Archive for February, 2008

Here are 8 methods you can use for tracking phone orders that were initiated by Search.

1) Create a unique landing page with a unique 800# for Google, Yahoo, MSN respectively.

2) Generate a unique “promo code” by placing all your keywords in a database and assign them an individual ID. Then when the user clicks on the Google url, it will attach a string to the URL like: keyword=12345. The unique ID can be the promo code that appears on the webpage.

3) By adding a unique customer reference code (promo code) on the page, and the reps on the phone can ask for that number. Train the sales reps to record and report the “lead source”.

4) The Landing page can encourage visitors to print a discount coupon, which can be redeemed at local stores. The Landing page could encourage prospects to find their local store and redeem their discount coupon.

5) Possibly utilize an 800# with an IVR phone system for tracking. Great Expectations, Inc. used an IVR system to track phone calls. The cost of their IVR was $.35 per minute. 3% of all their leads came from the IVR system.

6) Integrating your frontend/backend with your Conversion & Tracking software, and enabling an API to track the sales amount generated per keyword & the spend on that keyword.

7) Use Pay-Per-Call.

Use tracking software from a company that specializes in tracking conversions from phone calls.

Client Services Team structures vary based on the scope of the engagement, and the size of an organization/agency. But a Search Marketing team typically contains some allocation of the following roles:

Director of Search – Oversees the SEO Strategy, PPC Strategy and client relationships.
Associate Search Director – Leads the implementation and strategic direction of the search campaigns.
Search (or Campaign) Manager – Oversees day-to-day campaign operations. Key point of contact for the client for day-to-day campaign issues.
Search Account Executive – Manages tactical work on paid search engagements.
SEO Manager – Communicates with client on overall SEO strategy and tactical initiatives.
SEO Analyst – Develops in-depth technical recommendations on SEO programs.
SEO Associate Analyst – Supports the SEO Analyst.

Depending on the size of the organization, one person could have multiple roles in one position. Also, the names may change. Such as a Search Evangelist, Search Engineer, Campaign Manager, Global Director, VP of Search, etc.

A typical job description for an “SEM Campaign Manager” could look like this:

QUALIFICATIONS:
- Experience in online advertising.
- Experience using Microsoft Excel & Powerpoint.
- Solid understanding of Paid Search (Pay-Per-Click campaigns).
- The individual should have excellent research, analytic, presentation and communication skills.
- The ability to conceptualize account structure, and create new campaigns.
- Knowledge of 3rd party conversion tracking & bid management tools (i.e., Omniture, Atlas, Dart, SearchIgnite, etc)

RESPONSIBILITIES:
- Execute SEM documents such as: Keyword generation & segmentation, Forecasting, Insertion Orders, Ad copywriting, & Performance Reporting.
- Creating, implementing, tracking, analyzing and optimizing Paid Search campaigns.
- Utilize successful bidding strategies and effective keyword management of pay-per-click search engines including Google Adwords, Yahoo! Search Marketing, MSN Adcenter, Ask.com and others.
- Actively make recommendations and formulate testing structure for keywords, ad copy, landing pages and position to optimize campaign to achieve designated performance objectives.
- Optimization of bid management strategies to acheive performance objectives.
- Manage relationships with search engines.
- Provide detailed analysis and reporting of key metrics with analysis & optimization recommendations.
- Work with cross-functional teams (internal & external).
- Ad copywriting for paid search listings.

One of the groups I’m a proud member of, is the Internet Marketers of New York. We meet once per month to talk about latest trends, what works, what doesn’t work, current events, and all kinds of other stuff. And, generally just have a good time.

Being the kind-hearted and all-around good guys that they are, BOTW often sponsor our events. And I know I speak for everyone, when I say how much we all appreciate it.

On March 18th, the guys of Best of the Web will be sponsoring a charity party during the SES Conference next month. That means, they’ll be picking up the tab at the end of the night. Yep, a night of free drinking and schmoozing with an amazing bunch of people. The cost of entry is just $40! And, 100% of that will be going to one charity.

Vote for your charity!

Mark your calendars/blackberries:
When:Tues. 3/18/08 from 8PM - Midnight
Where: Black Finn, 218 East 53rd Street, NY, NY (map)
Cost of Entry: $40
FREE DRINKS.

The charity party is open to anyone.

Stop Words are commonly used short words like: the, a, and, here, etc. The search engines don’t either index and/or search for them for 2 reasons.
1) To save disk space.
2) Speeds up searches.

You can imagine across millions of webpages, if they stored stop words, it would consume a lot of disk space. Google ignores Stop Words.

Other search engines store every word, but just don’t “stop” to search on those words. Therefore, speeding up the time to deliver your search results (eg: 0.22 seconds).

Each search engine has their own list of stop words.

Stop Words are important for a SEO Copywriter to be aware of. When it comes to SEO Copywriting, it is always best to create usable and easily readable content.

The less stop words are used, the more your webpage will appear as if your content is packed with more relevant text. And, that could add to the “authoritativeness” of your webpage. Which ultimately could increase your Search Engine Ranking.

It’s most important that your pages are written so they read well. That’s the trick. Incorporating keywords into content that is easy to read, written in plain language, thoroughly gets your message across, and minimizing the use of Stop Words.

I’m psyched I finally got a good favicon. It was two years ago that I tried my hand at creating a favicon. I wasn’t happy with my crude graphics skills. So, I abandoned it for the standard bluehost favicon. That funky blue square.

I know I needed a new one. But it was always on the bottom of the priority list. And when it was in que, it always got bumped for other, more important stuff.

The task bubbled up on my to-do list again, but this time I asked my neighbor who is a graphic artist if she could whip something up for me. Her website Nice Logo, isn’t live yet.

That’s all it took. One quick request. Out of her goodness, within minutes she emailed me back a 3 favicons to choose from.

So now I’m the proud owner of a professionally created favicon.

Note: If you can’t see it, try clearing your cache.

It doesn’t matter whether you are in the B2B business or B2C business, the basics of SEO will remain the same. Such as: Internal Linking, Inbound links, SEO Copywriting, and other technical aspects of a Search Engine friendly website.

However, as you could imagine, the Keyword Search Volume will be much greater for a B2C SEO Campaign. For example: the searches for Application Hosting (2,010 Searches/month) are much less than Ringtones (290,850 Searches/month).

Even though the Search Volume is much lower for a B2B Campaign, the Sales Revenue can potentially be much larger for an equal amount of conversions. Eg: $1/ringtone vs. a yearly Application Hosting contract.

Certainly other metrics should be taken into consideration such as Mindshare (development of consumer awareness), Share of Voice, appearance as industry leader by being #1 in Organic Results, etc.

The Success Metrics to measure a successful SEO campaign are the same.

As usual, the beginning to any SEO Campaign, you (or your SEO Consultant) should build a careful & thorough Keyword Analysis & Keyword Demand Matrix.

Some B2B companies have started a B2B blog. Although, from this one example I can see it needs a lot of SEO tender-loving-care.

If you are running both Search & Content in your Search Campaigns it’s very likely your overall CTR is low. That’s because ads within the content networks (eg: adsense, YPN, etc) receive a huge amount of impressions, and low clicks. The Content Networks are pulling your overall CTR down.

You can easily see the difference between the Search Only, and Content Only CTR by separating them thru generating a report. On Adword, just check the box for “Ad Distribution”. That way you’ll be able to Separate out the CTR metrics from Content Network and Search Only.

This is one of the basics of optimizing PPC Campaigns immediately after they’ve launched. You’ll need a large enough data sample to make intelligent decisions. Depending on your daily budget, you might not need to wait more than 1 day to begin optimizing PPC ads for CTR because you’ve received a lot of campaign data. Campaigns with smaller daily budgets and less search volume might need to wait for several days before accumlating a large enough data sample.

8 Methods to increase CTR on your PPC ads:

1) Ad Copy. Writing compelling PPC ad copy. There are 4 Combinations of Ad Creative & Keyword Targeting:

a) With broad targeting and general creative, the creative is de-signed for maximum reach and mass appeal, such as with a free offer or another promotion. If the campaign is successful, searchers will respond to the promotion, click rates will rise, and marketers can maintain their search ad ranking with lower bids. The downside is that total campaign cost will increase and conversion rates will be relatively low, compared with a more highly targeted campaign.

b) With broad targeting and specific creative, the creative is too targeted for the high volume of searches conducted. Most searchers won’t be interested, though the small percentage that are will be highly likely to convert. Still, low click-through rates mean that bid prices need to rise to maintain visibility. There is a tradeoff here, as the high conversion rate could offset the higher bid price.

c) With exact targeting and general creative, the creative isn’t as relevant for searchers with de-fined needs. Searchers pass on the ad, click rates drop, and bid prices need to rise to maintain the ad ranking. Using general creative with targeted ads is far too common a practice, despite the damage it can cause to a campaign.

d) But with exact targeting and specific creative, the creative matches the need of the searcher. Searchers relish the relevance, click-through rates soar, and bid prices can drop significantly. Conversion rates should also be strong.

2) Use a strong call-to-action in your ad text.
3) Use Negative Keywords.
4) Raising Bids.
5) Targeted Keywords.
6) Keyword Bucketing.
7) Use Keyword Matching options
Use Dynamic Keyword Insertion.

BEWARE of Impression Fraud. This is an unethical PPC tactic to artificially inflate the amount of impressions on a competitor, by searching for their keyword and not clicking on their ad….a whole lot of times. It will lower their CTR and Quality Score, and they’ll need to pay more Avg CPC to maintain their same position. The offending advertiser just pauses his own campaign so none of his ads get served while he is conducting Impression Fraud.

The Search Engines reward high CTR’s with a higher Quality Score. Thus, your reward will be a lower CPC, and higher position. More clicks, and hopefully a better ROI.

Search can drive traffic to a website all day long, but if the site sucks, then don’t expect high conversion rates. Hence, the need for Website Usability.