Entries Tagged 'Marketing' ↓

Most searchers use two-word searches, reports OneStat.com, a provider of real-time intelligence web analytics.

• One-word searches account for 15.2 percent of queries.
• Two-word searches account for 31.9 percent of searches.
• Three-word searches account for 27 percent of searches.
• Four-word searches account for 14.8 percent of searches.

Instances with five (6.5 percent); six (2.7 percent); seven (1.1 percent); eight (0.5 percent); nine (0.2 percent); and 10 (0.1 percent) words are used in fewer searches.

Where and how do you use that information? First, you review the content on your home page and landing pages you use for PPC. Still not using Pay-Per-Click? Now is the time to start.

Are you effectively using search terms that your prospective customers would use to find your product or service? Take a look at your current pages. Does the content accommodate two, three, and four word searches? Google ignores some common words called ’stop words,’ such as the, on, where, how, de, la, as well as certain single digits and single letters. Remember and take advantage of that when writing content for landing pages, and you’ll benefit from proximity as related to search terms. There will be some out there that feel this advice is really reaching, but every little advantage can add up when it comes to Google’s Quality Score.

For those of you using PPC, you may find that some four-word (or more) search terms can be much more cost-effective. The also deliver you a reasonably well-qualified visitor. If you wrote your content well, and they find you via a multiple-word search, they likely are looking for what you offer.

Bottom-line is that we all need to really think about how our potential visitors search for what we offer. Then, we need to put that knowledge to good use writing content that includes those search terms.

Do a good job of describing your product or service, using two, three and four-word terms, and you have done some search engine optimization without trying.

So, what is a “Landing Page,” and when and why do you need them? Well, practically all of your pages are, or should be, landing pages. Those of you with PPC campaigns should already understand the importance of landing pages. All of your pages that have been indexed by Google and other search engines are defacto landing pages for search terms that are on your pages.

PPC landing pages should be about a specific topic, product, item or event you want to promote or sell. Putting multiple topics, products, items or events on a page will most assuredly not serve you well for PPC landing pages. Nor will they serve you well in organic (so-called free) search results. Your content should be page-specific to compete well (obviously, there are many other factors as well) in organic search results. Talking about more than one thing on a page dilutes the value as far as search engines are concerned.

The point is you should pay careful attention to creating any of your pages. Always follow Google’s guidelines for creating content. The essence of their most important guidelines is as follows:

• Write pages that clearly and accurately describe your content.
• Think about the words users would type to find your pages, and make sure that your page actually includes those words within it.
• Make pages for visitors, not for search engines. (A useful test is to ask, “Does this help my visitors? Would I do this if search engines did not exist?”)

Treat all your pages as potential landing pages, and you won’t have to write one specifically for your next Google Adwords campaign. Just choose one that already exists on your site.

Good landing pages will help you meet your objectives and exceed your goals.

Recently I saw a newspaper ad placed by one of our clients, and I noticed they had not included the URL (some people spell it out, others of us say, “Earl”) for their web site. I called and reminded them that they should always include their URL in ads, and practically everywhere else.

It reminded me of an experience I had a couple of years ago at a Wisconsin Economic Development Association conference I was attending. I was visiting with a group of WEDA members, and a gentleman walked up, looked at me and said, “URL, URL, everywhere URL.” I couldn’t help but smile. Five years earlier, I had given a presentation for members of the Association of University Related Research Parks (AURRP) on marketing their respective web sites. I talked about several strategies, including optimizing their web sites for Search Engines. The only PPC player was goto.com, the predecessor to Overture, now known as Yahoo Sponsored Search. And Google Adwords was only a rumor. I told them that everywhere your logo goes, your URL should go as well. If you have a fleet of vehicles, it should go on the doors, or as a decal in the back window. Use it on your letter head, business cards, email signature, bill boards, signs, water towers, and every ad (including radio and TV) you place.

I finished that presentation by telling the audience if they only remembered one thing from my talk, it should be “URL, URL, everywhere URL.”

It was true over seven years ago, and it is true today. When you think advertising, think, “URL, URL, everywhere URL.”

The first thing people see when you send an email is “From:” and then your “Subject” (see “How to avoid email Subject Mistakes). You control “From” in your email client settings. For those of you using Outlook or Outlook Express, it is the “Name” field in your Mail Acount “Properties” box. For those of you using Eudora, it is called “Real Name.” You get the idea. The same types of conventions generally hold true for most web-based mail interfaces.

The “From” in your e-mail address can, and often does, make the difference between someone opening or deleting an email. That is if the intended recipient actually sees it.

As we have talked about before (What your email address says about you.), spam filters are everywhere including at the mail server level, the recipient’s ISP, often at the company level, possibly on the desktop as a standalone program, and finally, as a feature in the recipient’s e-mail program. Consequently, your “From” gets looked at several times before your email is (or isn’t) delivered. A “From” that includes a spammy-looking nick name, may make the difference as to whether your email is delivered and/or opened.

Your “From” should include your name (as the recipient knows it) and possibly your company name, your title or department. Couple a good “From” with a well-written “Subject” and your email will get delivered and opened before the others in those ever-expanding in-boxes of your recipients.

Paying attention to both the “From” and your email “Subject” will, indeed, pay you dividends for your time.

For many of you, I’ll be preaching to the choir. For the rest of you, let’s talk pay-per-click.

For several years now, we have been saying in meetings, seminars and on our Web site, that for all practical purposes, there are two ways to get your Web site found when people use a search engine. One you can influence, and one you can control. The former is through results in the organic or so-called free listings in search results of the major search sites. The latter is to use Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising marketing.

Pay-per-click, or PPC, is simply what is says. You pay the search engine company when someone clicks on your ad, landing on the page of your choice on your Web site. Notice I said landing on the page of your choice. You control what your ad says, you control your ad placement (more-or-less), you control what your visitor sees when they land on your site, and you control what it costs.

Oh, and you can easily track the effectiveness of your advertising and marketing campaigns. Not many other types of advertsing offer all of those elements.

PPC is also a way to jump-start a new or redesigned site. You can be prominately displayed for your most important search terms long before your pages are indexed and start to show in organic listings.

We recommend starting with a Google Adwords campaign and then a similar campaign using Yahoo! Sponsored Search. There are others (including Microsoft adCenter) that offer PPC. Because of audience reach, we believe it is a good idea to get your feet wet with Google Adwords first.

There is much that goes into a successful pay-per-click campaign, and we’ll discuss in more detail later. You do need to embrace the following. It is imperative that:

• Your search terms (keywords) need to be researched and chosen carefully.
• Your ads need to be well-written and include your keywords.
• Your landing pages need to be well-written and include your keywords.

Of course, that just scratches the surface, but you get the idea. It is also imperative that you chose a firm with experience and expertise to manage your pay-per-click campaigns.

Pay-per-click, it’s not just advertising. It’s marketing.

Earlier this week, I had a discussion with one of our clients about using their domain email accounts when sending or replying to email. (Domain email is simply an email account using a name of your choice @your domain, e.g., johndoe@yourcompany.com or info@yourcompany.com.)

Although this client uses their domain mail on their web site, many of their employees use personal accounts when communicating with clients and prospects. I, unabashedly, encouraged him to persuade his people to see the error of their ways.

Obviously, they are not the only perpetrators of this costly practice. On sites of all types, small and large, you’ll see contact email such as billybob@yahoo.com, sally312@gmail.com or something similar. Those same addresses get used routinely in emails to clients, prospects, and co-workers. And, routinely, the sender looks unprofessional.

I could rant on with all the reasons not to use personal email accounts for business, but I’ll just offer you:

Three important reasons to use your domain email.

1. Branding, branding, branding - every time a client or prospect
   receives an email from someone in your company, they will see your
   domain name (Hopefully it is your company name, abbreviation of your company name, or a product or service of yours.) in the “From:” line.
2. Get your email delivered and opened. Spam is ubiquitous, and your prospects and clients may hesitate to open an email from a toocutesy@yahoo.com, allnumbers@hotmail.com, silly@gmail.com or inappropriate@someother.com address. Deliverablity can be critical
   when you are sending a proposal or answering a specific request. Users can easily, and will, white-list email from you@yourcompany.com.
3. Look as professional as you are. You would be surprised at the
   number of people who spend thousands of dollars on web sites and
   nicely-done email campaigns, yet diminish their value by including an
   inappropriate email address.

Oh, did I mention branding, branding, branding?

Yes, that’s right. Everyone is looking to quantify their advertising expenses, both traditional and Web traffic. A quick, inexpensive way is to get a toll-free number (800, 888, 877 or 866) that you do not use anywhere else, and use that number on your Web site.

When you get your phone bill, you’ll see all the calls to that number. You’ll know that they were all generated by visits to your web site. Like any statistic, it is just another number, but if you use those figures along with other site analytics you’ll get a better idea of how your Web site is performing.

Oh, if you really believe most prospects will call if you don’t offer a toll-free number, you probably don’t have enough traffic to worry about.

An exclusive toll-free number for your site, it’s a win-win.