PPC is an important strand of your web analysis. One of the cool things about PPC data is that you don’t need a lot of history to draw conclusions from it – a few weeks is enough time to give you an idea of how well a campaign is performing.
Google Adwords data is included in your Google Analytics data and includes metrics like click through rate (CTR) and cost per click (CPC). Google recently released AdWords API v201101, which allows you to more efficiently run reports, as well as implement campaign experiments and other recently released advertising features at scale.
But how do you track success after PPC visitors are on your site? What metrics should you investigate to ensure that you are getting high quality traffic and capitalizing on opportunities to convert?
For these types of performance metrics, you need web analytics! Here are 4 important metrics you should review on a daily basis to evaluate PPC campaign performance.
1. Conversions
It pretty much goes without saying that conversions are the best metric to determine how a PPC campaign is performing. You should have your web analytics set up to record both online conversions (newsletter subscriptions, content downloads) and offline conversions (phone calls, offline campaigns).
To track online conversions, configure your web analytics to record a conversion every time someone arrives on a specific URL. In the case of web forms, this URL would be something like a thank you or confirmation page. For downloads, you might need to add a piece of tracking code that will register the download as a pageview.
To track offline conversions, see one way of doing this in our previous post on Measuring Success of Offline Campaigns in Google Analytics. There are plenty of other solutions out there for tracking other offline conversions (e.g. by telephone) which will integrate directly into your web analytics program so you only have to access one dashboard.
2. Bounce Rate
A bounce is when someone lands on a site and leaves without viewing any other pages. Your bounce rate will vary for each campaign. A high bounce rate may be an indication that your content is not relevant or engaging to visitors.
3. Pages Per Visit
The interesting data comes from a very low or a very high number of page views. Very low could mean that visitors are not finding content useful or interesting, and have resigned to go back to search results to find a more relevant page. A high number of page views could mean either you are producing interesting and engaging content (look at time spent on page for engagement), or that the visitor cannot find the content they are looking for.
In both cases, review the relevance of the page content to traffic-producing keywords, and make sure the information people appear to be seeking is on the landing page, or a click away.
4. Average Time on Site
It goes without saying that a higher time on site is better than a low one. Extremely low (0-1 second) — There is no way to read a page’s content in this amount of time. If there are a lot of visitors spending less than a second on the site, it may be the result of one of two things:
• Invalid clicks – Check with your PPC platform to ensure you are not being charged for these.
• Slow site load time – May cause people to get frustrated and hit the back button before ever arriving on the landing page.
Low (less than 15 seconds) — Generally, those visitors who spent 10 seconds or less on a site quickly decided that they were in the wrong place. This may be because at a first glance they didn’t find any relevant information, see their keywords anywhere on the page, or were confused by the landing page’s layout.
Look at these 4 web analytics metrics and you will have a better idea of your PPC performance. Once you have gathered enough data to draw conclusions about which parts of your campaign work well and which don’t work so well, you can start implementing small changes and tracking the different outcomes. By taking this methodical approach you should be able to optimize your campaigns to get the best ROI.
Written by Kirsty Lee of We Are Cloud. We Are Cloud produce the SaaS Analytics solution Bime.
A little bit of research will reap large rewards when deciding on what keywords to target for your website or blog. It may be just a difference of a few words that will take you from a low ranked site to a high ranked one. But the key is finding the right keywords. Follow these tips to find the best keywords and ultimately increase your web traffic by connecting with targeted traffic.
The More Specific the Better
Be smart and specific with the keyword you go after. A contractor in California will benefit little from using ‘contractor’ as his keyword. Once you add a location and specialty, he will have much greater chance to connect with those looking for his service. So, ‘Bay Area general contractor’ would assuredly produce better results.
Use Available Tools
Many sites offer keyword search tools for free. These include Google’s Keyword Tool and SEO Book Keyword Suggestion Tool. There are other paid versions that may be worth the cost for a subscription. The paid sites are not affiliated with a search engine and may be the superior choice.
Relevant to Overall Goal
If you have not already focused on a specific goal for your site and business, now is the time to spell it out. Write it on paper and then evaluate whether your keyword options will lead you to achieve this goal. As you match the best keywords to the goals you have in mind you will have a more cohesive strategy. Also, the relevancy of the keyword will be easier to determine if your goals are clear.
Check out the Numbers
Looking into the popularity of the search terms will help you determine what niche to target and whether your search terms are too narrow. You want to make sure that enough people are conducting searches with your keywords to make it worth your while. In order to not be too specific but at the same time specific enough to reach your niche market, a look at the numbers is your best tool.
Not Just a Word
We talk of keywords, but frequently it’s the phrase that we really want. You will want to hone in on all kinds of phrases that someone could use to reach your site. Along with the rest of the research you are conducting, you will be able to weed out the non-contenders and determine which phrases will best suit you.
My Name is Lance Williams and I am what some might call H.A.D.D. (Hobby Attention Deficit Disorder) I love everything from rock climbing and snowboarding to building websites and searching for the Best moisturizer for men.
As you know the title tag is one of the most important on-page ranking factors for a webpage. So it is unfortunate that I constantly see people stuffing a few keywords into a title tag and then calling it a day.
Bellow are a few best practices that hopefully will remind you to revisit those title tags and make sure they are doing their part!
#1 Put your most important keywords FIRST.
You should be able to work at least two to three keyword phrases into a title tag. Make sure they appear by order of importance. I have seen the simple change of keyword order make a huge difference in a sites ranking.
Think about the word order, proximity of keywords and repetition. I hesitated to put repetition in because it is so often abused. However, if you use a keyword at the start of a title tag and then work it in at the end that can be a good thing. Just don’t over do it!
Also, make sure you are using singular and plural versions of keywords where it makes sense.
#2 Move your Company Name to the end.
To be honest, I usually tell clients to include the company name at the start of their description tag and not to waste the space in the title tag. However, this is not a hard and fast rule and if you are a “known” brand it can help to have your name in the title. I rarely find it beneficial to start a title tag with your company name unless that pages main goal is for branding.
#3 Avoid stop words
Try not to use stop words like “and”, “a”, “the” etc. in your title tag. They are just skipped by Google so only use them if you have to for readability. However, if you are clever you really shouldn’t need to use them.
Make sure to you use dashes “-“ or pipes “|” to separate content and it will take up much less space and still aid readability.
#4 Keep it brief
In general about 65 characters “including spaces” is about the max you want for a title tag. Google will start to truncate your results after that anyhow. Simply paste your title tag into Word, highlight it and it will tell you how many characters “including spaces” you are using.
#5 Stay focused
While a homepage can usually target several keywords effectively, most internal pages should only target a specific category or product. When you are writing your title tags make sure to stay focused on the topic at hand and not to go too broad.
Bonus: If users don’t click you have failed
Always remember the end goal of a title tag is not only to rank you but to entice a user to CLICK! Think about your title tag like an advertising headline. Would you be grabbed by a headline of just keywords?
Experiment with your title tags and se what gives you more traffic. Do you have free shipping, price match guarantee or something In Stock that’s hard to find? Make sure to try working that into your title tag and or description.
I hope these quick tips got you thinking about your title tags again. It’s a great idea to review your title tags every few months and make sure you are getting the most out of them.
Feel free to add more tips in the comments.
Yahoo recently launched a new service called Yahoo Clues. Yahoo Clues is a free service that gives you keyword trends and demographics data on specific search queries. The service is still in beta but shows a ton of promise and features that others..Cough..Google..Cough..doesn’t have. Let’s dive into some examples of the service.
Growing up with three younger sisters I know that “American Girl Dolls” are big deal around the holidays. You can see the trend line spike right around Black Friday and Cyber Monday. While this information is helpful it’s not nearly as powerful as the demographics data they give.
Demographics
You can break down searches by Age, Gender or Both. You can see here that a whopping 42% of the traffic is from the 35 to 44 year old range. Once you click on a specific data set Yahoo Clues will tell you some additional searches they made. This is very interesting because you can see that right after they search for the company they start to search for coupon codes and free shipping. If you were selling these you would want to make sure you coupon codes were getting spidered by Google and if you offer free shipping put that in your title tag.
Income
You can also click on income groups and see what additional searches they made. Notice the higher income group is no longer searching for coupons but they are still looking for free shipping.
Location
You also have the ability to search popular search locations. Yahoo mentioned that they take into account population size when weighting the results so that the same large states don’t show up first each time.
Clicking on a particular state will give you the breakdown of search traffic by city.
Search Flow
Search Flow is another really useful tool that allows you to see the search terms people are typing before and after their query. This is very valuable information that will allow you to search where your customer has been and where they going.
Yahoo Clues gives you information that will help develop a more complete picture of your customers. By finding out how specific age, gender and income groups search you can become a better marketer to each group. Yahoo Clues is still in beta but it holds tremendous promise.
eBay is a popular way to earn a living, or even just a side income, from the comfort of your own home. Because selling on eBay is easy enough that anyone with a computer and a digital camera can do it, a lot of people have sold on eBay at least once. While sellers range from virtual garage sales — folks just wanting to get rid of their old stuff, and make a little money in the process — to full-fledged Power Sellers, with an eBay store and is just trying to make a little extra income on the side.
Regardless of whether your online store is big or small, however, a well designed eBay store is important. A lot of eBayers still are not utilizing the store pages that eBay allows each seller, not to mention many people’s listings still appear plain and lifeless. The availability of these tools are some of the advantages to selling on eBay, and can impact how professional you appear to your buyers, so be sure to make use of them.
But eBay shop design is about more than just your store’s appearance. Writing your listings and your store pages to attract keyword searches, originating from search engines as well as from inside eBay, can be the difference between high bids and low ones. If you have ever searched for something to buy from Google or Yahoo, you probably noticed that eBay auctions frequently make the first page or two of search results. eBay is a strong domain, with new content, and search engines love serving up these results. Wouldn’t you like to be one of those lucky sellers? Follow these SEO tips for improving your eBay store, and next time, you just might be.
Use keywords in your listing pages. Let’s start with listing pages first, since that is the most basic part of any eBay store. Many sellers write one or two lines of description, and that’s it. If you want your listing to get attention, however, be sure to describe each item in full, being sure to use keyword phrases that folks shopping for that item might use to search. This approach might require a little research and more careful writing, but believe me, it’s worth it! Check out Google Adwords Keyword Tool, or even Microsoft’s Keyword Forecast Tool. If users are searching for it on Google, they’re likely using similar terms on eBay too. With the right terms you can kill two birds with one stone.
Utilize your About Me page and store pages. Even a basic seller gets an About Me page where you can write about what you sell… making sure to use lots of keyword phrases, of course. In addition, with a seller’s subscription you get several store pages. Whether you write these pages yourself or hire an SEO writer to create them for you, make sure that you optimize them to pick up search engine traffic paying careful attention to how Meta title data is pulled and making sure to add keywords in this section. Of course, remember the usual character limits with regards to Meta titles, pay attention to keyword density, etc…
Write reviews and guides on eBay. While not directly related to eBay store design, writing reviews and guides is another great way to increase traffic to your online shop. These short content pieces will list you as the author, which will direct visitors to your eBay page. In addition, they establish you as an authority on the subject, which helps you to generate a loyal customer base.
Create links to your eBay store. Another factor in search engine optimization is the number of links heading back to your page. As a seller on eBay.com, you already have an advantage, as eBay is an extremely strong domain. But you will also benefit your individual store by writing good content for your personal blog and other sites online, and linking back to your store within the content. You can also hire someone to write the content and generate these links for you, but it is important to be sure they are quality links contained within quality content. Using social media marketing can be helpful in drawing traffic and links as well, albeit no-follow links.
As you can see, there are a lot of things to consider when designing an eBay store, from the quality of the content and the appearance to the store, to the number of links pointing to your store. A successful online shop requires more than a slapdash effort, so make sure you plan your store’s design carefully!
About the Author
Vern is a blogger and avid writer. He’s well versed in the world of SEO and eBay store design too. You can often find him attached to his laptop in a Starbucks near you!
Customise Everything
Go back just ten short years and the world of social media was a virtually unpopulated wasteland, peopled only here and there by barely evolved platforms which were merely half formed ideas riddled with bugs. Nowadays we’re blessed with a much plusher and livelier social media landscape which is embraced by all, even those most rare of beasts – A-list celebrities. However this modern web isn’t without its problems, and the proliferation of tweeters and facebookers means that the average first time user has little chance of standing out.
Like a sparrow amongst parrots we can tweet all we like, but sadly if our feathers are dull and our song uninspiring, we’ll never attract any notice. We need that certain something if we’re to stand out, after all; the parrots were once sparrows themselves, which means that they must have done something to expand their social media presence and develop into an authority.
The key is originality, originality, originality. Or technically, just originality. If you can present a profile and wider online persona that is original, you’ll be able to capture people’s attention and imagination.
Originality is closely related to the idea of uniqueness, so as a social media marketer it’s your task to create something entirely new. This means customising everything about your Twitter or Facebook profile so that it’s both engaging and interesting. It means sitting down and thinking long and hard in order to hit upon something completely fresh.
Twitter Tassles
Where Twitter is concerned, customising everything you can is the first step on the road to sticking out like a sore thumb.
1. Backgrounds
If you can, design and upload your own background (tying in with your brand or image if you have one). Open up twitter.com now and click on one of the top tweets. What’s the first thing you notice? If it’s a commercial account especially, I’d be (hypothetically) willing to bet that it’s the custom background. Twitter profiles are dominated by empty space either side, so use this to build your personality and character.
It’s probably not worth picking one of Twitter’s own background themes, as this defeats the object. Instead, upload a photograph as your background, or something you yourself have created.
2. Photos
Even if you don’t have the ability or money to come up with a custom background, you can still upload a photograph or brand icon into the photo field; the important thing is that it’s exclusive to you.
3. Tweets
The above point goes for Tweets too. Instead of retweeting only industry related links/tweets, try bringing something more universally interesting to the table. Industry content is excellent, but when you boil us all down everyone is human, and so a video you find funny will probably be enjoyed by others too. Small to Medium businesses can fall into the trap of being too commercial and forgetting to be social in the social media world.
Put down the exhaustive list of plumbing tips or timber window news and pretend you’re an individual user who has stumbled across your business’ page – what would keep you there longer than the time it takes to hit the back button?
Facebook Fancy Dress
1. Landing Pages
As a platform, Facebook is a little more straight laced. Aside from the plethora of photograph uploading opportunities, users do have the ability to create custom designed landing pages to which new visitors are automatically directed. Effectively, these are the homepage of your profile, and should achieve the same things that your real homepage does; inform, engage and call to action.
2. Status Updates
It’s not always a good idea to aggregate your Twitter feed to Facebook, as this diminishes the originality (there’s that word again) of the tweet/link etc. There’s a reason why Facebook users are on Facebook rather than Twitter, so don’t force Twitter onto them.
Plus it might appear to an interested potential client that you have little to say if you repeat yourself on your blog, Facebook and Twitter. Instead, come up with fresh status updates for Facebook so that social networkers can see you’re investing time and effort.
3. Page Types
Make sure you create the right page for your purpose, Facebook allows users to create groups, business pages and community pages, as well as featuring countless apps used to promote charitable causes.
Overall, staying fresh in the social media world isn’t without a sense of irony. Success means that everything you say is repeated and retweeted, and countless users become aware of your brand of “distinctiveness”. However, the massive commercial exposure and increasing popularity gained is well worth a little irony. Customise everything and make yourself indispensible and irreplaceable and, predictably, social networkers won’t be able to live without you.
Joel Tarplin is a Content Writer for Creare; specialists in SEO, web design, ecommerce, internet marketing, email marketing and video production.
Google has just launched a new site: http://www.demoslam.com
Demo Slam allows you to submit your YouTube tech demos, to their new site. Google hopes it will be, “A place where boring tech demos become (hopefully) gotta-show-my-friends awesome—thanks to the creativity of Google users like you.”
Your video will go head to head with other user submitted videos and a winner will be crowned each week. They are looking for funny and creative content that is about one minute long. Currently they seem to be only accepting videos from US residents.
They are only accepting videos about “Featured Google Products”
- Google Book Search
- Google Chrome
- Google Docs
- Google Earth
- Google Goggles
- Google Instant
- Google Image Search
- Google Translate
- Google Home Page Image
- Google Maps
- Picasa
- Google Product Search
- Google Realtime Search
- Google Sky Map
- Google Video Chat and Google Talk
- Google Voice Search
I have seen a few fluffy positive reviews of Demo Slam so far but if I had to guess I would say this will fail. Another user generated content site with voting…nothing to see here.
A major error on Google’s part is to only allow you to submit videos that show off their products. This will get old fast and really gives you 0 reasons to come back to the site.
With sites like this you need to hit the ground running. Google should have used this launch to announce a NEW feature, instead of making really lame videos about existing products.
I really have no words for how horrible this video is. It flips through the features so fast you can’t really see or learn anything about them. Is this going to make you come back to the site? Me either.
Anyhow, I know it is easy to rip on anything new but this seems to fit right in with the recent failures of Google Wave, Knol, and Google Buzz.
What do you think, will this succeed or fail?
White hat SEO (search engine optimization) is the perfect choice for you if you DO NOT want to risk potentially fatal blows or doing things unethical, and could even get your site banned from Google. In fact, for most companies and businesses it is the only method of search engine optimization you should ever use.
I personally, have never gotten any of my sites banned from Google, but I could imagine the amount of distress you would go through. Furthermore never outsource to SEO companies that use blackhat methods.
But, hey this article is about white hat SEO. In this article I want to cover some convention, l and maybe some unconventional methods you could use in order to boost your sites rank in the search engines. For starters you are probably going to want to use a good CMS (content management system), such as WordPress to make adding, and removing changes that much easier for you. (see 5 Must for SEO with WordPress).
WordPress requires minimal technical know-how and is pretty simple to use. Along with WordPress, more and more webmasters are opting to use Joomla (see Joomla for CMS)
So you have got your CMS and everything installed, now it is time to get real traffic to your site. I don’t mean spending $5 on eBay for some robot traffic, tricking people into clicking on your site, or any methods of fake traffic generation. You are going to need to apply real white hat seo techniques if you are seeking “real” visitors.
Beginner White Hat SEO
Article Marketing. Unless you have been living in a cave the first thing people learn about white hat seo is article marketing. You are going to create an article with your keywords in your title, description, and have a decent amount of keyword density, and also have your anchored text pointing to your site with your keywords in it.
Forum Marketing. Another thing people commonly do is find a variety of forums that are related to their website and answer questions. They will then leave a link in their signature with their website. Again, they will have their keywords in there with a backlink to their website. Furthermore, a lot of people are actually hiring people to answer questions in forums for very cheap. This is not my favorite method, but I guess it can work for many websites.
Blog Commenting. Leave quality comments and drop your links in the comment where they are necessary. Leaving nice post, great job, ect. are not good comments. Actually taking the time to read their post and leave an intelligent comment for them (is a great idea). Better yet, when you leave a comment; I want you to imagine that it is your blog, and you wake up and read your comment. Would you accept it, or just delete it as spam. Seriously, do it and it will help you A LOT.
Link Exchanges. Again, not my favorite, but I guess for some it might work pretty good. Basically, send an email to a webmaster stating that you will add their site on two of your sites in exchange that they will link to your site. Or you can offer a reciprocal link, but these are off lesser value in Googles eyes. The only time I really use a reciprocal link is when it is a really authority site, and I will benefit more from it.
The four above are what I call “basic white hat seo tactics.” Below are more intermediate link building tactics that you should be using.
Intermediate White Hat SEO
Guest Blog Post. You can find a lot of places around the net, such as myblogguest.com which is a network of sites and blogs that are looking for guest post. I actually used this method to get in contact with the webmaster here 
. You could tailor an article on something pertaining to your site and then leave a backlink to your site for reference. Along with that you might want to make a couple of good articles, but in one of them actually have your keywords in the title for maximum benefit. Along, with that you could always ask for a link in their blogroll. Don’t be afraid to ask for a link and a lot of times if you run a quality site people will help you.
Video Marketing. Creating videos on YouTube are going really good these days, as well as a handful of other popular video websites. Create a couple videos with your keywords in them and leave a link on your “about you page” and in your description. Most importantly, you can use a number of the free tools on the net to stamp a box on your video with an active link. Don’t forget that you are going to want to comment on others videos, as well. You can even contact people, and ask for link exchanges and guest post through these video sites.
Social Media. This is a topic that I could write forever on. Social media could be anything from Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, Orkut, Hi5, or the other 50 million social networks on the internet. For example, on these you would setup fan pages (not on Twitter). You could auto feed your post, articles, pictures, ect to all go to these networks. This is an endless way to create an endless amount of authority backlinks to your site. Then you are going to want to participate on these networks. Better yet, outsource people to do it for you.
Directory Listing. This is a commonly overlooked tactic that you should be using if you are not already implementing into your seo tactics. There are a handful of great authority directories that you will want to submit your site to, such as, Yahoo directory, DMOZ, JoeAnt, business.com, botw.org, v7v, Aviva directory. For a full list please see this awesome list of strong directories.
These next tips are going to be some methods that you probably haven’t heard before are great white hat SEO tactics.
Advanced White Hat SEO
ScrapeBox. This is a tool that I use (it can be used as a black hat tool), but I do not use it that way. It allows you to autocomment on millions of blogs at once. However, I use it for the function of researching my competitors to see where they are getting backlinks from. You can generate a huge list of good blogs that are relevant to your site, and request guest blog post and even leave quality comments. A good tip is take all the top 20 for various keywords and generate a massive list of sites you could then “link prospect” to get backlinks to your site. ScrapeBox seriously has saved me hours and hours of time! You could do it my hand, but it worth it.
Blog Post and Reference. Another great tip for you is to have a blog on your site, and write quality content. In your blog post reference sites that your competitors are getting links from. Now right a really good tidbit about them along with a link pointing to them. Now here is the kicker. You are going to want to contact them through their “contact us” page and provide them with the link you used to link to them. Ask them if they will give you a link to your homepage. Nine times out of ten people will add you to either a blogroll or area on their site.
Google Search. In this method you are going to use the advanced functions in Google to help find other sites in which you can contact to get links from. You can either approach them with guest post, blog post and reference, ect. I use these methods all the time and it has really helped my seo a lot over the years.
• intitle:add+url “keyword phrase”
• intitle:submit+site “keyword phrase”
• intitle:submit+url “keyword phrase”
• intitle:add+site “keyword phrase”
• intitle:add+your+site “keyword phrase”
• intitle: directory “keyword phrase”
• intitle: list “keyword phrase”
• intitle: sites “keyword phrase”
Pack all these methods into one and do them naturally and your site will be thanking you! Your site does have to be optimized correctly if you want to see real results. That you must do extensive keyword research to insure you are not wasting your time. There are a lot more methods that you can use in order to get good quality backlinks to your website. I am interested to see what methods you guys/girls are using to help your sites rankings in Google. Please do share with us, or if there is something you would like me to elaborate on, please speak up
This article was written by Garen Arnold, who is a graphic designer out of Kansas City, Missouri. Garen provides people with the Best Web Hosting Service by using his expertise to help people choose the best web hosting service for their business.
Online success, be it in the form of a blog or a business, brings with it the challenging task of managing your online reputation. As soon as you find some success, you will likely also find yourself the target of criticism or negative comments somewhere on the social web. And since everything that’s published online is long-lived and searchable, it becomes important to deal with these problems in a timely and constructive way. The following are some tips to help you manage this tricky task:
Stay alert.
Don’t assume that negative commentary can only be posted on your site or social media profiles. In fact, unless your critic is looking for a fight, they’re more likely to vent in their own network (Facebook, Twitter, blogs etc) than to confront you on yours. It’s important to identify potential criticisms as quickly as possible so that you can get a handle on the situation before it turns into a pile-on. So: if you haven’t already, create a Google alert for your name, your site’s name, your brand’s name and any other trademark or identification commonly used to refer to your online identity and assets.
Identify the issue.
All negative comments are not equal. While it’s possible to find yourself at the receiving end of ad hominem or personal attacks, it’s much more likely that your critic has an issue with your product or message. He or she might offer it in the form of a detailed review, an angry tweet or a comment on your blog. As soon as it comes to your attention, identify the problem behind the negativity. Is it meant to be constructive or destructive? Is it a legitimate problem, a vague critique or a personal tirade?
Decide whether and how to react.
Not all criticism deserves or requires a reaction from you. For instance, if your critic is just trying to capitalize on your success by creating a stir, or is not a credible source, or does not have a network online, not responding might be better. But if you feel that an objective reader is likely to find and be influenced by the negative remarks, then you should respond. Having identified the issue (as mentioned above), decide what would be the best way to respond to the criticism, keeping future readers in mind. Proceed accordingly.
Be specific and direct.
Responding to criticism is one situation in which you should not focus on the person but rather on the issues. In most situations, it will be your reputation at stake, while your critic will have little or nothing to lose by a prolonged argument. So it is in your interest to address concerns not only swiftly but directly and specifically, without getting personal even if you are provoked. If your critic is vague, try to pin them down to specifics. The quicker you can know what needs fixing, the sooner you can resolve it.
Be real.
Online interaction and social media have recalibrated the expectations of consumers. Online brands are dynamic, interactive entities that exude both professionalism and personality. Bureaucratic delays, form responses and detached, robot-like answers to people’s problems just don’t cut it anymore. Being real means engaging with the issue, and this is especially called for in situations where your critic’s complaints are legitimate. This also means that if you’ve made a mistake that has directly impacted your customer, you should apologize and fix the situation to the extent that you are able. And remember: don’t try to use it as an opportunity to market!
Create a dialogue.
It is quite likely that your response will in turn generate its own response(s) – from your critic or from others. This is a good opportunity to turn criticism into conversation and get a better handle on the situation. In certain online interactions, even your ability to keep your cool, stay on topic and treat your critic respectfully will earn you the respect of your readers, and possibly even your critic. Conversation will take the edge off the negative comments and enable you to end the matter on a positive note.
Know when to quit.
It’s good policy to respond to every critic in good faith, addressing their issues promptly and turning the criticism into conversation when possible. But part of managing your reputation online is knowing when to disengage from a conversation, particularly if it’s becoming personal or fruitless. But don’t leave in the middle of a dialogue either – summarize your response firmly and leave the option of direct, private communication open, especially if the issue requires more back-and-forth.
About the Author:
Shelby Parson serves as the Executive VP of internet marketing for Premiere Tree Services of St. Louis where she actively represents the tree service in all forms of social media marketing.
#1 Know Your REAL Keywords
If you only look at one report in Google Adwords I would suggest the Search Query Performance report. Recently Google has made it easier to see this data without the hassle of running a report.
Simply navigate to a Campaign or Ad Group and select the Keywords tab. Once selected click “See search terms” and select ALL.
This will show you the actual keywords your Ad is being shown for, their CTR (click through rate) and even conversion rates. For example, if you are bidding on the keyword phrase “Gas Grills” Google will show your CTR and conversions, but unless you actually run this report you won’t see all the variations that keyword is actually showing for.
I see this problem all the time as an SEO. Someone will tell me that they make money on the keyword “Blue Widget” on Adwords and they want to rank for it organically. I then have them run this report to be sure and they find that “Blue Widget” was set to broad match and their actual conversions were coming from more specific variants of their main keyword.
You typically have to wait 1 day for data to show up but run this report on the last 30 days and you should have plenty of data to review per Ad Group.
#2 Turn a Negative into a Positive
After you run your report, scan the keyword list it gives you for phrases that don’t match your product or business. Add those keywords as a negative search term for that Ad Group or Campaign. Take the time to run your Search Query Performance report at least once a week and sift through it for keywords you can eliminate.
A large list of negative keywords is essential to running a successful Adwords campaign. Keywords set to Broad Match on Google are notorious for showing horribly unrelated searches. By eliminating these you can raise your CTR which will lower your overall cost and stop you from wasting money on customers who will never buy.
Google will not allow some long search phrases to be added as a negative. When this happens try to make some of the most important core words of the search phrase negative and leave the rest out.
While most negative keywords should be inserted at the Ad Group level you can add them at the Campaign level if it makes sense. For example, if you sell high end products Cheap or Free may be a good global negative for you. If you do not want to target customers in the research phrase of the buying cycle you might eliminate review and reviews etc.
#3 Use Tightly Themed Ad Groups
When you start a new Ad Group Do Not Overload it with Keywords! This is a major mistake that many people make. You need to keep your Ad Groups very targeted.
- Charcoal Grills
- Gas Grills
- Electric Grills
Those should be 3 unique Ad Groups. Resist the urge to pile them into one Ad Group because they are all grills.
#4 Divide Important Keywords by Match Type
Let’s say you want to sell Gas Grills. Start an Ad Group with only two keywords, “Gas Grills” & “Gas Grill” both set to phrase match. Go ahead and input at least 10 or 20 negative keywords then let it run for a day or two.
While you are adding negative keywords add [Gas Grills] & [Gas Grill] as negative terms as well. This may seem counter intuitive at first but by doing this your ads will only display for actual phrase searches that use Gas Grills in them versus showing for the exact match keyword.
You can then setup an exact match keyword Ad Group for [Gas Grills] & [Gas Grill]. Once this is done you will be able to truly see how your exact match keywords are performing and how your phrase match keywords are performing. You can use this same type of technique for broad match as well.
#5 Use Broad and Phrase Match to Mine Keyword Gold
Now that your Ad Groups are setup to truly show phrase or exact match terms you can use the phrase and broad matches to find great keywords.
In our case you might find something like this in your “Gas Grills” keyword report.
- Natural Gas Grills
- Weber Gas Grills
- Best Gas Grills
- Cheap Gas Grills
- Built in Gas Grills
- Consumer Reports Gas Grills
The idea here is to ditch the bad stuff and move the good stuff into individual Ad Groups. For instance, you probably don’t sell built in gas grills so why waste the traffic, make it a negative. However, if you do sell Weber grills make Weber gas grills a negative keyword for this Ad group and go create a new Ad group just for Weber grills.
Your phrase match will no longer show for weber gas grills but your new highly targeted ad group will. The keyword phrase “Consumer Reports Gas Grills” could inspire you to research the grills that consumer reports are currently recommending as best buys. Make the keyword a negative and place it in its own Ad Group with a landing page touting the grills you sell that are all so recommended by consumer reports.
You do not have to do this for every keyword, but try it and it’s a great way to eliminate bad keywords and create highly targeted Ad Groups that you can dominate for profitable keywords.
#6 Quality Score Can Destroy Your Campaign
If you do not have Quality Score enabled, click on the Keywords tab and select Columns. Make sure the Quality Score is checked. Try to get 7/10 and above for all your keywords. Try to improve any score lower than a 7 and anything lower than a 5 is a serious issue.
Usually Quality Scores can be improved simply by doing a better job of grouping your keywords and writing ads with the specific keyword appearing in the ad at least twice.
If you are doing that and still getting a low score it could be that your CTR is too low or your landing page needs to be more relevant for that keyword. As a last resort simply delete the problem keyword. This is much easier to do if it is a low traffic keyword to begin with.
Sometimes Google will give you a low Quality Score for seemingly no reason at all. You may think you are doing just about everything right and still get a lower Quality Score. In these cases you may want to use a high Quality Score broad match or phrase match keyword combined with a HUGE list of negative terms to get Google to mainly only show your ad for the keyword you’re having issues with. Hopefully you will not have to go to that extreme.
#7 Split Testing May Be Hurting You
Don’t get me wrong, you need to be split testing ads against one another. Every Ad Group you have should be running at least two variations of an ad at all times in an effort to find a better performing ad.
However, after you have been split testing ads for a while you will find it harder and harder to beat your best ad. This is where split testing can actually hurt you because 50% of your clicks will be going to an underperforming ad.
The solution is to duplicate your best ad 3 times (or more) and run it against 1 copy of your new ad. This will keep your CTR steady while you test. You can play with the mix to get a percentage you are comfortable with.
Remember to go into your campaign settings and set your ads to rotate more evenly so you can get an accurate split test.
#8 A Simple Way to Write Effective Ad Copy
Headline – Use your main keyword
Line 1 – Use line one to promote a benefit
Line 2 – Use line two to show your USP (unique selling point)
Display URL – Use Capitalization in your domain & add your keyword after the /. You can also remove the www from the Display URL if you need the extra room.
An ad like this should do well because it uses the target keyword “Gas Grills” in the headline and multiple times throughout the ad. It also touts the benefit of free shipping and 50% off combined with the unique selling point on line two of a large selection and fast shipping.
There really is no silver bullet when it comes to writing ad copy. The best thing to do is continuously test. However, if you follow this simplistic formula you will already be ahead of most of your competition.
#9 Optimize Your Campaign Settings.
Make sure you are set to the right countries or states that you wish to market in. If you don’t ship to Canada make sure you’re not advertising there.
However, the settings with the biggest impact are in the Networks and Devices section.
In general I would advise you turn off the search partners, display network and iphones/smart phones. I start almost every campaign with these three options disabled. Once I get the campaign running smoothly I will create a new campaign that just targets the display network.
The display network is a whole different animal and you need to know your market before even trying it. Also, it is much easier to view your data with Search and Display in their own unique campaigns.
Unless you are selling pizza or ringtones I would stay away from advertising on smart phones unless you have a very specific plan of attack.
By eliminating these networks until you are ready to expand into them you can save a ton of wasted money early on.
#10 Google Instant Will Change Search Behaviors
As more people get used to Google instant search it will start to change their search habits. Make sure you are prepared. Go to Google and type in your main money making keywords. See what Google starts suggesting. Make sure you have compelling ads for each of the relevant phrases that Google suggest.
If you do this now you can position yourself with high CTR and Quality Score in anticipation of your customers search behavior.
Closing Thought
Adwords can be a major source of frustration for beginners and even pros. However, if you take the time to set your campaign up the right way and monitor it closely you will limit the headaches and most importantly stop wasting money.
Please feel free to post your favorite Adwords tip in the comments!
