Think about it. If you’re not telling your visitors what to do next, how can you expect them to do it? Sure, they can guess, make assumptions or “figure it out on their own”. But, for anybody that’s doing anything new, directions are a God send.

I recently spent 2 hours putting together a desk that should have taken me 20 minutes. I’ll be the first to admit that I’m generally more destructive than constructive when it comes to these kinds of things, but with a little help (a.k.a. reading directions), I can usually get the job done. But, on this particular desk, the directions actually didn’t help. Not even a little.

The desk had two pieces: the main desk and a small side table. Both look nearly identical, only the size is different. The directions started you out building the small table…but they didn’t make that clear. I spent at least 30 minutes putting together the larger desk with the small table instructions, wondering why things just weren’t making much sense.

Once I figured that out and moved on to building the desk with proper directions, I found several pieces that all looked similar, but with subtle differences. The directions didn’t make those distinctions, neither verbally nor visually. Luckily, I was able to stay calm and keep the cursing to a low mumble that my kids couldn’t hear!

Your content should work like directions. It needs to inform and make clear what the next step is. Giving your visitors clear directions doesn’t have to be difficult. You don’t have to re-write all of your content, adding in long prose of “here’s what we want you to do next”. All you have to do is some simple re-working of key areas.

Action Words: We often tend to write passively. We talk in terms of how things are, not in terms of what we are doing, what we’ve done, or what we want to do. This makes our content stagnant.

Instead, use words that convey action. Tell visitors how you achieved your knowledge or skills. Tell them how they will benefit from your product or services. Give them examples of the results they will see. And, most importantly, give them some calls to action.

Calls to Action: Using action words is never more important than ensuring your work calls action into your content. These are the directives that you provide to your visitors that lead them down the path to the conversion.

If you are not providing these directives, or are providing the wrong directives, you won’t be getting the response you want from your visitors. Keep in mind that there are multiple paths to the goal. Customers need to see your products before they can buy them. They also need to know product details. Trying to move your customers to the conversion too quickly simply won’t work.

Use your calls to action to lead visitors down the path of information they need to take the desired action. Some may need to see product reviews, others need to read more about your company, and still others might want to read more about what you offer. Provide calls to action to whatever your visitors might need… because they may not even know they need it.

Textual Links: Adding calls to action directly into your text is simply the best way to get visitors to heed them. Your navigation is important, but sites often put too much faith in the navigation getting the visitors to the information they want. If the visitors know where they want to go, and if they are willing to take the time to click through the navigation, then that approach would work. But, why force the visitor to disengage from your content to hunt through the navigation for what they want? Not a good idea.

That’s the biggest problem with not using textual links. You’re forcing your visitors to figure things out instead of providing them the directions they need right there where they are. If they are reading about your team’s experience, then link to your “About Us” page. If you mention a related product, link to it. If you discuss a significant achievement, place a link to the page that provides more complete information about it.

Visitors are curious. Providing links helps them satisfy their curiosity, which in, turns gives them more satisfaction that you have “what it takes” to provide what they need.

A website that’s not getting any action is a dead site. Conversion rates will be low, and bounce rates will be high. Using action words, calls to action, and textual links gets your visitors to “put out”. But, unless your content is willing to provide the goods, you may not even get to second base.

This post was inspired from The Princess Bride themed presentation I gave in early 2010 at SEMpdx’s Searchfest titled Inconceivable Content: The Dread Pirate Robert’s Guide to Creating Swashbuckling Content, Pillaging the Search Engines, and Commandeering a Treasure Trove of Conversions. If you enjoyed this post you also might enjoy other posts inspired from the same. Search for “inconceivable content” on this blog to find them all.

Teaching tricks the audience likes

There are two kinds of tricks you can train your text to do: the kind of tricks you like or the kind of tricks your audience likes. Obviously, training your text to do the tricks you like will make you happy… but it won’t make your audience happy. You think the tricks are cool, but nobody else does. And… that’s just not cool.

Most people who visit websites scan them first, then skim the text. But, they only skim read if they get intrigued by their initial scan, and they read it only if they find something compelling and interesting that warrants their full attention. There are four easy ways to train your text to be scan-able:

Paragraph headings: Your page should have a proper heading and your content should be broken up with paragraph headings throughout, depending on length. Don’t get carried away by placing a heading before each paragraph. That overkill. But the longer your text is, the more it needs to be broken up into easily digest chunks that allow your readers to consume it.

Internal linking: One of the biggest missed opportunities on business websites is linking their content to other relevant areas of the site. That’s what the navigation is for, right? Yes and no.

Your navigation needs to do a proper job of allowing people to find what they are looking for, but relying on it too heavily forces the visitor to know what they are interested in finding. But, adding links into your content streamlines both of those issues and also helps the visitor get to where they want to go much quicker. This is more intuitive and requires little thought or effort on their part.

Bolded Text: Bolding key words, phrases, and sentences can also allow your visitors to find key points as they quickly scan your content. Note that I said “key words”, not “keywords”. There is nothing wrong with using keywords in your bolded text, but that should not be the reason for using bold text. You bold text because it’s important, not because you want to get a keyword in bold font.

Bullet Points: Bullet points are another way to get your visitors to read key information without having to read every word of content. Most readers will read bulleted lists while ignoring everything else on the page.

Bullets provide a very easy way to read quick bits of information that otherwise might get lost in a single paragraph. Bullet points also break up your content, which also makes the text more scan-able and skim-able. You can also use bullet points to link to other areas of your site that provide additional information without mucking up the current page content.

Or, to put it another way, bullet points:

• Provide quick bits of information
• Break up content to be more scannable and skimmable
• Provide linking opportunities to related content

People love tricks. But, they don’t like to be tricked. These tricks that you can use to train your content are not and should not be used as a means to deceive your audience. They are tricks that help you communicate with your audience in a way that is more to their liking. Giving people what they want isn’t deceptive, unless you are pulling the rug out from under them later.

You can train your content to do things that other sites are not doing. By teaching it to keep your audience engaged with the site, and training it how to direct your readers to other areas of the site they are interested in, you’re just helping people find what they need. If they don’t find it with you, they will with someone else… likely because their content has learned these tricks.

This post was inspired from The Princess Bride themed presentation I gave in early 2010 at SEMpdx’s Searchfest titled Inconceivable Content: The Dread Pirate Robert’s Guide to Creating Swashbuckling Content, Pillaging the Search Engines, and Commandeering a Treasure Trove of Conversions. If you enjoyed this post you also might enjoy other posts inspired from the same. Search for “inconceivable content” on this blog to find them all.

This type of campaign is useful for two purposes:

1.  Targeting specific websites that you’ve already found have performed well for your ads in an automatic placement campaign to maximize your exposure on those sites.

2. Targeting specific websites that you’ve found through research.

With this campaign, you do not choose keywords because you are telling Google exactly which sites you want your ad to be eligible for auction, so they don’t need keywords to come up with a theme to match to websites.  The way to create this campaign is to choose “relevant pages only on the placements and audiences I manage” under “Networks” in the “Network and Devices” option of your campaign settings.

Picking Sites

The easiest way to pick some websites where you want your ad to be shown is to run and analyze a Placement Performance Report of your Automatic Placement Campaign once a significant amount of data has been collected.  You can export the data in this report to Excel and find some websites that have historically met the marketing objectives you have set for your ads.  Once you add them to your new Managed Placement Campaign, make sure you exclude them from your Automatic Placement Campaign by selecting the placement and hitting “Exclude Placement” above the list -

Then, you go in to the Networks tab of your new Managed Placement campaign, click on “show details” next to managed placements and then click “add placements.”  This is where you enter and submit the sites where you want your ads to be shown.

If you are not as patient and/or you would rather not rely on Google’s imperfect algorithm to find some websites you’d like to test, once you hit “add placements” and choose an ad group, you can click on a link to take you to the Placement Tool. Here, you can look up sites by category, keyword, ad type or size, and URL and the tool will spit out all sorts of options for you to pick from to add to your ad group.

You’ll want to monitor these choices over time to weed out the bad and maximize the good.  Remember, just because you think something in marketing will work doesn’t mean it will.  It has to be proven with data.

Take a look at the sites that are suggested and decide on some that are locations where your target audience frequents, select them and add them to your campaign.

Once you start to find some websites that are working for you, you can start to develop themed ad groups with your managed placements and write more targeted ads for similar types of sites.  For instance, if you sold guitars and you are finding that guitar lesson sites work well for you, group all of the sites about guitar lessons together and create targeted ads for those sites.  You should see click-through and conversion rates improve significantly.  This makes it easier to identify sites and themes that work best for your business.

Now, you’ve got one campaign that is going out to hunt down sites that will work for what you’re advertising (automatic placement) and one campaign that contains sites that work for you that you can optimize for the long-run (managed placement).  As time passes and data is collected, continue to add keyword-themed ad groups to your Automatic Placement Campaign to replace themes that aren’t working for you while pulling the sites that work to place into your Managed Placement campaign. Frequently, you should go in and apply standard optimization techniques to your ad groups and placements similar to how you would optimize search campaigns with keywords.

Hopefully, my short introduction series to the Display Network will allow you to take your online business to new heights!  Down the road, we’ll get into some more advanced Display Network strategies.  Hope you’ll hang around.

What I’m talking about is teaching your content how to “engage”, “inform”, “speak” (call to action), and “convert”. Teach these tricks to your content and you’ll see a whole new level of performance on your website.

The first thing to train your content to do is not to overstay it’s welcome. Like a neighbor you enjoy having over occasionally, there comes a time when they must leave. In the same way, you can train your content to know when to stop talking and show the visitor the door to the next page or pages of your site.

Leave them wanting more… and then give them more

We often try to do either too much or too little with our content. The “old school” rules of SEO said you had to have a minimum amount of content. Is it 100 words…200 words? There is a minimum number of words you need per page, but it has nothing to do with counting. It’s the amount of content that is needed for the text to move the visitor to the next step.

There are three simple rules to training your text when it comes to the quantity of text to be used:

1) There is no magic amount. Some pages require a lot of text, but some don’t require much text at all. But, bear in mind, that all pages need some text. Text is what convinces, persuades, informs, and helps your audience decide that they want to buy from you.

2) Keep your text as brief as possible. This doesn’t mean your text has to be short, just that you don’t go for length when length is not needed or warranted.

3) Use no more words than needed to convert. Your audience isn’t just one person. It’s many people looking at many items for many purposes. Once you start looking at personas and personalities trying to target everybody on a single page can be daunting. But, you don’t have to hit everybody perfectly on a single page. Figure out what the next step is for each group, and provide that opportunity. It could be a link to an “About Us” page, a link to “Shipping Policies” or a “Buy Now” button.

The basic idea is to train your text to be minimalist while still providing ways for the reader to request an encore. They do that by clicking further into the site to get even more information, where, hopefully, that page is also trained to provide the audience what it wants as well.

This post was inspired from The Princess Bride themed presentation I gave in early 2010 at SEMpdx’s Searchfest titled Inconceivable Content: The Dread Pirate Robert’s Guide to Creating Swashbuckling Content, Pillaging the Search Engines, and Commandeering a Treasure Trove of Conversions. If you enjoyed this post you also might enjoy other posts inspired from the same. Search for “inconceivable content” on this blog to find them all.

I remember this day vividly because a bunch of us guys were scouting out the hot chicks, generously helping the new batch of coeds unload and unpack. Later that afternoon, when it was only us guys within ear shot, a buddy of mine claimed, “I got dibs on the red head.” I remember thinking, “Whatever, dude!” Nonetheless, everyone knew Jon had claimed Shannon and she was hands off until he said otherwise.

It wasn’t long before Jon and Shannon started dating, and a few years later they married and are still happily married today.

You Aren’t Special If You’re Last In Line

Dibs are a great thing. It makes us feel special. Like calling “shotgun” to get the front passenger seat, dibs allows us to lay claim to something we otherwise may not have been entitled to: the last piece of pizza, the larger bed, the first shower before all the hot water is gone, and the hot red head that needs a nice, strong college man to help her move into her dorm.

Unfortunately, too many business owners let “dibs” on their website go to everyone else, except those that matter most: the target audience. All too often site design and content is developed for the boss, or the marketing team, or even the search engines. But the audience–the people who the site is supposedly intended for–get left out. They don’t get dibs, they get whatever is left over.

Does that seem right to you?

Your audience is your “A” Girl

I knew someone once who had a philosophy on his women. You could have an A-Girl, B-Girl, and C-Girl. A-Girl could in no way know about B- or C-Girl. B-Girl could know about A-Girl, but couldn’t know about C-Girl. C-Girl could know about both A- and B-Girl.

Don’t laugh, this is true.

This was obviously his way of attempting to build a playground in a minefield. I’m not sure how that worked out for him, but it will work as a good analogy here.

Your audience absolutely must be your A-Girl. Your content must be for her. Your visual presentation must be for her. Your site architecture and usability must be for her. And she doesn’t need to know about your B- and C-Girls… the search engines, or that guy that pays all the bills and has really strong opinions.

What you write, how you write, and the overall presentation you put together on your website shouldn’t be based on the boss’ opinions or what we think the search engines want. Those don’t have to be totally disregarded, but your audience, your A-Girl, comes first. She’s the one that matters. And if she catches a whiff that the site isn’t for her, she’ll be out the door and onto the next site in a matter of minutes.

Keywords are important, and as I noted a few weeks back, your content isn’t good content unless it’s optimized. This is very true, because optimizing for your audience is the same as optimizing for the search engines. The problem is when C-Girl becomes too prominent, A-Girl is sure to notice.

Building a perfect relationship

Your keywords should be present, but not obvious. They should be a part of your relationship with A-Girl, but not overbearing. If you suddenly start giving your girlfriend gifts, she may suspect you’re covering for something else. Same is true here. If you add too many keywords to your pages, they become overpowering. A-Girl isn’t dumb.

Keep your content persuasive. Just because someone knows you love them doesn’t mean you don’t ever have to tell them. Your content should tell your audience what you want them to do. Do you want them to purchase? Download? Learn more? Add to cart? Failure to have calls to action throughout your content will lead to a stagnant relationship. The audience won’t know what you want them to do next and, sooner or later, they will wander off.

Overall, you need to maintain value in your content. If you’re just adding text for the sake of B-Girl or C-Girl, A-Girl will realize that there is nothing there for her. You have to keep your audience engaged. You do this by writing content that helps them learn, grow, improve, understand, etc. A relationship that does not help each side to grow is a dying relationship. If your audience isn’t getting anything new, just the same content they found on every other site, they’ll soon grow bored with you.

Your A-Girl needs dibs. She needs to be the first priority on your website. Sure, you can build a site that pleases the higher-ups, and can write content that is optimized for search engine placement, but your audience must come first. She’s too important for anything less.

This post was inspired from The Princess Bride themed presentation I gave in early 2010 at SEMpdx’s Searchfest titled Inconceivable Content: The Dread Pirate Robert’s Guide to Creating Swashbuckling Content, Pillaging the Search Engines, and Commandeering a Treasure Trove of Conversions. If you enjoyed this post you also might enjoy other posts inspired from the same. Search for “inconceivable content” on this blog to find them all.

The most useful tool for this is the Placement Performance Report in your Google AdWords account.  It segments your ad serving by domain or individual URL so you can see the performance metrics for them separately.  This will allow you to find sites and categories of sites where your ads perform well and where they are struggling.  The best, most important metric to analyze when looking at a site’s Display Network performance?  Cost Per Conversion.

Why? Google uses what they call smart pricing as their method for click charges on the Display Network.  Basically, if your ad wins the auction and is placed on a site, Google determines if that page is more or less likely to end in a conversion action for you and they adjust the price of a click accordingly.  This makes cost per conversion much more important than conversion rate.

Why? Smart pricing will very likely give you a scenario of metrics like the one below when comparing two sites:

If this scenario is true its because Google determined website #2 to be less likely to result in a conversion.  So, they discounted the cost per click to advertise on website 2 to make up for this.  But, as you can see, you are performing relatively well on this site because they’ve discounted your price enough to make your cost per conversion 25% lower than website 1 despite your lower conversion rate.  Therefore, website 2 is working better for you despite the lower conversion rate.  So, you can see how smart pricing changes the game and make cost per conversion your most important metric.

Once you run a Placement Performance Report, you will have data that you can use to make decisions about your ad’s exposure.  You will find sites that are both performing well and not performing well for your campaigns.  If you want to block your ads from being shown on specific sites, you can use the Site and Category Exclusion Tool within your AdWords account to block these sites.

With the sites that are performing well, you may want to have more control over your bidding and targeting flexibility with them.  In this case, you can take that placement and use it in a Placement Targeted Campaign, which we will talk about in my next post.

Here are some ways that you can block your ads from being shown to specific web traffic using this tool:

1. Blocking Domains – You can block top-level domains, subdomains and directories.  Blocking one doesn’t block the others, so you will need to enter them separately.

2. Undesirable Content – There are six types of content that you can block if you are concerned about brand protection.

3. Video Sites – You can block your ads from being shown as content ads within video.

4. Page Types:

a. Error Pages – these are displayed when a page does not exist.  If someone attempts to navigate to a domain that does not exist, a page can be shown that has ads based on the mistyped URL instead of a “not found” error page.

b. Parked Domains – These domains are owned, but they have never been developed.  So, all you see is ads when you navigate to these pages.  This traffic comes from users mistyping a URL or using a domain name that does not exist.

c. User-generated sites – forums, image-sharing sites, social networks, video-sharing sites

In my next post, we’ll take a look at targeting specific sites on the Display Network that you find through your gathered data and/or through a little research to take your online business to new heights…

Take the movie Avatar.

Plot: Tired.

Story: Been there, done that.

Acting and directing: Nothing special.

Special affects: Absolutely outstanding.

Worthy of a “Best Picture” nomination: Not by a long shot.

Worthy of a “Best Special Affects” Oscar: Without a doubt.

So, how is it that a story we have all seen played out in 100 different movies and “message” Star Trek episodes turns into one of the most popular movies of all time? It’s because James Cameron took a great heaping pile of “Meh.”, and made it all, “Oooh, shiny!”. It’s uniqueness overshadowed the complete and total hollowness of everything else on the screen.

A lot of business owners out there feel that their business is just the same old, same old. Nothing special there. But in reality, they can take what they are doing and turn it into something remarkable. And the easiest way to do that is through the content.

A vast majority of internet searches are informational. That means people are not looking for your products or services, they are looking for information about them. They want to learn something new. And, you can be the one to give it to them.

The key to creating unique content that searchers are looking for is keyword research. Let your keyword research become your idea generator for blog posts, articles, e-books, and whatever else strikes your fancy.

When perusing your keyword research here are a few things to look for:

Easy to Rank Phrases: When looking for good traffic, you can always start with phrases that have little or no competition. Find queries that match what you provide that others have not yet optimized for. This gives you a chance to build up some rankings and traffic for good (yet lower traffic) phrases. You can immediately start siphoning off traffic from your competitors and start building a loyal audience that will keep coming back.

Niche Areas: Look for an area within your industry that your competitors are not covering or not covering very well. Find obscure topics that people are interested in, but, after conducting a few searches of your own, show that the available content on the web isn’t sufficient. This creates an opportunity for you to fill in the gaps and create authoritative information of your own.

Highly Targeted Phrases: These are long-tail phrases that are very targeted for your audience, addressing specific areas of interest. Highly targeted phrases are generally pretty easy to get ranked but they also bring in an audience that has a very specific need. Write information that targets these searchers by providing new information, a new spin, a new take on, or a new way of looking at things.

Info Queries: These often fit into the categories above, but are queries performed by people looking for information and nothing else. They are typically the queries with a question that answers questions, such as “how to…” or “what is…”. These queries provide a great opportunity to provide content beyond simple text. “How to” videos, diagrams, flash animations, and podcasts are all great ways to provide this type of content in a way that people find valuable. Telling someone how to do something is great, but showing them how to do it is even better.

Just because you are providing a product or service that someone else is, that doesn’t mean you have to provide content that someone else has. There are plenty of ways to step outside of the box and provide valuable information that nobody else is providing. Look for these opportunities, and take advantage of them . . . before someone else does.

This post was inspired from The Princess Bride themed presentation I gave in early 2010 at SEMpdx’s Searchfest titled Inconceivable Content: The Dread Pirate Robert’s Guide to Creating Swashbuckling Content, Pillaging the Search Engines, and Commandeering a Treasure Trove of Conversions. If you enjoyed this post you also might enjoy other posts inspired from the same. Search for “inconceivable content” on this blog to find them all.

Google
July 2010: 61.6%
June 2010: 62.6%
Change: -1.0

January 2010: 65.4%
Change: -3.8

Yahoo
July 2010: 20.1%
June 2010: 18.9%
Change: +1.2

January 2010: 17.0%
Change: +3.1

Bing
July 2010: 12.6%
June 2010: 12.7%
Change: -.01

January 2010: 11.3%
Change: +1.3

ASK
July 2010: 3.5%
June 2010: 3.6%
Change: -0.1

January 2010: 3.8%
Change: -0.3

AOL
July 2010: 2.2%
June 2010: 2.2%
Change: +0.0

January 2010: 2.5%
Change: -0.3

Data scoring techniques tend to change over time making past data inaccurate. As always, information here is for entertainment purposes only.

Source: comScore

Google
July: 71.43%
June: 71.65%
Change: -0.22

January 2010: 71.49%
Change: -0.06

Yahoo
July: 14.43%
June: 14.37%
Change: +0.06

January 2010: 14.57%
Change: -0.14

Bing
July: 9.86%
June: 9.85%
Change: +0.01

January 2010: 9.37%
Change: +0.47

ASK
July: 2.32%
June: 2.19%
Change: +0.13

January 2010: 2.64%
Change: -0.32

Data scoring techniques tend to change over time making past data inaccurate. As always, information here is for entertainment purposes only.

Source: HitWise

Under most circumstances, you want defer to the person who has the strongest skills for each particular task. Let the SEO determine which keywords are best, and let the Copywriter work them into the page. But, when it comes to actually deciding which chosen keywords make it into any particular body of content, the Copywriter needs to have final say.

The SEO often chooses keywords based on things like popularity, importance, and ability to convert. All very important factors, and very likely the keywords that the site needs for optimization. But, sometimes keywords are chosen incorrectly. Sometimes the keyword selection process is circumvented by someone else. Perhaps a boss has a “pet” keyword they want to rank for because they said so. Don’t laugh, it happens.

One of the most common ways to choose a keyword incorrectly is based on competitor usage. While you may want to analyze your competition to see what keywords they are targeting as part of their SEO efforts, you don’t want to automatically use a phrase or keyword that they did, just because they did.

I’ve seen this time and time again. A client says, “We need to rank for “x” because my competitor is.” A little research will show that this particular phrase gets little to no search volume, but none of that matters to the client. Getting good rankings for that keyword may work, but there may be others that would work better. So, is it worth taking the focus off of other keywords that are likely to be more effective to focus on others just because a competitor is using them? The answer is no, it’s not.

Choosing single-word terms is tempting due to the search volume those terms have. Clients often choose these words on that basis alone. Single-word terms are not only difficult to rank for, they generally produce very poor conversions as well. Still, they are tempting targets for business owners who see dollar signs in every potential visit. But, instead of creating dollars, these keywords steal profits away through efforts that are better invested in other places.

I mentioned above that the ultimate decision of a keyword being worked into the page should be that of the Copywriter. Sometimes a keyword can hit all the right criteria, but when it comes to actually working it into the content, it simply doesn’t work. This can be for any number of issues, such as it containing a poor qualifier (which depicts a benefit that isn’t offered), or it’s simply an industry term that just isn’t a match for the rest of the user-focused content.

The Copywriter’s job isn’t to force every keyword given to them into the page. Their job is to make sure the keywords they are given do work and to leave out those that don’t.

The Copywriter might have to do some research of their own, looking at the products, features, benefits, term definitions, etc. If, when all is said and done, the keyword doesn’t work on a page, it needs to be deconsidered. (Ooh, new word… I like it!) The Copywriter may have to pull rank and tell the SEO and/or the site owner what’s what.

The key here is that the keyword research process doesn’t end with the SEO. It needs to continue all the way through to the copywriting process. Don’t let the keyword selection and optimization process be derailed by people picking keywords for all the wrong reasons. Make sure all of your targeted terms work on all levels before demanding they get used on the page.

With Search, users are somewhere in the buying funnel; whereas with Display most of the users are likely not in the buying funnel at all. Therefore, the goal of the ads in the Search Network is to persuade the user that your solution is the best choice out of all of their options to make their life better; whereas the goal of the ads in the Display Network is to make users aware that you have a solution that could make their life better.

Here a some general characteristics of ads that are effective at starting users down the buying funnel:

1. Benefits – It’s not about you or even what you’re offering.  It’s about the improvement of the user’s life in a way that’s more valuable than the cost associated with the purchase.  Communicate that and then prove it on your landing page.

2. Relevance – You’ve picked keyword themes for your ad groups that will show on sites with those themes.  So, is your ad relevant to the users hanging out on those sites?  Make sure it is.  You may find ads that don’t perform how you hoped because they are being delivered to the wrong kinds of sites.  Make sure the ad and sites are a good match.

3. Sneak Peek – Let them know what they will learn about your offer after they click on the ad.  This can help in two ways.  It may deter some users from clicking because they are not really interested in what would be found.  This is good because you are filtering out some users that may have clicked on your ad without being truly interested in what you’re offering.  So, you save money on the wasted clicks that you would have received.

Also, it can give insight to the user about what kind of information they will receive once they click through.  This is good because you are interrupting their current activity and asking them to go on a detour.  So, if you can assure them it will be worth it, they can be more likely to click through and give your landing page a chance.

4. Call to Action – Tell the users what they should do once they get to your landing page.  This is similar to #4 except you’re not only telling them what they’ll find, but what they should do on the landing page.  And since your primary goal is to get them to enter the buying funnel, you want to….

5. General Offers – Most of these users are not ready to commit to a customer relationship right away.  So, a good strategy is to hook them with something that is helpful to them in their pursuit of gaining the benefit you have claimed they would gain by becoming a customer.  Therefore, offering free sample, the ability to calculate ROI or savings, a free information download, or whatever is applicable to your business is a logical conversion step for this audience.  Your offers can get more specific if you get to the place where you’re writing ads for specific sites and you are targeting those specific users.

I remember a professor of mine always said, “There are no rules, just strong tendencies.” These are good “tendencies” to follow when creating your Display Network ads.  But, as you get to know your audiences more and more and test your ads, you will adjust according to what works for them.

In the SEO world there is “old school” and then there is “old school SEO nonsense”. In case you haven’t figured it out, in my world, the “old school SEO nonsense” stars Will Farrell. In your world, it might star Colin Farrell, Lindsay Lohan, or the entire cast of Big Bang Theory–all viable alternatives.

Like the actors noted above, “old school SEO nonsense” gets a lot of buzz, but underneath the surface, there just isn’t anything there. People are drawn to it like a mosquito to a bug light because it feels safe. It looks easy. It’s simplicity wrapped in a complexity. But, in the end, it’s hollow, useless, and generally leaves you feeling a little bit ripped off.

Let’s look at a few common “old school SEO nonsense” tactics that keep coming back to bite anybody that’s still stuck in 1998.

Keyword Density

The idea here is that you need to have the perfect keyword-to-text ratio on your pages. A 7% keyword density means you have your keyword 7 times for every 100 words. “Perfect” keyword densities range from 5-10%, and if you just get that magic number, your rankings will soar. Of course, you gotta wonder what happens once 10 other people find the perfect keyword density, too.

If you hear someone talk about getting the right keyword density on your site, shut them down faster than you would a “friend” offering to rent the Will Ferrell disaster (yeah, I know, that was redundant,) Land of the Lost.

Keyword Count

Keyword count is the Step Brother of keyword density (see how I worked in another Will Farrell movie reference there?) The theory goes that there is a minimum number of times you have to have your keywords on the page in order to rank well for it. Doesn’t matter how much text you have, just get your keyword in there 3 times, 5 times, 7 times, or whatever.

Yeah, your keywords should be in the page if you want to rank for them. But in truth, it doesn’t absolutely have to be. If you have enough incoming links pointing to your page with that keyword in the anchor text, that can get you the rankings you want in certain circumstances. But, in a competitive field, that’s usually not enough. There is no magic number of times your keywords should be on the page. Sometimes you use your keyword more frequently, while other times you use related words. It really just depends on the content.

Keyword Positioning

Where you position your keywords in your content does have some merit. (Yes, I’ll admit that I enjoyed both Stranger Than Fiction and Talladega Nights so I’ll give Will Ferrell some credit.) But as so often happens, a single good idea often turns into 20 really, really stupid ideas. (Bewitched, anyone?)

Yes, you want to use your keywords in key places such as your title tag, meta description, headings, and body content. But, does it really matter if your keyword is the third word in the first paragraph or the second sentence of the last paragraph on the page? Do you have to add an additional instance of your keyword in your third heading tag on the page even though it doesn’t really work? The answer is NO. It doesn’t matter, much like most Will Farrell movies.

Old School SEO Without the Nonsense

Old school SEO nonsense is just that. Just a bunch of blubbering directions that have no meaning other than to make the person uttering them feel smarter than you.

Real old school SEO is altogether different. It’s SEO that says, “we’re going back to the basics, back to what works.” There is nothing wrong with SEO that looks at a lot of fancy data. That’s all very important. But, old school SEO was true 10 years ago, and it’s still true today. The methods used to achieve SEO may change a bit here and there, but the same basic principles apply:

Write good content, work in your keywords, and build a quality site worth linking to. Of course, that’s easier said than done. Kinda like expecting a good Will Farrell… naw, too easy!

This post was inspired from The Princess Bride themed presentation I gave in early 2010 at SEMpdx’s Searchfest titled Inconceivable Content: The Dread Pirate Robert’s Guide to Creating Swashbuckling Content, Pillaging the Search Engines, and Commandeering a Treasure Trove of Conversions. If you enjoyed this post you also might enjoy other posts inspired from the same. Search for “inconceivable content” on this blog to find them all.

If you are in the window cleaning business, you can easily discount many of these qualifiers. But there will also be others in there that you most certainly will want to use to optimize your site for higher search engine rankings.

The question is, how do you target all of these qualifiers on your window cleaner web page? The simple answer is: you can’t. Nor should you want to.

Whatever keyword you are researching, the mass of keyword phrase + qualifiers can make you a bit overwhelmed. How do you target so many keywords without mucking up the site? One solution is to look at your keywords from a Research, Shop, Buy lens. Separate them based on visitor intent.

The next step is to start grouping and separating your keywords based on qualifier similarity within each segment of the shopping cycle. Pouring through a list of 50+ keyword phrases, you can immediately begin to see some distinctions between qualifiers and their meanings. The goal is to group together qualifiers that are similar in meaning and/or form a logical grouping together.

In the example above, I’ve chosen three words that can quite easily be worked into the content of a single page. If you are selling cars, you can now easily target “exotic cars,” “vintage cars”, and “classic cars” all on the same page without diluting the effectiveness of your content.

As you group similar qualifiers together, be careful about placing words together that either change the meaning or negate the others. If you were to add the word “cheap” to a page where you are also using the word “quality”, you are pretty much negating the ability to sell your item or service as “quality”.

The qualifiers used in the image above could also easily apply to a jewelry site as well. However, if you provide dance lessons, you probably won’t want to use “exotic” on the same page as “classic”. That gives these keywords an entirely different meanings.

Not all keywords will have a positive or negative impact on each other. But, for the ones that could have a possible negative impact on each other, use them together as a last resort. It’s better to find phrases that have similar meanings first.

When you target phrases with similar meaning and intent, you reinforce the message on the page. Why target the word “discount” when you’re talking about the quality of your products? Let the quality speak for itself. Have another page that offers discount items where you can go after “cheap” and “sale” and all those other words that would otherwise provide additional support or value to similar qualifiers.

Using similar qualifiers together is a great way to reinforce your message without having to repeat yourself over and over. It also helps you give your page an overall unifying theme that speaks to each visitor’s particular wants and desires.

The combination of qualifiers used will vary from site to site. Some combinations will work well for one site, but not for another, as I demonstrated above. But by grouping these similar qualifiers together, you are giving yourself fodder to move up, not only in searches using those qualifiers, but also in searches using your primary phrase. You use the many, similar words to help you focus on the one word that really matters.

This post was inspired from The Princess Bride themed presentation I gave in early 2010 at SEMpdx’s Searchfest titled Inconceivable Content: The Dread Pirate Robert’s Guide to Creating Swashbuckling Content, Pillaging the Search Engines, and Commandeering a Treasure Trove of Conversions. If you enjoyed this post you also might enjoy other posts inspired from the same. Search for “inconceivable content” on this blog to find them all.

The only way to avoid being criticized is to never have been alive.

As history books have shown, even the dead can’t escape criticism. So, those of us who are alive must simply learn to deal with it; even as we often try to avoid it.

As much as we hate it, criticism isn’t all bad. Criticism, regardless of how it was intended, can help us adjust and adapt to situations. It can provide useful insight, justified or not, into our lives and give us the opportunity to become a better person.

Rarely do we enjoy hearing it, but criticism is a needed component for growth as a person.

There is an old Arab proverb that says, “if one person calls you a donkey, forget it. But if five people call you a donkey, buy a saddle.”

Or, take a lesson, and perhaps try a different approach.

In most circumstances, you can freely ignore criticism coming from a single source, or perhaps a few dubious sources. But be careful about ignoring criticism from someone who knows you pretty intimately and is likely point out things that other people won’t–or can’t.

Regardless of the source, if you find yourself hearing similar criticisms from multiple avenues, it might be a good idea to take stock in what’s being said. Failure to do so will only result in the same mistakes being made time and time again.

Of course, not all criticism is justified. Sometimes we get criticized for things that other people don’t understand. Often ignorance or lack of information, combined with a healthy dose of bias, can bring someone to criticize something that they really don’t get. I have recently found this to be true of myself. People just don’t know the full story of what is going on in other people’s lives, but they often find it easy to criticize anyway.

Preacher, Henry Ward Beecher stepped up to the pulpit one Sunday morning to deliver his sermon. As he put his bible on the pulpit there was a paper with the word “fool” written on it. He lifted the paper for the congregation to see then announced, “Generally I receive letters from people who write letters and forget to sign their name. This letter is different. The person signed his name but forgot to write the letter.”

There is nothing you can do about unjustified criticism other than to let it roll off your back. Don’t let it get to you, don’t let it bother you or change you. But take note of what you hear; if the same criticisms keep coming up from multiple and trusted sources, then it may be justified. In which case you need to accept it, learn from it, and change what is necessary to become a better person, employee, business owner, spouse, parent, grandparent, friend, etc.

Criticism is a part of life. But, what we do with it makes us who we are.

The best way to attract the specific customers you want and make sure you are meeting the needs of your audience is to write your content specifically for them. But even knowing who your audience is doesn’t mean you’re able to speak to them on their level unless you know where they are in the buying process.

Content designed to inform won’t do a good job of selling, just as content designed to sell isn’t what people need when they want to be informed. Therefore different pages of your site need to be targeted, not for a different audience, but the same audience in different places of the buying cycle.

There are essentially three phases of the buying cycle that need to be addressed: Researchers, Shoppers and Buyers. Generally, people start in the research phase, then move into shopping mode, and finally are prepared to buy the product or service they are in need of. A single site can help these people move from one phase of the buying cycle to another and, hopefully, to the goal of getting a conversion.

Not everybody will land on your site starting with the research phase. Some will hit only as they are ready to buy, some will shop and leave, and others will be there for the duration of the process while also moving in and out of other sites as they go from research to buy.

Researchers

Most people start out in the research mode as they get an inkling in their mind that there is a product or service they want. Unfortunately, they don’t quite know what they want or what will meet their specific needs. So, they set out to do some research.

A significant majority of searches performed every day are informational based – where people are looking to gain some knowledge about something, not necessarily looking to buy a product or service. That’s not to say that these people don’t become shoppers at some point, but research is where they start.

Broad category pages and blog posts are generally the best place to target these types of searchers. They are looking for content that helps them gain a better grasp on the topic, so you need to write content that provides the information they need. Don’t try to sell them… just inform them with whatever information is necessary for them to begin to be convinced enough to move to the next phase.

Blogs are especially good at hitting this because information-based searches are often very broadly focused. As informational searches get more specific, the topics (and keywords) you can reach them with will increase as well.

“Research” content is the bait you use to get people to your site. It allows you to become a source of information for their query and gives you the ability to start earning trust.

Shoppers

The next phase people move into is the shopping phase. This is when they know they want to buy something, only now they are trying to learn more about what solutions are out there that will meet their needs.

Think of this as window shopping. They are looking around trying to figure out what they like, don’t like, or has the “features” that will help them accomplish their goals. They are comparing products, looking at the details, and using the new information gathered to help them narrow down their list to only what they believe will give them the best satisfaction.

You generally want shoppers to land on your main product category pages. This will give them some information and a whole lot of products to explore. If you have multiple product sub-categories within categories, use your keyword research to help you determine which sub-categories are the best place to land shoppers, based on how they searched.

You want to optimize your category pages so shoppers land closest to the products that meet their search query without pushing them to a specific product. Pushing them to a product page before they have all the information they need will simply push them away from the sale.

Buyers

Buyers are those who are using the search engine to deliver them the right product with the right features. They are performing very specific searches designed to get them to specific product pages that match their criteria for a purchase.

These guys are ready to buy, and there is no need to try to pre-sell them. Getting them to product pages that have specific details and features listed is the fastest route to a sale. If you deliver these searchers to informational pages or even category pages, you run the risk of sidetracking your visitors. You’ll move them out of buy mode and back into shop mode. Instead of getting a sale, you just have another window shopper.

Knowing your audience is important. But knowing them in broad, general terms is not a substitute for knowing what they need when they search. Obviously, knowing the need of each searcher is impossible, but you can optimize your pages to meet the needs of your audience at large depending on where they are in the research, shop, and buy process.

This allows you to give your visitors more of what they want, when they want it. Get the right content to them early in the buying cycle, and they are more likely to stick with you through the buying process. Get them different content late in the buying cycle and they may buy now! Of course, this is providing that what they want earns those trust points that will turn into sales. Sales are not made by the products you offer… it’s in the content you write.

This post was inspired from The Princess Bride themed presentation I gave in early 2010 at SEMpdx’s Searchfest titled Inconceivable Content: The Dread Pirate Robert’s Guide to Creating Swashbuckling Content, Pillaging the Search Engines, and Commandeering a Treasure Trove of Conversions. If you enjoyed this post you also might enjoy other posts inspired from the same. Search for “inconceivable content” on this blog to find them all.

Note: Recently I’ve gotten some ribbing from friends and colleagues about my exceedingly numerous multi-part posts. In order to wean myself off my favorite form of not-having-to-think-about-what-I’m-going-to-write-about-next, I’ve combined all 12 parts of this series into a single post. Enjoy!

Part 1: Guilty of Crimes No One Committed

A lot of people subscribe to the “Guilt by Association” theory in online marketing. This theory suggests that you are who you associate with. I agree there is some definite truth to this mindset, but, like a lot of things, it can also be taken to a paranoid extreme. This fear leads some people into a paralysis that ultimately hinders their online marketing efforts rather than helping them.

“Guilt by Association” extremists work hard to keep themselves squeaky clean. They tread extra carefully with who they associate with in an effort to ensure that they are never found guilty of crimes they haven’t committed. In order to stay “pure”, they avoid having online relationships with some who they believe may have broken some rule at some point that, likely, nobody even cares about.

Part 2: Google’s Guidelines Don’t Rule the Web

With Google controlling so much market share, many business owners and online marketers are scared of doing anything that might seemingly violate Google’s Guidelines. We know Google looks at both positive and negative attributes, including your associations, when developing your overall trust profile. But we often do ourselves a disservice when we let Google’s Guidelines dictate everything we do on the web – even in areas that don’t have any specific connection to Google.

There is nothing wrong with keeping a clean profile and ensuring you don’t do anything that violates the search engine guidelines. There is also nothing wrong with making sure you associate your online profile with people you know will help you and not hurt you. But there comes a point where it borders on paranoia, at best, and counter-productive, at worst.

Part 3: You Have No Control Over Who Associates with You

One of the problems with worrying too much over your online profile is that you have little to no control over who associates themselves with you. Anybody can link to you, anybody can scrape your content, anybody can share your post with their friends, and anybody can retweet you. If you’re unhappy about who’s doing any of these things, your sole recourse is to contact them, ask them to stop, and then cross your fingers.

Google (and the other search engines) know this. They knew it back when they made links a part of their algorithms. They knew it when people started scraping and duplicating your content. And they know it now in an age of RTs, Likes, Mixxes, Stumbles, and whatever else we do with content we like.

Google will not hold you responsible if someone promotes you and then goes off and violates Google’s Guidelines.

Part 4: You are Responsible for Who You Associate With

If there is one constant in the world of online promotion, social media profiles, and search engine rankings, it is that you do have some responsibility for who you choose to associate with. In the real world, it is often said that you can tell a lot about a person by the friends they have. If you’re associating with thieves, liars, spammers, and cheats, you don’t have to be a thief, liar, spammer, or a cheat to get the reputation of one (or as an enabler of one). Either way, your associations affect you.

Part 5: You Are Not Responsible for the Entire History of Who You Associate With

There is some truth, both in real life and on the web, that you can learn a lot about a person by who they associate with. But it is also true that you cannot not be held accountable for the actions of every person you’ve shaken hands with.

In the social sphere of the web, retweeting or liking someone’s single message is not an endorsement of every tweet, post, thought, or blog they ever published. Even the worst offenders do something right! Making note of the positive doesn’t suddenly hang all their negative around your neck as if you’ve endorsed it all.

Parts 6-10: yada yada yada

Part 11: Everyone’s Got Some (Negative) History

No matter how squeaky clean you want to keep your social media profile, the only way to stay squeaky clean is to not associate yourself with anyone. The only person who does not have something negative in their profile is likely the person who has no profile whatsoever.

Or you can check the complete historical profile of every person before you RT, Stumble, Like, or whatever. Of course, even with those who pass the test, what guarantees do you have that they won’t do something shady in the future? Not only do you have to check the historical profile before you connect with them, you have to keep checking back to make sure you still want to be connected with them.

Part 12: We Are All Violators

Sooner or later, whether you like it or not, you’re going to violate some guidelines somewhere, including Google’s. It’s inevitable. Which is why we can’t live and breathe by every guideline that Google puts out.

Keep in mind, those who try hard to stay violation-free are often those that violate guidelines the most. They just hide it better.

And the search engines likely know this too.

Man, getting traffic can be so easy…. and dangerous to your bottom line.  The truth is, there is an art and science to getting traffic just like any other vocation.  It takes skill and knowledge to be successful.  So, when it comes to utilizing the Display Network, you need to gather the knowledge that is going to enable you to use the tool correctly to accomplish your goals.

Here we go…

Keywords

Google reads keywords within a Display Network ad group differently than a Search Network ad group.  On the Search Network, your chosen keywords are matched to queries that users perform within search engines.  On the Display Network, Google determines one theme from all of the keywords added to your ad group.  Then, it matches that theme with the themes of specific pages in it’s Display Network and your ad is eligible to appear on that page.

For example, let’s say I’ve added the following keywords to my ad group -

acoustic guitar lessons
easy guitar lessons
free guitar lessons
guitar lessons
guitar solo lesson
online guitar lessons
rock guitar lessons

There really can be no mistake about what the theme of this ad group is…guitar lessons.  Well, Google has a bunch of domains and pages in it’s Display Network that it’s determined also has that same theme, like this one….

Therefore, your ad and those pages are matches and you are now eligible to enter the auction for those the specific ad spots available on those pages.

Now, just like you should be testing and optimizing the keywords you use in the Search Network, you should do the same with your keyword themes in the Display Network.  Which keyword theme will perform better for my marketing goals, “guitar lessons” or “guitar tabs?”  Only one way to find out.  Test.

You may even use a group of keywords that describes a keyword theme you’re going for.  So, instead of explicitly using your root keyword “guitar lessons” in all of your keyword choices, you could come up with a list of keywords like the following…

strings
capo
acoustic
electric
tune
les paul
gibson
rock
tabs
guitar

So, here we just played some word association with what we’re offering to feed the Google algorithm monster some words to chew on to come up with a theme.  They will determine the sites that match and then you will determine if the sites are a good match for you.  It’s kind of like you are the giver and Google is the taker in the old game show $25,000 Pyramid…

Just like you keep keywords that perform well and eliminate keywords that don’t perform well in your Search Network campaign, so you do the same with these ad group keyword themes.  These themes act like hunters to go out and find sites that will accomplish your marketing goals.

Here are some rules to remember when choosing your ad group keywords:

1.  Match types don’t matter (except negative).  Google is simply looking for a theme.

2.  Up to 50 keywords are analyzed.  Even 50 is too many if you ask me.  You are looking to communicate a specific theme of the websites you’d like to try your ads on.  This should not take many keywords to communicate this theme.

3.  Negative keywords matter.  If there are words on pages that signal that your desired audience is not reading this page, then you can add them as negatives.  So, if you sell guitars but not classical guitars, you may want to add “classical” as a negative keyword.

4.  Volume of keywords doesn’t matter.

Many people, when performing keyword research, look primarily at the search volume of a phrase and whether the phrase appears relevant to what they do or sell. On that analysis alone keywords are chosen or rejected.

Search volume isn’t always the best way to choose keywords.

A targeted phrase isn’t always as it appears

A lot of phrases can change meaning significantly just by changing word order or the addition or removal of a qualifier. Lets say you sell a brand of underwear called Awesome Underwear. Well, if a keyword phrase is “awesome underwear suck,” clearly that is not a phrase you want to target or use on your website. Or perhaps you see searches for “awesome underwear wedgies”. In most cases this would be caused by people searching for information on how Awesome Underwear causes wedgies, a major complaint spreading like diarrhea throughout the internet.

On the other hand, what appears to be a negative phrase for one company can actually be a positive for another. Perhaps there is a company called Bad Ass Undies that’s known for creating underwear that actually prevent wedgies, even in the toughest of boy’s locker rooms. In this case, searches for “bad ass undies wedgies” is performed by people looking for more info on how the undies work and if, alas, they truly can stand the wedgie test. If you’re optimizing the website for Bad Ass Undies, “wedgies” a word you definitely want to target.

As I said earlier, sometimes changing the word order can have a profound effect on whether a keyword phrase is a viable one or not. A good example of this is is “wedding planning” vs. “planning wedding”. Some may be looking for a person to manage their wedding while others may be looking for tips on how to plan a wedding themselves.

Finally, there is always the case where a phrase changes meaning without changing word order but by changing the inflection used in the searchers mind.

This happened to me the other day as I was looking for a headset for my phone. I saw a box on the shelf that read “cordless telephone headset.” My first thought was, “Oh, look, a cordless headset!” But alas, it was merely a headset for a cordless phone. Two very different things but both use the same words in the same order.

Before deciding to optimize your site for “cordless telephone headset” you need to determine what it is people are looking for. Get this wrong and your visitors will quickly leave.

The best tool I’ve seen for determining visitor intent is Google. Do a search for your phrase and look at the results. If the majority of the results are cordless headsets then you have to assume this is what people mean when they type in that phrase. When people land on your site using that phrase, these are the products you need to display. If you show corded headsets for cordless phones instead, you’re going to have higher bounce rates.

Understanding your visitors intent with keywords doesn’t always boil down to the obvious. This is a good check for all of your keywords. Sometimes there are other industries you may not be aware of that are using the same terminology. A quick check in the search results can be quite telling as what your keywords actually mean.

This post was inspired from The Princess Bride themed presentation I gave in early 2010 at SEMpdx’s Searchfest titled Inconceivable Content: The Dread Pirate Robert’s Guide to Creating Swashbuckling Content, Pillaging the Search Engines, and Commandeering a Treasure Trove of Conversions. If you enjoyed this post you also might enjoy other posts inspired from the same. Search for “inconceivable content” on this blog to find them all.

I find it fun to think of people who you can’t stand the most, then think of their spouses, friends, or children who love and support them, and probably don’t have the faintest clue that you think they are an ass.

I remember the first time I met my ex-wife, she found me rude and annoying. I was teaching a card game to a group of kids after church and she came up to talk to one of the girls, the daughter of her best friend. Here I was trying to herd cats, so to speak, and I finally got everybody to listen to the rules when she interrupts not once, but twice.

So I stopped talking and (politely) waited for her to finish her conversation before resuming my discourse of the rules of “idiot”. According to her, however, I was the idiot. She interpreted my silence as a glare that said “how dare you interrupt me!”

She stayed well clear of me for some time after that. But, it wasn’t long until she was around me enough to see the charm and wit hidden underneath the “rude” behavior demeanor I portrayed. For a while at least.

There is no doubt that I could have reacted differently during that interaction. The same is likely true of most people that we find irritating. Most of the time it’s minor personality flaws that just don’t allow us to see eye to eye.

Life dishes these people out to us through business, related friendships, social events, on the beach, and even church. In your personal life you have some control over who you interact with. Not so much in business.

In his book High Maintenance Relationships, Les Parrot discusses several types of people that have personalities that tend to get under our skin:

Critics who constantly complain or give unwanted advice.

Martyrs who are forever the victim and wracked with self-pity.

Wet blankets who are pessimistic and habitually negative.

Steamrollers who are blindly insensitive to others.

Gossips who spread rumors and leak secrets.

Control freaks who are unable to let go and let things be.

Back-stabbers who are two-faced.

Green-eyed monsters who seethe with envy.

Volcanoes who build steam and are always ready to erupt.

Sponges who are always needy and never give anything back.

Competitors who always keep track of tit-for-tat.

Many books have been written about how to deal with or prevent hostile work environments. The book, The No Asshole Rule talks about having a completely asshole-free work environment. It talks about how to deal with these people, and the solution generally comes down to firing them.

But what this and other books often overlook is how not to be one of these 11 types of people. We can learn how to be better managers, better communicators, better leaders, better workers and whatever else. We can read books on how to create a more productive work environment, how to reward your employees or make your co-workers feel special.

But often the best advice for any manager boils down to one thing:

Don’t be that guy!

I can see myself in any number of these personality types, and I’m sure many of my friends and colleagues do to. So, what can I do? Recognize which tendencies I have, and make a deliberate effort to act contrary to my nature.

This is crucial for anyone looking to get ahead in business, whether you’re an employee, manager, or business owner. Continuing with any of these 11 personality traits simply makes people not want to work with or for you.

The more you temper your personality to be the type of person that people want to be around, the better success you’ll have in your relationships and life and business in general.

In fact, only 5% of internet page views are on search engines.  This leaves a very large space containing targeted users for your company that you may not be taking advantage of.  With the Display Network, you can go out and reach this huge pool of users that may not yet recognize their need for what you offer or know that you offer it.  Plus, you can take advantage of the added branding benefit of being seen on your industry’s websites.  If a user is not quite ready to buy, they may be more likely to click on your ad and purchase from a search engine results page when they ARE ready to buy if they recognize your brand from around the internet.

And how can you make sure that your ads only show to targeted users instead of random web surfers?  Just like the Search Network gives you the opportunity to target specific keyword markets that are very likely to contain your target audience, the Display Network allows you to target specific website markets and websites that are very likely to contain your target audience.

For example, if you sell guitars, wouldn’t it make sense to have an ad with your offer on websites where guitar players hang out?  With the Display Network, you could create an ad  and place it on a content site like this one where the red outline is…

This targeting flexibility gives you control over how your ads are placed on sites around the internet so that you can optimize your marketing efforts.

The danger that many amateur AdWords users can run into when encountering the Display Network is that using it is not as easy as turning it on in the campaign settings of your current campaigns in your AdWords account.  The reason is that the Display Network operates under totally different rules.  Therefore, using it incorrectly can result in disappointing performance for your company.  But, using it correctly can take your online business to new heights.

In future posts, we’ll be taking a look at how to do just that…

Google
June 2010: 62.6%
May 2010: 63.7%
Change: -1.1

January 2010: 65.4%
Change: -2.8

Yahoo
June 2010: 18.9%
May 2010: 18.3%
Change: +0.6

January 2010: 17.0%
Change: +1.9

Bing
June 2010: 12.7%
May 2010: 12.1%
Change: +0.6

January 2010: 11.3%
Change: +1.4

ASK
June 2010: 3.6%
May 2010: 3.6%
Change: 0.0

January 2010: 3.8%
Change: -0.2

AOL
June 2010: 2.2%
May 2010: 2.3%
Change: -0.1

January 2010: 2.5%
Change: -0.3

Data scoring techniques tend to change over time making past data inaccurate. As always, information here is for entertainment purposes only.

Source: comScore

Uh… no.

That might work in politics, where saying something enough times gets people to start believing it’s true. But, not online.

People are pretty adept at sniffing out the fakes. If your readers come to your site and just see a lot of unnecessary repetition of your keywords, they are going to see right through that. Even if they don’t realize it on a conscious level, their spider-senses will kick in, and they’ll walk away just because they are not “feelin’ it”.

The issue is one of trust. Your readers may not be able to quite put their finger on it, but something will feel… off. And that’s when visitors start to run away.

Build content people trust

No Hype: A lot of people like to use hype. We see it all the time in commercials, billboards, and magazines. That’s been going on for years and people have become accustomed to it. But the web is still new, and people use it for all kinds of things like research, business, shopping and more. This has made hype far less desirable in the online sphere.

Don’t make claims that cannot be substantiated. Don’t claim to be “the best” or the “#1″ or “the ultimate” unless you can back that up with third party verification. Claiming you’re the best because you want to be doesn’t make it so. People get suspicious of such claims.

Be Genuine: Write your content as if you were talking to someone face to face. Use a conversational tone that is both helpful and free of superfluous fluff. Don’t go out of your way to tell outlandish stories or make claims that will appear too-good-to-be-true. Neither stories or verifiable claims are wrong, but how you present them is important to coming across to your readers as genuine.

No Hidden Text: Back in the old days of SEO, people used to write content and color it white on a white background to hide it from the readers. That’s a sure sign that what you have to say blows chunks! Today, you can “hide” content with CSS, but there is a right way and a wrong way to do it. If you’re hiding content to make it more difficult for readers to find it, that’s the wrong way. If you’re hiding content to make your page more usable, and the reader can easily find it with a simple click or mouse-over, that’s the right way.

When it comes to hidden text, intent matters. In other words, why is it hidden? Where is the content going? Why does it need to be hidden?

But, the most important question? Whether or not the text is valuable. This one matters the most. If the content is valuable, then your visitors need to be able to read it. If it’s not valuable, then it shouldn’t be on the page to begin with.

Negative Reviews: If you’ve got a product site or a blog, and people have the opportunity to write negative comments or reviews, you can’t only allow the good stuff. Nobody is going to believe that 100 of 100 reviews are positive. You lose credibility immediately.

In fact, negative reviews can help sell a product. If the reader can see all the negative things people have to say, they at least have a more well-rounded picture of what they are purchasing. They can use the negative reviews to determine that the good outweighs the bad, and they’ll be less likely to write a negative review themselves because they know what they are getting into.

If your readers cannot trust you, they won’t engage you for business or whatever else you want them to do. Your content is the first impression your visitors will have of you, so you have to make sure that you give them a good first impression rather than a jumbled mess of “keyword optimized” content. It all goes back to writing for your visitors first.

This post was inspired from The Princess Bride themed presentation I gave in early 2010 at SEMpdx’s Searchfest titled Inconceivable Content: The Dread Pirate Robert’s Guide to Creating Swashbuckling Content, Pillaging the Search Engines, and Commandeering a Treasure Trove of Conversions. If you enjoyed this post you also might enjoy other posts inspired from the same. Search for “inconceivable content” on this blog to find them all.

Google
June: 71.65%
May: 72.17%

Change: -0.52

January 2010: 71.49%
Change: +0.16

Yahoo
June: 14.37%
May: 14.43%
Change: -0.06

January 2010: 14.57%
Change: -0.20

Bing
June: 9.85%
May: 9.23%
Change: +0.62

January 2010: 9.37%
Change: +0.46

ASK
June: 2.19%
May: 2.14%
Change: +0.05

January 2010: 2.64%
Change: -0.45

Data scoring techniques tend to change over time making past data inaccurate. As always, information here is for entertainment purposes only.

Source: HitWise

You’ve got two options -

1. Use the chi-square or analysis of variance methods in Excel.  You will have to do some studying to figure this one out, but it’s well worth the time.
2. Follow some basic rules for how much data you need before you can draw conclusions.

You’ll have to dive into #1 on your own.  Let’s discuss #2 a little bit.  Here are two major guidelines to follow when deciding when to end a test -

• Capture data over the entire span of your buying funnel – What good does it do to get data for the first half of a buying cycle?  You don’t want to capture just your “one night stand” users; those that buy on the first click to your site.  You want to make sure you collect data long enough to capture a good sample from every phase of the buying funnel from awareness to purchase.  Run the test for like 3 sales cycles to get a good sampling.
• Have enough traffic that one click or conversion will not significantly change your results – 500 clicks and 10-20 conversions are good benchmarks here.  If your account doesn’t get lots of clicks, you can spread out your ads across ad groups and analyze ad performance across multiple ad groups and keywords.  You might write 4 different ads and run them on all of the ad groups in a particular campaign while just changing the headline to contain your ad group’s theme keyword in it.  Doing this allows you to still compare different ad messages against each other to find out what’s important to your target audience.

The situation you don’t want to run into here is where the next click or conversion changes the entire scope of your test.  For example, if you had 300 impressions and got 10 clicks for a 3% CTR and someone clicked on the next impression that would take you up to 3.7%.  That’s too big of a jump.  Similarly, if you had 2 conversions in those 10 clicks for a 20% conversion rate and that next click didn’t convert, that takes you down to 18%.  Also too big of a jump.  So, this is actually a great test to decide if you have enough data.  Calculate how getting a click on your next impression and a conversion on your next click affects your numbers.  If there isn’t a significant change, your test is over.

To summarize, if you let your ads run through all of the possible conditions that they could (weekdays, weekends, all hours of the day, all stages of the buying funnel, etc.) and you have enough data, then you are ready to analyze it.