All posts tagged SEO

How do your web users think?

By On January 27, 2009 In Internet Marketing, Website Design With No Comments Permanent Link to How do your web users think?Permalink

Basically, users’ habits on the Web aren’t that different from customers’ habits in a store. Visitors glance at each new page, scan some of the text, and click on the first link that catches their interest or vaguely resembles the thing they’re looking for. In fact, there are large parts of the page they don’t even look at.

Most users search for something interesting (or useful) and clickable; as soon as some promising candidates are found, users click. If the new page doesn’t meet users’ expectations, the Back button is clicked and the search process is continued.

  • Users appreciate quality and credibility. If a page provides users with high-quality content, they are willing to compromise the content with advertisements and the design of the site. This is the reason why not-that-well-designed web-sites with high-quality content gain a lot of traffic over years. Content is more important than the design which supports it.
  • Users don’t read, they scan. Analyzing a web-page, users search for some fixed points or anchors which would guide them through the content of the page.
    Users don’t read, they scan. Notice how “hot” areas abrupt in the middle of sentences. This is typical for the scanning process.
  • Web users are impatient and insist on instant gratification. Very simple principle: If a web-site isn’t able to meet users’ expectations, then designer failed to get his job done properly and the company loses money. The higher is the cognitive load and the less intuitive is the navigation, the more willing are users to leave the web-site and search for alternatives. [JN / DWU]
  • Users don’t make optimal choices. Users don’t search for the quickest way to find the information they’re looking for. Neither do they scan web-page in a linear fashion, going sequentially from one site section to another one. Instead users satisfice; they choose the first reasonable option. As soon as they find a link that seems like it might lead to the goal, there is a very good chance that it will be immediately clicked. Optimizing is hard, and it takes a long time. Satisficing is more efficient. [video]
    Both pictures show: sequential reading flow doesn’t work in the Web. Right screenshot on the image at the bottom describes the scan path of a given page.
  • Users follow their intuition. In most cases users muddle through instead of reading the information a designer has provided. According to Steve Krug, the basic reason for that is that users don’t care. “If we find something that works, we stick to it. It doesn’t matter to us if we understand how things work, as long as we can use them. If your audience is going to act like you’re designing billboard, then design great billboards.”
  • Users want to have control. Users want to be able to control their browser and rely on the consistent data presentation throughout the site. E.g. they don’t want new windows popping up unexpectedly and they want to be able to get back with a “Back”-button to the site they’ve been before: therefore it’s a good practice to never open links in new browser windows.

1. Don’t make users think

According to Krug’s first law of usability, the web-page should be obvious and self-explanatory. When you’re creating a site, your job is to get rid of the question marks — the decisions users need to make consciously, considering pros, cons and alternatives.

If the navigation and site architecture aren’t intuitive, the number of question marks grows and makes it harder for users to comprehend how the system works and how to get from point A to point B. A clear structure, moderate visual clues and easily recognizable links can help users to find their path to their aim.

Let’s take a look at an example. Beyondis.co.uk claims to be “beyond channels, beyond products, beyond distribution”. What does it mean? Since users tend to explore web-sites according to the “F”-pattern, these three statements would be the first elements users will see on the page once it is loaded.

Although the design itself is simple and intuitive, to understand what the page is about the user needs to search for the answer. This is what an unnecessary question mark is. It’s designer’s task to make sure that the number of question marks is close to 0. The visual explanation is placed on the right hand side. Just exchanging both blocks would increase usability.

ExpressionEngine uses the very same structure like Beyondis, but avoids unnecessary question marks. Furthermore, the slogan becomes functional as users are provided with options to try the service and download the free version.

By reducing cognitive load you make it easier for visitors to grasp the idea behind the system. Once you’ve achieved this, you can communicate why the system is useful and how users can benefit from it. People won’t use your web site if they can’t find their way around it.

2. Don’t squander users’ patience

In every project when you are going to offer your visitors some service or tool, try to keep your user requirements minimal. The less action is required from users to test a service, the more likely a random visitor is to actually try it out. First-time visitors are willing to play with the service, not filling long web forms for an account they might never use in the future. Let users explore the site and discover your services without forcing them into sharing private data. It’s not reasonable to force users to enter an email address to test the feature.

As Ryan Singer — the developer of the 37Signals team — states, users would probably be eager to provide an email address if they were asked for it after they’d seen the feature work, so they had some idea of what they were going to get in return.

Stikkit is a perfect example for a user-friendly service which requires almost nothing from the visitor which is unobtrusive and comforting. And that’s what you want your users to feel on your web site.

Apparently, Mite requires more. However the registration can be done in less than 30 seconds — as the form has horizontal orientation, the user doesn’t even need to scroll the page.

Ideally remove all barriers, don’t require subscriptions or registrations first. A user registration alone is enough of an impediment to user navigation to cut down on incoming traffic.

3. Manage to focus users’ attention

As web-sites provide both static and dynamic content, some aspects of the user interface attract attention more than others do. Obviously, images are more eye-catching than the text — just as the sentences marked as bold are more attractive than plain text.

The human eye is a highly non-linear device, and web-users can instantly recognize edges, patterns and motions. This is why video-based advertisements are extremely annoying and distracting, but from the marketing perspective they perfectly do the job of capturing users’ attention.

Humanized.com perfectly uses the principle of focus. The only element which is directly visible to the users is the word “free” which works attractive and appealing, but still calm and purely informative. Subtle hints provide users with enough information of how to find more about the “free” product.

Focusing users’ attention to specific areas of the site with a moderate use of visual elements can help your visitors to get from point A to point B without thinking of how it actually is supposed to be done. The less question marks visitors have, the better sense of orientation they have and the more trust they can develop towards the company the site represents. In other words: the less thinking needs to happen behind the scenes, the better is the user experience which is the aim of usability in the first place.

4. Strive for feature exposure

Modern web designs are usually criticized due to their approach of guiding users with visually appealing 1-2-3-done-steps, large buttons with visual effects etc. But from the design perspective these elements actually aren’t a bad thing. On the contrary, such guidelines are extremely effective as they lead the visitors through the site content in a very simple and user-friendly way.

Dibusoft.com combines visual appeal with clear site structure. The site has 9 main navigation options which are visible at the first glance. The choice of colors might be too light, though.

Letting the user see clearly what functions are available is a fundamental principle of successful user interface design. It doesn’t really matter how this is achieved. What matters is that the content is well-understood and visitors feel comfortable with the way they interact with the system.

5. Make use of effective writing

As the Web is different from print, it’s necessary to adjust the writing style to users’ preferences and browsing habits. Promotional writing won’t be read. Long text blocks without images and keywords marked in bold or italics will be skipped. Exaggerated language will be ignored.

Talk business. Avoid cute or clever names, marketing-induced names, company-specific names, and unfamiliar technical names. For instance, if you describe a service and want users to create an account, “sign up” is better than “start now!” which is again better than “explore our services”.

Eleven2.com gets directly to the point. No cute words, no exaggerated statements. Instead a price: just what visitors are looking for.

An optimal solution for effective writing is to

  • use short and concise phrases (come to the point as quickly as possible),
  • use scannable layout (categorize the content, use multiple heading levels, use visual elements and bulleted lists which break the flow of uniform text blocks),
  • use plain and objective language (a promotion doesn’t need to sound like advertisement; give your users some reasonable and objective reason why they should use your service or stay on your web-site)

6. Strive for simplicity

The “keep it simple”-principle (KIS) should be the primary goal of site design. Users are rarely on a site to enjoy the design; furthermore, in most cases they are looking for the information despite the design. Strive for simplicity instead of complexity.

Crcbus provides visitors with a clean and simple design. You may have no idea what the site is about as it is in Italian, however you can directly recognize the navigation, header, content area and the footer. Notice how even icons manage to communicate the information clearly. Once the icons are hovered, additional information is provided.

From the visitors’ point of view, the best site design is a pure text, without any advertisements or further content blocks matching exactly the query visitors used or the content they’ve been looking for. This is one of the reasons why a user-friendly print-version of web pages is essential for good user experience.

Finch clearly presents the information about the site and gives visitors a choice of options without overcrowding them with unnecessary content.

7. Don’t be afraid of the white space

Actually it’s really hard to overestimate the importance of white space. Not only does it help to reduce the cognitive load for the visitors, but it makes it possible to perceive the information presented on the screen. When a new visitor approaches a design layout, the first thing he/she tries to do is to scan the page and divide the content area into digestible pieces of information.

Complex structures are harder to read, scan, analyze and work with. If you have the choice between separating two design segments by a visible line or by some whitespace, it’s usually better to use the whitespace solution. Hierarchical structures reduce complexity (Simon’s Law): the better you manage to provide users with a sense of visual hierarchy, the easier your content will be to perceive.

White space is good. Cameron.io uses white space as a primary design element. The result is a well-scannable layout which gives the content a dominating position it deserves.

8. Communicate effectively with a “visible language”

In his papers on effective visual communication, Aaron Marcus states three fundamental principles involved in the use of the so-called “visible language” — the content users see on a screen.

  • Organize: provide the user with a clear and consistent conceptual structure. Consistency, screen layout, relationships and navigability are important concepts of organization. The same conventions and rules should be applied to all elements.
  • Economize: do the most with the least amount of cues and visual elements. Four major points to be considered: simplicity, clarity, distinctiveness, and emphasis. Simplicity includes only the elements that are most important for communication. Clarity: all components should be designed so their meaning is not ambiguous. Distinctiveness: the important properties of the necessary elements should be distinguishable. Emphasis: the most important elements should be easily perceived.
  • Communicate: match the presentation to the capabilities of the user. The user interface must keep in balance legibility, readability, typography, symbolism, multiple views, and color or texture in order to communicate successfully. Use max. 3 typefaces in a maximum of 3 point sizes — a maximum of 18 words or 50-80 characters per line of text.

9. Conventions are our friends

Conventional design of site elements doesn’t result in a boring web site. In fact, conventions are very useful as they reduce the learning curve, the need to figure out how things work. For instance, it would be a usability nightmare if all web-sites had different visual presentation of RSS-feeds. That’s not that different from our regular life where we tend to get used to basic principles of how we organize data (folders) or do shopping (placement of products).

With conventions you can gain users’ confidence, trust, reliability and prove your credibility. Follow users’ expectations — understand what they’re expecting from a site navigation, text structure, search placement etc. (see Nielsen’s Usability Alertbox for more information)


BabelFish in use: Amazon.com in Russian.

A typical example from usability sessions is to translate the page in Japanese (assuming your web users don’t know Japanese, e.g. with Babelfish) and provide your usability testers with a task to find something in the page of different language. If conventions are well-applied, users will be able to achieve a not-too-specific objective, even if they can’t understand a word of it.

Steve Krug suggests that it’s better to innovate only when you know you really have a better idea, but take advantages of conventions when you don’t.

10. Test early, test often

This so-called TETO-principle should be applied to every web design project as usability tests often provide crucial insights into significant problems and issues related to a given layout.

Test not too late, not too little and not for the wrong reasons. In the latter case it’s necessary to understand that most design decisions are local; that means that you can’t universally answer whether some layout is better than the other one as you need to analyze it from a very specific point of view (considering requirements, stakeholders, budget etc.).

Some important points to keep in mind:

  • according to Steve Krug, testing one user is 100% better than testing none and testing one user early in the project is better than testing 50 near the end. Accoring to Boehm’s first law, errors are most frequent during requirements and design activities and are the more expensive the later they are removed.
  • testing is an iterative process. That means that you design something, test it, fix it and then test it again. There might be problems which haven’t been found during the first round as users were practically blocked by other problems.
  • usability tests always produce useful results. Either you’ll be pointed to the problems you have or you’ll be pointed to the absence of major design flaws which is in both cases a useful insight for your project.
  • according to Weinberg’s law, a developer is unsuited to test his or her code. This holds for designers as well. After you’ve worked on a site for few weeks, you can’t observe it from a fresh perspective anymore. You know how it is built and therefore you know exactly how it works — you have the wisdom independent testers and visitors of your site wouldn’t have.

Bottom line: if you want a great site, you’ve got to test.

References

15 Questions You Should Be Asking Your SEO Agency

By On January 27, 2009 In Website Design With 1 Comment Permanent Link to 15 Questions You Should Be Asking Your SEO AgencyPermalink

The trouble with search engine optimisation (SEO) is that the people raving about the benefits of the service are also the people providing it.

This means that it can be confusing for a client to choose a company to supply the work. They may have read about the benefits online but they have probably been reading about them on the blogs of those very suppliers.

Now, I am aware that I am one of those suppliers and one of those bloggers, but I firmly believe it is important for my clients to understand at least the basics– people should know what they are paying for.

So, here is my list of questions you should ask before agreeing to any contract. Obviously some of these will not make sense without further research, so I strongly urge you to investigate the sector and its possibilities. The more you know the better.

1) What kinds of tactics do you use?
It is important to avoid firms using dubious – or black-hat – techniques. Search engines can actually penalise websites they discovers using ‘unethical’ ways of manipulating their algorithms.

2) Who are your existing clients?
A good, established SEO agency should have existing satisfied customers and be able to show you the results it has generated for them.

3) Can I read some testimonials?
Strong SEO agencies have nothing to hide and will gladly offer you the chance to read testimonials and perhaps even speak to satisfied clients.

4) Will you edit my website’s content?
The answer to this should be yes. A decent SEO firm will work on your copy to ensure it is optimised. Anyone promising dazzling results using paid links is not offering the best service available.

5) Do you work for any of my competitors?
If they are, it does not necessarily mean the SEO agency is unable to work for you. However, you should be aware of any potential conflicts of interest.

6) Do you have long-term strategies for my website?
SEO is no magic button; the real benefits come from sustained work. Any company which claims it can ‘do’ SEO for a one-off fee and effort is almost certainly lying.

7) Can I have your number?
Agencies working within SEO will often be highly web-based and the majority of dealings you have with them may be via email. However, if you have any questions, concerns or just want a natter about the future of your pages, they should provide you with a phone number. It’s good to talk.

8) Will you show me regular reports?
The internet is a brilliantly measurable platform. While any strong SEO campaign will clearly boost your return-on-investment, you should be kept in the loop and shown the information available on traffic and keywords searched as well.

9) If you supply new content to my website, will I own it?
Often, an SEO supplier will provide new copy to your pages in order to boost their popularity and raise your ranking. Check that this content is yours, to reproduce as you choose and retain even if you stop using the supplier’s services.

10) Do you offer guarantees?
SEO companies which guarantee ‘top ten rankings in less than ten days’ are not telling the truth or, at least, not offering a wholesome and long-term optimisation strategy. However, some agencies offer guarantees of work carried out – if yours does then make sure it delivers on these promises.

11) Do you have a special relationship with Google?
If your would-be SEO agency says ‘yes’, it is deceiving you. Google will often seek the help of agencies for testing purposes, but any “special relationships” with optimisation companies would damage the search engine’s results, reputation and returns.

12) When can I expect results?
A good SEO agency will explain the timeframe you are likely to see returns in. Some tactics will take longer than others, for example a well-planned paid ad campaign could see instant benefits, while organic optimisation efforts will take longer. Decent suppliers will not be afraid to explain this and give you some idea of what to expect.

13) Are you active in your industry?
Top SEO providers will stay abreast of the developments within their sector. They will do this by blogging, spending time on forums, researching developments and attending conferences. You may want to think twice about going for some bloke in a shed who knows ‘all there is to know’ about SEO.

14) How much do you cost?
SEO can take time and it can take budget. There will be returns on that expenditure but it is still a big commitment for some companies. You will want to be sure you can afford it – so check prices. Many agencies will offer budget deals or tailor their efforts to fit your budget.

15) How are your results?
When choosing a supplier, check what sort of returns they are seeing. Ask to see some case study figures on improved client rankings/traffic/ROI and the SEO company’s own performance online.

Tips to Great AdWords Copy

By On January 18, 2009 In Internet Marketing With No Comments Permanent Link to Tips to Great AdWords CopyPermalink

by Saad Kamal

If you are doing Pay-Per-Click Advertising for some time, you have probably figured that your Ad Copy plays a vital role in the success of your PPC campaign. Even after having your best keywords & a very compelling sales copy – your PPC campaign may fail. And among many reasons, the one that I’m going to elaborate on is your Ad Copy.

Sometimes we tend to forget that no matter how technical the whole PPC gets with things like Quality Score, Campaign Optimization etc. – An Ad Copy is still just an Ad Copy. It has much less technicality and if you can keep it plain and simple, it would probably work best for you.

So here are 9 tips that you can consider while writing your next PPC Advertisement:

1. Be Specific: Don’t write a generic Ad copy for all your keywords. You should try to be as specific as possible, so that your Ad can deliver the right message to your customers. For example, if you are selling shoes and you have different types of shoes in your inventory – e.g. Mens shoes, Women’s shoes, Tennis Shoes, Walking shoes etc.; you should make few set of keywords for each of the different type of inventory that you have and then write compelling Ads for each of those set. The best way to do this is to have multiple Ad groups for your different set of keywords so that you can easily write specific Ad copies for the different ad groups.

2. Highlight your Unique Value Proposition (UVP): How different are you from your competitor? What makes your product or service unique? What benefit would the customer get after buying what you sell? – If you can answer these questions then hopefully you will get your UVP. Your Ad copy must highlight your value propositions. Your proposition must be something that your competitors either cannot, or does not offer. It must be unique and something that your customers can relate to and can benefit from. Examples of some of the popular Unique Value Propositions:

  • Olay: “You get younger-looking skin”
  • Domino’s Pizza: “You get fresh, hot pizza delivered to your door in 30 minutes or less — or it’s free.”
  • FedEx: “When your package absolutely, positively has to get there overnight”

In the above examples, all the UVPs are pretty straight forward and uniquely describe the products purpose of existence and proposition to their respective customers.

So when you are writing your Ad copy, you must include your UVP that differentiates you from your competitor. A searcher would naturally want to know, why he should buy from you; and your copy must answer that question. For instance, if you offer free shipping, 24/7 support, money back guarantee or you are professionally certified, won awards or anything else that can help you to boost your initial credibility and trust – then Include it in your Ad copy.

3. Don’t forget your keywords: Advertisers often try to make their Ad copies very creative. But sadly very few of them do well in terms of Click-through-rate and conversion. Creativity is good and is essential for writing any sort of advertisement. But when it comes to PPC, sometimes too much creativity can hurt you. Because of the nature of PPC Ads, it’s very important for you to grab the searcher’s attention right at the beginning. Think of a traditional Google search page for instance – When a searcher performs a search, he is presented with a page full of blue colored links in a white background. He is looking for a particular solution of a problem and Even though you offer the solution and you have put up your Ad on the right side of his screen, he just can’t spot you! Do you know why? – Because your Ad copy probably doesn’t include the words that he is searching for; this makes your Ad irrelevant to his search! Try to Think, Isn’t that how exactly you perform a search? When you search for a term and you are provided with 10 results, you naturally would go with the results which have the exact same words of your search query on them. Google by default automatically bolds your searched keywords in the SERP. Thus if you search for blue widgets, all the occurrence of the word ‘blue’, ‘widget’, the phrase ‘blue widget’ and all their synonyms would be bolded.

So when writing your next Ad copy, make sure to include your main keywords in your Ad Headline and Ad Description so that they are automatically bolded when the searcher includes those keyword in his search query. Having your keyword in the Ad copy also makes your ad more relevant thus gives you a better Click-through-ratio (CTR) and a better quality score.

4. Include A Call to Action: Many advertisers forget to include a call to action in their Ads. Having a good call to action can increase your CTR and also increase your campaigns effectiveness. A searcher needs to know what’s in it for him if he clicks on the advertisement. He is already in a page full of related links that he was searching for and you are just one of those guys. So if you are going to take him away from this great page, you will have to make sure that he knows what he will get from your page.

For instance, if a searcher is thinking of getting Auto insurance, he needs to go to a destination where he can straight away get what he needs, an insurance quote. He doesn’t want to end up on a site where they will give him insurance tips, articles etc. Below are some live examples of call to actions that some advertisers are using:

Google Adwords Copy

The first example on the left is an Ad for Auto Insurance. The call to action is very loud and clear – If you click on the Ad, you will get a rate/quote in less than 8 minutes! It sounds convincing right? Now let’s look at the Ad on the right, its call to action is to Book online for huge savings. Thus a searcher already has an idea (+expectation) from that website even before clicking on them.

Now let’s look at some examples:

Google AdWords Call to Action

Do you see any call to action in either of these ads? If a searcher is searching for car insurance with the intent of getting one, he won’t be interested to ‘learn more’ about car insurance in general. He would just want to go straight to business! So the Ad that I showed you before is likely to be more compelling to a searcher with that intent. Similarly, Florida Car Rental Ad doesn’t clearly say what it provides. There is no call to action and by reading the ad it seems like they are going to put the searcher in the middle of some text and a bunch of links.

So what are some of the good Call to actions? Well, there is no golden rule. You really need to test and see what works for you. But before that you really need to understand your own business model – why do you want the searcher to come to your website? What happens after they come to your site? Based on the answers, you will be able to find some good call to actions.

5. Stand Out from your Competitors: Many advertisers believe that copying Ads of the top performing advertisers can make your PPC campaign a success. Well, I don’t agree. Certainly you can take ideas from your competitors while you are writing your ad copy. But blatantly copying their Ad ‘word to word’ makes your Ad insignificant.

Many search queries today often show near duplicate ads, with the same title and some minor changes In the Ad body and a different display URL. This is definitely not helping the advertisers because a searcher gets confused when they see the same kind of Ads lined up in a column. So it is often seen that they go for the one which ‘stands out’ and is different than the rest of the group. Check out the example below:

Google AdWords Stand Out

6. Get Right To the Point: Leave the Mumbo-Jumbo out! You don’t have the luxury of a lot of space to write your PPC Advertisement. Google Adwords only allows 25 characters in your Title and 35 characters each in Description Line 1 & 2. So avoid all the unnecessary words and include things that add value to your advertisement. You will get only about 5-10 seconds before the searcher moves away to a different page, so you really need to grab his attention the first time he sees your Ad. So if you are selling a product, you may want to give away the unit price in your Ad copy so that the ones that find your product affordable will click on your Ad and the rest won’t (saving you some money). Because ultimately no matter how good & convincing your sales copy is, the conversion does depend partially on how much money that person can afford to pay on that very moment. If he has a maxed out credit card and your product costs 1000 bucks then your offer is no good to him and his click would be of no value to you.

It is always good to tailor your offer according to the searcher’s query. For instance, if someone is looking for “Cheap Hotels”, you might want to highlight the price factor in your ad copy. On the other hand if they are looking for “luxury hotels”, you might want to highlight some of your premium facilities – e.g. swimming pool, spa etc. So think of some offers and specific details that you can give away right within your Ad copy which will save the customer their time & your money.

7. Ad Formatting is Important – Make sure your ad is formatted properly with correct casing & spelling. I run across hundreds of ads in a day which looks just horrible because they aren’t properly formatted. For instance, the title is not Proper Cased, everything is written in small letters and over the top of that there are one or two spelling errors.

You only get a very small window of opportunity when it comes grabbing the attention of your customer via PPC. So make sure that the searcher gets a good first impression by looking at your ad copy. Capitalizing the first letter of each word is a common practice which makes your ad copy look attractive. However, you can test with various other methods and use the method that works best for you.

8. Your Display URL is a part of your Ad Copy. Use It wisely: Many advertisers don’t pay any attention to their display URL. But display URL does play a huge role in your Ad’s effectiveness & click-through-ratio. You can put absolutely anything in your display URL, provided that the domain matches with the domain of the destination URL. No matter what your domain name is, you can include your primary keyword with a trailing slash in your display URL to ‘assure’ the searcher that they will indeed go to the right page. For instance if a searcher is looking for Pink Laptops, which ad below would be more compelling?

Saad AdWords

Other than the fact that the first ad doesn’t provide much information, its display URL is non descriptive and very generic as well. So the user may think that they will be thrown in the home page of a site from where they will have to again do a search for ‘pink laptops’. On the other hand, the ad on the right does a much better job with the display URL. It assures the searcher that they will be sent to the right page which contains information about Pink Laptops only. Do you notice how the phrase “Pink-Laptop” is also bolded in the display URL? That’s also a plus point, because it will draw a searcher’s eye into that Ad copy.

So the bottom line is, try to use keywords in your display URL, if that’s possible. You don’t even need to have a page called pink-laptops on your server. Display URL is only for display purpose. You can choose your display URL to be whatever you want and send them to your choice of destination – provided that both are under the same domain.

9. Test…Test & Test: The entire success of your campaign depends on how far can you test and implement the change that brings you a positive ROI. Testing is absolutely essential and should not be ignored at any cost – No matter how good your campaign is currently performing. Now the question is – what should you test? Well there are lots of things that you should test, but unfortunately testing itself is a very huge area that I can’t cover in this post. But I have briefly summarized a couple of points below that should help you to get started with testing and perhaps sometime later, I’ll try to write a dedicated post on some of the best PPC Ad testing methods.

Here are few tips for Testing Your Ad Copy -

  • Test your Ad Headline. Create few variation of the headline and see which brings you more CTR and more conversation. Don’t get fooled by high CTR – high CTR does not necessarily mean that your ad is performing well. Rate of conversation is what that matters the most.
  • Test different offers. Each of your Ad might include an offer, and you may create few offers to see which one works the best. For instance does an offer of ‘20% off’ performing better than ‘$50 dollars discount’ etc.
  • Test your Unique Value Propositions. Sometimes even after you have identified a unique strength of your product or service, it may not be the best converting one. So always test with different value propositions and see which one works for you.
  • Run multiple Split tests of your Ads. Have at least 3 Ads set up in each ad group and run it for a considerable amount of time before coming to a conclusion about their performance.
  • Make small changes at a time. For instance, start with your headline first. When you are changing the headline, don’t make any other changes. Run that test for a while and find out the best headline that gives you a good CTR. Once you achieve an acceptable result, move to the next item and test it thoroughly. Continue this tests until you have covered all your bases. CTR is an important indicator for your Ad’s effectiveness because CTR is directly related to your Ad copy where as conversion is only partially related. Conversion depends a lot on your sales copy/landing page as well. So concentrating more on CTR initially would a better idea and slowly you can work your way up to increase your conversion.
  • Even the slightest of changes matter. You might not find all tests worth doing, but you should know that even a single punctuation mark can make a significant difference on your CTR. So you should make sure that you test every single dot in your ad copy thoroughly. Some basic items to be tested are – www vs non-www in your display URL, different use of caps in your headline & description, trailing dots (….) at the end of your ad copy, use of other punctuation & special characters etc.

Bonus Tip:

Correlation between Your ad copy and your Landing Page: On most of the cases your landing page will be prepared first, before you get on to write your Ad copy. But sometimes advertisers tend to forget what is offered on their landing page and writes their Ad copy totally from their imagination & creative mind. Thus even a good Ad copy with High CTR often fails miserably because after a customer goes to the landing page, they can’t just find what the Ad copy has promised. So you need to have some sort of correlation between your Sales copy and your Ad copy. One easy way of doing this is to highlight & include your UVPs & benefits in your landing page that relates to the promise that you made in your Ad copy.

Hopefully you will find some of these tips useful when writing your next PPC Ad Copy. Hopefully I’ll cover more of PPC soon. If you have any specific questions, that you would like to ask – you can directly email me or reply in the comments below.

Saad Kamal writes about Search Industry News, Social Media & Online Marketing for Small businesses and other daily tech news in his Search Marketing blog. Contact Saad via Email or Twitter for more information.

35+ Internet Marketing Blogs That Kick A

By On January 6, 2009 In Internet Marketing With No Comments Permanent Link to 35+ Internet Marketing Blogs That Kick APermalink

Currently there are a number of excellent blogs that cover various aspects of internet marketing. I thought it would be worthwhile to put together a list of some that stand out as being among the best sources of content.

Personally, I wouldn’t recommend subscribing to all of them because of information overload. I would recommend subscribing to those that cover topics that interest you most, and areas where you’re looking to learn more. I’m sure there are others that could have been included, so feel free to leave your favorites in the comments.

General Internet Marketing:

The blogs listed here will provide information and content on a variety of aspects of internet marketing. Some are large and very well-known, while others are a bit smaller.

Entrepreneurs Journey

Yaro Starak is a very successful internet marketer and blogger. Entrepreneur’s Journey is his blog where he posts a good bit of content related to making money online. He has also developed successful products and services in addition to affiliate income, so he is highly qualified on the subject.

Dosh Dosh

Maki doesn’t post as frequently as he used to, but Dosh Dosh is still a great resource for anyone wanting to learn more about making money online. He is a social media expert, and some of his content focuses on related subjects. The archives at Dosh Dosh are full of high-quality content.

Net Profits Today

Net Profits Today is the blog of Rosalind Gardner. She covers all kinds of topics related to making money online and marketing a website. Her blog currently has over 40,000 subscribers. Rosalind also offers consulting services and a few products.

PluginHQ

Glen Allsopp is a very experienced social media marketer, and he has a lot of knowledge of internet marketing in general. His site used to be ViperChill but it was recently re-branded to PluginHQ. In addition to being extremely knowledgeable, Glen is very approachable and one of the most likeable bloggers in the niche.

Marketing Pilgrim

Marketing Pilgrim publishes a lot of posts from multiple authors. The topics covered include social media, reputation management and search. Marketing Pilgrim has established itself as one of the leading blogs in the industry.

TopRank Blog

With several new posts per week, TopRank Blog covers SEO, social media, and other internet marketing-related content. The site just reached it’s 5th anniversary and it has grown to about 15,000 sbscribers.

Winning the Web

Gyutae Park’s blog Winng the Web is one that’s worth following for general internet marketing and make-money-online content. He publsihes a few posts each week and the content is rather original, covering topics in a way that many other blogs in the industry do not.

Invesp

The Invesp blog covers a varierty of internet marketing-related content, and they recently compiled a list of the top 100 online marketers from 2008. The are several different authors that write for invesp, so you’ll get a variety in terms of areas of expertise.

Caroline Middlebrook

Caroline Middlebrook’s blog is enjoyable to read because it is part of her journey as an online marketer. Caroline often writes about what she’s learning through her own experiences and it has a very real and practical feel for readers.

Sugarrae

Rae Hoffman, aka Sugarrae, covers topics like affiliate marketing, blogging tips, and some social media. She is a well-respected blogger in the industry and her blog has almost 3,000 subscribers currently.

We Build Pages

We Build Pages publishes almost daily. Most of the content currently is written by Lisa Barone, but other authors contribute as well. Topics include SEO, social media, blogging and general internet marketing.

Carl Ocab

Carl Ocab is still a teenager, but he already has established himself as one of the top bloggers in the make-money-online niche. He’s got over 13,000 subscibers currently, and he ranks very high on the first page of Google for “make money online.”

SEO:

Most internet marketers are very interested in learning more about SEO and staying up-to-date on the industry. Fortunately, there are a number of excellent SEO blogs.

SEOmoz

SEOmoz is one of the leading SEO consultancies and their blog is also a leader in the industry. There is a new post published on most days on some topic related to SEO. There’s also some good social media-related content throughout the archives.

SEO Book

Aaron Wall is one the most well-known and respected SEO experts, and he maintains a blog at SEO Book. Aaron’s blog posts are very practical, and it’s a must-subscribe-to blog if you’re looking to learn more about SEO.

Search Engine Land

Search Engine Land churns out a lot of search-related content throughout each week. Some of it is industry news and other content is informational for those who want to apply better SEO practices to their own websites.

Search Engine Journal

Search Engine Journal publishes multiple posts on most days by several different authors. Like Search Engine Land, some is news-related and other content includes tips and resources.

Small Business SEM

Matt McGee’s blog, Small Business SEM, includes a few posts per week of search-related content. The blog has been around since 2006 and currently has over 3,000 subscribers.

Bruce Clay, Inc.

Bruce Clay, Inc. is an SEO and internet marketing firm. Their blog has been around since 2004 and consistently publishes quality content on SEO and related topics.

SEOptimize

SEOptimize provides SEO services and also publishes plenty of quality content on the blog. There are several posts each week from a team of writers. Currently the blog has over 1,600 subscribers.

Search Engine People

Search Engine People is a Canadian search marketing firm that also provides a useful blog. Posts are informative and helpful and they generally draw a lot of feedback from readers.

SEO Scoop

Dazzlin’ Donna’s SEO Scoop was sold in November to Search Engine People, but she is still posting at least for now. The site has been around for five years and has over 2,000 subscribers.

SEO 2.0

Tad Chef’s SEO 2.0 blog is a must-read for SEOs and social media marketers. Tad’s approach and his writing is very unique, which is difficult to do in a crowded industry. Tad usually takes a strong stance on issues and writes posts that are interesting and informative.

Blog Storm

Patrick Altoft of Blog Storm is an SEO and social media consultant through Branded3. At Blog Storm he publishes content related to his areas of expertise. Blog Storm launched in 2007 and has over 4,000 subscribers.

Wiep

If you’re looking to improve your search engine rankings through link building, be sure to check out Wiep’s blog. Wiep provides some great content on the subject, and he also regularly links to the best posts on other blogs that relate to link building.

Social Media:

Personally, one of my favorite topics is social media marketing. From the blogs listed here you’ll get content that will show you how to market your own websites and blogs, plus you’ll get some general news related to social media and social networking sites.

Techipedia

Social media consultant Tamar Weinberg publishes her thoughts on social media and more at Techipedia. Tamar has been a contributer at top blogs such as Lifehacker and Mashable, and she has established a strong profile throughout the social media industry.

Brent Csutoras

Brent Csutoras is another leader in the social media industry that provides a useful blog to follow. Some of Brent’s content is news-related, such as developments with Digg, Reddit and other major social media sites, and some content includes tips and advice for readers.

Chris Brogan

Chris Brogan is recognized as one of the leading social media experts. Chris publishes frequently and provides a lot of quality content related to social media.

Collective Thoughts

Collective Thoughts is a group project from a number of experienced bloggers. Posts aren’t extremely frequent, but it’s a good blog to watch if you’re looking for more social media content.

Social Desire

Shana Albert has built a strong reputation in the social media industry over the past few years. Her blog, Social Desire, is where she shares her thoughts and tips on social media (she’s also a contributer at Collective Thoughts).

TwiTip

Darren Rowse of ProBlogger launched at Twitter-focused blog a few months ago. If you’re interested in learning more about Twitter and how you can use it in your daily life, check out TwiTip. Not surprisingly Darren’s new blog already has a strong subscriber base of over 3,000 subscribers.

Web Strategies by Jeremiah

Jeremiah Owyang covers a lot of information related to social media. He has an established audience of over 17,000 blog subscribers and over 19,000 Twitter followers.

Writing:

Depending on what type of internet marketing you’re doing, content development and/or copywriting could play a large role in your success.

Copyblogger

Copyblogger is a great resource for anyone that wants to improve results with better copy. There’s also some blogging content from the team of writers at Copyblogger.

Chris Garrett

Chris Garrett covers a lot of blogging and marketing-related content on his blog, but I decided to classify him here. Chris is an authority blogger who has literally written the book on blogging. However, Chris is on this list because he covers much more than just blogging.

Affiliate Marketing:

Affiliate marketing content is covered at some of the blogs listed above in other categories, but there are also several excellent blogs that focus primarily on this content. Affiliate marketing blogs aren’t ones that I follow very closely, but I know they’re relevant to many readers so I included those that I’m familiar with.

Affiliate Tip

Affiliate Tip owner Shawn Collins is one of the leading affiliate marketers out there. His blog includes some tips and general affiliate-related news.

Earners Blog

Earner’s blog has over 2,500 subscribers and provides some good, real-world content.

Zac Johnson

Zac Johnson is one of the leading affiliate marketing bloggers with over 4,000 subscribers. He posts content frequently on various topics relevant for affiliate marketers.

Uber Affiliate

Uber Affiliate has almost 5,000 subscribers and publishes new content several times per month.


Stumble It! (8 Reviews)

Originally Published January 6th, 2009

Big List of 2008 Recap Posts

By On January 6, 2009 In Internet Marketing, Website Design With No Comments Permanent Link to Big List of 2008 Recap PostsPermalink

By Matt McGee on Jan 5, 2009

This is a collection of 2008 year-in-review lists, articles, and blog posts that are at least somewhat related to online marketing, doing business online, running a small business, and the like. You all responded so favorably to last year’s Big List of 2007 Recap Posts, that I wouldn’t dare think of not doing such a list again this year.

Search Industry

Marketing

Local Search

Video

Individual Blog/Site Recaps

Miscellaneous

Search Engines’ Top Searches

If I missed any, please do leave a note in the comments – thanks!

Making Links Count for Your Web Site’s SEO

By On January 2, 2009 In Internet Marketing, Website Design With No Comments Permanent Link to Making Links Count for Your Web Site’s SEOPermalink

Written by Gyutae Park

Link building is an ongoing struggle between two sides with different motivations. Webmasters obviously want to increase traffic and rank #1 in the search engines for their targeted keywords. Search engines on the other hand aim to neutralize webmasters’ link building efforts and return the most relevant search results pages. So as a link builder, how can you win the battle?

With Google’s emphasis on links in its ranking algorithm, links have essentially become the currency of the net. People are willing to shell out thousands of dollars for links in hopes of better rankings and higher traffic. However, Google is fighting back by weeding out “artificial” links and devaluing sites that engage in aggressive link building tactics.

Every webmaster needs to proceed with caution when attaining links. There’s always a right way to do it and a wrong way. The key is to stay under the radar and strive to appear “natural”.

How can you do this? In this article I discuss the best ways to build links naturally to prevent tripping any filters or raising any red flags.  Sure you might be able to fool the algorithm but the true test is having your links pass a human review. That should be your goal with every link you place on the web.

1. Provide value, attract links organically
The foundation of every link building campaign is your content. Are your pages worthy of being linked to? Provide value and you’ll naturally attain links from people who will voluntarily share your content with others. This is becoming increasingly important because Google is looking to eliminate thin pages from its index. The more value you provide, the more links you’ll get. You can then be more aggressive with your link building campaigns because it’s unlikely that a human reviewer will be able to tell the difference between “real” links and “manipulated” links.

2. Vary the link anchor text
Link anchor text is extremely important for SEO and could mean the difference between ranking for a keyword and being nowhere to be found. However, there is such a thing as over-optimization and it’s better to vary the link anchor text to appear more natural. For example, if your main keyword is “apple cider”, mix up your links with keywords like “buy apple cider here”, “click here”, “apple juice”, “apples”, “the best apple cider”, etc. The probability of all of your links being exactly the same is low, so don’t give the search engines reason to be suspicious so easily.

3. Deep link to pages on your site
Again, every link building campaign should aim to mimic natural linking patterns. Most people link to deep pages on a site, not just the homepage so you should be doing the same thing. Attain links to a diverse set of pages on your site. If you have a sound internal linking structure, your entire site should benefit.

4. Get links from relevant sites
Would a site about guitar lessons link to a real estate site? Most likely not. When analyzing the link graph, search engines give more weight to links that come from the same topical neighborhood. In the guitar lessons example, a link from a music site is much more valuable than a link from an unrelated site. Keep this in mind and target links from sites that have some sort of connection to yours. It’s what search engines love.

5. Take your time – slowly build up your link profile
It’s tempting to do a rush of promotion to get as many links as possible in a short period of time. However, this will usually raise red flags to the search engines, which will then devalue many of your hard earned links. It’s better to slowly build up your link profile over the long haul. Rather than attaining 3,000 links in a day, aim for 10 high quality links per week for a year. The long term benefits will be much greater.

6. Look for similar PageRank neighborhoods
Would you be suspicious if a new site with PageRank 1 suddenly had links from PageRank 8 sites? I don’t know about you, but Google would be. Generally speaking, most sites have links from sites with similar PageRank. For example, a PageRank 4 site will likely have links from sites with PageRank 3-5. Aim for the same and reach higher as you grow bigger.

7. Minimize links from the same IP address
Thinking about interlinking all of your sites together to maximize SEO potential? Think again. Google can easily detect links that come from the same C-block of IP addresses and will discount these links accordingly. It’s probably not a good idea to interlink your sites if they’re hosted on the same server. Then again, you shouldn’t be linking unless your sites are related in some way anyway.

8. Diversify your link profile
There’s a variety of sources for links and you should tap into all of them in your link building efforts. Get links from directories, blogs, press releases, scraper sites, old resource sites, forums, news sites, etc. The more diverse your link profile, the better because everything will look a lot more natural. You can then be more aggressive in your tactics because you’ll have a solid foundation already set.

9. Buy links discretely
Buying links is a very controversial topic because Google looks very negatively at any sort of paid link. However, if done right, paid links can have a huge positive effect on your rankings and traffic. First of all, it’s important to take into account each of the points listed in this article. Always go for related sites and vary your landing pages and anchor text. Spread out your purchases and contact webmasters directly instead of going through link brokers and networks like Text Link Ads. If you do it discretely, it will be almost impossible for Google to detect what’s paid and what’s not. As for valuing links, read Aaron Wall’s article on how much a link is worth to your business.

10. Eliminate obvious footprints
If you plan on using more aggressive strategies for your link building campaigns, it’s extremely important to hide your tracks and eliminate any obvious footprints. Do everything in moderation and mix things up to prevent the search engines from detecting any patterns. For example, if you plan on passing link value through your affiliate program, don’t use obvious parameter names like “aff”. For more information, read Patrick Altoft’s article on how to make sure your affiliate program passes SEO benefits.

Bonus: Be careful when buying domains for SEO
If done right, buying up sites have tremendous SEO potential. You can buy a trusted domain and redirect to your own to benefit from all of the inbound links. You can utilize content to piggyback off of your existing site. You can even buy a site to instantaneously achieve a #1 position in Google. If you have the money, buying sites might be a great investment. However, it’s still important to stay under the radar and not make it obvious to Google what you’re doing. For example, don’t redirect to a random irrelevant site and don’t quickly change the WHOIS information. These kinds of things tell Google that ownership has changed and they’ll often reset the site’s ranking potential. For more tips on buying up sites for SEO, see the recap of the Buying Sites for SEO session at SMX Advanced 2008.

How are you building links to your site? Are you thinking like Google and considering the implications of your actions? Every link counts and it’s important for you to stay under the radar and aim for a “natural” link profile. What are your experiences building links? Have you ever been penalized for being too aggressive and raising up red flags? Share your stories by leaving a comment below!

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