What is the value of getting someone to Like your Facebook page? Hitwise released research that claims that a Facebook Like will produce 20 additional visits to your site over the course of a year.

If that’s true, it’s easy to back into an allowable cost-per-like. You can follow along with this Google spreadsheet.

Let’s use the example of an ecommerce website. If your target is 1 order and your conversion rate is 1%, then you need 100 visits to generate 1 order.

If 1 like produces 20 visits, then you need 5 likes. Next, plug in your average order value (AOV) and target ROI. That tells you how much you can spend in total on Likes (Max Like Spend). Divide that by the Likes Required (5) and you get a Max Cost/Like, $3.33

The same logic applies to a lead gen business. In this example, I’ve calculated a target Cost-Per-Lead, which is then the same as my Max Like Spend. If you want, you can add in a line or two for Target ROI or other conversion metrics, but I kept it simple:

Check out the Google doc to see my formulas.

Calculate How Much Should You Pay for a Facebook Like

Most writing about search marketing tends to be tactical tips from practitioners. Understanding Sponsored Search: Core Elements of Keyword Advertising, a new book by Prof. Jim Jansen, takes a more academic look at the field. I took some time to interview Jim to understand how his book can help search marketers and learn some of his more surprising findings.

Cambridge University Press has generously agreed to give away a free copy of Understanding Sponsored Search to one Digital Alex reader. Simply tweet a a link to the post by today (by 11:59 p.m. on 9/6/11). I’ll choose one winner at random (you’ll need to share your mailing address to receive the book).

.

1. What’s the difference between your book and more practitioner oriented books?

This book focuses on the theory, models, and constructs underlying the practices that we do in keyword advertising. Naturally, every account has its own uniqueness, exceptions, and caveats. However, there are nearly always some commonalities in general principles. This book addresses these trends. It is different that the typical practitioner books (many of which are excellent!) in that it does not focus on the “how” but instead focuses on the “why”.

2. What were some of the most surprising things you learned in your research?

Having taught, researched, and implemented keyword advertising efforts for nearly more than a decade (I was co-author on one of the first published accounts of web searching using really search engine data, from Excite to
give you and idea of how long ago), it is was most surprising that the people aspects had such an effect on all aspects of keyword advertising. We hear all the time that it is always “about the customer” or “it’s all about eyeballs”, but when you systemically analyze the data, research, commentary and trends, it is just so apparent. The person (as searcher, consumer, customer) is reflected in nearly every aspect.

3. What are some common misconceptions in paid search you’d like to see dispelled?

I don’t especially like the over focus on things like quality score. Make it a good customer experience. Quality score will take care of itself.

4. What can seasoned search marketers learn from your book? What are 1-2 ideas you’d like to see them use?

Principle of Least Effort — One of the most enduring and most thoroughly research aspects of human information behavior. People will expend the least amount of effort to get the information they need. This simple principle influences keyword selection, ad creatives, ranking, and bidding. Make it as easy (and fast, and straightforward, and simple) for the customer. Again, it’s all about the person.

Don’t forget to tweet a link to this post to enter for a free copy of Jim’s book.

About Jim
Jim Jansen is an associate professor in the College of Information Sciences and Technology at The Pennsylvania State University. He is the author of several books, most recently Understanding Sponsored Search(Cambridge
University Press, September 1, 2011). He is currently a senior fellow at the Pew Internet and American Life Project, where he studies the uses and affordances of the Web for information searching and ecommerce, with a focus on the interaction between the person and the technology

You can buy his book, Understanding Sponsored Search: Core Elements of Keyword Advertising, at Amazon.

Disclosure: Links in this post contain affiliate codes, which help pay for my hosting. If you’d rather not use them, simply search on Amazon.

Win a Free Book: Understanding Sponsored Search by Jim Jensen

There is no shortage of search conferences to polish up your skills. So, when the folks at Distilled said they were launching a new conference in New York, SearchLove, I was skeptical. But, I’ve been on a panel with Will Critchlow before and he’s tremendously sharp and well connected in the SEO world, so I decided to ask him what makes SearchLove unique in this Q&A.

DigitalAlex readers can use the code SEARCH2011BIRD to save $200 on registration.

.

1.) Okay, I have to ask: Does the search community really need another conference? What makes SearchLove unique than, say, SMX Advanced?

We felt that there was some things we could provide in a conference that are different to the experience with the big events. Our conferences are all in one track, with a much smaller number of the very best speakers we can find. Each of the speakers gets enough time to dig deep into their subject (45 minutes plus). With no expo, no sponsor tracks etc. all our speakers know that they have to bring their A game as they will be speaking in front of the full audience.

We live and die by the quality of our content – we put huge effort into the speaker prep – I personally am getting on the phone now with our speakers to plan out their sessions and we are all very heavily involved in making sure that our speakers bring tips and tricks that we would want to hear. My biggest tip for our speakers is to imagine they are speaking only to me and Rand. They have to tell us things we don’t know.

Also – while this is our first time in NYC, we have been running these events for the past few years (London, Boston, NOLA) as well as contributing to MozCon which has a very similar flavor. The attendees are telling us that what we are doing is different and is needed.

2.) Who is this conference for: hardcore SEO’s, newbies, brand marketers? You can’t answer “everyone” or I’ll stop liking you.

Definitely not everyone. I would say that experienced SEOs will get the most out of it. Newbies can learn a lot if they have thoroughly grounded themselves in the basics and are prepared to take away a load of notes for further study, but we specifically ask our speakers to go fast and deep into the advanced stuff. We get a lot of in-house guys coming as well as consultants / agency types and both get a lot out of it.

3.) I know you’re still working on the agenda, but what are people going to learn? Also, tell us about the format: lots of panels, labs, keynotes? I’m really hoping you’re going to say no panels over 3 people…

Pretty much all of our sessions are a single speaker going deep into the topic for at least 45 minutes. The only exceptions are head-to-head sessions where two speakers battle it out working towards a public vote and one live site review / live link building panel where typically Tom and Rand get on stage live to work with attendees’ sites. For the first time this year, we are also having a small number of places at a 1-1 site clinic in the breaks.

You can get the latest on the line up here: http://www.distilled.net/events/searchlove-new-york/ – we have some amazing speakers confirmed including Rand Fishkin and Wil Reynolds (who is not only from the East Coast but also rated higher than Rand or me at our last event). We have big US names like Michael Gray (graywolf), Laura Lippay and Bob Rains as well as some brits like Stephen Pavlovich and Mat Clayton who will knock your socks off. I’m very excited to hear them all speak.

We always have a big focus on link building and off-site techniques as these are so in demand. As well as that, we will cover on-site, keyword research, social media, analytics, new technologies and changes to the algorithms.

4.) Search nerds love parties. What’s the networking part of the show like?

Being a smaller show, we have great opportunities for attendees to hang out with the speakers and each other. As well as the exclusive party for attendees on the evening of Monday 31st (at the Aspen Social Club 157 West 47th Street), we have a small number of tickets left to an exclusive VIP dinner with the speakers on the Sunday night at Malloney & Porcelli.

5.) Give us an SEO nugget to tease the show: What’s a great eCommerce SEO tip?

I am currently enjoying applying some conversion rate optimization principles to SEO. In particular, using services like feedback army, usertesting.com or even mechanical turk to gauge how different segments respond to your site. Asking questions about how likely they are to share a particular page, whether they trust the site / its design etc. You can find that if you increase these things by just small amounts you see huge returns across thousands of product pages. As Google focusses more and more on trust metrics, I think this kind of approach will reap ever greater rewards.

Follow Will Critchlow on Twitter for SEO tips, @willcritchlow

SearchLove Conference: Q&A with Will Critchlow

Source: http://bit.ly/aPzFlC

I’ve had a lot of positions at my current company (ClickEquations, formerly Commerce360), but one of the ones I most enjoyed was a multivariate testing project I did with a large entertainment provider.

In preparing for the project, I read a ton about testing, what to test, past tests that worked, etc. There is no shortage of information about what to test or how to test it (see. www.WhichTestWon.com, for example).

What surprised me about the experience was that very little time was spent talking about the most important elements of a successful test: people.

Specifically, the people you need to help you with a test.

.

CRO & Big Companies

If you manage your own website, launching a test happens in an afternoon and you’re making the calls. If you’re heading up a conversion rate project for a website with hundreds of thousands of visitors a day, it quickly becomes a project convincing people to help you test with some conversion rate optimization attached.

That was the case for the company I worked with, as it was one of their first forays into testing. Getting momentum required buy-in from several key stakeholders:

1. Champion – We had an awesome internal advocate who prioritized the project and rallied the troops. He served as the central point of contact to coral everything on the client side while my coworker (the account manager) and I got to focus on the testing.
   .
2. Executive Sponsorship – The client had to lay out money for both software (we used SiteSpect) and our consulting fees. Working on our project also meant diverting hours for contributing departments (see below) from other projects to testing.
   .
3. Development Buy-In – Every testing project involves some changes to your site in one way or another: DNS changes, tags in footers, Mboxes, etc. The bigger the site, the more cautious the IT and development team. You need to get in their sprint cycle. I recommend you choose a technology that allows you to ask for help from development once and then permits changes on the fly afterward.
   .
4. Creative – Someone has to create all of those test variations and in bigger companies, they generally have to be sensitive to brand guidelines or other restrictions. More importantly, you need an ally on the creative team who is will to let you butcher their work and possibly test something that, from a design perspective, they may not necessarily agree with.
   .
5. Analytics – Chances are, there is already someone in the company doing analytics or, as was the case for my client, statistics. You’re going to need access to analytics data to design an effective test and they might even review it with you.

.

Converstion Team Optimization

Testing can fundamentally change how a business operates and where decision making power lies. It also involves new and different business processes. That is to say, testing means change. People, especially bigger companies, are often slow to change.

In my experience, a great Champion and Executive Sponsor set the tone for the rest of the team. They approve budgets, timelines and the allocation of resources. A great process and communication help win over the rest of the team, but that’s for another blog post.

The Surprisingly Important Element of Successful Testing

I’m presenting on 2 different panels today: Industrial Strength PPC and eCommerce & Retail Search Marketing Tactics. Here are my presentations! I’d love to hear your tips for either topic, so leave a comment.

Presentations from SMX East: Industrial Strength PPC & eCommerce PPC Tips

Part of my job is keeping up on all of the paid search news. It’s easy to get swept up in vast and generous search community only to realize that the general marketing public doesn’t obsess about paid search like we do.

Fortunately, I had a chance to take a step back and think about PPC from a non-search marketer’s point of view for my interview on Marketwire’s Ask The Expert. In their words, “the Ask the Expert interview series is Marketwire’s way of delving into the minds of industry leaders and experts, asking them the most salient and pertinent questions that affect PR, IR and marketing communications professionals.”

In the interview, I tackled 7 broad and tactical questions about PPC:

• Where does PPC fit in the overall marketing mix?
• What are some of the trends in paid search that marketers need to know about?
• What are some of the barriers that keep people from improving their PPC ROI?
• Could you briefly explain what Quality Score (QS) is and provide us with some tips on how people can improve QS?
• Explain the correlation between PPC, SEO and Social. How do you see the three working together?
• When it comes to paid search, it’s important to try to understand the thought process of the customer.  What are your top web analytics metrics that provides this insight?  Can you provide tips on improving these metrics?
• How do you see ClickEquations evolving within the next couple years now that companies and brands have so much focus on social media?

Read the interview here. Thanks to Nick Shin for the opportunity.

Ask The Expert: My Interview about PPC on Marketwire

We’re all trying to improve our paid search performance from our current profit to our potential profit by doing better research, optimizing our campaigns and improving our site. When does it make sense to invest in technology to help you with that process?

That’s the theme of my speech today on the Search Marketing Toolbox panel at Search Engine Strategies San Francisco. I shared the 4 types of problems that prevent you from improving your profit, 43 paid search marketing tools and my Paid Search Marketing Technology Curve.

I recommend when it makes sense to invest in education and which tools you should consider, depending on how important paid search is to your company.

The Paid Search Technology Maturity Curve

We’ve all had that moment. You know, the one where a friend leans across the table and discreetly whispers “You’ve got something in your teeth.” Instinctively, you cover your mouth and scurry off to the bathroom to fix the problem. A flipbook of social interactions races past and you wonder how many people you talked to while that piece of spinach stole the show and undermined your credibility.

As it turns out, while I’ve been yapping on about paid search and web analytics, there’s been a big, old piece of digital spinach stuck in my blog: malware.

Both Phil Pearce (blog) and Nick Stees contacted me to let me know they got a malware warning when from AVG, a security program, when they tried to read my site. Instead of my mildly entertaining insights, they were greeted by a big, ugly warning sign screaming: Run Away!

(click to enlarge)

Not exactly the welcome mat, right?

.

Removing The Malware

Among his many useful tips, Phil pointed me in the direction of Sucuri. They bill themselves as a “provider of web-based integrity monitoring and malware detection solutions.” Or, more amusingly, “In simple terms, we clean up the mess. If your site got hacked, blacklisted or infected with malware, we fix it for you. If your site is clean, we monitor it to let you know if a problem ever happens.” I can personally back up their claim. My site was cleaned within 30 minutes of submitting my ticket, all for $10.

Until this incident, I never know Sucuri even existed and only had a vague familiarity with site monitoring and maintenance tools. It’s a bit like traveler’s insurance: you only really pay attention after you lose your luggage.

.

Lessons Learned

I’ll leave the details of how my site got infected and the potential defenses to the long list of tips Phil generously shared (included below). The larger point here is that when we think of measurement, we usually focus on marketing and site experience. Most of our analysis includes metrics that are easily accessible in our web analytics tool and generally understood. Even qualitative data focuses on site level and page level surveys.

But what happens if someone can’t get to your site? You may notice a dip in traffic, but if the segment isn’t big enough, you may not. That was certainly the case with me. I only learned about the problem, because two kind souls followed me on Twitter and took the time to reach out. How many more had an issue before I discovered it? What was the hit to my credibility? I’ll never know.

I took away two lessons:

• If you own the site experience, as a marketer or web analyst, you’re also directly or indirectly responsible for site uptime and security. Typically, this belongs to the realm of IT or webmasters. But, we can empower ourselves with our own tools, like Sucuri, to get alerts before issues spread to epidemics.
• Being easily accessible is valuable. A small number of people would ever both to take the time to track me down and help me with my site. It would have been virtually impossible for them to do that if I wasn’t public (on Twitter as DigitalAlex), participating in the conversation and welcoming of contact (I put my phone number and email address on my profile).

On a final note: My apologies if anyone experienced issues after visiting my site. I’ll try to keep the damage to bad analogies.

.

Phil’s Tips and Links
You can also try the malware scanner on this site – it can verify the WordPress install is secure – once you have restored from backup (requires login)

• http://www.UnmaskParasites.com/security-report/
• http://www.sitesecuritymonitor.com/unmask-parasites-offer

WordPress Malware & Media Temple

• http://www.uhleeka.com/blog/2010/07/johnnya-wordpress-malware-on-mediatemple/
• http://weblog.mediatemple.net/weblog/category/system-incidents/1378-information-about-compromised-sites/
• http://weblog.mediatemple.net/weblog/2010/07/02/1378-compromised-sites/

WordPress Maintenance

• Backing up and restoring a MySQL database: http://kb.mediatemple.net/questions/129/
• Hardening WordPress and checking for exploits: http://wiki.mediatemple.net/w/Hardening_Wordpress
• Working with a hacked or compromised server: http://kb.mediatemple.net/questions/1577/
• WordPress Backups: http://codex.wordpress.org/WordPress_Backups
• Database Users on the (gs) Grid-Service: http://kb.mediatemple.net/questions/1650/
• WordPress support - http://wordpress.org/support/topic/421834

WordPress Invisibile Administrator Hack (aka JohnnyA)

• How To Fix WordPress Invisible Administrator Attack – http://www.thinkerati.com/whiterabbit/seo-and-online-marketing/wordpress-invisible-administrator-hack/
• WordPress Permalink Hack – http://www.studionashvegas.com/wordpress/latest-wordpress-hack-check-your-permalinks-people/

The Measurement Tool I Wish I Never Had to Use

Paul Adams is a user experience research at Google. He recently gave a speech outlining research by Google and others into how people connect with each other and what that means for the internet.

It’s easy to follow, persuasive and, most importantly, not about technology. It’s about persistent facts about how people behave and what that means for designers (his audience) and marketers (my audience).

It’s a long read, but well worth the time.

The Best Social Media Presentation I’ve Seen