Online Marketing Blog » Pay Per Click http://www.toprankblog.com Grow your business with TopRank Online Marketing tips, articles, & experts interviews on social media, digital PR & search engine marketing. Thu, 18 Mar 2010 12:41:43 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 en hourly 1 5 Online Marketing Resolutions for 2010 http://www.toprankblog.com/2010/01/online-marketing-efforts-resolutions/ http://www.toprankblog.com/2010/01/online-marketing-efforts-resolutions/#comments Fri, 08 Jan 2010 12:00:30 +0000 Michelle Bowles http://www.toprankblog.com/?p=8218 We may already be a week into 2010, but that doesn’t mean it’s too late to starting making resolutions.

Resolve to give your online marketing efforts a boost this year by recognizing areas for improvement and putting in place a plan to make positive changes.

To help you get started, TopRank Online Marketing has come up with New Year’s resolutions for 5 different online marketing channels: Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Social Media, Email Marketing, Pay-Per-Click and Mobile Marketing.

1. SEO:

I resolve to focus more on maximizing visits and conversions from organic searches.
With SEO efforts, it’s easy to get caught up in one goal: getting found via the search engines. But ranking in the search results is only half the story. If potential customers aren’t clicking through to your web page – or other piece of digital content – the ranking doesn’t mean much. Plus, due to variances in what each of us sees in the search results for the same query, rankings as metric are no longer as useful. Personalized search results according to location and web history means your site might rank high for one person, but not another.

Maximize the success of your online marketing efforts by analyzing your metrics report to determine which pieces of digital content are highly visible but producing less than ideal traffic results. Then take some time to ask yourself these questions:

  • What competitive search results are your potential customers seeing? Assess the title tags and meta descriptions of competitive search results. Are competitors offering customers a free case study or a complimentary product sample? Then consider ways to make your own title tags and meta descriptions out-entice the competition.
  • Does your content live up to the promise put forth in your title tags and meta descriptions? Put yourself in your customers’ shoes: When you first visit your web page or other digital content from an organic search, is the content you find relevant? Potential customers don’t want surprises; they want a solution to the problem that caused them to search in the first place. And they want it as promised.

Not only will searchers respond more favorably to customer optimized titles and meta descriptions, but the increase in clickthroughs will, no doubt, be noticed by search engines and may influence subsequent rankings.

2. Social Media:

I resolve to set goals and track the results of my social media efforts.
There’s no denying that social media is more difficult to justify in terms of ROI compared to other online marketing strategies.  But that’s not to say it’s impossible – or that tracking results should be placed on the back burner. And without goals, it’s pretty difficult to measure success. In 2010, put forth even more effort to set goals for social media participation and tie results back to specific tactics.

There are a host of free or near-free tools available to gauge brand mentions and traffic from social media channels. In December, we highlighted 5 of these social media monitoring tools.

Tracking results via social media monitoring tools is just a start. Those results must be tied back to business goals. Potential goals might be:

  • Develop better customer relationships
  • Reputation management
  • Identify and energize brand evangelists
  • Increase brand awareness
  • Increase relevant visitor traffic
  • Improve standard and social search engine visibility
  • Build up a list for email marketing
  • Increase leads or sales

Without setting specific goals upfront, social media efforts can’t be definitively quantified so be sure to implement a Social Media Roadmap and all or social bases will be covered.

3. Email Marketing:

I resolve to integrate my email marketing with other online marketing channels.
Regardless of what the naysayers may say, email marketing isn’t going to disappear as a result of social media in 2010. In fact, email will continue to play a significant role in most online marketing mixes this year. A study from Silverpop found nearly half of marketers surveyed plan to increase email marketing budgets in 2010.

That’s not to say email marketing efforts shouldn’t evolve with the times. Integrating email with social media is on par to be a popular resolution for 2010: A recent eMarketer report found 40% of executives surveyed will make integrating the two tactics their top marketing initiative this year. Another 25% of respondents have already implemented an integrated strategy.

Pledge to take email marketing to the next level by encouraging email subscribers to not only forward content via email, but also to get social with email and share it via Facebook, Twitter, Digg and other sites. Conversely, conduct a poll on Twitter or your blog, and encourage followers and readers to subscribe to your e-newsletter for the results.

4. PPC:

I resolve to maximize conversion rates by testing different versions of my ads and landing pages.
Most companies using self-serve pay per click programs fall victim to “set it and forget it” habits. They’re busy with numerous other marketing activities or don’t have the time to really get to know the native bid management platforms and test/refine campaigns. Even if PPC efforts are reaching set goals in terms of conversion rates, there’s always room for improvement. You’ll never know until you try.

Consider these three ideas for testing different elements of your PPC campaigns:

  • Test multiple ad versions that highlight different benefits of your product, service or company. For example, one could tout cost-savings benefits, while another emphasizes a convenience aspect.
  • Use A/B testing to try out two different headlines on your landing page. Again, each could speak to a different benefit (i.e., cost savings vs. convenience). Google Optimizer is a great tool for this.
  • If you’re targeting a competitive search term with many competing ads, consider launching two different campaigns simultaneously. Each could offer a distinct piece of fulfillment – a free case study and a product coupon, for example.

A few tools for testing include:

5. Mobile:

I resolve to rethink my website design for mobile users.
If your site isn’t already optimized for handheld devices such as cell phones, now is the perfect time to re-assess your site design and how users find your site through mobile search – particularly for B2C companies.

In October, ABI Research forecast that mobile sales of physical goods in North America would reach $750 million by the end of 2009, a 117% annual growth rate. Consumers are doing a lot more than purchasing downloadable cell phone ringtones and games from their mobile devices. These days, clothing, electronics, books and a host of other items are being purchased through mobile commerce. Additionally, social network participation through services like foursquare, Facebook and Twitter are growing dramatically, creating additional opportunities for promotion and traffic to the mobile version of your company web site.

When optimizing web pages for the mobile web, consider a few tips:

  • Keep fonts in their most basic format
  • Eliminate advertising to conserve screen space
  • Take out images unless they are absolutely necessary
  • Remove Flash, Java or any plug-in content unless absolutely necessary

Online Marketing Efforts in 2010
As you make your own personal New Year’s resolutions to drop a few pounds, start a savings account or join a gym, don’t forget your online marketing efforts. Each year provides a fresh start and endless possibilities, so take advantage.

What resolutions do you plan to make in 2010 to improve your online marketing efforts?

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2010. | 5 Online Marketing Resolutions for 2010 | 23 comments | http://www.toprankblog.com

]]> http://www.toprankblog.com/2010/01/online-marketing-efforts-resolutions/feed/ 23 TopRank BIGLIST of 100+ Search Marketing Resources http://www.toprankblog.com/2009/09/100-ways-learn-search-marketing/ http://www.toprankblog.com/2009/09/100-ways-learn-search-marketing/#comments Tue, 22 Sep 2009 11:00:31 +0000 Lee Odden http://www.toprankblog.com/?p=6677 100 Plus Resources to Learn Search Marketing

TopRank BIGLIST of Search Marketing Resources

How do new marketers learn SEO and Pay Per Click? How do professionals stay current with search marketing tactics considering the sheer volume of social media distraction?  Last month we ran a poll of Online Marketing Blog readers to discover preferences for learning and staying up to date with current search engine marketing strategies and tactics.  Below are the top categories selected by readers. However, we’ve taken it a step further and listed over 100 different resources for marketers to start, maintain or advance their level of SEO, PPC and any other type of search based marketing. Enjoy!

Search Engine Marketing Blogs

SEO/SEM Blog Aggregators:

Testing Tactics on Your Own Web Sites

Search Engine Marketing Forums

Paid Subscription SEM Communities

Search Engine Marketing Webinars

Search Marketing White Papers, Research, Special Reports

SEO & SEM Email Newsletters

Online Groups for Search Marketers (Facebook, LinkedIn, Ning)

The Big SEM Conferences

SEM Consultant/Agency Advice

  • TopRank Online Marketing – That’s right, we put our own agency :)  - The reality is, your current SEO/SEM agency or consultant should offer some kind of ongoing education and/or training on top of ongoing consulting services. If not, call us!

Print Magazines

Offline Networking Groups or Meetups

Books on SEM

Niche or Regional SEO/SEM Conferences and Workshops

Search Marketing Industry Web Sites

SEM Workshops, Training & Certifications

Search Marketers on Twitter

SEO & PPC Focused Podcasts

What did we miss? Please share in the comments.

I took a quick poll on Twitter for some of the resources and want to thank those that made suggestions: @chrisgarrett, @scottclark, @danperry, @katemorris, @jonnytee, @Phil_EH, @steveplunkett, @chiropractic, @pratt, @kennyhyder, @kalena, @goglobalwebs, @scottdeto, @thashow.

chrisgarrett
scottclark
danperry
katemorris
jonnytee
Phil_EH
steveplunkett
chiropractic
pratt
kennyhyder
kalena
goglobalwebs
scottdeto
thashow
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© Online Marketing Blog, 2009. | TopRank BIGLIST of 100+ Search Marketing Resources | 41 comments | http://www.toprankblog.com

]]> http://www.toprankblog.com/2009/09/100-ways-learn-search-marketing/feed/ 41 Careers at TopRank: SEM Account Manager http://www.toprankblog.com/2009/07/toprank-hiring-sem-account-manager/ http://www.toprankblog.com/2009/07/toprank-hiring-sem-account-manager/#comments Thu, 09 Jul 2009 17:42:40 +0000 Lee Odden http://www.toprankblog.com/?p=5717 sem account managerClient focused, dynamic, challenging, rewarding, did I say fast paced? Those are some of the words I would use to describe our agency at TopRank Online Marketing.

TopRank has continuously evolved over the past 8+ years to become a well known and authoritative brand in the Search, Social and Online Public Relations space.  Our clients include an engaging mix of companies ranging from start-ups like Marketo, a marketing automation software company, to the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA), to the Fortune 20 such as McKesson, a $100 billion healthcare services company.

As one of the leading internet marketing agencies in the Midwest, TopRank Online Marketing has a fantastic opportunity for an experienced Search Marketing Account Manager to join our team of dedicated, client-focused internet marketing professionals.  While plenty of advertising, public relations and interactive agencies are downsizing, TopRank is growing smarter with new team members. Could you be our next Superstar?

Don’t just take my word on it, read what Adam Singer, our newest Account Manager at TopRank has to say:

adam singer

“Working with TopRank is challenging, exciting and inspirational from my perspective as someone new to the team, but not new to the Internet marketing industry.  If you enjoy a fast-paced environment working with a knowledgeable team and have the drive to succeed, TopRank is second-to-none.”

The ideal person for this career is passionate about internet marketing, ongoing learning and making a difference for clients.  Leadership, marketing creativity and problem solving skills combine to provide both strategic direction and the development of tactical marketing plans for clients and the TopRank teams that support them.  Success in this position means being comfortable providing guidance and consulting to the companies we serve as well as TopRank team members. Excellent communications skills and the ability to effectively work with multiple clients are essential.

Skills We’re Looking for

Prior experience with:

  • Client/Account management with internet marketing programs
  • Digital marketing project management
  • Developing client internet marketing strategy
  • Search engine optimization
  • Pay per click
  • Social media marketing
  • Directing team execution of tactics
A keen focus on:
  • Client service and satisfaction
  • Creative problem solving
  • Detail and consistent ability to meet deadlines
  • Quality, quality, quality!
An ability to:
  • Provide guidance to both clients and team members
  • Analyze data provided by SEO/SEM Analysts and make client marketing recommendations
  • Motivate and lead others in the development, direction and execution of online marketing programs
  • Respond well to ongoing client and team feedback
In-depth knowledge and/or understanding of:
  • Online marketing best practices: Search Marketing (SEO & PPC), Social Media Fundamentals
  • Website design, usability and analytics best practices
  • A collaborative agency environment
  • How to successfully prioritize and manage multiple projects in a deadline-driven environment
Superior problem-solving skills, specifically the ability to: Assess, Evaluate, Draw Conclusions and Make Sound Decisions.
A focus on quality and management with excellent Organizational and Analytical Skills, Written and Oral Communication Abilities, Proof-Reading and Attention to Detail.

Qualifications

  • 3-5 years of internet marketing  and account/client/project management experience
  • Bachelor’s degree in Business, Marketing, Public Relations, Mass Communication or related field
  • Proficiency with Microsoft® Outlook, Excel, PowerPoint and Word
  • Experience working with web analytics software, such as Google Analytics, Omniture or WebTrends
  • Experience working with SEO and PPC tools/platforms for keyword research, site analysis, project management, paid search ad programs
  • Familiarity with web development tools such as Dreamweaver and major content management systems
  • Experience working with designers, copy writers and web development staff to develop, maintain and market websites

TopRank Online Marketing offers a significant opportunity for advancement, extremely competitive time off policy, IRA retirement plan, premium health insurance and a creative office environment overlooking Lake Minnetonka!

If you have the skills to help us win the hearts, minds and bottom line results for our digital marketing and PR clients, please send your resume to: hr at toprankmarketing dot com with “AM Superstar” in the Subject line.

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2009. | Careers at TopRank: SEM Account Manager | 3 comments | http://www.toprankblog.com

]]> http://www.toprankblog.com/2009/07/toprank-hiring-sem-account-manager/feed/ 3 When is PPC Better Than SEO for Public Relations? http://www.toprankblog.com/2009/05/ppc-seo-public-relations/ http://www.toprankblog.com/2009/05/ppc-seo-public-relations/#comments Mon, 04 May 2009 12:59:54 +0000 Lee Odden http://www.toprankblog.com/?p=5160 SEO tips for PRWhen search engine marketing enters the conversation in PR circles and vice versa, it’s usually search engine optimization, not pay per click that gets attention. However, there are numerous opportunities to use the on-demand visibility of Pay Per Click as a method to attract visitors to news related content.

nytimes ppc spyfu

Publishers of online news and media use Pay Per Click to create instant search visibility for hot and trending news stories. Here’s an example of the NY Times using AdWords to promote a story about Twitter.  You can also see from this screenshot via Spyfu, some of the topical and time sensitive keyword phrases they’ve bid on to drive traffic to news stories.

PR professionals can do the same with brand names, company names or executive names that often get searched on. PPC can be used to attract attention to specific news items, stories and content that is likely to be passed along once people get a chance to see it.  

Deciding when PPC vs SEO is appropriate has to do with the situation and goals. Use of PPC advertisements are more of an on-demand and often times a reaction to other content displayed in the left side of the search results page. An example would be running ads on brand names that have negative information in the organic search results in order to tell the other side of the story. This can be useful to attract consumer attention away from negative listings.

paypal ppc
As an example, here is a Search Results Page for “paypal sucks” where PayPal is bidding on and displaying an ad for its brand name.

SEO for public and media relations is a long term effort and should be viewed as an ongoing investment in time and resources. SEO is most effective when it’s built into the processes of creating and promoting news content. Using the right keywords in the right places as well as making sure the PR content is crawlable by search engine spiders compliments the need to attract inbound links. 

The effect of ongoing SEO efforts (continued content creation, promotion and link building) is cumulative. The more news content on web pages and incoming links from other web sites, the wider the net that’s cast on the web from which to attract searchers. Results from SEO efforts are not often immediate so the decision to use SEO tactics should be appropriate to an ongoing commitment to see results. 

The decision is not so much whether PR professionals should use SEO or PPC, but more likely how to use both together to achieve specific goals whether they are  on-demand and reactive, or long term and proactive.

Do you know of some good PPC examples for public relations purposes? Please share in the comments.  If your company is in need of professional search engine marketing services, be sure to visit the TopRank site for case studies and resources.

This is post #3 in a series of ten, “Top Ten SEO Tips for Public Relations Professionals“.  For post #4 we’ll focus on “How to Choose the Best Keywords for Optimized Public Relations“.

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2009. | When is PPC Better Than SEO for Public Relations? | 19 comments | http://www.toprankblog.com

]]> http://www.toprankblog.com/2009/05/ppc-seo-public-relations/feed/ 19 5 Internet Marketing Haikus from TopRank http://www.toprankblog.com/2009/04/5-internet-marketing-haikus/ http://www.toprankblog.com/2009/04/5-internet-marketing-haikus/#comments Fri, 24 Apr 2009 23:02:17 +0000 DL http://www.toprankblog.com/?p=5057 In an online world that increasingly values the 140 character message, keeping campaigns, strategies and tactics short and sweet is the best approach for engaging audiences. To celebrate the succinct, we’ve created the following search marketing Haikus for your weekend reading pleasure. Enjoy!

[Note from Lee: I edited some of these so any of these that are bad would be my fault. The good Haikus are all Dana and Ashley.]

Search Engine Optimization
sem haiku

Social Media
semhaiku-julianas

Blog Marketing
Post great ideas - Join and share conversations - Be useful get links

Online PR
semhaiku-tahoesunsets2

Email Marketing
Put trust in email - Spam in can, not in inbox - Clean lists convert best

Feel free to share your own Haiku or any other search-inspired poetry, and keep the creative juices flowing!

[Photo credits go to: shapeshift, TahoeSunsets, Juliana S. ]

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2009. | 5 Internet Marketing Haikus from TopRank | 8 comments | http://www.toprankblog.com

]]> http://www.toprankblog.com/2009/04/5-internet-marketing-haikus/feed/ 8 SES NY: 8 Tips to Boost SEM Results http://www.toprankblog.com/2009/03/ses-ny-8-tips-to-boost-sem-results/ http://www.toprankblog.com/2009/03/ses-ny-8-tips-to-boost-sem-results/#comments Wed, 25 Mar 2009 20:43:04 +0000 Jolina Pettice http://www.toprankblog.com/?p=4787 In the last session of the day, attendees were rewarded with 8 awesome tips to boost Search Engine Marketing (SEM) Results in a sponsored session  ”Wpromote Workshop: 8 Things You Aren’t Doing That Will Boost Your SEM Results”.  

Using real-life examples, this session promises to teach attendees the secrets top online marketers are using to beat the competition and squeeze the greatest results possible from their SEM efforts.   Topics include: PPC, SEO, landing page optimization and social media. 

Speakers are Michael Mothner, Founder & CEO and Michael Stone, Vice President, Sales & Strategy – both from Wpromote.  Some tips you may know and some you may not, but there is definitely something for everyone.

1. Always. Test. Everything
Assume that everything is broken. Ask your self by how much is it broken and how do we reduce the delta between where we are and where we want to be? Always be improving.

Make sure your ads are fresh. Tailor copy to seasonal or world events to give the sense of freshness and relevancy.

Using Google to test messages, headlines and landing page copy is more cost effective and real-time than a focus group. Understand what messages resonate prior to creating entire campaigns.

What’s hot to test right now:
a. discounts and deals
b. sense of urgency

2. Tell the Right Story to the Right Person
Know your product, know your audience and be consistent to avoid frustrating your audience.

Connect the dots between the search query, your ad and the headline/copy on the landing page.

Understand the specific keywords your target is using and deliver specific content to them.

3. Don’t be Fooled by Google Broad Match
Google broad match allows you to match 1000’s of queries to a single keyword. While it’s easy and quick, it’s not always the best option. It can match to bad keywords, just as easy as it can match to good keywords.

The problem with Google Broad Match is that the keyword phrase you see in your dashboard, isn’t necessarily the word that your ad was shown for.

How do you get the good without the bad?
Track, Learn and Adjust.
a. use search query reports. Be careful though, the bad keywords are hidden in a line item ‘all other keywords’
b. Google Analytics Raw Query Hack
Use the good keywords for AdGroups, to bid higher and customize ad text
Use the bad keywords to update negative keywords
c. server log analysis (doable, but hard)

4. Blogging & SEO
If you launch a blog, blog 3-5x per week and on average 300 words per post. Make sure you interact with the blogosphere including linking, commenting and guest blogging.

Use keyword hyperlinks and refrain from hyperlinking ‘read more’ and ‘click here’.

5. Usability Testing. Do it!
Perform user testing. It doesn’t have to be expensive or intimidating and shouldn’t only align to the HIPPOs (highest paid person’s opinion).

Put on your client hat because what’s easy to you, may be hard for others.

Use tools like crazyegg to track user actions on pages.

Make sure your site is 100% compatible with Firefox, Safari, Internet Explorer (and its different versions).

6. Forms, Funnels and Fun!
Limit navigation to make sure users don’t get lost and to minimize distractions. Make sure that you are pointing the user toward the offer so they can take an action.

Get smart with forms. Capture the information even if the form or cart is abandoned and then follow up with abandoned leads.

7. Analytics is Your Friend
HITS – how idiots track stuff. (j/k :) ) Think about analytics as a way to study online behavior to answer questions.

What can analytics answer?
a. how do people get to my site
b. which version of my email campaign worked better
c. where are people dropping off in the buying process

Get granular with analytics.
a. segment the total number of visitors to identify who came from where and who did what
b. document changes and compare the before-and-after to see if the change had an impact
c. create funnels and see visually where failure occurs

Goals give analytics more value.  With goals you move beyond bounce rate, exit rate and time on site and dig into questions like:
a. does my blog lead to sales
b. what is the traffic source with the highest ROI

8. Social Media
Do you tweet? Look at examples like Zappos (twitter.zappos.com).
Share your company culture and build relationships with new and existing customers.

Promote video content on YouTube to drive additional targeted users through engaging media.

Feel free to share other tips below on how to improve SEM success.

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2009. | SES NY: 8 Tips to Boost SEM Results | 10 comments | http://www.toprankblog.com

]]> http://www.toprankblog.com/2009/03/ses-ny-8-tips-to-boost-sem-results/feed/ 10 SES San Jose: Ads in a Quality Score World http://www.toprankblog.com/2008/08/ad-quality-score/ http://www.toprankblog.com/2008/08/ad-quality-score/#comments Wed, 20 Aug 2008 21:43:16 +0000 TopRank Online Marketing http://www.toprankblog.com/?p=2729 quality score image

“Quality over quantity” applies to almost everything we encounter, from the foods we eat to the people we interact with. It certainly applies to pay-per-click ads, in which the quality of your campaigns, from keywords to ads to landing pages, takes precedence over the quantity of money you bid. Your keyword quality scores can be either a barrier of entry to ad rankings or your free pass to the head of the line. This session explores everything quality score, from what affects your score to how to improve it.

Dana Todd, CMO of Newsforce, directed a panel of four industry leaders in quality score, who take the discussion from the basics to detailed, actionable advice.

The Basics of Quality Score

Ron Jones, Search Engine Watch Expert and President/CEO of Symetri, gave a basic overview of quality score to those in need of a quick tutorial. He defined quality score as a dynamic value assigned to each keyword in your campaign which measures the quality and relevance of your ads. The higher your quality score, the lower your minimum bids.

Ron also outlined which factors influence your quality score in terms of minimum bid, ad position and placement on content sites.

  • Historical click-through-rate (CTR) of each keyword, ad and display URL
  • Relevance of each keyword to ad and search query or content site
  • Your AdWords account history (CTR of all ads and keywords in your account)
  • Ad performance on content site

The relevancy of your landing pages applies to minimum bids and content sites but does not affect keyword quality scores.

Ron also points out that other factors beyond marketer control can impact all of these things as well. As a key takeaway of his presentation, Ron recommended allocating 10-15 percent of a pay per click budget purely to testing, as testing will help you uncover which ads and landing pages result in better quality scores.

Brian Geddes, founder of bgTheory.com, continued the discussion of quality score basics with a look at why quality scores matter.

“Every time your ad could potentially show, quality score matters,” Brian said. He pointed out that a high quality score can ensure your ad is ranking higher than your competitors, even when you are paying less in your bids.

He also recommends looking at minimum bids as an indicator of quality score. By organizing your keywords from highest minimum bid to lowest, you can begin to diagnose quality score issues. Brian advised marketers to focus on keywords with a minimum bid between 0.25 and 0.50 cents, as small changes can have a big impact on quality scores in this range.

Relevancy and Quality Score

Digital Marketing and Convergence Media Consultant Kendall Allen moved the discussion beyond the basics with a look at relevancy. She gave a brief overview of the history of quality score and how ‘relevancy’ became a major player.

“With the onset of quality score, the bar has been raised and relevancy has become much more scientific if you want to approach it correctly,” Kendall advised.

Kendall focused particularly on landing page relevancy, and gave recommendations on how to improve your landing page’s relevancy in five main areas.

  • Content Content should be descriptive, clear and unique to your site.
  • Usability Your landing page should be useful, relevant and a direct response to the user’s search query.
  • Navigation Your site should ease a user’s passage and give direct connections to what they seek.
  • Transparency Landing pages should be upfront about the nature of your business and the use of a user’s personal information
  • Load time Minimize any landing page redirects and create synergy between content and design.

Kendall finished her segment by suggesting marketers collaborate with all involved parties, be they the client, webmaster or whomever, to ensure all interests are aligned in creating a relevant, high quality landing page.

Improving Quality Score

“Quality score takes search back to the basics, back to the fundamentals…providing the users the direct access to finding the content they want at the time they want it,” Misty Locke, president and co-founder of Range Online Media, said.

Misty outlined a detailed plan for creating a high quality score ad campaign, from keyword selection to creative.

  • Keyword building Build out all variations on trademark keywords, non-brand terms, and all product-specific long tail terms using keyword research tools, product feeds, etc.
  • Keyword structure and organization All four experts agree that organization is key, and that keywords should be sorted into extremely granular groups that match up closely with corresponding ad copy.
  • Keyword match types In the beginning of a campaign, include all match types for all keywords. As your campaign evolves, it should be moving towards the goal of all keywords being exact matches.
  • Creative Use of dynamic keyword insertion should be limited. In an ideal situation, your ad copy and keyword groups should be so specific to one another that dynamic keyword insertion isn’t needed.
  • Landing Pages Misty reminded the audience that unlike Google, MSN and Yahoo will disapprove landing pages that aren’t specific enough. Ad copy and landing page content should relate very closely to one another.

While this session was listed in the track for advanced advertisers, defined by moderator Dana Todd as those involved with pay per click for three or more years, I felt the information was comprehensive enough to apply to advertisers at all stages of the pay per click process. From learning the basics of quality score and what it impacts to how to achieve high quality scores, the four speakers in this session covered all levels of quality score understanding.

Stay current with the SES San Jose conference by checking in regularly with the TopRank Online Marketing Blog, and view more photos from the TopRank Team at TopRank on Flickr.

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2008. | SES San Jose: Ads in a Quality Score World | 2 comments | http://www.toprankblog.com

]]> http://www.toprankblog.com/2008/08/ad-quality-score/feed/ 2 SES San Jose: Landing Page Utopia Expert Roundtable http://www.toprankblog.com/2008/08/landing-page-utopia/ http://www.toprankblog.com/2008/08/landing-page-utopia/#comments Wed, 20 Aug 2008 19:18:49 +0000 TopRank Online Marketing http://www.toprankblog.com/?p=2727 Segmented Landing Page: Landing Page Utopia

Continuing the day’s trend, I attended another landing page-related session to round out Day Two of SES San Jose. The Expert Roundtable brought together four ‘knights’ of landing page optimization, armed with their tips and tricks to achieving the ‘holy grail’ of pay per click ads: Landing Page Utopia.

Moderator Ron Belanger, Vice President of Agency Development at Yahoo! Search Marketing, helmed this team of experts. Each speaker had their own unique ideas as to what achieves the most effective landing pages, and I’ve highlighted some of their original ideas and basic tips.

Scott Brinker, President and Chief Technology Officer at Ion Interactive, began the session with a challenge to the typical landing page format. “Landing pages look the same today as they did five years ago,” he observed. Scott offered three ways marketers can move beyond the standard with their landing pages:

  • More than 1 page From a single page to a microsite, marketers should tie the number of pages of their landing site to the user experience they are trying to create. In some cases, multiple pages will be more effective.
  • Post-click segmentation Marketers can identify different groups by having users segment themselves on the first page of a landing site, and then be taken to a form page specifically tailored to their interests (see the landing page image above as an example of segmentation).
  • Widgets and social media Scott claimed respondents to a landing page form a natural affinity group. Marketers can capitalize on this by creating a social network on their landing page, a place for respondents to ask and respond to one another’s questions.

Following Scott, Frans Keylard of Widemile offered his advice on landing page optimization in terms of seasonal campaigns. He delved particularly into testing for a seasonal pay per click campaign, giving a two-tiered testing procedure:

  1. Split testing Perform split testing initially by trying out various formats of your non-seasonal landing page. Use the highest performer as a baseline for your seasonal testing.
  2. Multivariate testing Identify variables in your format and test various combinations of these variables, such as images, to identify your ultimate seasonal landing pages. In his example, Frans demonstrated how an image of a Turkey in a specific location was most effective for a client’s Thanksgiving seasonal campaign.

After Frans, Alissa Ruehl, Manager of Paid Search Services at Apogee Search, took the podium. She brought the presentation back to the basics by outline 10 landing page ‘proverbs’ that every marketer should be aware of. A few highlights include:

  • “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth” Every conversion is a gift to marketers. Don’t ask too much of visitors by having a long, overly-detailed form to fill out.
  • “Are you going out dressed like that?” Forms should be clean, functional and easy to tab through. With a two-column form, ensure the tabs continue down instead of side-to-side.
  • “You’ll get by with a little help from your friends” Get outside opinions from others in your company, those outside the company but still in your industry, and those outside the industry to ensure your landing page is compelling and makes sense.
  • “No duty is more important than returning thanks” Have a good thank you page. Ensure it is engaging, well-formatted and rewards conversions with additional information.

Jonathan Mendez, Founder and CEO of RAMP Digital, finished the session with his idea of the world’s greatest landing page: Google. Looking at Google as a landing page rather than a search engine, Jonathan highlighted several Google features marketers should emulate in their own landing pages:

  • Give people control Allow visitors to control the delivery and presentation of your product.
  • Reduce choices Mendez claimed choices lead to considerations, which are roadblocks to conversions. Create a flow by reducing options.
  • Target to content Rather than targeting to persona or behavior, Mendez recommended targeting to content as that is what drives visitors to your site.
  • Always be testing Follow in Google’s footsteps by constantly testing and retesting your pages to achieve optimal results.

Each of these experts gave different advice, and some of the tips may seem contradictory, such as Jonathan’s recommendation of reducing choices versus Scott’s idea of including multiple pages. However it is important to remember that every company’s needs are different, and some of these tips will be a better fit than others given the situation. When seeking your Landing Page Utopia, be sure to outfit yourself with the best tips and tricks for your particular quest.

Stay current with the SES San Jose conference by checking in regularly with the TopRank Online Marketing Blog, and view more photos from the TopRank Team at TopRank on Flickr.

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2008. | SES San Jose: Landing Page Utopia Expert Roundtable | 2 comments | http://www.toprankblog.com

]]> http://www.toprankblog.com/2008/08/landing-page-utopia/feed/ 2 SES San Jose Session: Advanced B2B Search Marketing http://www.toprankblog.com/2008/08/advanced-b2b-marketing/ http://www.toprankblog.com/2008/08/advanced-b2b-marketing/#comments Wed, 20 Aug 2008 01:30:36 +0000 JCR http://www.toprankblog.com/?p=2838 Advanced B2B Marketing

If you are in the market to harvest leads from your web site, then this is the session for you! Industry experts Barbara Coll, CEO of WebMama.com, Patricia Hursh, President and Founder of SmartSearch Marketing and Adam Goldberg, Chief Innovation Officer for Clearsaleing gave some tips and insight to help B2B marketers develop search strategies to increase the number of qualified leads from their search campaigns.

Patricia kicked off the session with 10 tips for B2B Marketers!

1. Reach prospects early in the buying cycle
The sales cycle can often be long and complicated. B2B marketers rarely face the fact that people are conducting product searches at the beginning of the buying cycle. Reality is, your customers are looking for your product information way before they are ready to convert. You have to be there early!

2. Advertise in ‘the tail’
General keywords should be leveraged to reach customers early on in the buying cycle. As customers progress through the cycle, their keyword searches become more specific to the product.

3. Include non-branded keywords
Measure the search history of a person who ultimately converts on a branded term. B2B marketers typically measure the last click that converts. However, customers are searching for product information for up to 12 weeks prior to purchase. Track behavior over time, although they converted on the branded term, what initially brought them to your site? Be apart of the conversation from the beginning of their search.

4. Pre-qualified clickers
Use ad copy to pre-qualify clickers and address your specific target audience. The pros of pre-qualifying leads out-way the cons. Be specific about what you offer and who you serve.

5. Focus and align ad copy
Align ad copy with keywords. Ad copy should reflect general search terms to target customers early in the buying stage ie: lap top information. As customers move through the buying cycle, your ad copy should speak to their desire to compare brands with user reviews. When they are ready to buy, provide features specific to your product and brand.

6. Create very specific landing pages and microsite
Test microsites, focused on specific solutions and target audiences. Each microsite or landing page should focus on just one solution, with an objective to gain qualified leads. If your customers come to your home page on a targeted search keyword, they will get lost in a sea of information overload and you will loose the lead.

7. Test pages continuously
Will your registration form entice more click-through’s if it is located on the landing page or if you design a click path to reach it? Testing various options on your site can help improve conversion rates. If you are going to test, it is imperative that you track results over a period of time to determine what works and what doesn’t.


Recommended elements to test include:

- Page layouts
- Images
- Benefit statements
- Action triggers
- Names and descriptions of downloadable assets
- Registration form placement
- Registration form fields (required and optional)

8. Offer multiple action options
It’s important to offer choices. If your customers don’t want to download your software, maybe they want to take a product tour or download a white paper. What if the person isn’t ready to be contacted? Is there something else you can give them to keep the dialog going?

9. Simplify registration forms
Registration forms are typically too lengthy! There is a disconnect of the perceived value of what your customers are going to get and the process that it takes for them to get it. Test a simplified form to increase conversions. Baby step the prospects through the process and implement a robust follow up process to obtain the necessary qualifying data.

10. Turn web inquiries into sales leads
Implement a lead qualification process, starting with everyone that comes to your landing page. Next, identify the valid inquiries, followed by those that are ‘accepted’ leads. Once the lead has completed the inquiry follow up process, they are labeled as a qualified lead.

Barb specifically addressed the challenges within an enterprise wide sales force as search marketing at the enterprise level is whole new ball game. The enterprise sales force typically implements a leads ratings system to qualify their pipeline, with an obvious goal to ‘fill the pipeline’.

Where do most enterprises get ‘A’ leads? By searching their rolodex, making phone calls, or reaching out to someone they have contacted with interest in the past. This is not bad, but it’s not the only way.

Search can drive potential customers through high priority, high trust lead generation channels!

How you ask?
- Optimize more than home page and product category pages
- Point paid search clicks at aggressive lead generating pages
- Make search an A lead

So, how do you make search an “A” lead gen channel?
- Force it into the A lead bucket if it is a high converting paid search word
- Can’t treat all search traffic the same
- Educate the reps by showing them the paid search numbers
- Check to see what the reps are following up on when search leads come in

Review sales success measures, specific to the sales world, including:
- Close Rate
- Time to close
- Average selling price
- Quarterly Quota

Advanced B2B Marketing

Adam talked more about the use of technology in the B2B space and compared the online world of marketing to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Certain needs must be met to move up the pyramid.

Wrong Metrics = Wrong Decisions

Goal to get the cheapest lead you can is not a good goal to follow. The goal of Advertising is to drive profit.
How many of that specific lead does it take to actually close?
The best ad is that ad that is the most profitable for your business. If you are not focused on profit, you might be making decisions that look good on paper, but your ultimate goal to drive profit might not be reached.

Advertising sources sends traffic to your site; however the right technology is required to capture advertising analytics data required to make decisions.

Without the right technology, how can you determine the real value of a conversion? You need to connect the dots to know the values of each lead and sale.

The last click fallacy:
The last click does not necessarily deserve all of the credit. The buying cycle starts with problem recognition, where your customers are looking for general information online. From there, customers move into an information search, evaluation of alternatives and purchase decision. Every ad that is responsible for bringing the customer into the purchasing cycle has helped contribute to that sale. Because the last click is typically driven by a branded search, the misconception is that branded searches are really driving sales based on ‘the last click’.

If your objective is to increase qualified leads, are you driving traffic to a specific landing page or microsite?

For more photos from SES San Jose, be sure to visit TopRank on Flickr.

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]]> http://www.toprankblog.com/2008/08/advanced-b2b-marketing/feed/ 0 SES San Jose: 5 Things No One Will Tell You About SEM http://www.toprankblog.com/2008/08/ses-san-jose-5-things-no-one-will-tell-you-about-sem/ http://www.toprankblog.com/2008/08/ses-san-jose-5-things-no-one-will-tell-you-about-sem/#comments Wed, 20 Aug 2008 01:06:46 +0000 DL http://www.toprankblog.com/?p=2712 5 Things No One WIll Tell You About SEM

Who doesn’t like when secrets are given away? I know I do, and I can’t be the only one who thrives on search engine tips, rumors and gossip. This afternoon the expert panel of David Rodnitzky, Terry Whalen, Chris Knoch, Vinny Lingham and Chris Zaharias, we in the audience learned some new, exciting and potentially scary tips from these industry experts.

Debunking 5 current SEM assumptions – the continued growth of the long tail, the 1,001 things to do in SEM, that everyone should do SEM, listening to the search engine and the opaqueness of search – the panel addressed the following realities of the SEM world.

Chris Zaharias kicked us off by saying that the ever-popular long tail has reversed. In the second half of 2007 and through June of 2008, the popularity of 1 and 2 word phrases being searched upon has risen. Because of this, Chris says that search is now becoming a direct navigation portal. Searchers now go in and look up the names of websites they want to go to or the actual brand ad style of shoe they want to buy rather than performing multiple searches on different keyword phrases to ultimately find something worth buying. Long tail keywords can still work, but if you are setting yourself up as the final destination point of purchase, think of how you will reach that goal with the keywords you select.

Next was Vinny Lingham, discussing that while there are thousands of SEM tactics to perform, do not do every thing for every one. The expensive and time-consuming campaign that worked wonders and gave a huge ROI for a B2C client may not have the same effect for a small B2B client. Vinny’s overall thought was to keep promotions tight and centered around gaining the larger ROE (return on effort) for your clients.

Dave Rodnitzky came up and stated flat out that SEM may not be a good tactic for certain products, such as those with latent demand. He gave an example of TiVo. TiVo would not center itself around “alternative to VCR” because no one is searching for that term, even though that term descries exactly what it does. For these products, Dave recommends using alternatives to search engine marketing, such as placement targeting, vertical search, video advertisements or even (eek!) offline media.

Chris Knoch was up next, warning us of the dangers of the search engine upsell. With helpful graphs as visual aids, Chris outlined that traffic from only organic search is found to be hugely relevant to company websites. Comparing that to search advertising traffic to company sites, the traffic is found to be hugely non-relevant. The search engines make money selling advertising tactics based on the great job they do of indexing and providing relevant sites for organic search. Before engaging in these search advertising platforms, make the search engine prove the quality of it within a targeted silo. Chris also reminds us that the biggest growth market for search engines is poor, non-converting traffic sources, so do your homework and be wary.

Terry Whalen finished up the panel this afternoon by giving some information that is very simple, but that is hugely overlooked: The Internet is transparent. If you are a smaller company just starting out with SEO or PPC, there is a lot of competitive data out there that is relatively easy to find. Within a few minutes, a small business can look at competitor PPC ads and find out what keywords the competitors are buying, what their ad messaging strategy is and review their landing pages for relevance and messaging. This information is out there, and smaller businesses can use this information as a kickoff point for their campaigns. Terry said that a lot of companies don’t seem to be doing this competitive research, so he wanted to remind us of this tip to get us ahead of the norm.

These 5 tips were informative and very engaging for the audience to hear. Whether they reminded us of something small we haven’t been doing in a while or alerted us to a new way of measuring, I know I left the session with ideas for improving even on these tips. I’m curious to see what next year’s session on SEM secrets will sound like, and what will have changed over the next 12 months.

This concludes my posts from SES San Jose 2008. Keep following Ashley, Thomas and Jessica of the TopRank team on Wednesday for their session reviews and sessanjose08 pictures from tonight’s Google Dance!

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2008. | SES San Jose: 5 Things No One Will Tell You About SEM | 3 comments | http://www.toprankblog.com

]]> http://www.toprankblog.com/2008/08/ses-san-jose-5-things-no-one-will-tell-you-about-sem/feed/ 3 SES San Jose: Search Advertising 101 http://www.toprankblog.com/2008/08/piad-search-advertising-101/ http://www.toprankblog.com/2008/08/piad-search-advertising-101/#comments Wed, 20 Aug 2008 01:03:23 +0000 DL http://www.toprankblog.com/?p=2714 Search Advertising 101

When performing a search on Google, there are two different types of results that show up: the organic listings and the paid, or sponsored, listings. Organically ranked sites are those which Google finds most relevant for that search query. The paid listings show up because an advertiser is paying money to be ranked that highly for those phrases. When a searcher clicks on one of those listings, the advertiser is charged the cost per click price for that ranking, so hopefully the searcher will convert into a sale for that advertiser.

But what if you don’t know anything about search advertising or setting up a pay per click campaign? What are the best practices behind PPC? And how do you track conversions? This session at the end of Day 2 of SES San Jose goes over the basics of search advertising and how to implement it for success.

Dana Todd and Matt Van Wagner (together with Rebecca Lieb as the “Three Redheads”) gave exciting presentations on the absolute basics of setting up a pay per click campaign. Complete with bright pink wigs and Michael Phelps impersonations, this session was informative and pretty darn funny. Below are the key tips and tricks given by Dana and Matt to kick start any great PPC campaign.

1. Start Small - When beginning a new PPC campaign, do not be afraid to launch it and then test it out. Measure the results, adjust your campaign and test it out again.

2. Don’t “Set it and Forget it” – All campaigns need to be monitored and adjusted, or you risk losing a lot of money and not getting the conversions you need. Make sure to look at the campaign performance at least a couple times a week. At least.

3. Expand on Successes – Has something worked great for you in the past? Keep improving it and making it better!

4. Buy Your Brand Name – You may not want to “waste money” by purchasing your brand name as a keyword, but if you do this successfully, you have complete control over the messaging seen on SERPs for your brand name and you can segment your ads around different promotions or seasonality.

5. Set Bid Amounts High – At first. If you start out with a bang and lock in a high click through rate, you improve your quality score for your ad. Then, pull back if you need to.

6. Make the Changes Count - Don’t make changes for changes’ sake. Make sure that if you are adjusting your campaign, you are doing so with a clear objective in mind. If you think moving around the day part exposure will work to get more targeted impressions, go for it.

7. Create a PPC Campaign Checklist - Before setting this campaign live, make sure you have thought of and implemented these following items: strategy or goal, budget, advertiser rules, established baselines, tracking software, KPIs and allowing yourself to have a risk budget.

Remember, in PPC, everything is measurable. You will know exactly how well your ads and your keywords and your landing pages are performing because of this. And PPC is complimentary to SEO. When you have both organic search results AND paid search results, you gain even more impressions and searchers are more likely to view your brand as being reputable.

Tomorrow the TopRank team will be attending additional search advertising and PPC sessions, so stay tuned for further information and check out all of TopRank’s coverage of SES San Jose and sessanjose08 Photos.

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2008. | SES San Jose: Search Advertising 101 | No comment | http://www.toprankblog.com

]]> http://www.toprankblog.com/2008/08/piad-search-advertising-101/feed/ 0 SES San Jose: Landing Page Testing & Tuning http://www.toprankblog.com/2008/08/landing-page-testing/ http://www.toprankblog.com/2008/08/landing-page-testing/#comments Tue, 19 Aug 2008 23:21:08 +0000 TopRank Online Marketing http://www.toprankblog.com/?p=2723 Landing Page Testing

If pay-per-click ads are the welcome mat to the house of your business, landing pages are the entryway. The welcome mat may get people in the door, but the entryway convinces them to stay. The look and feel of your ‘entryway’ needs to be inviting and interesting to get your visitors to move forward in their relationship with your business. A good, engaging landing page is critical to gaining the conversions that are the meat of your pay per click ad, whether your defined conversion metric is driving traffic to your site, selling a product or gaining prospect contact information.

Sage Lewis of Search Engine Watch Expert and President of SageRock.com introduced this SES session on landing page optimization. Speaker Tim Ash, president of Site Tuners and landing page expert, brought his enthusiasm for his topic and his practical advice to this session of useful tips.

Tim began his session outlining several client case studies from SiteTuner to illustrate some key points about landing page testing:

  • Landing page testing can greatly improve your conversion rate
  • Really subtle changes can make a big difference
  • Even a small increase in conversions can translate into big numbers for companies with large revenue streams
  • Good landing pages can be improved
  • You don’t need a lot of data to perform testing. As few as 10 conversions a day are sufficient for A/B testing

Essentially, landing page testing can help any size company at all stages of the pay-per-click process. However, before launching in to tweaking and tuning the details of a landing page, a good campaign needs a solid landing page design to begin with.

Tim posed an important question to the audience: “Who should design your site?”

He doesn’t think the ad agency, marketing department, IT guys, the webmaster or your boss should be primarily responsible for this endeavour.

“Embrace the hoard of barbarians. They are going to define your brands,” Tim said. The “hoard of barbarians” he jokingly refers to are your customers. Tim recommends designing a landing page your customers would like to visit and can easily interact with.

Tim then outlined several important considerations in deciding how to go about testing your landing pages.

  • Test size The amount of data a business has to work with will determine which size of test to work with. A/B test is the simplest, but with enough data companies can test thousands of different landing page versions.
  • Test configurations Test can be set up to be either restricted, with a limited number of changes, or free form, with as many variables and changes as you like.
  • Data collection With full data collection, samples are taken collectively. With fractional factorial, data is sampled randomly.
  • Data analysis Use either parametric or nonparametric data to analyze the results of your test.

Once a business has taken these factors into consideration, they can then move forward with the type of test they wish to perform on their landing page. The three main types of landing page testing Tim outlined include:

  • A/B split testing Simple to implement and track, A/B testing involves changing one variable at a time and sending equal traffic to all versions of a landing page.
  • Parametric multivariate testing A landing page will generally need data upwards of 50 conversions a day to implement this type of testing.
  • Non-parametric testing A large scale test which takes interaction between variables into account.

While describing these three types of tests, Tim underscored the importance of monitoring how each changed variable interacts with one another in order to discover the ideal combination of changes you should make to your landing page.

Tim finished off his session by outlining the “Seven Deadly Sins” committed by landing page creators. This list of pitfalls covers a range of mistakes that can greatly impact landing page success.

  1. Squandering attention Avoid having too many links and distractions on your landing page. Focus on the visitor’s goals and eliminate clutter.
  2. Frustrating users Make it easy for users to reach their goal. The design of your page should guide people to the conversion.
  3. Invisible risk reducers Advertise the fact that your site is safe and user-friendly. Prominently display any “hacker-safe” guarantees, and let people know important information up front, such as which credit cards your site accepts.
  4. Lack of social proof Transfer the trust of larger brands and your clients to your company. Display client testimonials and case studies, media coverage or endorsements on your landing page.
  5. Surprising or confusing visitors Eliminate distracting elements like pop-ups, and avoid forcing visitors to register or create an account to purchase. Don’t interrupt the conversion process.
  6. Ignoring your baseline When testing landing pages, be sure to collect data on your existing landing page and not just your variations. Any changes should be compared against a constant.
  7. Not collecting enough data Ensure you run your landing page tests for long enough to gather sufficient data. Higher numbers further substantiate which pages are working and which aren’t.

Tim was able to give a great, easy-to-follow overview of landing page testing. It also didn’t hurt that he handed out $20 to anyone brave enough to answer the questions he posed to the audience. By following his guidelines and being sure to avoid the “Seven Deadly Sins,” you can help ensure your landing pages are optimized to best attract and convert your users.

Stay current with the SES San Jose conference by checking in regularly with the TopRank Online Marketing Blog, and view more photos from the TopRank Team at TopRank on Flickr.

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2008. | SES San Jose: Landing Page Testing & Tuning | One comment | http://www.toprankblog.com

]]> http://www.toprankblog.com/2008/08/landing-page-testing/feed/ 1 SES San Jose Session: Pay Per Conversion http://www.toprankblog.com/2008/08/pay-per-conversion/ http://www.toprankblog.com/2008/08/pay-per-conversion/#comments Tue, 19 Aug 2008 02:15:09 +0000 JCR http://www.toprankblog.com/?p=2624 Pay Per Conversion Panel

Many business owners and marketers can agree the current economy is having an impact on marketing plans, making every dollar and click matter. As part of the TopRank Account Team, I am excited to learn a new perspective to help clients increase conversions for their marketing campaigns.

Bryan Eisenberg, Co-founder of Future Now Inc., along with Brett Crosby, Group Manager for Google, shared insight to identify missed conversations and how to improve your landing page and increase PPC ROI.

Pay Per Conversion, as explained by Eisenberg, is a shift from our Pay Per Click mentality. No longer focusing our efforts to just get the click, but rather transforming those clicks into a business opportunity or conversion.

If we were to compare PPC to a direct mail piece, the ad would be like the envelope, but as we all know, what really matters is the offer contained inside.

So, why do we fail to convert?

  • The offer is not relevant
  • The customers does not have trust

Eisenberg compared our customer’s search habits to that of a bloodhound, stressing the importance of relevance. Customers are searching for so much at any given time and are bombarded with a variety of results to choose from. As a business, you need to give your customers a scent to follow, providing what your customers are searching for, at the second they are searching for it.

If your customers loose the scent, the persuasive momentum is gone and they abandon your site.

  • 10% of searchers abandon after the first click
  • 55% of searchers abandon after the second click
  • 16% of searchers abandon after the third click

The biggest opportunity to maintain the persuasive momentum of your visitors is after the second click. If they have found their way to your site, and leave after two clicks, the information on your landing page is not relevant to their search and they loose the scent.

If your ad copy claims you sell ‘pink roses’ and a searcher clicks on your site expecting pink roses but you provided yellow daisies, the searcher will abandon your site and continue their search for pink roses.

Eisenberg suggests we re-think the path of conversion. Different people come to a site with different needs, our job is to figure out what each person is looking for.

The Conversion Process:

  • Plan what to test
  • Measure success
  • Improve based on results

Brett Crosby, Group Manager with Google, urges business owners to always be testing to improve Conversions.

Pay Per Conversions - Bryan Eisenberg

When considering what items to test, focus on high traffic areas with the biggest revenue opportunities.

To identifying testing opportunities:

  • Look at landing pages. Where are people entering your site? The biggest opportunity to improve conversions is typically the page with the highest entrance rate and the highest bounce rate.
  • Review Google Goal Funnels. Identify opportunities to improve copy and forms on pages where visitors are exiting the goal funnel.
  • Run a site overlay. Identify where people are clicking and where people are converting on pages with a higher bounce rate.
  • Identify internal site search patterns.Refine your web site based on the search patterns of your visitors. Understand where your visitors started their search on your site and their navigation pattern.

The first issue plaguing landing pages is relevancy. The key to relevancy is to understand what each of your visitors are looking for and what answer is most relevant to your business.

To increase conversion rates, visitors must trust your online brand. Building credibility for your brand is important to build confidence and trust with your visitors.

Visitors will not have confidence in your brand if your site does not:

  • Include an About Us section
  • Provide contact information
  • Have a professional appearance

To build credibility and gain trust:

  • Let visitors know what to expect with point of action assurance
  • Leverage the credibility from other partners
  • Provide customer testimonials

For more photos from SES San Jose, be sure to visit TopRank on Flickr.

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]]> http://www.toprankblog.com/2008/08/pay-per-conversion/feed/ 0 2009 Search Marketing Benchmark Guide http://www.toprankblog.com/2008/07/2009-search-marketing-benchmark-guide/ http://www.toprankblog.com/2008/07/2009-search-marketing-benchmark-guide/#comments Mon, 14 Jul 2008 20:44:02 +0000 Lee Odden http://www.toprankblog.com/?p=2483 MarketingSherpa 2008 SEM Benchmark Guide

For the 5th year in a row, MarketingSherpa has published their Search Marketing Benchmark Guide which has been completely re-written and edited including results from the Marketing Sherpa members search marketing survey, other studies performed over the last 12 months and “best of” research provided by over 50 respected sources.

The SEM Benchmark Guide is helpful for marketers looking to get a handle on the state of the SEM industry, trends, strategies and tactics.

If you’re a data enthusiast, there are 215 charts, tables and eyetracking heatmaps to help illustrate what’s happening in search marketing and what companies need to be paying attention to. There are also several good case studies. This particular edition is formatted into 5 sections:

  1. Budgeting and Search – Covers budgeting in a down economy as well as differences by industry.
  2. Tactics of Search - Geotargeting, local and mobile as well as using search marketing as a branding tool all involve unique tactics explained right here.
  3. Search Providers Explored - Outside of the Google Universe, there are markets (like China) as well as verticals involving search that warrant exploration.
  4. Measuring and Testing – Search growth may be slowing but with the right measuring and testing, companies are continuing to see formidable returns.
  5. Search Benchmarks – A list of all the fundamental metrics of search marketing fully updated.

The dominance of Google, emerging opportunities in China, mobile and local as well as the demystification of Search Engine Optimization are all covered in the updated SEM Guide. All the data, examples and how to’s are a good enough reason to get this guide but here are 5 takeaways that I thought were particularly insightful:

  • Budgeting for search is a strategy unto itself
  • Search advertising affects brand metrics
  • Physical location of searchers is important for relevant results
  • Analytics makes inroads; Google leading the charge
  • Having analytics is not the same as understanding analytics

For many consultants, the price tag will seem hefty at $397 but there is more actionable data in this report, the biggest ever, than most companies will use in a year. Check it out yourself over at MarketingSherpa.

Just out of curiosity, do you prefer mini-reviews like this one or something longer and more substantial?

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2008. | 2009 Search Marketing Benchmark Guide | 8 comments | http://www.toprankblog.com

]]> http://www.toprankblog.com/2008/07/2009-search-marketing-benchmark-guide/feed/ 8 SuperBowl Advertising Post Mortem: Tide Sticks it Out http://www.toprankblog.com/2008/03/superbowl-advertising-post-mortem/ http://www.toprankblog.com/2008/03/superbowl-advertising-post-mortem/#comments Thu, 27 Mar 2008 22:11:29 +0000 TopRank Online Marketing http://www.toprankblog.com/2008/03/superbowl-advertising-post-mortem/ superbowl-advertising.jpg

While I am presently an offline/online media relations guy, my background spans a variety of media and tactics. As such, I have always been fascinated with the phenomena of SuperBowl advertisements. What other event allows you to generate buzz simply by making a media buy?

When it comes to search, it is nearly useless to play Monday morning quarterback with SuperBowl advertisements. Whether Budweiser had a funnier ad than FedEx is not necessarily relevant to our world. But in order to determine whether companies maximized their $2.7 million investment, it is important to assess the lasting impact on searches for their products.

In a trend that is sure to continue, many companies endeavored to drive traffic to their website in hopes of generating online buzz. Godaddy.com was certainly the most explicit about this tactic, sending viewers online to catch a racy “forbidden” ad featuring NASCAR sensation Danica Patrick.

An immediate analysis would have declared Godaddy a winner, with two million hits to their website immediately following their advertisement. Unfortunately, the hype didn’t last. Disappointment with the not-so-racy-as-advertised advertisement turned into negative buzz, and nobody is talking about the ad today.

Even if the end product had been more effective, how would it have helped Godaddy? One of the benefits of purchasing a SuperBowl spot is that people search for their favorite ads the next day. Thus, Godaddy will become more closely associated with Danica Patrick. It is not clear to me how this drives their business model, which is to sell domain registration services.

When it comes to failure to capitalize on post-game searches, however, Gatorade stole the show with an absurd ad featuring a dog drinking out of a dish. In addition to being confusing and devoid of a punch line, the ad could only compel you to search for “dog bowl”, or “dog drinking” to try to find the ad. Unless Gatorade is doing battle with Petsmart, this represents a wasted opportunity. Basic rules of brand compliance apply to the search world as well.

In fact, I would argue that the night emerged with only one clear victor. Tide’s “Talking Stain” ad, which featured a shirt stain literally drowning out a prospective employer’s list of accomplishments, was a masterpiece. Entertaining enough to be memorable, and smart enough to speak to a male audience, the ad was hailed as a smart, brand-savvy winner.

The sheer quality of the ad generated continues to drive Online searches, and the search engine path to finding it aligns with Tide’s business model here. Anyone unfortunate enough to need a search for “shirt stain” in Google will see the ad on the first page of searches. Happen to have an interview coming up? Want to know how to fix that nasty stain out of your fancy suit? A search for “stain Interview” yields numerous references to the Tide Stain Stick. Quite a feat considering Spray n’ Wash has had a similar product on the market for quite some time.

In short, the campaign plays into the way people truly interact with the web.

5,500 customers have taken their hand at crafting their own talking stain ads, via an online contest sponsored by Tide and powered by YouTube. That’s 5,500 forceful brand advocates with strong communication skills. In addition to the hundreds of thousands of YouTube clicks on the ad itself, the official parody site has become one of the top 50 most subscribed channels on YouTube, with nearly 500,000 clicks on the top ten videos alone.

Is it selling Tide Sticks? You bet it is. The pack of six Tide Sticks is the number one selling stain remover on Amazon, and outsells even the brand’s familiar powder detergent.

Given Tide’s recent success, rest assured that companies will endeavor to emulate the model. Expect silly viral campaigns, contests and the like, to abound in the wake of the 2009 SuperBowl as agencies look for ways to justify tremendous financial investments in their work.

My prediction: The Patriots win, and most of these companies fail because they have yet to understand how people interact with brands online.

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2008. | SuperBowl Advertising Post Mortem: Tide Sticks it Out | 8 comments | http://www.toprankblog.com

]]> http://www.toprankblog.com/2008/03/superbowl-advertising-post-mortem/feed/ 8 SES NY Session: 3 Tips to Successful Analytics http://www.toprankblog.com/2008/03/3-tips-to-successful-analytics/ http://www.toprankblog.com/2008/03/3-tips-to-successful-analytics/#comments Mon, 17 Mar 2008 23:10:03 +0000 Jolina Pettice http://www.toprankblog.com/2008/03/3-tips-to-successful-analytics/ Web Analytics Session - SES NY 2008
A full house was in attendance for this SES NY session in which panelists discussed how to squeeze the most out of analytics and turn data into action.

Avinash on the Web Analytics Panel - SES NY 2008Specifically, Avinash Kaushik, Author, Blogger, Analytics Evangelist from Google shared the following.

3 Tips to Getting More out of Analytics

1. Measure bounce rate

As Avinash described this is essentially when someone comes to your website, vomits and leaves. OR in a less disgusting but not as funny way this is a visitor who having not found what they were looking for left the site immediately.

Be sure to measure bounce rates to understand the number of individuals who are abandoning the website. While some of the traffic will be irrelevant and therefore always likely to bounce, the majority are bouncing because the information they want (while it may be on your website) is not at their fingertips.

Reduce bounce rates by trying the following:

a. Stop sending traffic to the home page. It doesn’t make sense and it doesn’t work. Please listen to your online marketing consultants and update programs accordingly.

b. Create unique landing pages. While sending traffic to product pages is better than the home page, it’s still not ideal. Create a page that is specific to what the visitor searched on.

i.e. If someone searches on tulip bouquets and they click on your Ad, they should be taken to a unique landing page about tulip bouquets, not a general page displaying all the kinds of floral bouquets you offer.

To be quite honest, this person does care about daisies. If they did, they would have searched for daisies. If you make it difficult for your visitor to find the tulips, they are going to hit the back button and find your competitor.

2. Stop the Ego Bids

Don’t define your keywords based on what you want to rank for. Define your keywords based on what phrases convert. Last time I checked, the warm fuzzy feeling of an ego ranking doesn’t pay the bills.

Help whoever is behind the ego keyword bidding understand the money the company is missing out on by going after ego keywords and you should be able to overcome this hurdle.

3. Experiment or Go Home

Don’t let the Hippos get you down! Everyone needs to be testing variations of the campaign.

A hippo, defined as HIghest Paid Person’s Opinion, can often drive the direction of a campaign even against best practices.

The way to create change is to love your hippo (internal or client side), understand the thought process behind his/her direction for the campaign and then work on a compromise.

And testing is just the way to accomplish this. Use A/B testing to find out what visitors respond to. Test by sending 75% of the traffic to the Hippo page and 25% to the test page.

Monitor and measure results to determine which ad and/or landing page drives the most conversions. If it’s the test page then you have the data to back up making a change.

At the end of the day, web analytics should be leveraged to help the business make more money.
Determine what metrics are going to help achieve this goal and then measure, report and refine.

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2008. | SES NY Session: 3 Tips to Successful Analytics | One comment | http://www.toprankblog.com

]]> http://www.toprankblog.com/2008/03/3-tips-to-successful-analytics/feed/ 1 SES Session: Landing Page Optimization Clinic http://www.toprankblog.com/2007/12/landingpageoptimization/ http://www.toprankblog.com/2007/12/landingpageoptimization/#comments Thu, 06 Dec 2007 18:37:28 +0000 Mike Yanke http://www.toprankblog.com/2007/12/landingpageoptimization/ Landing Page Optimization Clinic at SES Chicago

Focus is a tricky thing. Especially when describing a product that has so much too it. How can you possibly explain a detailed product, like a customized laptop, for instance – in just a few bullet points? The ideal prospect will want to read about every last feature – that’s simply their demeanor.

Let’s take a different, broader product. Pizza, for example. It’s absolutely fantastic that major pizza chains allow you to order pizza online using landing pages, and I truly hope that the best pizza in the Twin Cities will not only begin doing so soon – but call TopRank Online Marketing immediately to provide their site with the treatment their pie deserves.

Who isn’t interested in pizza? But just how much do you want to know about it before ordering? Can’t you find a lot of this information somewhere else, if so inclined – somewhere outside of the order stage?

This idea flowed through the punchy, interactive “Landing Page Optimization Clinic” today at SES Chicago.

The panel, moderated by Kevin Heisler of Search Engine Watch included:

  • Jimmy Ellis, Director of Optimization Experiments at MarketingExperiments
  • Scott Miller, President & Fouder of Vertstr
  • Marc Wachen, CEO & Co-Founder of Optimost

With landing page optimization, it does come down to little things – and specifically – the old adage of less being more.

Why overwhelm your prospect, who is ready to buy, with information they can easily acquire elsewhere? Your product may be the most technical, advanced piece of machinery every developed – and your prospect may very well think in these detailed terms – but if that’s the case, wouldn’t they have already know most of these details, or know of an more “knowledge based” site to find them?

The one common denomitator in humans, whether we swim or drown in data – is that when we’re ready to buy – we’re ready to buy. My girlfriend and I own a $200 home brew kit, that she had researched and I had not, which serves as proof.

By focusing on just the most vital product details (to repeat – the most vital product details) we can focus on what’s truly important in a landing page. Like, how do we the prospect acts?

Marketing 101, here. Engage the user – let those who want to buy know how easily they can buy, ensure those who aren’t ready – become ready, and build trust in the skeptical.

Miller described the thee C’s:

  • Capture their attention
  • Communicate the value of your product
  • Close the deal – ask for the sale – and make it easy to buy

Combine this with Ellis’ sage like advice that always bears repeating – build their trust. If other users have had great experience – let the new users know (if possible, use a real name and real firm – I personally know 458 “Scott G’s”). If your site is secure, certainly don’t just pat yourself on the back – share this information.

Add Miller’s bullets, multiple by Ellis’ concept, and the answer you will be left with is one that answers perhaps my favorite question of all time – one that speaks to the heart of what we do as marketers – “What’s in it for me?”

See more of SES Chicago.

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2007. | SES Session: Landing Page Optimization Clinic | 5 comments | http://www.toprankblog.com

]]> http://www.toprankblog.com/2007/12/landingpageoptimization/feed/ 5 SES Session: Managing PPC For Multiple Clients http://www.toprankblog.com/2007/12/multipleppcaccounts/ http://www.toprankblog.com/2007/12/multipleppcaccounts/#comments Thu, 06 Dec 2007 04:53:12 +0000 Mike Yanke http://www.toprankblog.com/2007/12/multipleppcaccounts/ Managing Multiple PPC Accounts at SES Chicago

“Managing PPC for Multiple Clients” had for me the pleasure of being a “slow-burn” of a session at SES Chicago.

For those unfamiliar with a term I may or may not have created, it means that it did not leave an immediately strong impression on me, until I later was fortunate enough to review the notes I had taken.

The session, moderated by the always exceptional Kevin Ryan featured a panel of:

  • Joe Rosza, President of SEO Columbus
  • Matt Naeger, VP & General Counsel for Impaqt
  • Christopher Upkes, Director of Agency Business Development for Adapt Technologies
  • Craig Macdonald, VP of Marketing for Alliances & Product Management

So what was is it that resonated with me most about this session upon further reflection?

Even more so than the notion of managing PPC accounts, it was the notion of “managing”.

We can sometimes forget in this industry that when dealing with such new methods that we really must focus on managing client expectations each step of the way.

For instance, Rosza brought up a great point when discussing how to offer PPC counsel. PPC, while helping to secure online real estate, is by no means a magic wand towards achieving lagging business goals. Going out on a limb, he challenged attendees to spend time and capital trying to increase results for what’s already converting. In other words, if something doesn’t convert, is it truly the most effective thing to spend your marketing budget on?

In the end, it comes down to knowing your client’s business and knowing your clients’ goals. While keeping these firmly in check, we can make even stronger recommendations based on what we’ve seen work in the past with other clients possessing similar objectives.

Taking this, it’s also important to counsel that in our past experience (and this will nearly always be the case) that nothing happens overnight. Especially with a tactic like PPC, knowledge is gained through experience, testing, and testing again.

By understanding that everything is subject to test before success, and, as Naegar put it, not being afraid to fail as much as you succeed, recommendations to our clients will only become stronger as our methods only become more revolutionary.

Check out more images from SES Chicago.

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2007. | SES Session: Managing PPC For Multiple Clients | No comment | http://www.toprankblog.com

]]> http://www.toprankblog.com/2007/12/multipleppcaccounts/feed/ 0 Are Your Landing Pages Lean, Mean Conversion Machines? http://www.toprankblog.com/2007/11/are-your-landing-pages-lean-mean-conversion-machines/ http://www.toprankblog.com/2007/11/are-your-landing-pages-lean-mean-conversion-machines/#comments Mon, 26 Nov 2007 11:00:21 +0000 Lee Odden http://www.toprankblog.com/2007/11/are-your-landing-pages-lean-mean-conversion-machines/ According to ComScore, more than $9.3 billion has been spent online during the season-to-date, marking a 17-percent gain versus the corresponding days last year. Online retail spending was strong on both Thanksgiving Day (up 29 percent to $272 million) and “Black Friday” (up 22 percent to $531 million), outpacing the season-to-date growth rate.

With all that holiday spending online, ecommerce web sites had better make sure their landing pages are lean, mean converting machines. That’s why it may make sense to attend an upcoming teleseminar from Marketing Sherpa and Marketo (a M&O client) on  Wednesday, December 12, 2007, 2-3pm Eastern, 11-12pm Pacific “New Research: Practical Tips on How to Lift Conversion Response” on landing page best practices. The event is free and you can sign up here.

Many of the examples and best practices will be based on Marketing Sherpa’s new Landing Page Handbook covering the various types of landing pages, example creative that works and doesn’t as well as how to justify budeting for analytics and testing. Discussion will include Stefan Tornquist, Research Director at MarketingSherpa and Jon Miller, VP Marketing at Marketo. Details and registration info here.

You may also be interested in Jon Miller’s guest post on the topic, “Ten Tips for Lead Generation Landing Pages“.

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2007. | Are Your Landing Pages Lean, Mean Conversion Machines? | 9 comments | http://www.toprankblog.com

]]> http://www.toprankblog.com/2007/11/are-your-landing-pages-lean-mean-conversion-machines/feed/ 9 Working at Microsoft – An adCenter Story from Europe http://www.toprankblog.com/2007/11/working-at-microsoft-%e2%80%93-an-adcenter-story-from-europe/ http://www.toprankblog.com/2007/11/working-at-microsoft-%e2%80%93-an-adcenter-story-from-europe/#comments Mon, 12 Nov 2007 12:00:25 +0000 Lee Odden http://www.toprankblog.com/2007/11/working-at-microsoft-%e2%80%93-an-adcenter-story-from-europe/ Editor’s note: On occasion we reach out to people in the search marketing industry we’ve come to know and respect with a request to contribute. Today’s contribution comes from Microsoft’s adCenter Community Manager – Europe, Mel Carson. Mel’s job is to support, educate & evangelize through the adCenter Blog, industry forums, and to speak about adCenter at conferences such as SMX, SES, Pubcon and others. Mel writes his own blog at DigiTales & Other Stories.

mel-carson.jpg

This post tells a personal tale of getting involved with Microsoft at the beginning of adCenter’s deployment to the paid search marketing world along with some good examples of unique adCenter features and why Mel thinks it’s great working for Microsoft.

My first day at Microsoft began at 4am on 11th July 2005 as I got up in St Margaret’s, South West London, in order to get the Eurostar to Paris to witness the launch of the adCenter Pilot in France.

As the train trundled through the Paris countryside, I pondered what the next few months would hold. Had I made a mistake by jacking in my account director role at 24/7 Real Media? What would it be like working in one of the most well known companies in the world? Were all the interviews I went through going to be worth it?

When I logged into adCenter for the very first time later that afternoon I was, shall we say, distinctly underwhelmed. I thought to myself, “What have they been doing?”, and more importantly “what on earth am I doing here?!”

That evening our team was given a pep talk from our head of service operations:

“The next few months is not going to be easy. As we work both internally, and with our customers, to scale the product and onboard all our advertisers, have the courage to make difficult decisions, even if you make some mistakes. People rarely get anything right 1st time, and you never learn unless you go back over what you’ve done, and see if you could have done it any better.”

Those words settled me a great deal, and I realised it was game on!

We all had a challenge on our hands, to grow adCenter from its bare bones in partnership with both the development team in Redmond, and our advertisers dotted around the globe.

Every time we took on a new person in London in preparation for the UK launch in August 2006, they would utter after their first few days – “But I just thought you’d be a bit further along by now!”

That was the point! The paid search team was, to all intents and purposes, a start up, a brand new business for Microsoft. As with all new businesses, there’s always a period of learning, growth and, more often than not, growing pain! Once every one of my new colleagues got that, they knew they had an opportunity to shape the business using whatever skill or competency they’d been hired for.

The guys I work with, the adCenter Community Team, have a great role. Our mission is support advertisers, large or small, through the adCenter Blog and education programs, like the soon to be released adExcellence Program.

The reason why the team was set up was, when we came to market, one of the top two asks from advertisers was “great service please!” So we’re all over the search marketing forums, answering questions, providing tips, pointing people in the right direction and gathering feedback, feedback on adCenter that goes right back to the dev team who then act on it.

You’ll also find us at all the major conferences too, SMX, SES and PubCon among others, talking to delegates, chatting to the speakers, recruiting for betas, listening to ideas and problems, because you know what? It’s not about us or this Evil Empire I keep hearing about, it’s about you – The Advertisers, advertisers, advertisers!

The second big request from our customers was for more insight. Who is clicking on my ad? Who is searching for my brand term? Can you give me better targeting options? Microsoft adCenter’s demographic tools answered those questions and so did our adCenter Labs team.

These tools use Passport, or Windows Live ID data, to assess a searchers age and gender when they type in a keyword into Live Search. Within adCenter you can, for any given Ad Group, up-weight your bids by between 10% and 100% for your target demographic and so serve an ad that is likely to be more relevant to that user.

For example if you sell financial services products to people about to retire, what’s the point in wasting expensive clicks on users under 50 years-old? By up-weighting your bids by say 50% for searchers aged 50-plus, you’re more likely to rank higher for customers more likely to convert.

meladcenter1.gif

It doesn’t mean you exclude the other demographics though. This is just a great way of getting a better ranking for those customers you know will be more likely to convert, and advertisers that have utilized this functionality have seen dramatic reductions in cost per acquisition of up to 76%.

Microsoft adCenter Labs is the quickest place to see all this awesome innovation in action. Check out the demos for tools to help with Paid Search, Contextual Advertising, Audience Intelligence and Emerging Media.

meladcenter2.gif

So not content with simply building a product that would do what others did before; the product team took the opportunity to push the boundaries, using existing Microsoft properties and research to give advertisers that extra edge and better ROI.

For me, those are the three things that I love about working at Microsoft:

  1. We get encouraged to make decisions, learn from any mistakes, and grow into our roles.
  2. We’re encouraged to get out there and meet our customers, find out their needs, work with them to help them get the best out of their campaigns, or do the best for their clients and not live in a bubble too far removed from reality.
  3. And we get to innovate, working with some of the coolest gadgets, gizmos and widgets. Cross-pollinating technologies to build the beginnings of a great eco-system for advertisers to tap into our rich and diverse audience around the world.

The last couple of releases of adCenter have shown we’ve been listening, that we are agile and that we put the needs of our advertisers first, and in turn we’ve received great feedback from them.

If, for one second, I thought that we didn’t have our customer’s interests central to everything we do, I probably wouldn’t stick around.

But I know that’s not going to happen..

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2007. | Working at Microsoft – An adCenter Story from Europe | 2 comments | http://www.toprankblog.com

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