If you’re currently managing a Google AdWords campaign, you may have already seen this pleasant little message greeting you as you logged in to your account. What’s it all mean?

Beginning April 1st, 2008 Google will no longer allow you to post a display URL in your Google ad that is not your own website’s real domain name.

That’s right. No more automatic redirects. No more bait-n-switch. Which (ehem!), of course, you weren’t doing anyway, right?

Now your display URL in your ad must match its destination URL (landing page URL), or risk the sting of another Google smackdown; like the rap on the nose of a naughty puppy with a rolled up newspaper.

So?

Well, smart marketers use redirects to test different domain names. They may run two or more concurrent ads that differ only in the display URL. This is done in order to determine which domain name may draw in more clicks. You see, you have to TEST everything: Headlines, descriptions, display URLs and of course, landing pages.
There is, however, something to be done. Now, I’m not talking about getting around Google’s TOS. This is a legitimate work-around that can be employed; especially, if you are A/B split-testing your PPC campaign ads.

You are A/B split-testing your ads, right?

Good.

OK, so here’s a quick-n-easy solution provided by Brian Todd of Perry Marshall Associates so that you can still have multiple domains without redirects.

Imagine the following scenario. It may even seem familiar to you.

You’ve completed the work of designing and developing terrific Web sites for your clients. Now the more important work needs to continue. You need to promote sites so that they may be found by prospective buyers. By not continuing to market your client’s sites, you’re virtually throwing away thousands of dollars in potential residual revenue.

Not enough reason?

OK, here’s another: If, on the other hand, you’re not interested in additional revenue, then perhaps the prospect of losing clients is a better reason to bolster your marketing services. You see, all your talented creative team’s hard work will be for naught if your client’s customers can’t find what they’re looking for online and buy it. Designing and creating an award winning site won’t help your client if you don’t market it once you’ve created it. In fact, it will hurt your client. You need to promote the site if it is to become at all successful. Your client demands it and is expecting to see a return on their investment. Not providing these crucial services is like telling your client to shop for an agency that does. Can you afford that?

How can you tell if you’re falling short? Answer these two simple questions:

Do buyers know how to find your client’s site?

Can they find it if they “Google-it”?

These may be simple questions to ask, but they certainly aren’t simple to answer. How will potential customers find your client’s site? Will they be able to find it if they use their favorite search engine? Is the site you so painstakingly created sitting in wasteland of “me too” sites? Your talented team’s hard word will be for naught if your client’s customers can’t find what they’re looking for and buy it. Building a great site won’t help your client if you don’t market it as well. You need to promote the site if it is to even have a chance; let alone, become successful.

This is where I come in

Since 1996, I’ve been performing search engine optimization; PPC and banner advertising; e-mail marketing; content development and Web traffic and conversion analysis– on the agency side and client side. I’ve done this from scratch for new sites and I’ve optimized and turned around longstanding, unproductive campaigns, too.

If you’re saying to yourself, “I can’t offer these value–add services to my clients.” Or, “We’re a traditional advertising agency and only offer print, television and radio advertising. We don’t do internet or online advertising.”

Why not?

Your client’s competitors do internet advertising. They’re taking advantage of the fact that Internet usage is up and becoming the preferred advertising medium. Don’t believe me? How about this little nugget: According to emarketer, “US adults are spending more time each day on the Internet and watching TV than listening to the radio.”

That’s right. Internet usage by adult users (read: consumers) is out pacing both TV and radio. That also means consumers are getting their advertising messages via the Internet; and the beast is only getting stronger, folks.

Furthermore, we’re not just talking B2C here. The B2B market has been affected by this trend as well.

“Nearly three-quarters of B2C said they planned to shift money from their traditional media budget to new media, compared with just over half of B2B marketers, indicating that B2B marketers were likely to have already prepared for such spending in their budgets (source: emarketer Aug. 21, 2007).”

What about other forms of marketing? Keep reading.

“eMarketer projects that local online advertising spending in the US will reach $2.9 billion in 2007(source: emarketer Aug 30, 2007).”

“Nevertheless, as audiences continue to migrate online and away from traditional local media, such as newspapers and radio, it is only a question of time before online local ad spending catches up,” –David Hallerman, eMarketer senior analyst

Now, you may be saying to yourself, “OK, he’s hit me with some powerful statistics, but why should I listen to what this guy has to say”?

Good question. After all, there are a lot of Internet marketers out there who say they “do” Internet marketing and advertising. They may even accurately boast that they can get a site listed in the top 10 of Google’s search results page. Or, they may say they can get ads shown to thousands of potential buyers. So what? Just because you’re site is listed well in Google or your ad gets viewed by thousands of people, it doesn’t mean they will visit the site. I hate to use a cliché here; but it is so appropriate: “You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink.”

I’ve worked in internet related marketing over the last ten plus years in order to achieve the primary goal: to not only drive highly targeted traffic to the clients’ sites; but more importantly, create conversions for my clients. Yes, sites do need traffic; however, it’s the conversions that your client needs to show a + ROI.

How I do it

I work with your entire team–– from graphic designers and Web developers to writers and even traffic coordinators in order to complete projects in a timely fashion. I collaborate with IT, design, sales and marketing teams to implement not only technical changes and site design enhancements; but to also ensure the proper message is presented to the target audience. I work to create a site that is not only pleasing to the eye; but, highly functional and easy to use for visitors to become more than visitors.

I make it easier for visitors to become buyers!

If you’re interested in providing what your client may be missing from their marketing, and you’re interested in more revenue for your agency, give me a call or contact me to set up a free one–hour consultation.

I used to think that content was King. I followed common wisdom (ehem!) and professed that if you wanted search engines, and more importantly, people, to pay attention to your site you had to have content– and, lots of it. The idea is that as long as you have a lot of content, visitors will flock to your site.

Well, I will pose the question, then: How many of us still believe this nonsense?

Do you really think that if you have page after page of copy written about the wonderful purple widgets that you have so painstakingly laid out on your site, that visitors will beat a path to your door and buy to their heart’s content?

I’ve written about this in a previous post, where I’ve stated that if you want people visit your site and purchase from you, a few things need to be put into action first:

• Know who you want as a visitor
• Have something on your site that visitors want
• Make it easy for visitors to get what they came for

The King is dead! Long live the King!

The newly coronated King is Desire. Having a successful site is not about having gobs of content about your product or service. It’s about creating a destination worthy of the sort of visitor who will buy your product or service. It’s about creating a destination where visitors desire to be there. Visitors have to feel compelled to be on your site. Think about it: What makes some sites so popular or more accurately, irresistible? Sites like, MySpace or YouTube. It’s because they are destinations– sites where people want to go and be seen or heard.

To this you might say, “Well, they’re not selling anything. They’re not e-commerce sites.”

Aren’t they?

Don’t fool yourself into thinking sites like these aren’t selling something; because that’s exactly what they’re doing. American Heritage Dictionary¹ defines, “commerce” as: “Intellectual (not my word) exchange or social interaction.”

Sites like MySpace, YouTube and other social or Web 2.0 sites work because they have successfully created destinations. These sites are selling relevance, importance, motivation and a sense of belonging.

When was the last time you objectively looked at your site and assessed whether its content is what users desire; or is it what you desire. Start today and make your site a destination. Give visitors a reason to be on your site and make it easy to find what they desire or need and ultimately purchase from you.

What makes your site irresistible? You better find out now.

¹The American Heritage^® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved., ^© 2006 by Houghton Mifflin Company.

Outlined below are some critical steps that need to be taken if you hope to achieve any amount of success with your online business. You wouldn’t set up a store front in a busy downtown area without first taking these steps and expect to survive. Don’t do it online.

1. Market definitions: Who is your customer and what are their needs?
   
   • Define segments: Are you trying to reach homeowners with a mortgage of 100K or more? Are you trying to reach high school teens who are beginning to learn about responsible financial management? Get specific.
   • Web research, surveys, and focus groups: Talk to your customers. Learn from your customers. Your existing customers can tell you what you need to know in order to attract new customers.

2. Core competencies: What can your business provide that serves customers’ needs? Always shoot for satisfying a need. If people perceive that they don’t need your product or service, they won’t buy it.
3. Market segment selection: Based on market definition, segmentation, and core competencies, select the segments to serve. Don’t try to be all things to all people. Target those customers who will be buying customers.
4. Competitive analysis: What are the strengths and weaknesses of each of the competitors as they apply to the target segments? As the saying goes, “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.” Know the market place. Keep tabs on what your competition is up to. And don’t be afraid to recommend one of your competitors if you don’t have something that a visitor to your site needs. Your customer will appreciate your honesty and remember your name when they speak to friends and family. Also, your competitor will appreciate it and may return the favor.
5. What are your company’s strengths and weaknesses?: Do a thorough and honest analysis of your business. What do you excel in? Customer service? Huge selection? On the flip-side, where do you fall short? Having trouble keeping certain items in stock due to unavailability? Refer back to the first step where you “listen” to your customers. If you take time to ascertain your strengths and weakness, you’ll find that you can greatly improve your customers experience and increase conversions.
6. Positioning: How can your company exploit the competitor’s weaknesses, downplay the competitors’ strengths, and present its own weakness in a light so that they are strengths?

If you’re having trouble answering some of these questions then get some help. Trying to run a business without first taking these steps will be disastrous; and worse, you won’t even know why you failed.

Often we’ve heard the cliché : “Content is king.” However, if that’s the case, then content must share the throne with its queen– analytics. By analytics, I am referring to the tracking of visits and visitor behavior to a landing page or site. More specifically, analytics tries to provide answers to questions, such as: what are visitors doing on the site? What pages are being viewed and for how long? From where (referring sites) are visitors coming to your site?

Finding answers to these questions (and dozens more) is a key component to understanding how your content needs to direct visitors through your site in the buying process. If you can answer these questions, you can begin to laser-target your audience and create landing pages that speak directly to them and convert otherwise passive traffic into desired behavior.

UPDATE: For more information on this topic, check out this recent post by Kevin Gold of Search Marketing Standard.

Sure, it’s important to have relevant, unique content. Without it, your site is just like the thousands or millions of other sites that provide the same products and services as yours. You need to provide a unique selling proposition (USP) that sets you apart from the crowd. Your content needs to tell a story that is told in a different way; even if your dealing with the same widgets that thousands of other sites are selling. Find a way to tell your story so that visitors will be compelled to listen and act.

King Content has a huge responsibility to his loyal subjects; however, His Royal Highness would be nowhere without his Queen, Analytics. If you have no idea of not only how many visitors your site is receiving; but what those visitors are doing, then you will have no idea how good your content is. You will have no way of consulting with the King to give it direction and improve upon its effectiveness.

I’d like to focus in on two metrics I think are among the most important you can track. With these metrics it doesn’t matter what type of site you have or what objectives you want to achieve. They are designed to focus on the biggest issue most Websites have – getting visitors to go past the initial landing page, the first page upon which they arrive on your site. An important thing to remember about these metrics is that they give you the ability to see that someone who comes to the site and views just one page was likely a lost opportunity. That is, of course, unless that one page allows the visitor to convert immediately prior to moving on. Also, an important aspect of these metrics is that they don’t focus on average behavior, but instead on specific visitor behavior, and separating the wheat from the chaff as much as possible.

1. Percentage of One-Page-Only Visits

(One Page Visits Divided by Total Visits)

In order to get a quick read on what’s going on, this would be the metric to focus on first. It simply measures the percentage of visitors who bounce off your site like it was a trampoline. Since you often can’t control from which pages people enter your site, you want to make sure visitors can find what they came for right from that page. If not, they need to know how to get to the information they want. Directing visitors to where you want them to go is both a both a design and copy issue, since you can always insert links into your content that lead to related topics in other site areas. Making sure, of course to not let them get off track by always bringing them back around to the desired action.

So, why measure visits instead of visitors or unique visitors? Well, it’s the biggest, most reliable number available. Limiting this metric to one-page-only visits means that you are able to see if your content is strong enough and compelling enough to keep them on site, take in your offer, and make the conversion.

2. Percentage of One Minute Visits

(One Minute Visits divided by Total Visits)

This metric is very similar idea to the first one; however it differs only in that it is using length of visit instead of page views as the base number. This metric speaks more to the draw of your site to a visitor overall. This is an aggregation of the site’s content, design, and functionality all rolled into one.

Track your metrics over time. Generally speaking, the longer people stay on your site and the more pages they are viewing, the better you are serving them. You will be able to see, through measurable data, how testing and improving your content affects the user experience on your site and your bottom line.

I believe Zig Ziglar, the famous sales guru, said it best: “If you don’t know where you are going, then any road will take you there.” So it is with analytics and content. Your site will get nowhere without the latter since visitors won’t care what you have to say; however, you won’t even know it or why without the former. I guess it’s true what they say: “Behind every great man is an even greater woman.”

Cheers,

~ Matt

I know. Right now, you may be scratching your head and wondering how in the world SEO and raising children can be compared, and furthermore, how can either of them be considered, easy.

You’d be right in questioning the latter and I’ll get into that a little further into this post. As for the former, well, let me explain.

Search engines are nothing more than massive catalogs of information from which you receive useful (hopefully) and relevant (again, hopefully) information based upon simple keyword queries, or commands.

SEO, then, at its most basic level is the art and science of creating and manipulating Web content so that it is more useful and relevant to not only people; but also the search engines. In applying basic SEO principles to Web sites, we hope to make it easier for a search engine spider to find our content and index it accordingly in its index, or, catalog of information. Also, on a basic level, we are telling the search engines precisely how we want our pages of content to be found; for which keywords or concepts; and then indexed indexed in such a way as to make it found by people in search of what we have to offer.

So, then, how is this related to children? Well, if you have raised any children; or, if you have had any interaction with children, then you may begin to see what I mean. It can be very difficult if not frustrating to have a conversation with a child. If you want a child to behave in a certain way, you need to provide very specific information and in such a way as to not confuse the child. Here’s an example:

Let’s say you want a five-year old to clean up his play area. Now, the play area is a complete mess. Toys are scattered everywhere. Available in the room, are several large bins and baskets and a large set of cabinets. If you instruct this child to put away the toys you may get lucky and see that the child correctly places the toys in the cabinets; however, you will soon see that this solution is not a good one. The toys will still be very disorganized and may not all fit in the cabinets. Besides, you will then have a bunch of bins and baskets left in the room and no place to put them.

So, you have to then instruct the child to place the largest items in the bins or baskets and possibly, tell him to group or sort for certain types of toys. You know, toy cars, trucks and other vehicles in one bin… action figures in another bin… stuffed animals in yet another bin… and so on.

If you want the child to put away the toys in a specific manner, you have to provide him with specific instructions as to how it should be done. You have to be patient and provide the instruction in short, meaningful chunks of information. If you make your command too complex, the child can’t handle it and will become frustrated. I know from experience that the frustration will more than likely be experienced, first, by you, rather than the child. To avoid this, you need to tell him or show him that the toys may be sorted by type, color, size, which ever way seems best. This can actually fun for the child and an integral part of his development; but I digress. Then, instruct the child to place these items in the proper container so that they all fit. Then, if necessary, help the child put each container in its proper place within the cabinet.SEO is like this. If you simply throw a bunch of words on a page or create content for a site without first determining how it should be organized, you will confuse the search engine spiders. Your site will not get indexed properly, if at all; and, even more importantly, people will not be able to find your site via the search engines.

You have to organize your content into a themed silo structure, a concept attributed best to Bruce Clay, one of the industry’s foremost search engine optimization strategists. In so doing, you are showing the search engines how you want the information to be gathered, indexed, and ultimately, found by searchers based upon their keyword query.

As sophisticated as the search engines have become, and continue to develop, they are not perfect by any means and still need to have proper instruction in a way that is meaningful and easy to comprehend. Make it easy for the search engines to determine how you site is organized so that it can be indexed accordingly. Structure your site in “themed silos” of related content so that it is easier for the search engines to see what the site is about. You should also create, not only a physical site map for your site to make it easier for humans; but also create an XML site map for the search engines. You should also place a link to this site map in your Robots.txt file so when your site is visited by the search engine spiders, they will find your Robots.txt file and also the link to you site map. Basically, you’re providing a guide to you sites as to how it is organized and how it should be categorized and indexed.

So, now you can see why SEO is as easy as raising children*, right?

~Matt

*to be read and understood as sarcasm .

SEO is a Big Fat Waste of Time

I’ll say it again. SEO is a BIG FAT waste of time. It will do you absolutely no good. You won’t get hordes of traffic to your site. You won’t get a bunch of conversions. By conversions, I mean of course, the desired action for which you want visitors to your site. If you want to sell something, then the action of purchasing an item on your site is the conversion. If you want people to sign up for your monthly newsletter, then the act of submitting their name and email address would be considered a conversion.

The reason for the elaborate explanation is that I want to make it abundantly clear what a conversion is to distinguish it from hits to your site, page views and unique visitors. All of these may be desired; however, they are not the desired actions that pay the bills. Conversions pay the bills; and if your site is not getting conversions then it is not doing what it should have been designed to do.

So, now you may be thinking to yourself: what does this have to do with SEO? Well, here it is in a nutshell. SEO is designed to make your site or article or RSS feed, or whatever you are marketing more visible to the search engines; hence the acronym. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. Now, you are possibly saying out loud, “I know that. Everyone knows that”!

You also would be right in making such a statement; however, if that is correct– everyone knows what SEO is. Then why are so many companies dissatisfied with all of their hard work in trying to optimize their sites for search engines. Even if their hard work is paying off and they are achieving top ranks in Google or any search engine, they don’t seem to be happy with those results. Getting #1 results for your most important keywords is great; but it is worth nothing and in fact, costs you money if your intended audience does not click through on the listing. How does this cost you money? More accurately, it costs you in the amount of time and effort you put forth to get into the top ranks. You know what they say, “Time is Money.” That’s right. Even if you do get the #1 rank for all of your keywords (very difficult, indeed, to achieve) it doesn’t mean that users will click on your listing; let alone purchase something (i.e., convert) from your site.

So you see, the much sought after high ranking that you achieve from your SEO efforts will not amount to a hill of beans unless you are able to convince, nay, compel your searchers to click on your listing. Then, not only do you need the visitor to click on your listing; but you need them to find the object or service of their desire. If you lead them to content on a page that is not well designed or well written and the visitor has to continue to search for the item, they will become bored or worse, frustrated and hit the back button to the search engine results page or SERPs. This in and of itself can be a bad thing. This is because even if you do everything right and achieve great ranks for your main keywords and you attract users to click on your listing; it doesn’t mean they will convert. Now, if you get enough of these visitors who come to your site and don’t find what they are looking for– and as a result, hit the back button, the search engines record that and determine that this particular page does not deserve to be ranked where it is for that term and you will get bumped.

You may ask, “Why”?

This is because the search engine at this point has determined that your landing page is not relevant and useful to visitors. They will then treat the page accordingly and serve up, rather, what the engine considers to be a better result– your competition. That’s the mission of any search engine: Index the Web and serve up what people are searching for. If they fail to do this then people will eventually become frustrated and no longer use that particular search engine and will go elsewhere. The search engines obviously do not want this to occur because then they will lose users and more importantly, money– advertising dollars. This is why Google is so powerful. They have monopolized the search engine industry because they consistently (sort of) serve up relevant results that users want. Advertisers know this so they continue to purchase AdWords to the tune of billions of dollars.

So, now, back to why I say, “SEO is a BIG FAT waste of time.” Don’t you need to make your site search engine friendly so that it will get better ranks and then it will make money on the Internet? Yes, of course you need to do this. However, you can’t stop there. There is a lot more that needs to take place for SEO to work. It is a big waste of time if that is all you are going to do and expect to strike it rich on the Internet.

Think of marketing your site as playing in a big Vegas poker tournament. Just because you may have paid your entry fee and can sit down at the table; doesn’t mean you know what you’re doing. You may be able to arrange the cards you are dealt in such a way as to make it easier for you to see the beginnings of a great hand (SEO); or you might get lucky and start out with a flush. However, if you don’t use the right betting strategy and don’t play your cards right– you’re going to get beat. Oh, sure you might win a few hands (get good ranking) now and then, but in end, you’re going to come out a loser because you didn’t have a good strategy from the get-go and you basically, went all-in with your one good hand.

Any good poker player out there will tell you that in order to win at poker you have to be consistent and steady with your betting strategy. You don’t take anything for granted and you certainly don’t put everything on the line with one hand (or at least you shouldn’t). You have to be ready to switch up your game and try different tactics.

So it is the way you should think about SEO. In order to make money on the Internet you have to take a more holistic approach to marketing your site. There is not one single effective technique that will make you money. There are, in fact, numerous ways to successfully market your site. In the coming weeks, I will venture to talk about different tactics and how to use them. I always tell my clients to never rely on just one way to do it. If you try one tactic and it fails for you, move on to another one and give that a try. Success on the Internet is about testing different tactics and exploiting those that work and dumping those that do not.

So don’t let any so-called SEO expert tell you that if you pay him enough money, he’ll get you top ranking in Google or one of the other search engines. You should then ask this expert, “Then What?” Don’t waste your time if the response is: “What do you mean?”

Until next time–

~Matt

Imagine this: You decide one day that you want to make money by selling something. In what form, that “something” takes, well, this is yet to be determined. So, then, you also decide that you want to sell this “something” from a shop. OK, now you find a place where you can build this shop; or, maybe you simply lease an existing structure. You proceed to set up shop and you figure out what that “something” is and you make sure you have plenty of it. Now there is nothing left to do but open the doors of you new shop and turn on the “OPEN” sign and wait for the traffic to pour in…

Read more on Web marketing basics. >>