Digital Marketing

Dec 28, 2008

3 Tips to Increase Adwords CTR


I thought I’d share with you a few tricks I’ve picked up along the way with Adwords. When starting a campaign, one of the most important things is to get a good CTR (Click Through Ratio). Google will give your campaign a “quality score”, part of which is the CTR. If you get a good quality score, your ad will show higher up in the Pay Per Click results, for less cash per click.

1. Use non-alphanumeric characters

Much how Eli talked about using non-alphanumeric characters in SERP results to increase CTR, we can do the same with Adwords. For instance:

Which of these two adverts stands out the most? Try running an ad rotation with the identical ad, one with “arrows” and one without. I bet this month�??s Adsense you get a higher CTR on our little arrowed friend! If you want to give the arrows a try, you could copy and paste them from here: �??�??

2. Sometimes less is…

Another interesting technique is doing something which seems totally illogical. Cut your ads off early and add a “…” at the end of the advert. This triggers a response in a lot of people, assuming there is more information will automatically be drawn to your advert.

So we’ll have something that looks like this:

3. Use Dynamic Keyword Insertion

Something that will really attract clicks is if you can get your title to exactly match the user’s search query. Rather than writing thousands of adverts, you can use (a sparsely documented) feature of Adwords, DKI.

You can use DKI anywhere in your adverts.. in the title, description line 1 or 2, display url and in your destination url (Usually for tracking purposes, be careful not to break your links with this method!)

Ok, how do I use Dynamic Keyword Insertion then?

You specify how you�??d like the dynamic keywords displayed, and give a default phrase which will be displayed if your dynamic keywords cannot for whatever reason. The format is below:

{keyword:defaulttext}

You can also use the following capitalization on the work �??keyword�?? to get different effects:

* keyword - no capitalization
* Keyword - First word is capitalized
* KeyWord - Every Word Is Capitalized
* KEYword - EVERY letter in first word is capitalized
* KEYWord - LIKE Above But With Each Word Capitalized
* KEYWORD - EVERY LETTER IS CAPITALIZED

Example:

{KeyWord:Widgets}
Buy your {Keyword:Widgets} here
{KEYword:Widgets} with free delivery!

User searches for �??blue widgets�??, which you have as a targeted term.

The resulting advert:

Blue Widgets
Buy your Blue widgets here
BLUE widgets with free delivery!

If anyone else has any quick tips that you don’t see everywhere else on the net, drop them in as a comment and share! Id love to hear what everyone else is doing, I’ve been pretty lucky with my Adwords success myself!

Dec 23, 2008

pay per lead

Definition

Online advertising payment model in which payment is based solely based on qualifying leads.

Information

In a pay per lead agreement, the advertiser only pays for leads generated at their destination site. No payment is made for visitors who don't sign up.

A lead is generally a signup involving contact information and perhaps some demographic information; it is typically a non-cash conversion event. A lead may consist of as little as an email address, or it may involve a detailed form covering multiple pages.

One risk to the advertiser is the potential for fraudulent activity by incentivized 3rd-parties or marketing partners. Some false leads are easy to spot. Nonetheless, it is advisable to make a regular audit of the results.

pay per sale

Definition

Online advertising payment model in which payment is based solely based on qualifying sales.

Information

In a pay per sale agreement, the advertiser only pays for sales generated by the destination site based on an agreed upon commission rate.

Paying per sale is often seen as the payment model most favorable to advertisers and least favorable to publishers. In such an agreement, the publisher must not only be concerned with the quality and quantity of his or her audience, but also the quality of the advertiser's creative units and destination site.

If possible, many publishers avoid sales-based agreements, preferring to stick to the CPM model. However, some publishers, facing weak ad sales, have little choice but to accept sales-based agreements to utilize remnant space.

For advertisers, pay per sale has some unique advantages compared to pay per click and pay per lead. There are fewer concerns about whether conversions are legitimate, and whether traffic is incentivized or of low quality.

Dec 18, 2008

The 7 Best Web 2.0 Sites To Improve Your Search

Having your website at the top search engine position can be a real boost for your affiliate marketing business. But how many of you actually know that Web 2.0 is one of the best way to get your site to the position and it is also quicker.

I have been using several web 2.0 sites to boost my search engine position and have got quite good results from them and I would like to share with you some of those sites that I am using to get me on the first page of Google for several keywords I am targeting.

Here are my top seven favourite web 2.0 sites

1) Squidoo

2) Hubpage

3) Weebly

4) Wikidot

5) Wordpress

6) Blogger

7) Digg

These sites above have always performed pretty well for my search engine optimization purpose and I recommend any one of you who are interested in using search engine as your traffic generation tool to use the above seven sites. Getting to the first page of Google using these site is not that tough but to maintain at the first page of Google for a long period of six to 12 months can be pretty tough.

Personally, I have learned some special techniques that can worked together with the above sites to get me lasting spot in Google. If you are serious about using search engine as your income generating tools, you should take some time to learn how to do that.

There are numerous products online that are about to teach you that but you got to study and put them into practice to see results.

Dec 17, 2008

The Best Traffic Generation

Although search engines have been around since the beginning of the Web, many businesses (large and small) are just now waking up to the gigantic benefit search engines provide. What other medium gives you - at absolutely no cost whatsoever - a way to drive unlimited traffic to your site? None. Thats why, once people understand search engine optimization (SEO), they get hooked!

I want to give you some basics to follow in order to help get your site ranked at the top of popular search engines like Yahoo! and Google. I also want to provide you with some exceptional resources so you can further your SEO education in the future.

What Is Search Engine Optimization?

SEO is the process of creating a Web site that fosters the design, coding, copy, and link-building elements search engines most like to see. Through the process of SEO, you can develop a site (or alter an existing site) so that the engines will move you up to the top of the search results. That means people who are actually looking to find what you have to sell will click to your site before your competitions.

How Does SEO Work?

There are three fundamental parts to the SEO equation: coding, copywriting, and link popularity.

Coding is the manipulation of your HTML code so that it is clean, uncluttered, positioned correctly, and easily accessible to the search engine spiders and bots. You want to be sure the most important information to the spiders is located up top where they can quickly and easily find it. You also want to ensure that java scripts and other such coding are moved out of the spiders way.

Copywriting relates to the text on your site. Search engine copywriting pertains to being able to write in such a way that you include your primary keyphrases in strategic places so that you get the most “points” from the engines.

Link popularity deals with how many sites have links that point back to your site (and vice versa). The theory is, that if others think highly enough of your site to link to it, your site must be of good quality.

When you have a good combination of all three primary elements, you stand a much better chance of ranking high with the engines.

Doesn’t SEO Depend On META Tags?

It used to… a long, LONG time ago. When the Net was first founded, just about all you had to do to get high rankings was to shove a bunch of keyphrases into your keyword tag. Now, however, the engines are smarter. They pay no attention to the keyword tags and very little attention to the description tag. The only tag that carries much weight anymore is the title tag. It is extremely important.

Isn’t SEO Copywriting Just Using Keyphrases As Many Times As You Can?

No! Not only does that put you at risk of spamming the search engines, it makes your copy sound horrible to your human site visitors. What good are high search engine rankings if your copy doesnt convert those visitors into paying customers?

You need to find creative and strategic places to use keyphrases so that you maintain the balance between natural language and keyphrase use.

Dec 16, 2008

Top 10 Social Bookmarking Sites

The number of social bookmarking sites has exploded in the last year, leaving someone new the space probably a bit overwhelmed at where to start. If you are new to social networking understand that each social networking site is different, it attracts a different audience with different interests. Thus what interests someone on Reddit might not appeal to anyone on Digg.

So who are the main players in the social bookmaking space? And what is the profile of the typical user of these social bookmarking sites? The answers below might surprise you!

Digg.com
Digg is the most popular and notable of the social bookmarking sites. Quantcast estimates that that Digg has about 25 million unique visitors a month. The audience is predominantly male (65%), between 25-34 years of age, with a household income between 30k and 100k. Digg’s demographics have changed as it has become more popular (mainstream). Not to long ago the Digg profile was male, under 25 who made less than 30k a year. Social media topics that do well on Digg include interesting photos, anything anti-Microsoft and lists (top 10, etc).

Propeller.com
Propeller (formely Netscape) is comfortable the second biggest social bookmarking site behind Digg with over 5.8 million monthly uniques, of which 3.6 million (62%) are in the U.S. Netscape also attracts a male biased audience (54) , that is slightly older (45-54 is biggest age group), and 55% of Propeller.com visitors have an household income over $60k.

StumbleUpon
Stumbleupon.com reports over 4.5 million members and Quantcast classifies it as a top 5,000 site that has about 1.5 million unique visitors a month from the U.S. The audience is male biased (56%) and between the ages of 45-54 (22% of visitors). The older demographic also skews the household income with 51% of visitors having a household income of over $60k.

Reddit.com
Reddit is becoming a very popular social bookmarking site with about 1.2 million unique visitors in the U.S., making it slightly larger than Del.icio.us. Reddit attracts a predominantly male (57%) audience that is between the ages of 35-44 (25%). With 65% of the audience having a household income of between $30 and $100k, Reddit is a mainstream social networking site. As a result, political, environmental, business and entertainment news does well with this audience.

Del.icio.us
Del.icio.us is the oldest social bookmarking site and Quantcast classifies it as a top 5,000 site that gets about 1.1 million unique visitors a month from the U.S. The audience is male (53%) and about 47% of them are over 45. Similar to StumbleUpon, 51% of visitors having a household income of over $60k.

Newsvine.com
Newsvine is a top 10,000 site that reaches over 362K U.S. monthly uniques. The site attracts a slightly male slanted audience (54%) and 51% of the users have a household income under $60k.

Fark.com
Fark.com is a much more trafficked site than people expect. With 1,972,698 monthly unique visitors in the U.S., it is bigger than StumbleUpon, Del.icio.us and Reddit. The Fark audience is heavily male (69%), between the ages of 25-34 and a household income under $60k (52%). The Fark audience likes interesting, bizarre and amusing news stories, along with regular photo manipulation contests.

Blinklist.com
Blinklist.com is a top 10,000 site that reaches over 353K U.S. monthly uniques. The site appeals to a more male group (59%) who are between the age of 25 and 54. About 54% of the audience earns over $60k a year.

Clipmarks.com
Clipmarks reaches over 205K U.S. monthly uniques. The site appeals to a male biased audience (58%) with a household income of $30-60k. The site attracts almost equal amounts of people between 25 and 54.

Shoutwire.com
This site reaches approximately 70,742 U.S. monthly uniques. The site appeals to a more male (60%), younger audience (38% are under 24).

So what does the demographic data tells us? One is that the typical social bookmarking site user is male, between the ages of 35-54 with a household income of $60k or more a year. Is this your target audience? If it is not, then these are probable not the main social networking sites that you should be focusing on.

Note that Digg attracts more users than all the other social bookmarking sites combined. Similar to how MySpace dominates the social networking space (and gets the lion share of advertising dollars), Digg is the dominate social bookmarking site. If you are trying to reach this audience, then you have to include Digg in your marketing efforts, simply because the audience is so large, relative to everyone else in this space.

Dec 14, 2008

SEO Tips



SEO Tips


Be bold. Use the tags around some of your keywords on each page. Do NOT use them everywhere the keyword appears. Once or twice is plenty.

Deep linking. Make sure you have links coming in to as many pages as possible. What does it tell a search engine when other web sites are linking to different pages on your site? That you obviously have lots of worthwhile content. What does it tell a search engine that all your links are coming in to the home page? That you have a shallow site of little value, or that your links were generated by automation rather than by the value of your site.

Become a foreigner. Canada and the UK have many directories for websites of companies based in those countries. Can you get a business address in one of those countries?

Newsletters. Offer articles to ezine publishers that archive their ezines. The links stay live often for many years in their archives.

First come, first served. If you must have image links in your navigation bar, include also text links. However, make sure the text links show up first in the source code, because search engine robots will follow the first link they find to any particular page. They won’t follow additional links to the same page.Â

Multiple domains. If you have several topics that could each support their own website, it might be worth having multiple domains. Why? First, search engines usually list only one page per domain for any given search, and you might warrant two. Second, directories usually accept only home pages, so you can get more directory listings this way. Why not a site dedicated to gumbo pudding pops?

Article exchanges. You’ve heard of link exchanges, useless as they generally are. Article exchanges are like link exchanges, only much more useful. You publish someone else’s article on the history of pudding pops with a link back to their site. They publish your article on the top ten pudding pop flavors in Viet Nam, with a link back to your site. You both have content. You both get high quality links. (More on high quality links in other tips.)

Titles for links. Links can get titles, too. Not only does this help visually impaired surfers know where you are sending them, but some search engines figure this into their relevancy for a page.

Not anchor text. Don’t overdo the anchor text. You don’t want all your inbound links looking the same, because that looks like automation - something Google frowns upon. Use your URL sometimes, your company name other times, “Gumbo Pudding Pop” occasionally, “Get gumbo pudding pops” as well, “Gumbo-flavored pudding pops” some other times, etc.

Site map. A big site needs a site map, which should be linked to from every page on the site. This will help the search engine robots find every page with just two clicks. A small site needs a site map, too. It’s called the navigation bar.

Dec 9, 2008

Life of a Google Query

 The life span of a Google query normally lasts less than half a second, yet involves a number of different steps that must be completed before results can be delivered to a person seeking information.


3.
The search results are returned to the user in a fraction of a second.
    1. The web server sends the query to the index servers. The content inside the index servers is similar to the index in the back of a book - it tells which pages contain the words that match the query.
2. The query travels to the doc servers, which actually retrieve the stored documents. Snippets are generated to describe each search result.

Dec 1, 2008

The Value of Content for SEO

Keeping up with the constant changes in the Google Algorithm is like keeping up with a certain footballer's change in hair style. In fact they may both have a lot in common...lots of money, domination over their market and one small change can make headlines all over the world. So, what was the change this time?


If some of you have not researched or even read countless articles on the mythical algorithm, you may or may not have come to the conclusion that it ends up as searching for the golden fleece. However, with articles which  you have to start listening and maybe even listening to the advice. Not only was the article a good read for the astounding 450 updates that the beloved algorithm (I shall hence forth refer to it as the Alg) had last year, but the answers from Mr Matt Cutts from Google. I like the short translations most of all, i.e. 'Yes' or 'No'.

What is important about this post was that it drove me to take a look at one of my sites in a more detailed look. I was also recently at a advanced Google Adwords seminar where one point came out that caused a real stir amongst the participants. To increase the quality score of your campaigns it is imperative that you have a landing page that is directly relevant to the campaign or ad group keywords. I.e. relevancy and content is most important. I then read a few blog posts to confirm that Google has now taken a liking to content not that it didn't before, but more so now. Content for SEO is king again.

Interested by this I took a look at one of my websites from a content point of view. Looking at some of the keywords, we had them all grouped so they were targeted towards one page in particular. Hmm, this would not do. What we needed was each keyword to have its dedicated page that was full of quality content for both the user and the search engines.

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