This isn’t a post for PPC newbies. I’m not going to include an entry list of what you should do to get started in PPC, I’m just going to dive straight into a few things that I’ve learned over the years… Please bear in mind post is aimed at single businesses, not multi-site affiliates, though you never know…

If you have a well known brand name – 12 Thoughts:

1. Your brand terms need to be matched with branded and verifiable adcopy, throw in those ® and ™ symbols, and make use of the word ‘Official’.
2. Advertise on all possible spelling variations. I know of one variation that cost a company 37c for the year and generated over $1K in PPC based revenue.
3. Use any relevant claims you can verify on-page in your adcopy: ‘76% of Americans Prefer our Blinds…’; ‘#1 Rated Kids Learning Craft in the US’; etc…
4. Test these claims against more audience targeted ad copy, against more keyword rich adcopy, and against more ‘sensationalist’ adcopy.
5. Have a targeted landing page for each adcopy variation. Test them all against the same landing page, one page after another.
6. Take the top two performers and test again.
7. If the results are significant in terms of difference, use the winner and start optimization and conversion testing on the winning page and adcopy.
8. Don’t only work to ROAS, especially in a big brand where you have a budget and reallocation may not be so easy. Clearly spending $2m and making $4m is better in terms of pure profit than spending $0.5m and making $2m, but the ROAS for the latter is better (4:1 vs 2:1). IF you can efficiently and effectively reallocate the $1.5m spend difference to other marketing spend opportunities that provide a return of greater than 2:1, you are positively contributing to the company’s bottom line. But If you have to spend it all, then focus on both ROAS and profit. I’ve experienced both situations, and eventually try to work towards reallocation as it’s better for the business as a whole.
9. Dedicate adgroups to each product line and product type – from the highest to the lowest level, assuming your site is structured in a relevantly hierarchical way. So have a campaign for ‘cameras’, and adgroups for (non-exhaustive iullustrative list) ‘digital cameras’, ‘video cameras’, ‘digital video cameras’, ‘nikon digital camera’, ‘canon digital camera’, ‘compare digital cameras’ etc. Use phrase and exact match more as you get more specified. Keep the broader terms to the top level, but be very careful with broad terms and watch their ROAS in particular. I cut a particularly relevant term that was broad, phrase and exact matched by our previous agency after checking the data for the past 12 months. With an ROAS of 27cents on the dollar, there was no point in continuing with that term.
10. Unless you have money to burn, or a dedicated budget to ‘blow’ on brand awareness or for a specified non-return campaign, aim for a minimum ROAS of $1:$1.
11. Try to keep brand terms for which you organically rank between 1 and 5 at a PPC rank of 1-3.
12. Be wary of competitor brand names unless you have a clear competitive advantage or selling point like a free trial, free product or special offer, and watch what they do on your brand terms.

If you do NOT have a well known brand – 12 Thoughts:

1. My personal experience has leant me to believe that PPC ‘brand awareness campaigns’ are not usually worth the effort or cost as a stand-alone endeavour.
2. Don’t target the brand names of the big-players in your space. You will get burned.
3. Targeting generic keywords can be a great investment, but your adcopy must speak to your keywords, which must actually match your target market’s search query intent.
4. Driving heaps of traffic is pointless, and costly, if they are not converting. With the masses of media bombarding your average Joe today, your PPC ad that you worked so hard on to get ‘just-right’ will be forgotten as quickly as that toothbrush ad you saw this morning – unless they bookmark your site. But they have to click before they can do that, and if you don’t have an effective traffic attribution tool, you’ll never know if it was your PPC ad anyway. That may seem jaded, but if you have to prove returns, you better be able to PROVE returns, or kiss your budget goodbye.
5. Be very strategic and tactical with your big traffic generics, watch them carefully.
6. Dedicated PPC pages usually (in my experience) perform better than your usual web pages.
7. Minimize your navigation on these dedicated pages. Use numerous, well-placed calls-to action.
8. Play with colors, button sizes and text and focus on conversion rates. Refine and optimize your pages as much as possible and on an ongoing basis making use of usability studies.
9. Usability studies can be tests using crazyegg, or panel based. If you’re going for a panel and it’s too expensive to conduct via testing experts, screen family and friends of randomly selected staff members who choose to participate. Stress the fact that you want to hear their thoughts, both bad and good. Many informal studies have skewed results because that is not communicated, and the panels incorrectly assume they need to be ‘positive’ or ‘negative’ instead of neutral in their response.
10. Generic keywords are in many cases very expensive to rank in the top 3, so make use of bid management tools and test what works in terms of clicks, CTR, conversion and ROAS. You may find that your revenue at position 5 is as high as your revenue at position 2, but with a far lower cost (higher ROAS).
11. Respond to market changes in search behaviour using tools like Google Insights, and focus on geographic markets that work. As your brand becomes better known you can expand.
12. Try out AdLinks. In my limited experience (they’re pretty new) they work, and I’m not the only one to think so!

For both – 4 More Thoughts…

1. Make sure you are inline and in-communication with other on and offline marketing initiatives to make sure you target tag-lines in dedicated pages.
2. Watch your spend and keep in contact with other MMs to see if there is additional budget for you, or if you can apply excess budget to other performing programs/initiatives.
3. Don’t be shy about trying other comparison shopping sites.
4. Be careful of content.

I know there’s tons more, but for this post I reckon that’s a good chunk to deal with. I admit, I’m a PPC and organic junkie, and I love my job! Follow me on twitter for random PPC/organic and just plain me tid-bits @lauracallow!

Usual disclaimer – These are my personal thoughts on my blog. Nothing to do with my employers – current or past. My thoughts and opinions are my own. You can see my experience on LinkedIn and you’re welcome to join my network!

BUT after years of experience, research and seeing how things work on numerous sites across multiple industries, as well as chatting with experts focused on core deliverables, this is a list of my ‘ultimate conversion tips’ with a short list of links to other fantastic, and more comprehensive, conversion tip posts, documents and articles.

Conversion Tips – Get Started People!

I’m going to make a few very basic assumptions:

• Traffic should be sent to relevant, quality, targeted pages,
• Design should avoid clutter and navigation on dedicated landing pages should be minimal,
• Content should get to the point with a relevant large headline <h1> with key content above the fold, even if the page is very long,
• Promissory enticements, and repeat calls to action are important, but histrionic copy may detract from authenticity and the perception of trustworthiness; things like ‘Today only!’, ‘You’ll regret it if you don’t buy it RIGHT NOW!’, and other dire declarations common to pushy sales-men.
• Testimonials, reviews and statements must all be true, but more importantly, verifiable

With those out of the way, I’ll head on into a countdown of the top 10 conversion tips I personally have found really make a difference throughout my  experience.

10. Make your add-to-cart buttons exactly that – ‘add to cart’¹. The button colour can also have an effect – depending on industry. In many cases I have found it is not a significant factor, but a charity site found that green definitely contributed to online donations².

9. Understand your target market. Know what they like online. Even if you don’t have dedicated usability studies and access to paid research faculties, it’s actually pretty easy to check (give yourself a reasonably wide margin of error and narrow it with tests). Use Google Ad Planner (beta) to find sites that appeal to your target audience, and analyze them. Then to get an idea of their PPC spend, projected revenue and more, Adgooroo (or free similar products) can provide insights. Take that data and extrapolate out using your tailored SEO equation. It’s guestimates in some cases, but it does usually give you a pretty good idea of what is and isn’t working, what your audience likes and does not like in terms of design, content – and it’s always important to filter and sort by industry to get trends for relevant tactics and strategies for your own industry/site.

8. Your online (web) and offline (retail) competitors may well be different, but keeping track of what both are doing online is very important. If you can see they’re testing something, mark it down for a future test yourself. If it’s something you’ve done already you can make a note of their approach and any differences. Following up again with a similar test is not a bad idea to glean learning’s, unless your first test was a total bust – in which case you’re ahead of the curve – a nice place to be. Conduct a usability study of their page, take the learning’s and run with them. Learn from their victories and their mistakes.

7. Usability has already been mentioned a few times, so in essence if the term is new to you – it’s about how fast the essence and functionality of a page is communicated, and how quickly and effectively it is engaged. Show your page to folks outside of your department who fit into you general demographic (age/sex/geo-location) and give them 6-8 seconds maximum to tell you what they think the page:

• is about,
• if they like it,
• if they would leave it,
• what stands out,
• if they would bookmark it.

Like Family Fortunes – quick, fast and fun. Have competitions for a free lunch for the team who agree (or disagree) the most. If they take more than 8 seconds to tell you what the page is about – you got a problem. If they want to leave it – problem. If nothing stands out – being unmemorable is bad from a landing page perspective as far as return conversions are concerned – and while they’re not generally the target, your audience may be characterized by research-and-select based behaviour and you need them to remember your page one way or the other; tag-line, brand name, imagery, propensity to bookmark (you need to offer that functionality)… figure out what it is they use to remember you by testing. Be as usable and user-friendly to your users as possible without being a kid’s game site, unless that’s what you are…

6.  Bear in mind email, DM, banner ad, TV ad, radio ad etc web landing pages are all different, or should be. Each target market demographic is different in some way; older/younger; attentive/inattentive; employed/stay-at-home; employed/retired; busy/bored and so forth.

If you can target your landing pages to convert the demographic you are specifically targeting, it’s all the better. That requires in-company communications and campaign scheduling. It also requires getting full details from your TV/radio/print(where-ever) folks to make sure you have a heads up to online-target the right folks with the best content and design, at the right time with effective use of your vanity URL. Clearly you’ll have vanity URL’s to effectively track activity, as well as a crack phone team/different call-in numbers.

This is about conversion. There are a lot of different sources you need to consider for inclusion as separate entities in your armament .

5. If your conversion page includes a form, keep the mandatory elements for completion to a minimum. Not ideal for market research sure, but ideal for conversion. Include auto fills wherever possible, make it as easy as you can. Tick email sign-ups and notifications ‘OFF’ and encourage click to subscribe with enticing content offers/future discounts – whatever your product/service and market may find of interest. Don’t leave it clicked as ‘Yes/Opt-in’ unless at the bottom of the form, and even then be careful. Encourage them to want to hear more from you. Experienced web writers can effectively manage that conundrum. I’ve seen it work. The objective is initial conversion – repeat conversion is a somewhat different animal. Focus on your core objective with your landing page.

4. A lot of folks find that the ability to print a pdf to refer to is of use. This is especially of interest when it comes to big purchase decisions. Make sure those pages have everything they need with a print option. If you can manage to include a print coupon or discount percentage on print only  with clear legalese to that effect that’s even better for the end user when they are doing their comparisons. Stress your tech specs/reviews/price/capacity/capability/functionality/requirements/ whatever are your selling points. Make sure the pdf is usably designed, and always leave a clear link to the dedicated, targeted conversion page they first found in the copy that can both be easily typed into a browser, or clicked to via a pdf. It’s all about the conversion.

3. Make it easy for comparison shoppers. More and more people are using sites like pricegrabber/ebay/amazon/kijiji etc to search. Review and check pricing on products and services. You don’t have to be cheapest. You do need to be the most informative, authoritative and have a track record of delivery and performance – reviews are becoming more and more important. Even if you don’t have them on your site, enable them via your third party online vendors. Pay attention to what peeps are doing in terms of CTR and conversion, and also pay attention to your review commentary. Pass it to R&D and support. Conversion optimization is not a silo effect. You need to feed your learning’s on.

2. A/B test everything. The copy/size/colours/placement of your buttons; the functionality of your page; headlines; copy length/grammar/formality; image size/colour variation/placement/ type; text size and colour; page layout/design and navigation placement; the navigation itself; calls to action. Visual click heat-maps are great to gain an understanding of paths of interest as well as which areas of the page are underperforming, or which buttons/calls-to-action/links are underperforming. Moving, changing and testing can give you the best possible design, content, and conversion tactics if you do it consistently and with accurate, quality tools.

1. It’s a harsh truth, but a necessary one that many affiliates would agree with even if reluctantly; while you can master – and I mean guru status – 1 (maybe 2 specialties) in general; ‘a-jack-of-all-trades is master-of-none’. If you really want to make a difference in terms of landing page conversion, you need a specialist. If possible, you should have a team of specialists each contributing their own dedicated area of expertise to maximize your users landing page exposure and experience and thus your own conversions;

• hire an SEM for SEO and PPC,
• a social expert for SMM,
• an expert web copy writer for web writing,
• a proven web designer for landing page design,
• an experience designer for additional conversion tips and tricks, as well as
• a qualified web tester to handle your actual testing.

Of course not every business can afford a perfect ‘dream-team’, but if you know what you want to achieve, and give yourself time to achieve it that is realistic and dependant on your resourcing (people or time) limitations, there is no reason that a smaller team of dedicated pros willing to get down and dirty with research and testing can’t make a significant difference to your conversion rates. I speak from experience when I say it’s tough out there, and it’s getting tougher. As a man (or woman) alone, you’ll get there, but it will take you a lot longer, so use the net to gain from other’s experiences to simplify your own learning curve. Bigger businesses can afford dream teams, and those teams perform. Depending on what you’re selling online, it is imperative to your businesses or sites survival and continuance that you be able to compete at some level.

Happy conversions folks!

¹ www.getelastic.com/add-to-cart-buttons/

² http://www.donordigital.com/projects/donordigital_donation_page_optimization_research.pdf – the bottom of this article includes links to an additional 2 research articles:

• Improving Conversion 50-60% by Applying Continuity and Congruence
• 7 rules for landing page optimization

Other resources

- Unbounce.com ebook – 101 Landing page tips

- Seldomstatic.com – Top landing page tips from the pros

- eMarketing Testing – Conversion Papers

There is more freedom (and lack of cost) associated with effective in-house management, but it always surprises me as to how this type of move is met by the engine reps and other folks still using agencies.

In-house you’re after the lowest possible CPA, and the best possible ROAS. You’re also looking at overall profit for the business – but that can’t be done on a short term basis in a big brand, so I’ll stick with ROAS for now. (CPA is slightly different and affected by more than one variable or campaign depending on your analytics.)

My budget was cut dramatically in my first month of in-house for external reasons I won’t go into. And yet we managed to optimize until we dropped, and we maintained expectations on year to index levels for conversions, sales and unit volumes while falling drastically short of expected traffic levels. Makes you think, no?

My “in-house” Point

When PPC is in-house, and your deliverable is to provide great ROAS and minimal CPA, as a search marketer you are unaffected by the (often valid) claims that pure exposure on the long (generic) tail is worth the investment. You are also less affected by the need to maintain or increase spend for %age remuneration purposes. Obviously agencies have to deliver, it’s their job to do so, and there are many that do a great job including the agency we recently moved from. However, when you are told to cut-to-the-chase and give it maximum return on the dollar, it’s nice to have it in-house.

It’s also much faster, more cost effective and efficient to make changes to everything; from new campaigns, to revamped adcopy; from redirecting to new landing pages to bid-management… In a very small nutshell – it’s faster, easier and has more immediate visibility for your stakeholders when you have the opportunity of doing it cost-free and quickly with the ability to pull and repurpose reports at will as you manage the campaigns hands-on.

My “Personal Development” Point

If you are interested in growing as a business in the PPC realm and can afford to hire a PPC specialist in-house, you’ll likely save money – assuming they ARE pro. It’s easy to check; are they AdWords Qualified? Were/are they an affiliate? Who did they do PPC for previously?… They should be able to give you general data without betraying confidence. And it is data you should be able to check in general.

But if you can get a good PPC pro in-house and help them grow – they will likely give you results at a fraction of the cost, and you can help them achieve their own career objectives by facilitating their learning curve, or contributing to it.

Happy PPC!

My comments as an ex-teacher on the post:

1. Many parents are irresponsible
2. Many parents are clueless
3. Many parents are caring and concerned
4. I understand the post, but do not condone their approach

For the irresponsible,

This is a wake-up call to listen to the teachers of your children. You put them in the school. If you don’t like what they do – even in public school – you can make your voices heard, if you take the time:

• Ask for data
• Ask for solutions
• Recommend solutions
• Move your kids
• Relocate

Your kids are the biggest blessing the Good Lord ever gave you. If you don’t like where they are, or the teachers they have. Do something. If you don’t care, or are silenced by government rhetoric– take them home and teach them yourself. It’s not easy.

For the clueless

Parents! You were children once.

• Do you remember what you loved and hated about your parents?
• Do you remember what you wished they had been?
• Do you remember what it felt like to ‘feel alone’, ‘no-one understands me’, ‘no-one cares’, ‘I’m nothing’
• Did you ever feel like ‘I have nothing to offer compared to peter, paul, sally’, ‘my parents don’t care so if I disrespect my teachers, it’s all good’’, ‘my parents don’t love me, why should I show care to others?’ and on and on

Parents are ultimately responsible for how their children behave in their younger school years. Sure, from the age of 12 and up they should know how to be responsible members of society – but that is NOT the teacher’s or the school’s responsibility. That is the parent’s responsibility, with some reliance on the teachers teaching them the academics that are age associated.

For the Caring and Concerned

• I can’t comment on this school, but I do know that teachers tend to chat in the staff room about the kids in their classes and their perceptions of the parents. Most are incredibly impartial and do their utmost to be fair in the classroom – and it’s not easy.
• It’s also not the teachers fault if little Johnny (from a disciplined home*) does better than little Peter (from a home where ‘everything goes’ – regardless of reason)
• Loving your kids does not give parents license to allow them to become undisciplined little monsters with the expectation that ‘school will sort them out’.
• You have one, maybe 2 to contend with. School has 10-30 per class.
• If you don’t like what the school is doing, let them know! Most teachers are more than open to hear from parents. In fact, apart from the slightly overbearing or hysterical parents, they hear nothing or very little.

My understanding – without condoning – of this message

I was a teacher in a very good school for a few years before my twins were born. My students did very well, and I harboured and maintained the school’s sense of respect for both teachers and elders – neither of which our society conforms to today in general.

I did however work for a time, as part of my training, in a public school and the parents ritually:

• Lied for their children when the truth would have been hard, but helped them to avoid the consequences
• Excused their children from school, homework, gym, library etc. for entirely fallacious reasons – most thinking they were helping their children avoid a consequence they were responsible for, and should have answered.
• Defended their behaviour under unacceptable circumstances

In the public school realm, this is the norm in many (not all) instances – and I am sure my experience of England – and this experience of Australia – may not extend to the US and Canada? You tell me. Recent examples leap to mind including the burning of that 15 year old youngster, the rape of another young girl at a prom, and more…

It is not the teachers to blame entirely, nor the school system, but the parents. Ultimate obedience or disobedience, understanding of consequences and ability to integrate with society lies with the dad, mom and close family values and practice.

This answering message unfortunately lacks foresight, understanding of the full repercussions of such a statement, and is in itself offensive with no outlet to concerned parents to actually report a sick or absent child.

For the parents of this school, perhaps you need to go back and get a poll on how your parent body behaved to prompt this response, not cause it.

For the school, this type of response, while understood by staff, is inappropriate in its tone and entirely unacceptable to both students and parents alike. Students, like parents, will stand by their own and while the message was enlightening, it was alienating. I doubt that was your intent as a public school body, and yet I understand that the excuses, lies and misinformation are a hard-cross to bear.

Deal with it as best you can, but not by an abusive, uncaring voice-mail.  

It’s actually pretty easy…

1. Decide if hiring in-house for SEO + PPC or SEM combined is more feasible in terms of your spend than outsourcing.

I realize it depends on size and revenues… but as soon as you get to a point where you can hire inhouse, you chould. Using an agency initially may give you an idea of the power of SEM (SEO+PPC) assuming you get a decent agency. I recommend contacting Epiar or Clix Marketing in the first instance for SEO and PPC respectively. If their books are full, they will point you in the right direction (North America wide).

As with anything, you pay for what you get. If you want to look for your own agency for SEO or PPC, or combined services – I recommend:

• steering clear of combined unless they are pretty big with a decent size staff
• asking to see their current and past client list
• determining how they charge – if they really know their stuff, they will charge for performance, though most will ask for a % of PPC spend and/or will have a flat rate per page/per site (based on pages escalating) or per unit of SEO (keyword research/title tags/meta data etc) for SEO services. If anyone asks you for more than 10% of spend for PPC…reconsider – even that is pretty high, and again, it depends on the size of your account. The best way to go with SEO is via performance models. In which case you will need to give them your analytics data. MNDAs or simple NDAs are fine, most will have no problem signing. If anyone does – don’t sign…
• Clarify how often they will check your account and analytics, how they will report, and how often along with what tactical refinements they will make – and how often
• The key thing is to know what you want to achieve (realistically) and then shop around to see who can offer you the best bang for your buck – hinging on the BANG
• Go cheap and lose your $. Go with what sounds great but with unproven promises or undisclosed clients, and lose $ – pretty safe to say that. Play safe – especially with your PPC dollars…

2. Know which questions to ask

If you hire a consultant – pleas read this post, if you are hiring an agency, we’ve covered that with the above info and the post, and if you’re hiring in-house, I suggest the following along with a review of the type of questions asked in the post mentioned:

• Have a screening phone call first to find out if you think the person might be a fit for your business based on a predetermined set of questions based on your corporate culture, expectations and the personalities of your existing staff. It may sound a bit daft, but it will save you endless amounts of frustration and possible unnecessary quits during probation.
• Follow up prior to first face-to-face with an SEM based questionnaire – preferably about your own site asking for good points, bad points and top points to address for maximum impact within a time frame and/or budget.
• Face-to-face and decide.
• Offer what they are worth, and if you can’t afford them based on their worth, offer them bonus, shares etc to get them. Check out GlassDoor to get an idea of what people may expect. And don’t think cheap or new is better. If you really want to make a difference in the search engines results – you need a pro, or at least some significant experience with what makes SEO work, and what gives PPC a decent ROAS.

LMK if you have any questions, and good luck!

Follow me on Twitter, and come hear me speak at Pubcon!

1. Which Search Terms to Target

This is somewhat subjective & somewhat objective. It really depends on 4 primary interrelated variables:

i.   the level of competition for the phrase

ii.  the relationship between search query language (phrase), search query intent (expectation/anticipated result), and the relevance of the search phrase to your offering (perceived or real match/deviation)

iii. your search marketing objectives

iv. your resources

Example #1. If the query language is very exploratory (generic; e.g. ‘laptop computers’ = 9.1m searches/mo [US]), the competition is relatively high (46m results), and the expectation is more specific (e.g. ‘small dell laptop’ = 2.5K searches/mo [US]) – then you can assume that your primary target audience is not search savvy, and that it’s going to take some work. So you refer back to your other variables:

- Does achieving a good rank for a generic term fit with your objectives?

- Do you have the resources (time, people, money) to commit to targeting this type of phrase set?

Example #2. If your search marketing objective is to generate brand awareness, then targeting more generic, high volume terms makes sense, assuming you have the resources, but; if your search marketing objective is driven by a purely conversion based metric, and you have limited organic pages (by design/default/intent/limitation/whatever), it may make sense to target a more specific set of phrases.

2. Where to Place your Selected Key-Phrases

Most old-hats will know these points, but to continue with the high-level overview, the first thing you need to do is audit your existing URL structure once you have completed the keyword research:

• Get rid of unnecessary folders e.g.:

- yoursite.com/product1group/product1a/overview/product.htm

• Create meaningful keyword rich folders e.g.:

- yoursite.com/dell-laptop-computers/product.htm

- yoursite.com/hp-laptop-computers/product.htm

• Create meaningful keyword rich files e.g.:

- yoursite.com/dell-laptop-computers/small-dell-laptop.htm

- yoursite.com/hp-laptop-computers/hp-business-laptop.htm

• 301 redirect all old files to the most relevant new file. Depending on objectives this could be to the new file for which you anticipate the highest volume of traffic, or for which you anticipate the highest number of conversions (e.g., based on web analytics of the existing site)

Then place the selected keyphrase per page:

• in the title tag (sticking to 70 characters with spaces) – for SEO. Make the title short and match the anticipated search query language & intent as closely as possible e.g.:
  • HP Business Laptop | HP Laptop Computers 
  • Unless you are a very well known brand name, with a high Net Promoter score, don’t include your brand name unless you really have to.
• in the META description (sticking to 155 characters + spaces) – for usability, click-through and some SEO effect e.g.:
  • Easily compare HP business laptops. 1 year factory warranty + 18 months from yoursite.com. Easy payment terms. We get you started – Fast! Find out more…

• in the <h> tags; use the specific term in the <h1> and the more generic term in an <h2> where possible – for SEO and usability e.g.:
  • <h1> Looking for Your Next HP Business Laptop?</h1>
  • <h2> Easily Compare & Choose from our Comprehensive Selection of HP Laptop Computers</h2>
• in the ALT attributes and image names; keep your image naming protocol clean, and remember to title your images as well (see ‘Accessibility and ARIA’) – for SEO and usability
• in the content. Many SEO’s say that keyword density is not important. I disagree – with a caveat; keyword density is vitally important – within reason… If the target keyphrase does not appear in the copy more than a few times in relevant areas, then the page may not actually be relevant to the term regardless of being placed in other key areas. I’m not saying there is a keyword density limit – max or min. What I am saying is:
  • write your content thoughtfully bearing in mind your <h> tags and your actual intent, assuming your intent is to arm people with more information around your core targeted phrases
  • never go back and insert keyphrases into copy once it is written
  • never write copy simply to target keyphrases
  • keep it natural, readable, usable and relevant.
  • it’s simple, yet it’s not. Experienced web copy-writers are worth their weight in gold.
• in the navigation and in your internal linking practice. This may cause some ructions with legal/branding/usability, and if you want to find out how you might get around these challenges, come to my session at Pubcon !

3. Optimized Use of Your Keyphrases

I’ll mention Pubcon again, but in the interim… make sure:

• you know what tag-lines are being used by offline marketing, and create pages
• you connect with PR (press release, not page rank – y’sll have a one track mind)
• you connect with social and help with blog posts, asks and answers and with creating pages around key positives or negatives regarding your offering to speak to detractors and support evangelists. More than 20% of search results are now UGC based. Don’t miss out by ignoring commentary, forums and the social space (a topic I have exhausted in previous posts and nearly bored my lovely readers to death – check them out if you missed them)

Come follow me on Twitter! And please come back soon…

~ Laura

It’s hurricane season in the world of online marketing – in terms of stats that is. They’re everywhere, flying fast and furious and changing the landscape:

• Strategies that withstand the deluge of stats are worth continued consideration
• Strategies that do not weather the stat-storms may simply have been built on a poor foundation, or may just simply have been poor.
• Strategies you don’t employ that seem to be appealing to your market (like boarding up your windows¹) also deserve some think-tank time.

I’m going to leap out on a limb here regarding these 5 stats I’ve pulled for your interest and state the following:

1. As far as I know, everyone reading this was actually born
2. Most of us will fall in love, and many of us will at some point get married, for better of worse
3. A whole schwak of folks are educated, and a painful process that was
4. Most of us would like to be gainfully employed, or instant millionaires, but I can only speak to the former
5. All of us have friends, some a few special friends, some a whole swathe of acquaintances. I can count my really good friends on one hand, and my other friends on my other hand and my toes (I regress digress). But I also have a big bunch of folks I like and respect in the social space, and who I may well become friends with in time – apparently I can be a handful, so I’m warning you now before I ask you to follow me on Twitter!

Let’s take a peek at some recent stat releases that on the surface² appear to be worth peeking at, and how they may impact your strategy:

1. We were born: By 2010 Gen Y will outnumber Baby Boomers….96% of them have joined a social network

- are you reaching out the Gen Y and iGen folks on the social networks? If not, perhaps you should. If you’re not sure how, I strongly recommend Linda Bustos’ post on ‘Top 10 Web 2.0 Activities for Ecommerce’ as a great guide to what works, and why.

2. We fall in love: 1 out of 8 couples married in the U.S. last year met via social media

- Do you sell engagement rings, his and her toiletries, flowers, gifts, gift cards… are your ads quick, to the point, targeted to burgeoning relationships of all ages? Romance is universal and timeless.

- Do you host weddings, are you a wedding planner, reception venue? Are you offering deals and coupons, discounts and special treatment for your customers, online and on the social networks?

- Do you have parenting advice, sell baby products, books on how to engage your new wife’s 7 year old son, or gift ideas for your new husbands 10 year old daughter?

- This list is scary long in how what you could offer and how you could engage with the ready and waiting and already engaged market.

- You can take it further to appeal to age groups, family life-cycle status etc

3. We are educated: 1 in 6 higher education students are enrolled in online curriculum, and the 2009 US Department of education study revealed that online students out-performed those receiving face-to-face instruction (on average).

- Do you tutor higher-ed students?

- Do you sell academic books (especially curriculum dictated books)

- Do you offer career, advice, stress, relationship, money management etc consultation?

- There is a big market of online higher-ed students out there needing everything a young adult needs, especially one attempting to better themselves, looking for deals, and active in the online space… where are you?

4. We have or would like a job: 80% of companies use Linkedin as a primary tool to find employees.

- Are you looking for a job?

- Are you interested in better career opportunities?

- Are your recruiting costs high?

- Are you interested in expanding your resource pool geographically?

- If your answer to any of these or similar questions is ‘Yes!’, get on Linkedin, or expand your use. Worst case scenario is the initial cost of a monthly membership fee of about $49/month, and you can cancel any time I believe.

5. We have friends: 78% of consumers trust peer recommendations, 14% trust advertisements & only 18% of traditional TV campaigns generate a positive ROI

- Word of mouth, the most powerful converter known ever has made it’s way online. It is now called peer recommendations – do you have reviews of your products? Do you deal with customer complaints and praise equally fairly, quickly and overtly?

- Are you still relying on advertisements alone? Or TV?

- What is your determination of an effective brand messaging and awareness campaign?

- Are you only after short term profits, or are you interested in both short-term profits and long term brand & reputation establishment?

·         “Hi, I’m curious about your work as a web marketing manager and wondered if you had any advice for someone just joining the online advertising sector re where/how to begin one’s job search? Where does such a path eventually lead? How much of the work is mathematical and how much creative (generally speaking)?.. [a bit more].”

Usually I don’t answer these types of contacts, especially from complete strangers, but for some reason this one made me think. I checked out the chap who asked it, and he’s one clever dude – totally out of the remit of internet marketing of any kind, but probably far more intelligent and business savvy than I could ever be. SO I decided to get back to him – with some minor changes and pictures added for fun here.

This is what I wrote, and I thought it would be of interest to folks who have ever been wondering the same thing.

“INTERESTING QUESTIONS! These are some quick thoughts…

1. Where does such a path eventually lead?

Depending on your level of experience and any qualifications you may have in marketing - creative agency project management, content or copywriting, analytics, web design and/or web development (in general) - the web marketing path can both open to you and lead you to a position of Online Marketing Director, Operations Director, Senior Project Manager, Senior Web Analyst, Usability Professional and higher to VP, COO, CMO etc..

As with any career it depends on ability, enthusiasm, dedication and – more than most – on flexibility and willingness to learn fast, adapt to change, and deal with multiple personality types.

2. How much of the work is mathematical and how much creative?

a. If you are more figures based, then getting into project management in a web based company may be a good bet based on any management training – this can lead to operations management if you fit the bill. Alternatively, getting deeper into coding and working with statistical information might open the door to development (code), search engine optimization (SEO) and/or web analytics.

b. if you are a creative, you can silo into design, online advertising (banner and email advertising), social networking or/and PPC (pay per click is the other half of SEM [search engine marketing, which = SEO + PPC + Analytics]

c. If you thrive on research and application, then you can go for usability, analytics, SEM, social or a combination thereof.

It’s a great industry with many applications, facets, opportunities and potential areas of specialization.

3. Where/how to begin one’s job search?

Based on the above (very brief and incomplete) intro, I would suggest you search job boards for positions that may interest you and read the job descriptions and requirements. I recommend checking out YourJobStop.com.

It remains a ‘relatively’ new field, but it is highly competitive and while there are few targeted degrees or qualifications, ability is more important and is easily and quickly seen. Enthusiasm is a must, and in most cases implementation/practical experience will count.

Some additional tid-bits:

1. The best way to really get some basic experience – if it’s totally new to you – is to set up a website, play with basic html and experiment with basic PPC, and SEO, and social while reading as much as you can about the area of the industry that interests you most. If you can add a web site to your CV, even if it’s just a personalized blog, that may help in some cases provided it is well conceived, designed, maintained and has good original content applicable to your new ‘area of interest’.

2. I’m not sure if it’s of interest to you, but I loved maths and statistics (quantitative methods), included both in my BCom., and the latter in my MBA. I love data and the ability to research and apply my learnings, while contributing to usability best practice – and I’m a relatively successful search marketer. Online advertising is a bit different as it targets purchasing flight times on advertiser sites (sometimes a year in advance) utilizing multimedia ads including Flash and driving to campaign dedicated pages that are marked for analytics – and much, much more than I can include in this supposedly short, quick answer.

Concluding thoughts

As with any form of marketing, online marketing (be it advertising or optimization) has the onus upon it to prove success. This is usually in the form of ROAS (return on ad spend), and there is a whole financial/analytical strategic discipline behind determining online marketing goals and their measurement for stake and shareholders. That’s where analytics becomes vital as the measurement tool, and where planning, negotiation, process, management and more raise their heads as vital disciplines.

The origin of marketing hasn’t changed – and we need to be the folks with the real deal, in the front and well ahead of the scammers…

The Whonk

I hope that helps to a certain extent. If I can help you with more specific information on anything that interests you, please let me know…

My very best to you, and God bless – Laura”

BUT! That’s not the end… I got a really nice reply that I’ll include here in part (not all of it due to the fact that some personal info was shared, and yes we are now buds. I think I may have the better end of that deal J)

·         Well Laura,

·         I think you must get a prize for one of the most informative messages! …[]

·         So strangely enough, your great knowledge on this subject steered me quite a bit away from it – in fact, back to   my original line of work, from which I had veered and wanted to explore ecommerce opportunities – from there online advertising had seemed a natural choice, and now I get the same queasy feeling that I did once I discovered what SQL entailed.

·         That was cool of you to advise me on this, I am certain that if this had been my calling, you would have set me in the right direction – you already did by showing that I’m probably better off elsewhere[]. Still glad to have talked and feel fortunate that we met here. []

·         Take care,

Thanks for reading! Please follow me on Twitter and we’d love it if you signed up to our feed for more unlikely gems and insights J…

FIRST, I’ll pull from Google Webmaster guidelines – I’m not considering ‘sneaky JavaScript’ or ‘Doorway Pages’ here, just plain old cloaking.

• ‘Cloaking refers to the practice of presenting different content or URLs to users and search engines. Serving up different results based on user agent may cause your site to be perceived as deceptive and removed from the Google index.’

Now, to go a little further; Google on Google Website Optimizer and cloaking says this:

• ‘…Google doesn’t view the ethical use of multi-variate testing tools such as Website Optimizer as cloaking…We encourage constructive testing — optimizing your web pages benefits advertisers as well as users, by increasing conversions and by presenting the most desired information more efficiently.’

So far no problems… I’ll let you in on a secret – LOTS of folks do multivariate testing. Not all of them use Google Website Optmizer.

so…..So far we’ve had no problems with caching & crawling because we try really hard to stick to the guidelines provided by Google for multivariate testing, but one of the guidelines does make ones eyebrow’s scootch up a bit – I’m not saying any of the below examples pertain to anything I’ve ever worked on, I am saying it’s something I’ve thought about in a personal capacity (most SEO folks have one or a few sites they manage out of hours if they have a job, I’m not saying I’m one), and it’s something I’ve pondered on, especially regarding brands who might find themselves in a brand/business changing position.

I’m not talking about this one as far as raised eyebrows goes – it’s a no-brainer if you’re maintaining whitehat techniques::

• ‘…if we find a site running a single non-original combination at 100% for a number of months, or if a site’s original page is loaded with keywords that don’t relate to the combinations being shown to visitors, we may remove that site from our index.’

I am talking about this one:

• ‘Your variations should uphold the ’spirit’ of your original page’s content — they shouldn’t change its meaning or people’s general perception of it.

Okey dokey then. So let’s go with an example here:
Assume I have a 5 year old home page. I’m doing a redesign based on a usability study and other feedback, and I now have 2 completely different home page designs, with entirely different messaging; one isn’t even brand based.

1. The intent is to ensure that there is a difference in perception of all variables due to the desire to test 2 radically different designs. By definition, the ‘spirit’ part of the requirement just died a horrible death.

2. As to the ‘meaning’ of the page – define meaning please…?

a. Online marketing objective (meaning)
b. Subject content and relevance (meaning)
c. Connotative association and relevance (meaning)
d. Etc

3. Now onto a consideration of people’s ‘perceptions’ of my old page & my new test pages. Is a perception based on:

a. Content
b. Brand
c. Usability
d. Aesthetics
e. Etc

Please explain how a spider (an algorithm; a software program) can determine the perceptions of my very human users. I wonder if this is more a case of (like déjà vu isn’t it?) … Is the perception based on:
a. Coding
b. Compliance
c. Perceived similarity (in terms of content, brand etc)
d. Etc…?

Assumption For the Case of Assumption:

Let’s assume the multivariate testing is comparing entirely new ideas, even brand differences in design and naming – ‘Pizza Hut’ to ‘The Hut’ – for example (that’s real), and lets’ take it further and say the ‘new’ ‘The Hut’ was moving more into schwarma territory while retaining a minor focus on pizza (that’s not real, I needed an example and that worked for this illustration).

So, are we cool? Even if we test the original (for the heck of it) against one completely different version for a full 4-5 months? Tradition holds that 8-12 weeks are enough, but if you’re changing your business model and you are in Alaska (or most parts of Canada  ) you may want to see the reactions of folks in both the hot months and the below zero months which means a longer test.

The Apparent Point
Be careful of being too strict with the rules, be careful of not following the rules, be careful of not changing what you need when you need it, and be careful of which test program you use. Don’t piss of Google et al.

The Reality
Multivariate testing is a bit of blind sport and spot for the engines when it comes to cloaking. Do it if it’s in your remit. It’s worth it. Read the guidelines with a pinch of salt, be careful, but be bold. The learnings you’ll get with a well conceived test plan will probably outweigh any potential penalties you may incur… and I stress MAY. I can tell you that so far I have never had a site banned for MV testing, and I don’t use Google Site Optimizer.

I can also say that I play by the rules, always. Yeah, laugh you black hat millionaires, I’m not as gutsy as you, and I’m also a dedicated rule follower, notoriously honest and I stand by my word. Not that you don’t.  I wish you well

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Disclaimer: nothing I say here may or should be attached to any employer, current or previous. This is my personal blog. The views expressed on this page are mine alone and not those of my employer. But still, follow me on Twitter!

Creating buzz around a product on an external forum or blog can be very effective, especially if the blog is full of relevant links to deep product or service pages on the brand site. But it’s not always easy…

It’s also not hard – just time consuming, and you need to know what you’re doing. Here’s one way that won’t break the bank, or deviate too much from any social presence or initiatives you already have running:

• In order to facilitate and encourage participation in brand related product forums and social networking sites to gain decent anchor text backlinks, you might consider starting an unofficial blog where you provide interesting information about your brand, your direct and indirect competitors and suppliers.

• Include insights and mentions of complimentary and supplementary products and services highlighting faults, advantages, customer service and other relevant feedback from all related forums, social media and industry sites. Nofollow non-prime site external links; there’s no value to sharing out your newly gained link-juice, but there is value to providing those external resources to your knowledgeable, info-seeking visitors. Open those links in a new window.

• Build a solid reputation as an objective industry source of information and pay attention to regular commentary contributors – positive and negative – building a brand game plan to deal with both on the brand site itself.

• The potential for YouTube exposure is infinite if you offer brand based prizes for (examples) ‘funniest’, ‘weirdest’ or ‘most innovative’ use of your product, or ‘most extensive use’ of your service. The potential is limited only to the brands legal and social responsibility, and your ability and innovativeness as their lead.

ABDUCTION OF THE INFLUENTIALS… This is one of the best vids I’ve ever seen to explain UGC… Just CLICK!

Harness the Power of Social Networks

There are social networks for pretty much everything; Go Green, IT, design, architecture, SEO, electronics, home goods, kids stuff, books – you name it, it’s out there. Find a few really targeted and relevant networks and integrate. Again this can be in the form of both main brand and pseudo-brand.

• Create a FaceBook/MySpace account – invite people via search, and incentivize them with an offer; e.g. a draw; once we reach 1000 we will send 15 random entrants a Starbucks discount… It depends on the brand, your insights, your involvement, and how you handle your SMM. NEVER be in the position where you can be accused of bribing.

• Create a Twitter account – if you’re really big, offer a free software package, but offer daily/weekly tidbits of info to folks who have already purchased it, including updates and engage.engage.engage.

• Digg both detractor and evangelist type articles.

Social networks can be particularly powerful for brand-building. If you are a brand and want to engage the power of consumer feedback, take an active part in those communities that work best for you and link to them from your blog or your prime product page/s.

Enabling your users to find ‘more’ information from their peers via your facilitation might generate a bit of a flux in the social network, but if you have a name in the network, not only can you answer them, you can expect your brand evangelists and followers to take part in dealing with their queries as well, even if it is simply to the point of linking them back to an FAQ or review page.

Problems With UGC And How To Deal With Them

To help site owners manage the potential avalanche of UGC headed their way a number of platforms have been developed which allow companies to add UGC elements to their sites. Ensure that whichever option you choose you stringently evaluate the SPAM management offering. Most CMS enable spam monitoring and blog creation; setting goals, expectations and limitations is up to you. It is advisable if you are unsure to check the full disable functionality of any CMS or blog software.

Spam hurts everyone...

Anonymous commentary or feedback must always be run through a stringent spam detection program which prevents spam blog or review commentary prior to live publication. Simply ensure you have a disclaimer on the page that is very direct and simple indicating that if feedback doesn’t show within a set period of time, to contact you by email and include a link to your spam definition. Never allow profanity, blasphemy, or plain vileness through. Filters sort that, don’t make the mistake of enabling it – it’s in your power; it’s your brand.

Transparency is good, enabling ‘hate’ or plain disrespect and bad manners is not. Make your filters as transparent as possible – that’s what the filter is for, and that’s what the disclaimer supports. You can’t stop what other sites say about you, but you can – to an extent – ensure that your commentary, while transparent, is palatable.

It is absolutely vital to monitor your online presence, and take the initiative wherever possible and/or necessary. For example; if a well known industry blog writes about your product in a less than flattering manner, detecting that mention of your product or brand name quickly is imperative. It allows you to be proactive in two ways:

1. Copy the negative feedback from the blog on your own product site with a link to the blog post, with immediate, genuine company feedback, including a link to the other reviews or UGC (hopefully positive) on your site.
2. On the ‘offending’ blog itself post a comment to the effect that you have seen their post, thank them for their time, and urge them and their other readers to view your full response and other user commentary on your product review page via a link.

While there are numerous online reputation management tools if you are going ‘free’ I personally recommend Google Alerts; if you are prepared to spend money, then TrackUR.com is a paid service, but far superior, and affordable.

Conclusion

The boost of interest in UGC and the need to implement it while watching for on-site spam has intersected very nicely with the desire to monitor both positive and negative commentary around the web. Monitoring what is being said about your business on the net and in the blogosphere also enables businesses to discover what people do and don’t like about their company, brand, product line, specific product, customer service, affiliate, brick and mortar store, and more. It’s a great way for a business to be knowledgeable while at the same time proactive, assuming the strategic ability deal quickly, diplomatically, carefully, and positively with brand detractors and evangelists as they gather insights for R&D and insight and planning.

This is Part 3 of a 3 part series on UGC. Part 2 is UGC and Small Business – What Works & Why and Part 1 is  UGC – Maximize Your Online Exposure with People Power!

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