Posts filed under 'PPC'
Posted by Aaron R Stewart on August 16th, 2007
There has been some post and comments lately which have expressed frustration with Google’s attempts to discount the referral power of links purchased to bolster rankings. Why people have a problem with this makes no sense to me. I personally don’t have a problem with any SE discounting paid links. Why wouldn’t they attempt to discount paid links? Isn’t the whole purpose of a search engine to provide clients with the most relevant results possible, results not influenced by tactics or games? I personally want my organic search results to only contain sites that are reputable, sites where the owners have worked hard to get there, have written good content, have naturally established themselves in relevant circles, have referral links from past clients, or associates, based on a good product, solid customer service and historic proficientcy. I don’t want directories, no matter how “good” the content is, or fly by night companies looking to make a quick buck, who have paid for links to sneak themselves on the first page. it is sites like these which muck up the SERPs organic results.
Some will spew that ads on the SERPs are actually paid links, to which I totally agree, but we know they are paid links, we understand the bias there, and they are obviously quarantined away from the organic results. In my mind the search engines have earned the right to sell space on their pages based on the traffic they attract. This incredible level of traffic is based on the satisfaction of searchers, due to the accuracy of previous organic search results. So, in my mind, if you want qualified traffic quickly, then paying a search engine and picking out some targeted keywords in a PPC campaign might be the best way to go to get started. But there is no way someone should go out and attempt to purchase a bunch of paid links in an attempt to bully their way onto the organic search results page, that is not what organic search pages are there to provide, and the search engines are looking to stop you. Don’t risk your business in this manner.
Search engines attempt to deliver relevant results for search clients, these results consist of both organic results and paid ads attempting to match the purpose of the initial search. However, when a SEO uses other sites they own or control to provide links to improve their clients rankings, that too is a paid link. Do these sites, which have been artificially forced onto the SERPs, occasionally give the searcher what they need, perhaps, but not always, and that is the problem. Random links from a site, which only is linking out because it was paid to do so, can’t ethically be considered a link with any value, it is a tainted and usually irrelevant link. Search engines rightfully use the number of links and the quality of the sites providing the links, to assist in determining the quality of a site, that makes perfect sense to do so. But links from sites that have no relevance, or from individuals who have never used the product, really don’t have any business handing out a link and should be discounted, or not used in the rankings at all.
All a paid link can really tell us is the site buying the link has money to spend on links, and the site selling the links enjoys cashing checks. That really isn’t a sound foundation for a legitimate referral. So Google, Yahoo, Ask, all of you guys, please continue to weed out those sites that purchase links, and those SEOs that use other sites to game the rankings, they are attempting to bury small business owners who are working to establish themselves online by working on content and links the right way.
Visited 1799 times
August 16th, 2007
Aaron R Stewart
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Posted by Michael D Jensen on June 18th, 2007
We all remember TV, radio, and even print ads back in the AOL era that left us with an AOL Keyword for finding their site. Over time, and as AOL became less important, TV/radio/print ads gave you a domain name instead. Today on the radio I heard a commercial from Honda Certified Used Cars that sounded eerily similar to “type in the AOL Keyword”. The radio ad said to visit Google or Yahoo! and type in the keyword “Honda Certified Used Cars”. Searching for this in Google brings up Honda’s Certified Used Cars site (http://automobiles.honda.com/certified/) as the first listing in the results. Obviously telling us to search for the keyword in Google/Yahoo! is much easier than telling us to go to “automobiles dot honda dot com forward slash certified”.
Plus, they can always control the PPC page. Their PPC page appears to go to the same place, but it actually goes to a page hosted on googlepages.com, so they must be doing some landing page testing.
As I was pondering this, my mind brought me back to last year’s PubCon when John Battelle talked about Google (et al.) as “the new interface to technology”. It literally is our yellow pages, our 411 service, our encyclopedia, our calculator, etc.
Some cautions are in order
1) Obviously if you’re buying radio and TV spots, you need to give out a keyword that you can realistically be in the top for a long time. It should probably include your company name. But if your company name is weird, hard to spell, hard to remember, or just plain dumb, you’re probably a good fit.
2) You’ll need to make sure your SEO is in tip top shape. Honda isn’t going anywhere ranking for that term, but you’re not Honda. Content alone is not going to do it, you’re going to need to build and/or buy some links.
3) You must also realize that you are setting yourself to lose some advertising dollars from your consumers finding alternatives on just their first look into that search space. Hopefully you control more than just 1 listing in the organic results, because otherwise the search results page has 9 other results just on that front page alone, and probably 9 more advertisers running ads on that page.
Is it a Good Idea?
I think we may see it be more common, especially for advertisements about specific products from a company. Honda sells new cars too, but this commercial is to boost their used cars product, and because it takes two clicks (on small text even) from their home page to get to the same place, it makes a lot of sense just to direct them to Google.
Another advantage is that in Honda’s case, they have local dealers selling Honda Certified Used Cars and the ads are geo-targeted. So I can not only find Honda’s site, but I can also find my local Honda dealer and search their inventory from their site (hopefully).
Visited 1539 times
June 18th, 2007
Michael D Jensen
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Posted by Michael D Jensen on June 18th, 2007
Over at WMW there is a fun thread started by Habtom covering the Top 100 Ecommerce Tips. It’s kind of hard to read in a forum list, so I’ve put it together here for you (and fixed some spelling and capitalization). This has relevance to all sorts of aspects of Internet Marketing.
Before I give the whole list, here are some of my top picks:
99. Let the customer see the shipping charge without registering! Preferably on the basket or a easy-to-find ’shipping charges’ page.
94. Make your site incredibly easy to buy from - no registration if possible, live chat, 800 # - make it friendly and easy to buy from.
59. Have a “best sellers” or “most popular” listing. The boost from this has been noticeable.
49. Drop the “Create account” language. People don’t come to our sites to create accounts, they come there to buy things. I try to make the account creation process appear like the normal checkout process. If they enter an email that is already in the system, THEN I ask them to request their password to login.
35. Have a list of “recommended products” and “other customers also bought” with each item. This can be simply done in your database where you just connect products together and base it on what customers have actually bought. (okay, I admit, this was my contribution)
3. Test. Everything. A lot.
I really like #1 too, but I’m going to make you scroll all the way down to read it! Remember these are just random tips added one after another, so the advice is not always good in all circumstances. I do think there are some gems here, so go on and read through them!
Top 100 E-Commerce Tips
100. Never leave unanswered emails for more than 48 hours, or your customer is gone.
99. Let the customer see the shipping charge without registering! Preferably on the basket or a easy-to-find ’shipping charges’ page.
98. Make sure your forms use common names for fields so that they’re recognized by toolbars that have an autofill function.
97. Sites (mainly US!) that have address or phone fields that assume only a US citizen is going to purchase e.g. State fields that only allow a few characters entry.
96. (following on from 97) If you’ve got a country drop-down box, please list it in alphabetical order, and don’t put United States at the top!
95. Don’t just accept payment through PayPal. Many people have had bad experiences with PayPal and prefer to use alternative, simpler payment methods.
94. Make your site incredibly easy to buy from - no registration if possible, live chat, 800 # - make it friendly and easy to buy from.
93. Take a picture of your office and add it to your contact us page with your company FAX number on it.
92. Don’t bury your products in several pages of clickthroughs, implement a working search mechanism so the user can get to what they seek in two clicks, three maximum. Insure there are redundant methods of getting around and no point on your site is more than two clicks away . . . from ANYWHERE.
91. Keep your initial products pages light and clean, with links to product details if they actually want to read.
90. Build your site for the end user, not the search engines. This means leave off all the serp-y text on the initial products pages.
89. Give the user a sense of who you are. The web is a cold, anonymous place. Anything you can do to bring a sense of personality and assurance to your website will help.
88. if you use a site search, make sure it works better than expected. It should search more than product names. Make sure it can find products by SKU, Model Number, and even misspellings if possible.
87. Be sure to include links to your privacy, shipping, returns & exchange policies right out where the customer can easily find them. Tell them the truth.
86. Keep the customer informed about the status of their order before they ask
85. Re: Navigation - Use the same visual theme for every action required of the customer
84. Re: Product options - Make them clear and comprehensive. Answer every possible question on the product detail page
83. Make sure your site search can also search by size and color. If I’m considering a green skirt or blue towels, make it easy to find other items that would match.
82. Don’t use those standard drop down country forms containing places like North Korea or Bouvet Island (an inhabited speck in the South Atlantic. For heavens sake, don’t list known scam destinations as a ship-to.
81. Don’t start huge lists like this that require people to read every previous post thoroughly 
80. If you only ship to USA (or wherever) say that right off and several times.
79. Drives me crazy when the “About Us” section says nothing specific about the seller and just has some obviously canned verbiage.
78. Mission Statements: Yuck! Luckily they seem to be dying out. No one gives a ****, anyway.
77. Goes without saying that spelling must be perfect. On slow days, have employees proof read old pages.
76. Bragging about yourself is ok if you have something to brag about. But better to not mention things like “Since 2005″ or “here’s a picture of our new puppy.”
75. If you’re new to ecommerce NEVER mention that. Invitation to scammers to hit you.
74. Get a real 800# (or 888), not a 866 or such.
73. Get the most web un-savvy person you know to test your site.
72. Customize product descriptions. Eschew text provided by suppliers which everyone else uses.
71. Listen to customers, invite their comments and criticism and act on what you learn
70. Answer emails in 8 hours max (certainly not 48)
69. Give street address but never “we’re in Puppyland Center, between Tony’s Pizza and the Shoe repair shop.”
68. Show good sharp graphics. Learn to use basic photo editing software.
67. Worth saying again, and again. Make everything fast and simple. Do you really need a wish list or tell-a-friend or even customer registration? Don’t just add to your site. Sometimes remove clutter.
66. (Follow on from 67) remove all non essential navigation elements from the checkout process. Have a single page checkout if possible.
65. Calling your customer to thank them and confirm their order instills immediate trust.
64. Make entering credit card numbers easy.
63. Install a really good stats system to track where your visitors bailed out of the purchasing process.
62. Pay good money for a proper interactive graphic designer (not a coder, web ‘developer’, or print designer doing a bit of moonlighting). If your web site looks professional, people will trust it and buy stuff.
61. Accessibility and usability - those 5% of ‘non-standard’ user groups all add up.
60. Add your 800# to every step of the checkout process with something to the tune of “questions or problems completing your order, call 800#)
59. Have a “best sellers” or “most popular” listing. The boost from this has been noticeable.
58. If your site ranks best in your niche, and If you sell something that is sold on many other websites (something drop shipped for you, for example), very slightly change the name — Tarenta to Tarento, Classica to Classico, for example. This helps deter people price shopping for the ‘product name’ elsewhere and in the shopping engines.
57. List your prices for every item clearly and upfront. There’s no space for a ‘price on application’ model online, none at all.
56. When using thumbnails to link to larger images give your customers larger images.
55. Pick the right product to sell. Something people actually want to buy. Preferably something lots of people want to buy.
54. If your target audience is concentrated in one country, host your website on a server and ip located in that country.
53. Promotional Offers: I believe offers are v imp. Now they need to be planned for first timers, repeat buyers and special offers for top customers.
52. Referral Program: Refer 2 friends and get x% additional/ discount always helps.
51. Actually have contact info - many sites hide their identity and location. Try to put the contact number somewhere on every page, it instills confidence.
50. Keep the 3 P’s above the fold on a product page. Product name, Price and Purchase link should all be visible without having to scroll.
49. Drop the “Create account” language. People don’t come to our sites to create accounts, they come there to buy things. I try to make the account creation process appear like the normal checkout process. If they enter an email that is already in the system, THEN I ask them to request their password to login.
48. Know your visitors - if significantly more people are first-time-buyers, don’t hit them with a login screen with a small link to register to the site - reverse the process.
47. Keep your cart on your domain - if for nothing else, it keeps your reporting homogenous.
46. Don’t use the “simple” methods of gateway processing where the visitor is redirected to the gateway site. It seems that on almost every implementation of these setups the webmaster fails to bring the most current site layout over to the gateway site and the visitor gets a whole new layout for cc errors.
45. Never tell the visitor to “Hit your ‘back’ button to correct”. I haven’t found a valid reason to do this yet - any issue should be able to be handled within the system.
44. Have a “Help” link very prominently displayed so they have somewhere to go if there is an issue.
43. For telephone purposes use a short and easy to spell domain name like … dot tld depending on locations or products use more than one, which redirect to a product or location page.
42. Get the credit card number first, ask questions later!
41. If you show a picture of the product and next to it a link that says ‘enlarge’ actually ENLARGE the photo rather than have it open in a new window exactly the same size as on the main page!
40. Ship fast. Preferably the same day and you are sure to get mails for appreciation.
39. Have points of re-assurance near the buy/add to cart button (bbb, bizrate, other ratings)
38. Use a proper ssl certificate.
37. If using paid advertising, don’t send them to your home page; send them to the relevant product page (or custom landing page) that is tied to the keyword you advertised!
36. If you sell software, allow immediate access to the full version and allow unlimited upgrades
35. Have a list of “recommended products” and “other customers also bought” with each item. This can be simply done in your database where you just connect products together and base it on what customers have actually bought.
34. Have a newsletter sign up and send out newsletters.
33. Don’t make the customer fill in the CC billing & shipping address fields when they’re the same, drives me nuts!
32. Vat number & Company Registration Number should be visible on the site in the UK to comply with UK Companies Act (updated Jan 2007).
31. If the product ships via a carrier, send an email to the customer with the tracking number with a link to the carrier to check status.
30. Use an XML Sitemap generator to create a sitemap to get a “big picture” of your site. Submit it to Google et al. and they’ll help you find dead pages, etc.
29. On category pages don’t just list product names, but include some unique content about the category for indexing.
28. Use a product rating feed or create your own system (if you have a sizable user base). A place for user-generated comments can be great, but it can also be a hassle (monitoring, lots of fake entries, etc).
27. If you sell the same object in different colours, offer them pictures of each colour.
telling a customer that you “also do this in blue” isn’t all that helpful because there are about fifty billion shades of blue.
26. Use a larger font (14+) for titles and product names to make them stand out and possibly increase conversions.
25. Stay away from dynamic URLs when possible.
24. Sign up for Hackersafe, Verisign and your related trade associations and display their logos to improve credibility.
23. Have a person answer the phone, not a recording.
22. If you cannot exceed the expectations created by your site, rewrite your copy. Underpromise and over-deliver.
21. Hang in there with the difficult customers-they become the most loyal.
20. Know when a customer needs to be given to your competition.
19. Consistency. Everyone has a different flavor, color, even brand. Key is to be consistant — have 1 text size and color for descriptions, one for links, one for category headers, perhaps another for main category links. At least theres a tone or vibe that your site is a statement vs a hodgepodge of stuff made by someone in their basement Be serious about what you are doing, and people will be serious about considering buying from you
18. If you use sessions, store them in a database, don’t append them to the URL, as people like the look of clean URL’s and often snip them to mail to friends to refer them to a particular product to purchase.
17. On checkout gather a name and phone number as the first 2 fields, store them before proceeding and ring all the customers that drop out before completing the checkout. (This alone turned a $1M business into a $5M business)
16. Make the font on your product copy readable. 12pt at least. NO funky fonts.
15. Make sure your buy button pops off the page and is big enough to be seen and clicked on.
14. Make sure the title tag on each product page is unique and reflects what is on the page. (It never ceases to amaze me how many companies in this day and age still have just the company name in the title tag of product pages). Oh, and product name first in the title tag. Not your company name.
13. Superstition does not work well with Business. What you may feel [to be] unlucky may be lucky for customers ranging from keeping Price Tag, Products, Colors, Day / Time of Shipping etc. [this one was weird]
12. Offer a strong guarantee. Don’t jast say this widget is guaranteed x days. Try for something like this: Try this widget risk-free for 30 days — if you don’t see an improvement in widget results — if this is not the best widget you have ever owned — return it to us for a full refund.
11. Add “District of Columbia -DC” to the list of drop down states, you be suprised how many sites are missing it…
10. And don’t forget PR, GU, VI and all the other US commonwealth and protectorates, that the Postal Service can ship to, at cheap postal rates.
9. Don’t forget US Servicemen/women abroad. Include APO/FPO state codes.
8 1/2. Add a 360 degree product view before the rest of the pack.
8. Play with the wording of your add-to-cart buttons. “Add to cart” is a nice non-threatening way to encourage adding items as some feel “order” or “buy” is too much of a commitment.
7. Be careful making a coupon field too prominent in checkout, especially in markets that are based on commodity goods such as electronics. Seeing the field may convince a shopper that was ready to purchase to exit and spend more time hunting for coupons. Consider relabeling as promotion code or something less descriptive (unless you are linking to a promo page with coupon codes to encourage larger sales).
6. Mine referral data of orders for search engine keyword queries encoded in the urls and further optimize for these terms for organic search or consider adding to your PPC campaigns.
5. Encourage impulse buys says a tip I read somewhere on the net, people don’t mind being asked “Do you want fries with that?”
4. If you’re going to ask customers to sign up for your newsletter during checkout, do it AFTER the payment is processed. Before the payment is taken, the customer is far more interested in ordering your product - but once you’ve taken their payment and they’re looking at your “Thank you for your order” screen it’s the ideal moment to get them to sign up…
3. Test. Everything. A lot.
2. Don’t assume the main goal of every commerce site is to make a profit. Publicly owned sites are often more concerned with selling stock and hitting wall street’s quarterly sales goals. That was true in the ’90s and somewhat true even now.
1. Amid all the costly free shipping gimmicks, 365 day guarantees, free return pickups, insanely low prices…don’t forget to actually turn a profit.
Visited 4692 times
June 18th, 2007
Michael D Jensen
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Posted by Michael D Jensen on April 9th, 2007
A radio ad I heard this morning starts out “Another how-to half minute from the Home Depot…”. Now, before you read on, what are you expecting to get out of the next 25 seconds or so left of this radio spot? A “how-to half minute” makes me ready to learn something about landscaping or home repair or even picking out appliances. Teach me something!!
Well….the ad continues with 2 guys, the first talking about how he loves his old tools. The second guy mentions an instant discount on tools going on now at the store. The conversation switches instantly back to the first guy who then says he hates his old tools.
So what did you learn?
Zilch. Me too.
Teach me something if you say you are going to. If you say you’re going to teach me something, then just give me a blurp about your sale, I’m going to turn off (I might even blog about how much I dislike your ad).
On the web there are many places where we only get one small sentence or “intro” to get a click, mainly page titles and text PPC ads. Your visitor expects you to deliver on the page or ad title, and if you don’t…your reader will quickly use that back button. If you have something lackluster to deliver, you may want to think twice about overpromising on the page or ad title.
Underpromise, over deliver is the old adage of sales. This holds partly true, except for when marketing you need to dazzle them, lure them in, pique their interest. You will lose customers if you then under deliver on the landing page, but if you deliver and then some you might just have yourself a sale (or a reader, or a friend, or a …. ).
A recent article featured on CopyBlogger.com also discusses the importance of not going overboard with your title to the point that what you promise to deliver isn’t even believable.
Why Your Best Headline Could Be Too Powerful
Essentially, your headline itself can be so unbelievable you don’t even get a click in the first place. Headlines not only need to deliver the content they promise, but they need to be believable so you at least get the first click.
Visited 1646 times
April 9th, 2007
Michael D Jensen
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Posted by Michael D Jensen on March 15th, 2007
Nowadays you don’t have to be big to get big clients. After 3 months of starting up (early 2006) our own web content firm (Applied Content), we landed a big deal with a Fortune 500 company (actually in top 30 though!). It’s not that we looked like a giant corporation, but we looked big enough to show that we cared about our business and about our image. Whether you are a business-to-business or business-to-consumer company, looking “bigger” or more professional will help you land bigger clients, and more of them.
Now for my top 10 list of ways to make your small SEO firm look big:
1) Show that you exist
You should exist more than having a website and a contact form. Preferably put up a phone number and an email address. Get a toll free number if you need to and have it forward to your cell phone. Show your office address, a physical location that someone could look up on a map and find. If you work from home, consider getting a PO Box, but get one that has an address instead of a box number (I think UPS is starting to do this).
2) Show that you actually work with clients
In the field of web content our clients don’t want us to tell the world we write their content, so we actually just “hint” at who our clients are (Fortune 500 company, a site listed in Time magazine’s 50 Coolest sites, other SEO firms, local companies, etc). If your clients don’t mind, I’d like to see the list, even a short (best of) list. If you’re doing SEO, what keywords is the client ranking for?
3) Clean Website
I can’t even count how many interested clients for our web content firm have called and said “I like how clean your website is”. It’s not perfect by any means, but yes it is clean and simple. Don’t have your 14-year old nephew design your site and don’t use clipart. You can find all sorts of free web templates, just make sure you customize them a bit so they don’t look “templatey”.
4) Nice Logo
You should have a logo if you don’t already, even if it’s just the name of your site in a nice typeset. We’ve used LogoWorks before, but I’d try a local design shop first if you can.
5) Link out
There’s a reason that Google et al. like it when you link out to authoritative sites, and for me that reason is because I want to know that you know your industry and resources.
6) Multiple author blog
Now not everyone can do this, but if you have someone else on your staff or even someone that remotely helps you out, even if its a Link Ninja, have them blog too. They don’t have to blog all the time (you should, at least once a week) but enough so we know you actually talk with other people.
7) Rank for your Business Name
If I am going to use you for SEO you’d better be ranked #1 when I search for your company name. Remember that Google et al. is not just a search engine, it is also a dictionary, phone book, map, and calculator.
Run a PPC ad for your Business Name
It won’t cost you hardly anything, especially if they use your organic listing (see #7). It tells me you are using pay-per-click like a smart business does, even if I don’t know what other terms you are advertising with.
9) About Us Page
Be personal about your company or yourself. How did you start, what makes your business strong, what are your strongest points, what makes you you? You can do this on a Contact Us page if you want. You don’t need to tell me about your family and your dog, but I do need to know you are real. I need to trust you.
10) Call me on the phone
Don’t email me, call me. When some contacts you, call them back before you try to send an email. Then send a follow-up email and do all your contact through email if you want. A phone call makes you real, that you are interested in providing your services to me, and you care about my needs. I think human nature now is email because it is easy, convenient, and you can actually think and re-think before the message is delivered. This also means, if you’re having potential customers fill out a form you want to ask for their phone number (maybe even require it).
I hope these tips will help you to be better, look more professional, and land more clients. Your potential clients do care what you look and act like, so you had better give it to them.
This is part 3 in our series about “Starting your SEO Business”. In case you missed them, here are the others:
Starting your SEO business: 5 Steps to Getting New SEO Clients
Starting Your SEO business: Tapping into Local Business with Local Search Tools
Visited 3778 times
March 15th, 2007
Michael D Jensen
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Posted by Michael D Jensen on March 13th, 2007
A recent article posted on Slashdot looked at various website design points of the top 6 Presidential Candidates. Here I compare SEO statistics of the top 6 Presidential Candidates’ websites: Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Barack Obama, Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney, and John McCain.
I will compare SEO statistics and information about the age of domain, length of domain registration, domain characteristics, backlinks, Technorati links, .edu links, Alexa Rank, Page Strength, indexed pages, supplemental results, name search on Google, other search terms on Google, and pay-per-click. The order of candidates is listed in order of “rank” within each category of statistics.
Age of Domain
This comes from either Alexa data or WHOIS data. The age of domain is important in SEO because older sites typically hold more credibility and trust with search engines.
Hillary Clinton - 22-Oct-2001
John Edwards - 16-Jul-1998
Barack Obama - 28-Dec-2004
John McCain - 17-Jul-1997
Mitt Romney - 08-Feb-2002
Rudy Giuliani - 17-Nov-2006
Length of Domain Registration
This statistic looks at how many years the domain has been registered for beyond the create date (based on WHOIS data), and the candidates are listed in descending order of year that the domain expires. It’s considered good SEO practice to register a domain for a longer amount of time (5+ years)
John McCain - 15 years, expires 26-Jan-2017
Hillary Clinton - 15 years, expires 22-Oct-2016
Barack Obama - 11 years, expires 28-Dec-2015
John Edwards - 11 years, expires 14-Jul-2009
Mitt Romney - 8 years, expires 08-Feb-2010
Rudy Giuliani - 2 years, expires 17-Nov-2008
Type in Domain
Everyone except Rudy Giuliani has a perfect type in domain for their name, so you can just type in their name, add the .com and you’re at their site. This may hurt Rudy a little, but his last name is hard to remember how to spell for many so perhaps joinrudy2008.com is better in some ways.
Backlinks
Backlinks, or inbound links, are how many sites link to your site. These figures are from Yahoo.
Barack Obama - 119,909
Hillary Clinton - 79,219
Mitt Romney - 39,245
Rudy Giuliani - 38,236
John Edwards - 15,498
John McCain - 7,428
Technorati Links
This is used as a measure of popularity in the blogosphere world. The more the better.
Barack Obama - 6,527
John Edwards - 4,952
Hillary Clinton - 3,710
Mitt Romney - 1,756
John McCain - 670
Rudy Giuliani - 342
.edu links
Links from educational institutions are regarded as passing more weight or confidence as a backlink, and are highly desirable (and hard to get).
Hillary Clinton - 97
Barack Obama - 87
John Edwards - 35
Mitt Romney - 33
Rudy Giuliani - 21
John McCain - 0
Alexa Rank
I know Alexa isn’t perfect, but it’s an interesting comparison. The lower the number, “the better”. The number represents the rank of the website out of the top websites on the Internet in terms of traffic. The most visited site on the Internet is ranked 1. A zero (0) means either an error or not enough traffic to rank.
Barack Obama - 12,581
Hillary Clinton - 18,727
John Edwards - 33,485
Mitt Romney - 129,490
John McCain - 178,788
Rudy Giuliani - 0
Page Strength
John Edwards - 6.5/10
Hillary Clinton - 5.5/10
Barack Obama - 5/0
Mitt Romney - 4/10
Rudy Giuliani - 3.5/10
John McCain - 3.5/10
Indexed Pages
Google and Yahoo both give a different number of pages in their index, so I’ll show both, Google/Yahoo.
John Edwards - 4230/66
John McCain - 457/155
Hillary Clinton - 387/1133
Mitt Romney - 309/157
Barack Obama - 148/525
Rudy Giuliani - 91/34
Supplemental Results
If pages show up as supplemental results (use this query, just change domain) it means they aren’t carrying as much as weight as they could be and their rankings probably suffer. The figure shown below is supplemental/total indexed, as well as what percent of pages are supplemental results out of their total number of indexed pages (both from Google). Lower % is better.
John Edwards - 260/4230 (6%)
Mitt Romney - 71/309 (23%)
John McCain - 104/457 (23%)
Barack Obama - 35/148 (24%)
Rudy Giuliani - 38/91 (42%)
Hillary Clinton - 168/387 (43%)
Name search on Google
If you type in the candidate’s name in Google, where does their “official” election site come up in the SERPs?
Hillary Clinton - 1st result
Barack Obama - 1st result
John Edwards - 1st result
Mitt Romney - 1st result
Rudy Giuliani - 2nd result, 1st is Wikipedia entry
John McCain - 33rd result, 1st is his Senate page
Rankings for name, party, etc
Terms searched for included: presidential election, presidential candidates, 2008 elections, compare candidates, and candidates issues. The top 100 results were checked for each search term. If no ranking is listed below, the candidates site does not rank in the top 100 for that term.
Barack Obama - #35 for presidential candidates, #66 for candidates issues
Hillary Clinton - (none)
John Edwards - (none)
John McCain - (none)
Mitt Romney - (none)
Rudy Giuliani - (none)
Pay-Per-Click (PPC)
Terms searched for included: presidential election, presidential candidates, 2008 elections, compare candidates, candidates issues, democrat, democratic party, republican, and republican party. Certainly there are many others I could have typed for but these are ones I thought would be critical to any PPC campaign.
Barack Obama - presidential election, presidential candidates, 2008 elections, democrat, democratic party,
John McCain - presidential election, presidential candidates
Hillary Clinton - (none)
John Edwards - (none)
Mitt Romney - (none)
Rudy Giuliani - (none)
Obviously we are very early on in the elections, but certainly SEO efforts should be underway if they are going to occur at all. In some ways it is evident there are definitely SEO strategies in place, but what about the lack of PPC? What are some of your observations?
Also check out my post from yesterday about what Analytics programs the Presidential Candidates are using.
Visited 2636 times
March 13th, 2007
Michael D Jensen
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Posted by Michael D Jensen on February 21st, 2007
If you are running a PPC (pay-per-click) campaign with search engines, you can create campaigns that are either Search or Contextual based. Both have their merit and usefulness, but both have unique traits about the customer and their current frame-of-mind. If you’re looking to improve your conversion rate (who isn’t?), knowing these differences can certainly help. At the end, I’ll give some tips for programmers to tell the difference between your Search and Contextual Ad visitors.
Before we get into those differences, let me first just make sure we all know about these two types of PPC campaigns.
Search and Contextual Ad Refresher
A Search ad campaign will run on the top and side of a search engine when users come to perform a search. They type in a keyword and the search results page shows up, with both natural results and paid results. The paid results are based on the actual keyword used in the search by the user.
A Contextual ad campaign is displayed on websites that want advertising revenue from their site. You can even bid separately on the price of your keywords for content ads. The ads that display on these websites are based on the content of the page. If a page is about dog food and dog toys, the ads displayed on that page will be based on those topics. Your ad shows up when your keywords from your contextual ad campaign match the topic of the page, as well as other factors (bid price, quality, etc).
The Scenarios
Let’s start with a scenario to make it more real for you to see the differences, and see if you can spot them yourself before I give it away.
Search Ad Scenario: Joe’s wife just reminded him it is almost Mother’s day, so Joe is looking to send flowers to his mother in Colorado. His first method of finding a flower company that delivers flowers to another state is to use a search engine. He types in the first keyword that comes to mind, “mother’s day flowers”. Joe gets the results page and glances through the ads at the top of the page. There are even some prices in there, some mention Mother’s day too. He clicks on one of the ads.
Content Ad Scenario: Joe is reading about a new gardening technique for his tomatoes that he just can’t get to grow right. He notices an ad on the side of the article that reminds him that Mother’s day is coming soon. He thinks of his mother and that it would be nice to do something for Mom. He clicks on the ad.
Differences between Search and Contextual Ad Visitors
1) Focus
Joe, in the Search Ad Scenario, was specifically looking for flowers to send to Mom for Mother’s day. He set aside the time and is focused on doing this task right now. Your challenge as a Flower Delivery company would be to have the ad that captures Joe the most, be it by price, on-time delivery, freshness of the flowers (quality of product), or some sort of guarantee.
In the Contextual Ad Scenario, Joe’s mind has been on his struggling tomatoes, but the Content Ad diverted his attention to his Mother and Mother’s day. Your first challenge was capture him with the ad, which worked. Your next challenge is to follow through and maintain his focus so he gets the flowers (through your site) before he continues thinking about his failing tomatoes.
2) Readiness
In the Search Ad Scenario, Joe is ready to buy something. He may compare a few companies, but he wants to buy something. Your challenge is to allure him to your ad, then keep his interest in your site and product, and fulfill his needs and questions. His readiness can easily be quieted if there are stumbling blocks to the purchase (not trustworthy, too pricey, not enough options, no guarantee, not secure, etc). Joe from the Search Ad probably won’t care that your sale ends next week because he is ready to buy right now.
In the Contextual Ad Scenario, Joe has diverted his attention to your product, at least for now. He wasn’t specifically looking to buy flowers for Mom, so he may either buy now or come back another day. Both of these need to be addressed in your content and atmosphere of your site. If he is ready to buy now, it should be so easy to find the perfect flower bouquet for Mom and to make the purchase, that he doesn’t lose interest and go back to his tomatoes. If he is going to come back tomorrow, you need to find a way to make your brand/product sticky in his mind. Will he remember your site (branding)? Can he easily find the special you advertised again? Because Joe from the Contextual Ad is not necessarily buying right now, anything you can do to make buying now more advantageous would be good for you and for Joe.
The two scenarios above are helpful for showing the focus and readiness. Other products/services may have additional differences in Visitors’ frame-of-mind, but generally these two are applicable across the board. Certainly not all Search ad customers are ready to buy now, but compared to Contextual ad customers, they are “more ready”. Some advertisers will find they generate more revenue from Search and some from Contextual, it depends on many factors. But understanding more about your visitor when they come may be able to influence your conversion rate.
Treat your Visitors Differently based on Ad Type
If there was a way to tell the difference between a Search Ad visitor and a Contextual Ad visitor, would you do something about it? If it helped your conversions you probably would! There are two different ways to do this that I will illustrate. The first method isn’t as reliable and not as easy to implement as the second method.
(Method 1) In programming you can capture certain variables from each visitor, including what URL they came from. This is the HTTP_REFERER server variable. In PHP for example, you can capture this with $_SERVER[’HTTP_REFERER’]. In Perl, you can capture this with $ENV{’HTTP_REFERER’}. And for spelling freaks (like me), yes, REFERER is supposed to be spelled that way. Sometimes based on HTTP_REFERER alone you can distinguish whether the ad is Search or Contextual, but this is not always the case.
(Method 2) The best way is to include it in the URL of your ad. Set up separate campaigns for search and contextual ads. When setting these up, include a variable in the URL (address to your page) that distinguishes the two from each other. For example:
http://www.yourdomain.com/landingpage.html?adtype=search
http://www.yourdomain.com/landingpage.html?adtype=contextual
Then on your landing page, capture the variable ‘adtype’ and then adjust the content to fit the focus and readiness of the visitor. There are other strategies you can combine this with, such as basing the content on inferred intentions from the actual keyword that was used in the search.
What other differences do you see between visitors from these two sources, Search Ads and Contextual Ads?
Visited 1806 times
February 21st, 2007
Michael D Jensen
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Posted by Aaron R Stewart on February 19th, 2007
We all know SEO assists a site to perform better in the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages), but the reasons people SEO can differ. Some just want to share their knowledge with the world and aren’t selling anything, (like in informational blogs), some want to rank as an authoritative site to increase the revenue in their AdSense campaigns, and some want to find new clients through organic search, or do better in their PPC campaigns. There are also some that are motivated by all or a combination of these motivations. For me personally it is the opportunity to find more clients, and to out-compete my competitors for those clients.
In the introduction to his seminal book On Competition, Michael Porter (recognized Harvard professor and expert in competitive studies) states:
“No company, and no country, can afford to ignore the need to compete. Every company, and every country, must try to understand and master competition”
(Porter, 1998, p. i).
I come from a primarily business background, and have spent a good bit of time studying competitive analysis theory, or the use of different analytic tools to attempt to understand, predict and prepare for the strategic adjustment competitors are most likely to implement in the marketplace. It is truly a fascinating area of thought. However, each of these competitive analytic tools requires considerable amounts of time and research to make them worth anything, and even when the analysis is complete, it can only provide the researcher nothing more than a more educated guess as to what a competitor might do. Some widely used competitive analysis tools used today include: SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats), Competitive Array, Game Theory (very interesting), Five-Forces, etc., just to name a few. There are even many firms that will perform the analysis for you, using a variety of these tools for a fee. Dun and Bradstreet offers small business firms information about their competitors for a fee, $9.99 per firm, for a firm analysis, $24.99 for an industry analysis and $65 for various marketing lists. Despite the inherent weaknesses of these various analysis tools, innumerable firms continue to spend all kinds of resources to run these analyses in hopes of putting themselves in a better competitive position.
Now on to why I love the online competitive world… There are certain SEO tools and techniques which provide us the opportunity to really know what our competitors are up to online, with real data. The SEs (Search Engines) have already aggregated the data, and using these SEO analysis tools properly can drastically reduce the ability of a competitor to surprise you, or make huge moves online unnoticed. Not to mention this real data reduces the need of firms to “make educated guesses” as to what their competitors are really up to. Online, the competitive marketplace is more transparent than offline, and with the increased competitive information comes the increased importance to be more competitively astute and responsive. So once competitive trends are discovered, firms need to react more quickly to address these trends, to stay ahead of the curve, and remain competitively viable. This is done by using other SEO tools which assist your site to become more competitive online, specifically in the SERPs. SoloSEO was built to not only to provide competitive intelligence tools, which efficiently watch industry competitors, but to also offer effective SEO tools, allowing firms to improve their online competitive position.
This week we will be launching a new service, which will make the competitive intelligence process more convenient and streamlined for our subscribers. We are very motivated to assist our clients become more aware of their competitors more quickly, and assist them improve the competitiveness of their sites with effective SEO tools. Please stay tuned…
Visited 1518 times
February 19th, 2007
Aaron R Stewart
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Posted by Michael D Jensen on February 16th, 2007
When you were a kid, did you ever have one of these transformers? I had several transformers and even loved watching the cartoon. A transformer, like Optimus Prime, would be a semi-truck at first, but then you could move the pieces around and make it into a robot machine. The tagline for Transformers was, “Transformers, More than Meets the Eye”. Your keywords, just like the toy, contain more than meets the eye.
Often we approach our keywords simply as a pool of words that people use just to find our product or services. We get caught up in using keyword tools that will find any version of our keyword ever typed in, jumping at a new phrase that we might find, and then plugging it into a PPC campaign or a new page of content. But are you overlooking the “intention” of why your potential customer is using that keyword? The range of intentions of your customers are vast, but perhaps we can break them down into three categories:
1. Ready to Buy. I know what I want, I just need to get it.
2. Comparison shopping. I am trying to compare services/products, including features, price, warranty, etc.
3. Just curious. I found your product and am just looking to see what it was, but I’m not buying it right now.
Then within these categories, your customers are going to be concerned with any of the following, or in any combination thereof:
- Cost
- Quality
- Benefits
- Features
- Warranty/Guarantee
- Are other people using it? Do they like it?
Understanding your keywords and what the overall intention of the keyword is can help you direct your PPC advertising as well as your search and content optimization. If you know the intention of a keyword, why not write your content (on your keyword’s ranked/targeted page) focused on its intention?
Let’s take an example. Let’s say a customer is looking for some content for her website, and you have a content company. The customer could do several searches, depending on her needs. Let’s keep it down to three:
1. content for my website
2. seo content
3. cheap content
The trick is that each of these keywords can mean different things to different people. What you want to do is to identify the most common intention, the reason why most people would use this keyword.
content for my website
This one is pretty general. If it was my company and I was running an ad or trying to write a page focused on this phrase, I would consider the intention not to be at a “ready to buy” point, but not just curious either. The customer doesn’t necessarily tell you they are looking for unique content, fresh content, seo content, free content, etc. So I would tell them about different types of content, what kind of content is best for different needs, and what you an provide to them.
seo content
Already you know your customer knows what SEO is, and that they see the importance of content. They are probably more ready to buy than just curious, and they are probably also comparing content companies (otherwise they might have typed in the name of a company, group, or writer). Your content should focus on the SEO part, about “optimized content” and keeping your content fresh and updated on your site. Maybe include (or link out to other articles on your site) about how to optimize title and header tags. Make your pitch match the intention of the keyword.
cheap content
This keyword obviously tells you your customer is looking for something economical. Focus your content on not only the affordability of your content, but also the long term benefits of content for a site (good content can easily pay for itself quickly for many products/services). You could also warn your customer about what to watch out for when comparing with other content companies and detail the problems with using free content and articles.
How disappointing it would be (instant back button) to search for a phrase and find something so generic that it doesn’t fill any needs or fill any knowledge gaps. Your customers are expecting to find what they are looking for, why not give it to them?
Take some time to look at your keywords in more depth, and even categorize them by their intentions. Then match up your content with your keywords and see if the content covers the needs of the intention of the keyword. The benefits of this is that your customer will have filled her present needs, and this has a positive impact on her feelings toward your business/website.
And don’t forget that SoloSEO has tools to organize your keyword lists by category or topic, and to assign keywords to your content pages, making this a much easier process. Try a 2-week free trial of SoloSEO.
Visited 2028 times
February 16th, 2007
Michael D Jensen
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Posted by Aaron R Stewart on February 15th, 2007
Today, I took a few moments to take in a bit of the current online marketing blogscape. I eventually came across a post entitled “17 most common PPC mistakes web marketers make” by Igor Mor. It was posted on SEOMoz as part of their YOUMoz program where they “claim” posts from others they deem appropriate. Since my last post was about the ongoing feud between some PPC gurus and SEO pros, I was interested in the topic. As I read I was quite pleased with the content and the expertise Mr. Mor obviously has obtained through his experience with previous PPC campaigns. Unfortunately my positive mood did not hold out until the end, in fact I now wished this post had been named “16 most common PPC mistakes web marketers make,” because the 17th point is not very good advice at all.
In points 8, 9 and 16 Mr. Mor makes it a point to discuss the importance of protecting your firm’s name from your affiliates, and from your competition. This advice, although obvious to most business people, is very sound. Your firm’s name and the proper branding of that name are of paramount importance in the marketing world, online or otherwise. If your competition is using unethical marketing tactics to steal clients and benefit from your firm’s brand, or if they attempt to purposefully damage your firm’s reputation or brand image without cause, then by all means firms need to do all they can do, including taking legal action, to stop these competitive threats. I have no problem with this advice.
However, point 17 is so misguided and potentially dangerous, it severely reduced the quality of the post. Here is the problem, in his last point Mr. Mor suggests firms bid on the brand name of their competitors, because “anyone searching for your competitor could easily be your customer instead” (ghastly logic) and “Most of the time the ROI on those keywords is excellent” (Ah, we make more money, so the practice is acceptable, the good ole “Ends justify the Means argument”). What makes the whole suggestion even more preposterous is Mr. Mor explains earlier in point 8 that his firm frequently sends out “legal letters” to their competitors to stop them from continuing this type of unethical behavior. So I guess we have an acceptable double standard here, we are instructed to engage in bidding on our competitor’s brand name as a good PPC strategy, and we should make it a point to legally threaten our competitors if they attempt to do the same thing to our brands. Doesn’t sound so good to me, even with my lower than average cognitive skills. In Mr. Mor’s closing sentence, he advises “If you get a “legal letter” from the competitors and it holds water, I’d suggest comply with it.” If we get a letter, and if it holds water? I’m sorry folks, that isn’t a letter I want waiting for me in the mail box, the innumerable bills and credit card applications already in wait make the trip to the mail box miserable enough.
I get frustrated with the disconnect between the online world and the non-online business world at times. There is this maverick/old-west mentality online that continues to percolate, where obviously unethical and potentially illegal marketing strategies are employed by some with impunity. Interestingly enough, the resulting vitriol from those who are caught in their back alley practices is impossible for me to comprehend. These unscrupulous marketers know what they are doing is sinister, but they risk it anyway for a few extra bucks. How can they be so upset when they are shut down? Here is another thought… I know I personally do not want the FTC, or any other government entity, to form some sort of Internet Marketing Oversight group to start governing our every online marketing move. But if this sort of poor online marketing advice is continually doled out, and routinely implemented, then I think we should expect the involvement of the government in the future. And they will do it in the name of consumer protection, and fair trade enforcement, whether that truly be the case or not.
Just for fun, I took a second and went out and Googled “Dell Computers” and interestingly found no PPC ads for Apple or HP. I then searched for “Apple iPod” and found no PPC ads from Microsoft taking us to their Zune site. This isn’t by accident, corporate reputations are priceless. Clients aren’t fools and they will know when firms have attempted to hijack a competitor’s brand name. Yeah, you still might get a sell, and yeah, that will improve your ROI, but what has this ploy done to your company’s image? It is hard to quantify in dollar terms, but it should be considered, it is considered by image conscience Fortune 500 companies.
My advice, don’t bid on your competitors brand name in your PPC campaigns, earn your money the old fashioned way, work harder, work smarter, have a better product, offer superior customer service, run PPC ads on the long tail keywords, have fresh content on a site benefiting from solid SEO techniques. Simply put, do it the right way, stay above the murky waters of black-hat marketing tactics. You will sleep better knowing you will not be receiving a cease and desist letter from your competitor’s legal representatives for unethical behavior. Instead, if you do it the right way, you may very well get an offer from a competitor to just buy you out, because they are sick of being hammered by your squeaky-clean, brilliantly employed marketing efforts, and interestingly enough, your pristine brand will actually be worth your ridiculously high asking price. 
Visited 4077 times
February 15th, 2007
Aaron R Stewart
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