and customers ?
Let's carry on the conversation on Twitter
2009-03-10
Lead Generation Guide
How do you implement and execute a successful lead generation marketing campaign ? And how do you quantify a successful B2B lead generation campaign ?
How ?
Mac McIntosh has created a Step by Step guide, on how you could create a successful B2B lead generation marketing campaign:
Step 1 - Set Goals
Determine your company’s goals for sales revenue in the coming year
Step 2 - How much new business do you need ?
Determine the percentage of your company’s revenue that needs to come from new business
Step 3 - How much revenue needs to come from marketing’s leads ?
Determine the percentage of your company’s new business revenue that needs to come from marketing-generated leads
Step 4 - Define “qualified sales lead”
Determine the definition of a “qualified sales lead” with which marketing, sales and corporate management agree
Step 5 - Calculate how many qualified sales leads will you need
Determine how many qualified sales leads are needed to meet your sales revenue goals
Step 6 - How many inquiries needed ?
Determine how many new inquiries or responses are needed to generate enough qualified sales leads to meet your goals
Step 7 - Determine the specific business problems you solve
Determine the specific business problems your products/services address and the problems your company is qualified to solve
Step 8 - What are your competitive advantages ?
Determine your company’s competitive advantages and how best to articulate them
Step 9 - Who are your best prospects ?
Target the best companies and contacts with your lead-generation efforts
Step 10 - How will you reach the best prospects ?
Determine how to reach the best companies and contacts
Does the economic downturn affect your lead generation efforts ?
Why ? And Why not ?
And how could you reach new prospects effectively and efficiently and turning them into customers ?
You decide.
2009-03-09
Strategies and key learnings from Obama's presidential campaign
In the following video, Larry Grisolano, senior communications specialist for President Obama's election campaign, discuss the strategies and key learnings from one of last year's most successful marketing campaigns.
AMA Mplanet 2009 - Interview with Larry Grisolano from AMA Mplanet 2009 on Vimeo.
What key learnings could you take away from this video ?
2009-03-03
Location...Location....Location
Where are you now ?
Where exactly are you now ?
Where are your friends now ?
Where do your friends hang out ?
Slide out your smart phone and let Google Latitude show you...
In this video,Stephen Baker talks about the latest location-tracking software, Sense Networks and Google Latitude, and how companies may target advertisements to users of these programs
How could you tapped into this channel for your business ?
Is is feasible ? Yes ? No ?
Your decide.
2009-02-28
Are you on Twitter ?
Are you on Twitter ?
If so, how are you tapping onto this channel for communication ? Be it for business, personal or ?
In this video from TED, Twitter Co-founder Evan Williams, reveals that many of the ideas driving that growth came from unexpected uses invented by the users themselves.
How are you tapping onto Twitter as a communication channel ?
Your thoughts ?
Are you on Twitter ?
Ping me on Twitter.
2009-02-22
Open Source Web Analytics
Here's Piwik, an alternative to Google Analytics in tracking your website visitors' onsite clicking behavior. What's really unique with this open source tool is its features are built inside plugins, which mean to say you can add new features and remove the ones you don’t need. And in addition, the user interface is fully customizable.
Try the Piwik online demo
How to get started ?
- Download the Piwik 0.2.30 zip file
- Upload onto your web server (Requirement of at least PHP 5.1 and a Mysql database)
- Start tracking the onsite clicking behaviour !
- Analyze the findings
- Optimize
- Repeat steps 4-6
Any other open source web analytics we have missed out ?
2009-01-18
How Gary Vaynerchuk turn negative into positive through social media
In this video,Gary Vaynerchuk clearly demonstrates how an organization could quickly turn around a negative crisis into positive, through social media. One of his network sites,Corkd,was hacked and here's how he personally addressed the situation:
Now your turn.
How would you respond to a negative crisis ?
What actions would you initiate ? Why and Why not?
2009-01-13
PPC Landing Page: Are they aligned ?
Let's start off the year with a quick look at a PPC campaign which is running LIVE on Google as of this writing and how we could learn and apply from here. If this is your first time here, do take a look at my last post on what's in for your website visitors and do share your thoughts with us in this post.
Let's do a Google on "storage for paintings" and imagine ourself in need of more space for storing our lovely painting collection.
And here's the first position ad:
Seems like they are essentially squeezing all their product offerings onto this ppc ad, wishing the potential customer / searchers will click onto it just because they have everything listed on the ad. Does the ad seems only understandable to the company offering this ? Or should it be the other way round ? No Call to Action found. What's in for the potential customer ? What are they really looking for ? What's the benefit other than as low as $50 ?
Now moving onto the landing page:
Once landed onto the landing page, searchers are left to figure out why they are here in the first place. What's next for the searchers ? What's the desirable action ? What's in for them ? The story doesn't ends here by just throwing them onto a generic landing page. Is it really worthy to spend the money driving interested searchers onto your landing page and after which having them to bounce out in a few seconds just because they can't find what they were promised or looking for.
Even having a highly motivated searcher with the intent to seek the solution themselves through clicking onto the Contact Us button; additional voluntary steps will have to be initiated by them in either dialing the number or email listed on the section. How many searchers would be willing to go the extra mile for you ?
Now Your Turn.
What other learnings could we add on ?
2009-01-06
What's In for your website visitors ?
Doesn't matter if you have the best structured ppc campaigns, high click through rates or great ad copies for all your ppc campaigns.
Before you get really excited about it, do you know what happens next after your visitors lands onto your website ? The "What's in for me" objective starts to kicks in for visitors whom came onto your website because of what they were told earlier on in your ppc ads, so does your landing page offer what they were looking for ?
If Yes...good job...however the journey does not ends here....did they eventually completed the goal or objective which you hope they would do so (Be it signing up for your newsletter, filling up a form,etc...) once they landed onto your landing page ? Did they take action ?
If No....Why ? And Why not ?
Today in this post, I will be sharing some tips which you should give it a try and let the data speaks for itself:
- What's the goal / objective once your ppc visitors lands onto your particular landing page ?
- Instead of landing your ppc visitors onto your generic homepage, try sending them to a customized page which is relevant to what they were looking for when they were clicking onto your ppc ads earlier on.
- Test which ppc ad copies work best for the individual landing pages (product/info /etc)
- Split testing your ppc ad copies constantly.
- Start small and learn from your testings before scaling up.
- Once you're confident enough, try Google Website Optimizer in testing different elements of your landing page; finding out which elements work together best in achieving higher conversions for your landing page goals / objectives.
To end this post with a mantra: Learn, Analyze, Test, Repeat*
Agree or Disagree ?
Your Turn Now !
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 ?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
