Bretts Marketing Bytes

Tracking Offline Advertising with Google Analytics

Brett Burnsworth — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 22:32:53 +0000

When we talk about tracking campaigns, it is not enough to focus only on online campaigns. We have to include the offline campaigns in our reports for complete analysis. You will need to use the Google Analytics URL Builder. In this section, I will share with you one method of tracking your offline campaigns in Google Analytics in 2 simple steps:

In your offline ads, refer visitors to a page that is unique to the campaign; [www.store.com/computers]
Tag all visitors to the unique page with the campaign variables [source, medium, & campaign name] set in the GA URL Builder.

How to tag all visitors to www.store.com/computers with the campaign variables?

We will assume that all visitors to the unique landing page [www.store.com/computers] are coming from a specific offline campaign lets say the ComputerUSA magazine.

How do we tag destination URLs?

Go to the URL Builder
Enter the following variables into the URL builder:

Website URL: http://www.store.com/computers

Campaign Source: ComputerUSA

Campaign Medium: Magazine

Campaign Name: Holiday Promo
Add the following code to the header of landing page before the Google Analytics tracking code

Replace the url in the code above with your new url from the URL Builder.

Does a domain matter in SEO?

Brett Burnsworth — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 21:58:15 +0000

A lot of people ask if domains matter when it comes to SEO. My answer to this question, is a big fat YES! A unique domain name describing something that you are trying to rank for is huge. It can dramatically help in organic rankings. For example: If you sold bachelorette party favors, you might have your domain be something like “bachelorettepartyfavors.com” because that is what people are typing in.

I know what you are thinking… Why did I pick that as an example. Reason being is that it is a niche term and people definitely make those kinds of purchases online. Niche terms tend to convert better when the domains are specific to one product vertical.

The search algorithms look at these domains as highly relevant sites because they match exactly what a user is putting into the search bar. The difficulty is that your company might not be able to use a domain like this(—Obviously not bachelorette related but something you sell) due to branding issues. However, if you can use a specific url to one of your products, you will be on your way to higher rankings.

Choosing the right Keywords for SEO

Brett Burnsworth — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 15:32:02 +0000

Choosing the right keyword or keyword phrase can be a bit tricky. The biggest mistake that most people have when choosing keywords for their website is not being specific enough. For example if you are a staffing and outsourced labor company, you wouldn’t want to spend your time, money and effort trying to rank for staffing services, because it’s not specific enough.

Being specific will direct potential customers to your website, which can lead to a profit for you. A better, more specific keyword phrase for this example would be:

Be specific, because your potential customers have specific needs. You want to optimize every potential customer that uses a search engine to find a specific product or service.

Track your rankings with Visibility Score.

Brett Burnsworth — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 05:25:56 +0000

Tracking results from organic SEO can be somewhat difficult, especially if you are trying to explain them to non savvy people. I came across a great method to demonstrate results to even the most non technical people. It’s called Visibility Score.

If you use the Visibility Score formula you can track the improvements and measure your results. The score is calculated across the 3 major search engines, Google, Yahoo and Bing.

How it works is each ranking position is given a value up to the last result on page 3 of each search engine. Example: Position 1 would have a value of 33.3 tied to it. Position 2 would be 32.3 and position 3 would be 31.3 and so on. Now take your position on Yahoo and Bing and then add them all together. A prefect score would equal a visibility score of 100. See below for a practical example on Visibility Score.

Google: Positions 1 = 33.3
Yahoo: Positions 2= 32.3
Bing: Position 1= 33.3

If you total these up you get a Visibility Score of 96.9. Not too shabby. Good luck

Should you hire an SEO before or after a site redesign?

Brett Burnsworth — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 01:10:56 +0000

The question of whether a company should hire an SEO before or after a site redesign often comes up in my seminars.

Let me put it this way. Would you let a contractor start to build your house without a blue print? I hope you said no.

My point is that you have to think about your web developer just like that home contractor. Their only job is to build something that functions and looks pretty. Without a blue print they cannot do this, so they rely on you to tell them what you want. However, you are relying on them to know what works best for SEO, but I have news for you…9 times out of 10, they haven’t got the slightest clue.

Just because they are a web developer doesn’t mean they know SEO. These are two different skill sets.

Let me give you a more practical example. The other day I recieved a call from a company who just had their website redesigned and are now looking for SEO services. They told me that they used to rank pretty well with their old site and now with their new site their rankings have completely dropped off the face of the Google. The weird part is that they told me they were okay with it, because the new site looks and functions better than the old one. ( Okay, are you kidding me?)

You can have the best looking website in the world but if no one is going to it, your site is worthless.

So I pulled up their site in my browser while I was on the phone with them and immediately noticed that their site navigation was way off for SEO efforts and worse, their pages are producing dynamic non search friendly URL’s. Those seem like easy fixes right, yes, but the underlying technology that this site was built on was just a nightmare.

So essentially they want me to make gold out of a turd. I’ve done these types of projects before and they never turn out good. When the technology is not right, you cannot expect good results.

In a nutshell they chose a bad platform to put their website on and probably a web developer who doesn’t know the first thing about marketing. That’s why they call themselves a web developer and not a marketer.

Web developers are not marketers.

Now this company has to back track and spend more money to try and get their website to be search friendly, when all they had to do is get guidelines in the beginning from an SEO. This would have saved them a ton of money. Instead, they are stuck with a turd.

To summarize this post and answer the question of should you hire an SEO before or after your site redesign; do yourself a favor and start working with an SEO right away. Let them create the blue print. It will save you a boat load of money. Not to mention, there is a lot of effort that goes into getting solid top rankings and any good SEO might turn down the offer to work with your company if the technology is not going to work in their favor.

How to find a good SEO Firm.

Brett Burnsworth — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 00:49:06 +0000

To know how to find a good SEO firm you must understand the difference between performing SEO tasks and actually getting ranking results.

Whats the difference between SEO and ranking results?

First off there is a lot of gray area when it comes to the term SEO. So your company might sign up for SEO services and not get any results. WHY? because there are a lot of web development firms/SEO firms claiming to perform SEO techniques but they are only doing the bare minimum or what was good 5 years ago.

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. Think about this… What does that mean? It means that a company will optimize your website for search engines. In the old days when a site was ranked well, we used to say, wow, thank site is optimized. But today it is much different and there is more that goes into it than just optimizing a page or site.

Optimizing a page is the process of changing page copy and meta tags to include keywords. But, what about link building? Is link building really SEO? A lot of people think so, but I disagree. I think Link building is a part of the end result, which is “Ranking.” I truly believe there is a difference between SEO and Ranking, and if you understand the difference between the two, you can protect yourself from being mislead.

On-page optimization

Everyone and their brother is doing on-page optimization(Changing page copy and meta tags.) What makes you think that your website is going to rank better than any of theirs? I hope you don’t say because you have your keywords on the page more frequently than they do. Oh boy, you are really behind if you think that. Those days are long gone. Search engines are way smarter than that now.

On-page optimization is the bare minimum that needs to be done. There is so much more that goes into ranking a page on a website for key terms.

So, how do you know if you are getting the bare minimum? I have created a small list of red flags below.

You are not going to get results:

When you pay cheap prices. If you are paying cheap prices chances are good you are getting cheap service and you are wasting your money. I had a client who was paying $100 per month to another company before me to rank for 15 keywords. Needless to say they were not ranking for anything after 1 year. If you are paying $100 per month you will never rank for anything unless you get lucky. Save your money and learn SEO on your own.
When an SEO asks you to come up with your own keywords. How can you come up with your own keywords, you are not the expert, the SEO is. The SEO should only use your keywords as a guideline toward better key terms.
When the SEO firm tries to rank your home page for more than 3 terms.
When the SEO firm does not create landing pages for your products or services. I just met with a company who was working with another SEO/web firm who was trying to rank their home page for 10 key terms. Think about this. If Google’s whole algorithm is based on pulling up relevant content for a search query, how could your home page possibly be relevant for 10 terms? It can’t.
When the SEO firm does not create links to your individual pages. You cannot rank for competitive terms without links. Note: not just directory submissions either.
When the SEO firm does not provide monthly ranking reports. How do you know how you are ranking if you cannot see progress?
When the SEO firm does not offer recommendations on site structure. 9 times out of 10 when I go in to talk to a company their site navigation structure is a mess when it comes to SEO and Ranking.
When the SEO firm says that they will rank your site for broad terms. Example: Candy, Plumbing, cards, drinks… This should tell you that they don’t understand targeting and they are flat out lying. Those terms are too broad.
When the SEO firm guarantees results. Truthfully no one can guarantee results as the search engines are in charge not the SEO.
When the SEO firm cannot provide both national and geographic examples of their work.

I hope these help. Zoodle Marketing Group provides top end ranking results.

Determining a Searchers Intent

Brett Burnsworth — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 02:50:55 +0000

A search engine’s goal is to provide searchers with results that are relevant to their queries. Therefore a crucial element to building an SEO strategy is to understand your audience. Once you know how your target market searches for your products, service or resource, you will have a much better chance of reaching those users.

A search engine is built on intent and is much different than entering a URL, picking a link on your home page, or choosing a bookmark from your browser.

In order to understand this you must know the three different types of queries.

Navigational Queries

Navigational queries are performed with the intent of going to a specific website. Often times users will enter in a company name into the search box. These searches can be good because they are your brand in most cases. They usually result in higher conversions because people know you brand and what they are looking for. However, the overall value of a navigational query is low.

Example: Next Financial Group

10% of searches are navigational.*

Informational Queries

Information queries involve a large range of queries. Example: how to make chocolate covered pretzels, directions, latest news, or simple research on a product. Usually Informational queries are not transactional but can be if someone decides to purchase after doing initial research. The overall value for an informational search is medium.

Example: recipe for almond butter crunch

80% of searches are informational.*

Transactional Queries

A transactional query is not just a credit card purchase, It can result in someone signing up for a free trial, email newsletter or even finding the best CPA in Toronto. These types of queries have the most value because they result in a transaction.

Example: Buy chocolate covered popcorn online

*10% of searches are transactional.

It is very difficult to determine a searchers intent but the closer you get the better your seo results will be. Good luck!

*All research provided by Pennsylvania State University & Queensland University of Technology.

Choosing the right Key Phrases for SEO

Brett Burnsworth — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 20:42:13 +0000

Key Phrases or Keywords are at the heart of every SEO campaign. However, it is commonly the most over looked piece of the SEO puzzle. In this post I am going to share some of my ideas on how to choose the best key phrases for your campaigns.

Below I have outlined the phases that you will go through when determining key phrases for your campaigns. I would recommend using a spreadsheet program such as Excel to do this effectively.

Phase 1 – Brainstorm

Brainstorm about 10 -20 key phrases that reflect your products or services. It’s okay to have broad terms at this point as we will narrow them down later. Examples: Sponge Candy or Crossword Puzzle Gifts. We will later add more descriptive words to these to make them more targeted. Example: Buy Sponge Candy Online

Phase 2 -Check the quality of your terms

Next we will check the quality of the terms. In order to do this, you will go into Google and type your terms in the search box. Check the results. If your competitor shows up or other related items that relate to your business, then you know that it is a quality relevant term. If it is a bunch of definitions or other mumbo jumbo that shows up, it is most likely not a good key phrase. In this case you should add words to the key phrase to make it more descriptive. Example: If you were a college and you first came up with the general term MBA and got a bunch of definitions on what an MBA is, you should consider adding more descriptive words ending up with something like this, Accelerated MBA Program . People often think in broad terms, but the truth is more targeted descriptive terms are better. Refine all of your terms so that they are good quality terms. You should now have high quality key phrases with the search volume next to it.

What about GEO targeting?

If you are Geographically targeting a certain region, now is the time to put regions in to make the keywords more descriptive. For Example: If you are a benefits company who works specifically in Buffalo NY and your original brainstormed keyword was Health Benefits you should now end up with something like this, Health Benefits Buffalo NY. The same company could do the same thing for Dental Insurance by targeting the term Dental Insurance Buffalo NY .

Phase 3 – Check Search Volume

Using the Google Adwords keyword tool, check the search volume for each of you refined quality terms. Write this number down next to each term. If there is no search volume, simply type zero. Note: Most GEO targeted terms will have little to no search volume.

Phase 4 – Check the competitiveness of your terms

Next you will check the competitiveness of each key phrase. In order to do this you will use Google in the same way that you checked quality. This time you you will write down the number in the top right of the Google results page that tells you how many results come up for that particular term. This number will determine how competitive your key phrase is and how hard it is going to be to rank for it. Example: The term staff augmentation only has 586,000 other sites that show up in the search results page. This tells us that it will be easier to rank than say, direct placement services which has 5 million results.

Phase 5 – Determine the most relevant terms

Next look through your terms and decide which ones are most relevant to your business. This is really a judgment call on your part. No one can tell you this but you. Some things to think about are: Will you feel comfortable writing about this term in your page copy? Is this term targeted toward what you do? Keep the terms that are highly relevant and get rid of the rest.

Phase 6 – Refine your terms based on the Magic formula

The last phase of refining your key phrases is kind of a balancing act. The magic formula is ” High Search volume, High Relevance, Low competitiveness. ” Go through each of your phrases using this formula and eliminate the ones that do not fit the model. Note: If your terms have low search volume but are very relevant it is worth keeping them. An example of this is GEO targets.

Good luck!

Google Apps phasing out support for Internet Explorer 6.0

Brett Burnsworth — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 00:46:59 +0000

Wow, I cant tell you how happy i am that I received this email. It’s about time someone said enough is enough of IE6. This is the email I received today from Google.

We plan to begin phasing out support of these older browsers on the Google Docs suite and the Google Sites editor on March 1, 2010. After that point, certain functionality within these applications may have higher latency and may not work correctly in these older browsers. Later in 2010, we will start to phase out support for these browsers for Google Mail and Google Calendar.

Google Apps will continue to support Internet Explorer 7.0 and above, Firefox 3.0 and above, Google Chrome 4.0 and above, and Safari 3.0 and above.

I actually have a .png file on my company website that doesn’t render in Internet Explorer 6.0 and I refuse to change it because browsers are free and people should update them when a new one comes out. If you use internet explorer 6.0 or lower and it is your choice, you are not a good fit customer for me. Luckily I am not in web design. LOL!

So why is Google doing this? Most likely to support HTML 5.0 technology in the future. HTML 5.0 provides some really great enhancements to the web. Check out the small list below.

Video Element: My favorite HTML 5 features yet. You can embed video without having to rely on third-party proprietary plug-ins or codec. You can embed video code with the same amount of ease as you now embed an image with the ability to manipulate videos and built-in video controls among other things.

Canvas: Canvas element lets you render graphics and images on the fly. An excellent implementation of this element was done by the developers of Mozilla lab project Bespin. Which is an extensible Web Code Editor using Canvas (among other things). You need to register to try out Bespin. You can see a much simpler implementation of canvas with this drawing board (works with FF 3.5 – Chrome – Opera). All done without having to rely on plug-in, the possibilities are endless.

Application caches: The ability to store web apps like email locally and access it without having to connect to the internet or install an external client like Outlook or Thunderbird. Google gears, which helps you access Gmail offline, is an implementation of HTML 5 specifications for Applications Cache (and much more). If you use Google Gears than you are using already using this feature. You can try out an online demonstration of this feature in the form of sticky notes here, which saves information to your local DB. Works on Safari 4 and Chrome, FF 3.5 is a bit buggy on this demo.

Geolocation: This API defines location information with high-level interface (GPS) associated with the device hosting the API. Sources of location information includes Global Positioning System (GPS) and network signals such as IP address, RFID, WiFi and Bluetooth MAC addresses, and GSM/CDMA cell IDs. Yes, a big brother feature, but it can only be used if the user gives the application permission to use the information. You can try it online here

Of course there are some more features but these are just a few of my favorites.

Should you have a mobile website?

Brett Burnsworth — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 18:39:07 +0000

Happy New Year everyone! I hope you are ready for 2010. In this post we will explore the phenomenon that is to take place this year in the world of mobile web browsing.

“Mobile browsing now accounts for 1.3% of all web browsing and is rising at a rapid rate, according to the latest figures released by NetApplicatoins.”

2010 is going to be the year for mobile websites. With the advances in mobile devices like the Droid and an increasing number of iphone users, soon you will be faced with the question of whether your company should have a mobile website or not.

There are two schools of thought on this subject.

One states that mobile browsers are becoming so advanced, you do not need to create a mobile site for them to be rendered correctly. An example of this is how the iphone and Droid render regular websites so nicely. However, most of us that have one of these devices would agree that it is a lot easier to navigate a website when it is tailored for a mobile device. This is where the second school of thought comes into play.

The second school of thought states that a mobile friendly site has less graphics, less code, and is less busy than a regular website. Thus making it easier to navigate, and load faster on a mobile device. As mobile broadband becomes better, load times may not be as big of an issue, but why make it any harder than it has to be for a customer to purchase or contact you? The faster your site loads the less customers you will lose to lag time.

If you couldn’t tell, I tend to agree with the second school of thought. This is because I think a site should be brought down the the lowest denominator for the best user experience. By doing this you are limiting your chances of losing customers to things such as; lag time, poor navigation or not having the correct screen size for mobile devices.

I recently read an extensive report that showcased the current and future use of mobile Internet.

We are now in the “early innings” of the development of the mobile internet, according to a recent report from investment group Morgan Stanley, after the evolution of the PC and the desktop internet.

“As 3G adoption hits inflection points in many markets, consumers are flocking to a broad range of IP- based usage models over powerful mobile Internet- enabled devices. We predict that smartphones will out-ship the global notebook and netbook market in 2010E and out-ship the global PC market (notebook and netbook and desktop) by 2012E,” the report’s authors said.

Still not convinced? Below are some reasons you should think about having a mobile website in 2010.

93% of U.S. adults own a cell phone.
Mobile web will overtake the desktop within 5 years.
$1.6 billion purchased from mobile devices in 2009.
Mobile advertising spending will surpass $6.5 billion in 2012.
Your regular website is not going to cut it for the small screens and mobile bandwidth.
Mobile sites are indexed separately than regular sites in Google.

It is no secret that mobile web browsing is only gaining momentum. Right now we are past the point of the early adopters phase as this year the growth of mobile users is predicted to surpass 2009 by 10%.

My company(Zoodle Marketing Group) is currently working on our mobile website design. It is set to launch before mid February this year. However, throughout last year we have been working with many of our customers to put together a plan for their mobile websites. Most of which will launch in the first quarter of this year.

If you haven’t put a mobile website into your marketing plan for 2010, I would suggest you reconsider. It is going to be the year for mobile growth. Get in the game and get a head of your competition.