Profiting from the Content Network

While you may have mastered the art of search targeting directly through the engines, building a targeting content network campaign can be an additional source of profit.  By placing ads on 3^rdparty sites you'll potentially reach an entirely new audience, allowing you to target potential customers that are browsing related sites. While the targeting methods on the content network are not quite a precise as exact search keyword targeting, you can find high value on-site placements that generate an impressive return on your marketing spend.

There are two main types of content network targeting: you can either select to place your ads on a chosen set of sites or let Google automatically match you to relevant sites based upon the keywords within your ad-group. Your ads can either be standard text ads or banner ads that meet the network's requirements (some animated ads and certain types of promotions may not be allowed). In general, bidding is done on either a standard CPC or CPM (cost per 1,000 impressions) basis, so you'll want to determine what your optimal campaign structure is.

Just as you can with the search network, it's possible to track conversions and ROI on content network campaigns. Within the content network reports, you can determine which placements are most profitable and can prioritize those settings, just as you would for keyword-level bids in the search network.  Over time, you can place ads on priority sites and opt-out of low performing sites, providing you with a steady stream of targeted traffic from relevant 3^rdparty network sites.

How Negatives Can Be a Positive for your Conversion Rate

You've setup your search engine campaign and are ready to target your "oil change" services to a variety of consumer in your area. After adjusting the campaign settings for the proper geographic area, setting your keyword bids properly and performing plenty of keyword research, you think you're ready to go.

A few weeks later, you may be disappointed with the conversion rate of your clicks to new service appointments. An important, but often overlooked, factor for search engine marketing is the important of adding negative keywords to limit the types of search queries you ads display on.

Negative keywords are simply terms that prevent your ads from showing on certain terms. The phrase match keyword "oil change", for example" could match to searches such as "oil change diy" or "free dealer oil change" which likely won't result in sales. By adding negative keywords such as "diy" and "free" you can ensure that your ads won't display on these terms.

Going even further, you can run ads on the exact match [oil change] to ensure complete matching of the exact search query without the need to add additional phrase specifications.  A regular element of keyword research should involve reviewing your search queries for potential negative keywords.

You can review your search queries through the Reports interface within Adwords, which can show you the types of phrases your ads are generating clicks for. Analytics packages can provide further insight into these queries based upon the amount of time spend on the site (as well as the "bounce rate" for users who don't navigate beyond the first page.) Adding negative keywords on a regular basis can reduce your "bad" spend, allowing you to allocate search spend into the most effective areas.

Going Fishing: How to Generate Natural Links

To rank highly in organic search results, it's important to earn high quality links relevant to your industry. Like everything worthwhile in life, you cannot create a long-term strategy based upon buying links to your site - instead, you'll want to cultivate relationships with business partners, credible bloggers and publishers as well as other media outlets in your industry to generate links.

While there are short-term strategies that can generate SEO links to your site, the most effective, high value links are generated through building a credible, high quality brand.

By following the golden rule, you should always start any link building campaign by ensuring that your site is high quality. From the content to design of your website, each element should convey a message of authority along with your corporate ethos. If you're a vacation travel company, the look, feel and text of your site should be whimsical and fun, while also providing important information. When you have a site that conveys the proper message, you'll be able to more easily build high value relationships with other site owners.

Always think about building relationships and adding value to your link partners, rather than just emailing to ask for a link exchange. You might want to offer to write a guest article or post for an industry site, or join some authority industry trade groups that offer links. In general, the value of a link is proportional to the difficulty to obtain it - always focus on building quality links that will add long run value to your search rankings within your industry.

Direct Me: High Value Local Directories

One reliable way to generate high quality inbound links and increase your web presence is to submit your site to high quality directories. These sites generally provide consumers with a way to connect with an electronic version on the yellow pages, and have become a reliable alternative to out-dated print methods. Manual submission to these directories can enable you to promote your site, phone number and business services to targeted local consumers at no additional cost.

There are dozens of local sites which aggregate consumer reviews for local decision making. One of the fastest growing offerings is Yelp, which is a Web 2.0 version of Citysearch that allows consumers to connect with reliable reviews. You can "claim" or add your local business listing on these sites, which allows you to receive notifications of consumer reviews, add special offers or update business information as it changes (including new products and service offerings.)  It's important to claim these listings to keep accurate tabs on your company in the eyes of consumers, as well as ensuring that you get proper links back to your website for SEO purposes.

General web directories are also a good source of potential links and visibility for your company. High quality directories include Business.com, Yahoo and Best of the Web, although they each have their own requirements and submission fees for entry. Dedicating part of your promotional budget to submission to relevant niche directories can also be an effect way to generate quality inbound links to increase your search rankings.

Viewing split tests in Google Analytics

Everyone remembers the famous Monty Hall game where guests had to pick between doors A, B and C. Based upon the door selected, you'd be able to switch or stick with the existing door. With the help of Google analytics split testing your website is less about guessing and more about tracking which variants are closest to reaching your given benchmarks.

Making small changes in your website can result in important improvements in conversion rates, consumer retention and mindshare for your visitors. One effective way to begin split testing is to implement free tools from Google including Website Optimizer linked to your Google Analytics account.

To begin, you'll want to determine whether you are primarily interested in running a simple A/B split test or a multivariate test with multiple changing elements. Once you have setup the different versions of the page (or multiple graphics and layouts), you'll need to setup conversion goals and tagging for the outcomes you are measuring. For example, if you want to test whether a given landing page results in more newsletter subscriptions, it's important to setup the goal within your analytics profile before beginning the testing process.

Once you have properly tagged the site, you can use the Google Website Optimizer. The automated setup process allows you to determine which elements will be tested - the Optimizer will show you a preview of the different versions to ensure it matches your expectations. Once you have setup the tests, you can view the results in both Analytics and Website optimizer, so you can gain better insights into the process.

How to Optimize Your Presence in Google Maps

Take a moment and search for a local service in your local area. Chances are that a map will immediately pop-up showing nearby service providers, as well as links to reviews, driving directions and more information on each company. 

Studies have shown that local searches are one of the fastest growing segments of queries (http://www.clickz.com/3626608) and that a majority of local business research is conducted online. 

If you have trouble with the link above, you can also view the attached PDF.

For those reasons, it's crucially important that you optimize your local business profile to generate high, relevant local rankings for your services.

Optimizing Your Business Profile

All of the major search engines (Google, Bing and Yahoo) feature their own unique local maps engines which provide information on local business offerings, reviews as well as media such as pictures and videos. By default, many of the listings pull data from around the web and may leave off crucial elements of your business. Claiming the profiles within each search engine gives you the ability to write a detailed description, add coupons for special offers and integrate video into your listings.

These additional elements are a core part of determining how highly your firm ranks when consumers search for your local service. Ensuring the accuracy of the information on the listing, such as updated addresses and phone numbers, can also ensure that you're getting as many possible leads through local search.  As the momentum from local search continues, you can stay ahead of the curve by integrating the latest features into your local listing, further helping you separate from the competition.

Season's Greetings: Holiday SEO Tips

The holiday season is one of the biggest revenue periods for many small businesses, and ramping up your search campaigns for holiday sales can help make your 4^thquarter results even more impressive. There are multiple factors of consumer sentiment which change as you approach the end of the year: consumers become more oriented toward meeting their New Year financial and health goals, while also investing in gifts for their loved ones. As a result, nearly every industry can benefit by creating end of year specific Holiday campaigns designed to meet consumer needs.

To start, you'll want to evaluate the specific types of offers that you'll introduce at year end. If you're offering holiday gift packages or gift certificates, it's important to implement content pages targeting these specific offers. Building high quality content and design pages, however, is just a start: you'll want to make sure that you build links to these new pages. One way to generate inbound links for the holiday seasons is to co-create a promotion along with a local media site, magazine or blogger - this will ensure you get quality links and promotion at the same time. While targeting your local audience is important, it's also crucial that you offer is designed to retain consumers after the holiday season.

The nature of the content should be keyword-rich but also well balanced to appeal to consumers. Make sure that you have optimized meta titles, descriptions and URLs so that you can properly target your keywords. Getting your pages indexed quickly is important for time-sensitive campaigns, so make sure you submit an updated sitemap and generate links to the pages in a timely fashion.

Using Meta Tags to Optimize Your Site for Search

One of the most effective site updates you can make to your site is to optimize unique meta tags for each page. Just as you might spend time identifying the most effective headline and description for your Adwords text-ads, choosing the right meta-title and description can improve your organic search click-through and conversion rate. In the example below, computer company Dell has optimized their meta title to focus on the variety of products the company offers, while providing a meta-description that targets each particular customer segment:

Providing a summary of your core brand messaging

Your choice of meta-tags plays an important role not only in determining your positioning in the search results, but also in establishing a message for your brand. The example above is designed to target the breadth of the company's offerings, as well as the nature of their product and service solutions for all technology users. Pay close attention to the keywords and overall flow of your meta-tags so that you convey a clear message of what your company stands for.

As a startup company, Mint.com had to brand itself as a free personal finance organizer. Through effectively targeting keywords such as "personal finance software" and "budget planning", the company crafted an identity for their online brand for new and existing customers. Whether you have a well known brand that you're looking to expand or need to craft a unique online identity, meta-tags are one of the most important sources to target relevant searches.

50 Milliseconds to Disaster

According to a 3-year-old study that I just saw, the average length of time it takes someone to decide a web page sucks is about 50 milliseconds.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4616700.stm

To put this amount of time in perspective, this is 3-4 times faster than your fastest muscle reflex.

The most important elements of a landing page, to avoid the 50 millisecond puke, are header and page design.

The implications go far beyond the first 50 milliseconds. From the article:

If people believe a website looks good, then this positive quality will spread to other areas, such as the website's content.

Since people like to be right, they will continue to use the website that made a good first impression, as this will further confirm that their initial decision was a good one.

Is your website making a good first impression?

Check Landing Page Performance by Browser

Every browser is different.* Ask any web designer about their craft and you'll eventually get them talking passionately about these differences. How Internet Explorer 6 renders CSS pseudo-elements (badly) and handles padding and spaces (randomly). How IE7 ignores CSS drop shadows. How floating divs never seem to work the same way in any of the browsers. These peculiarities have driven many a developer to strong drink.

When it comes to testing new webpage designs in Google Website Optimizer, speed can be essential. You want to get the experiment out the door as soon as possible so you can get preliminary data. Sometimes this means that things slip through QA. Browser testing is exceptionally finicky and time consuming. Not every office has a spare Mac sitting around, and with three different versions of Internet Explorer still in wide use-and no easy way to install all three versions on a single PC-it's no small feat to make your page variations all work perfectly in every popular browser.

With just a few Google Analytics Advanced Segments in your arsenal, however, you'll be able to see whether or not your new pages are functioning fine in all the right browsers. Hit the jump for details.

First, you'll need to create a new Advanced Segment for each landing page in your experiment. Check out Segment 1 and Segment 2 for more detail.

Next, apply both segments to your reports and head to the Browsers reports. This report defaults to the pie chart, but I like to switch back to the data table:

Now check out each browser and pay attention to the Bounce Rate column for each Landing Page segment. If one particular browser has a Bounce Rate that seems particularly out of whack, drill down and check out the versions. Then, using your findings, test the page live (if you can) or use a site like Browsershots.

Keyword domains to enhance rankings

In competitive industries, gaining every possible advantage over your competition is important. One key resource you can utilize in order to begin raking for high value terms (especially on the local level), is to invest in domain names based upon your keywords.

For example, if you're a dentist in Austin, Texas, then you may want to buy the domain name AustinDentist.com - in many cases, you'll have to purchase the domain from the existing owner (since most high quality local keywords are registered), but proper implementation on a keyword-rich domain name can pay great dividends over time relative to traditional traffic sources such as pay per click.

To begin your domain search, identify the terms that customers use to connect to your service. Using the example above, the domains AustinWhitening.com, AustinToothRepair.com, etc. can be high value opportunities. In many cases, you can also look at the .net and .org extension alternatives, which may be available at a much lower cost (especially if they are not yet registered.)

In general, you'll want to stick with com, net or org extensions for your keyword domains. Once you come up with a list of possible domains, check if they're open for registration from a leading domain company such as GoDaddy and register the available domains as soon as possible.

Once you've secured keyword-rich domains, you'll want to begin developing them with high quality, original content related to the keyword. Use the domains to generate traffic, leads as well as links to your main business site. A properly structured network of domains can result in great returns over time.

Naming and Alt-Tag Conventions

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a properly optimized image is probably worth at least two thousand. In search marketing, images provide an important source of clarifying messages to consumers, as well as helping your site to rank for targeted terms.

By creating effective, keyword rich names and alt-tags for your images, you'll help search engines to understand the nature of your site better - when two sites are competing for a search ranking, images can make the difference in terms of prioritized ranking.

From a technical standpoint, the image name is just the file name: a file named Business-Strategy.jpg will help you target those keywords within both image and general search. Importantly, when users roll their mouse over the image (or when they have images disabled, such as on certain mobile browsers), they'll see the alt-text displayed.

So, if the file is embedded with the HTML code then the text "Business Strategy" will be displayed. This can be an important source of keyword targeting, and can help you structure your site properly. Further, as a growing number of browsers rely upon mobile techniques these alt-tags are particularly important sources of naming conventions.

Always select appealing, unique images for your site layout that match the overall messaging of your site. Take time to properly name and tag the images for search, as well as users, so that you can effectively optimize the media sources on your site.

The Power of Email Drip Marketing

Generating targeted online leads is an effective way to build up a list of prospective customers, and integrating an auto-responder can provide a virtual sales agent that sends automatic e-mail follow ups based upon opt-ins to your mailing list. Consumers today spend a lot of time searching for high quality vendors, and immediately reaching out with an effective email response 24/7 begins to establish trust with your potential customers to improve conversion rates.

Automating Your Sales Force 24/7

Imagine that a customer comes to your site and learns about your company for the first time. With a web presence, you're able to connect with a wide variety of potential clients looking for products and services in your market.  When consumers are faced with a choice between multiple vendors, studies have shown they are most likely to work with companies that provide follow-up after the initial inquiry. By sending out a clean, professional automatic e-mail to prospective customers, you'll be able to begin cultivating relationships that turn into loyal, profitable client relationships.

When crafting an auto response message, keep in mind that you'll want to reinforce the positive aspects of your brand while allowing the consumer to make an informed decision. You can personalize the e-mail by addressing the message to the name provided in the lead form, as well as customizing the message based upon the information provided on the lead form. Auto-responders are an effective way to begin establishing a positive image for your company in the eyes of the prospective customers, and can help shifts your website from a lead generation engine into a fully-powered revenue growth generator.