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44% of Small Businesses Still Don’t Have a Web Site
2009-06-28 05:32:23

Over at Frank Thinking, contributing Pilgrim Frank Reed shares a study that reveals just why it’s so hard to get small businesses to break their local newspaper/yellow pages advertising habit.

Then why shocked?? Why? Because they’re still using the darn things! Even though a staggering 44% of small businesses don’t yet have a web site–with 78% of them spending 5% or less on internet advertising–there is some hope that small business owners are (finally) waking up to the web.

* 23% say they use the Yellow pages less
* 42% say they use the local newspaper less Over the past two years,
43% of small businesses say they have increased use of search engines in their marketing efforts. In contrast, use of traditional small business advertising mediums is on the decline:

While 82% of consumers turn to the search engines when finding a local business, only 69% of small business owners do the same. I’m shocked! Either the glass is half empty (will small businesses ever "get" the internet) or half full (small businesses are a hot target for marketers). What’s your take on the numbers?

AD Tracking The Overlooked Key To Your Success
2008-02-09 12:39:55

Though often misunderstood, ad tracking is at its core a process for simply counting how many people respond to a particular advertisement. Typically this tracking is usually done by tracking the number of clicks or visitor actions.
Using ad tracking (also known as analytics) on your own site can be done using via Active Server Pages (ASP), Common Gateway Interface (CGI) or Personal Home Page (PHP) script - or can be done through a third party ad tracking service provider, also known as remotely hosted servers or through a combination of these. Software of this type ranges from free – as in the case of Google Analytics (at the time of this publication) to twenty five thousand dollars a month for the very high end tracking solutions.

Ad tracking platforms & software vary but all monitor the traffic coming onto your site and the results or goals achieved from this traffic, and can mean the difference between making little to no money on your site, and making a killing.

Ad analytics tracking software relate traffic directly to marketing activities and then translate those activities into measured results, giving you the ability to calculate a return on your advertising dollars spent. Ad tracking also monitors the clicks that you receive for all your advertizing campaigns, such as e-mail marketing, banner ads, affiliate programs, classified advertising, bulletin board, e-zine advertising, forum, links on other websites, pay-per-click ads, among others. Some tracking software also offers integration into legacy systems, sales management, customer profiling, and scheduling. With most service providers and software.

It is possible to set up an unlimited number of tracking links or URLs in advertisements, such as on a web page, in an email, a pay per click ad, etc. Ad tracking helps save time and maximize results from your marketing expenditure by giving you access to the following information:

• Number of visits generated by each of your ads
• Number of unique visits generated by all of your ads
• Which ads generate the most visits and the most sales
• Number of sales (or other actions) generated by each ad
• Cost-per-click, cost-per-sale and click-to-sale ratios for each ad
• Return on investment for each ad, so as to know which are profitable
• Organization of the important details about your ad campaigns Overall, ad tracking is an invaluable tool in understanding the response to any promotions you run in your messages or in your website.

But the real hidden advantage of ad tracking is targeted conversion improvement. Lot's of businesses just don't get this but if they did, their profits would skyrocket! For example let's say that your testing indicates that you are running three news letter ads, in three different newsletters.

If you are tracking your sales, and where they came from you would have no way of knowing which of these newsletters pulled better for you and so you'd just keep paying to run your add in all three.

However, if you track the sales, you might find that newsletter #1 generated ten sales, newsletter # 2 zero sales, and newsletter # 3, one sale.

Now if you made a profit of $50 per sale and each newsletter ad cost $50.00, you're your ad newsletter #1 made you $500, your ad in newsletter #2 COST you money, and newsletter #3 you broke even on. With this information you can quickly see where your ad is working and where it's not.

Using the example above you would be better served by taking the money you spent on newsletter # 2 and advertising elsewhere. Ad tracking gives you the power to know where your advertising is working, where you are making money and where it's being wasted.

This allows you to focus your advertising budget on only the ad sources that are profitable. Here are some of the better tracking solutions on the market. The depth of features offered varies by price, but all will allow you to track your ads and make more money.

http://analytics.google.com http://www.clicktracks.com http://www.onestat.com/ http://www.1automationwiz.com/split-testing-software.htm http://www.webtrends.com

The bottom line is that if you are not testing and more importantly, tracking your advertising results, you could be leaving money on the table. Worse yet, you could be losing money. The take away here is do not even consider spending a dime on advertising until you have a tracking mechanism in place.

Are you noticing huge crises in your traffic sales less searches in advertising and search results
2009-04-15 20:39:02

The whole world is currently affected due to the crises and recession in each and every field. I have been noticing a fall down everywhere in my client's search engine's traffic. This recession has specially affected US and UK customers who are feeling this heat. They are avoiding unnecessary expenditures, fun times, tourism, spending money, keeping money in banks. Similarly, peoples are avoiding searching or shopping now a days.

This is only a prediction but when I researched on it, I found some interesting facts which I am sharing here: Rimm-Kaufman posted data which is a summary showing people are avoiding searching for products and services to purchase, leading to fewer sales, which is also impacting the whole PPC campaigns and budgets. Yes! This is all related to this global recession.

• Approximately 20% reduction in sales from search ads from last year
• Approximately 20% reduction in his costs from search ads from last year
• The average order value from search ads dropped 10% from last year
• The conversion rate from search ads seemed to remain stable from last year
• There may be more competition in the space, but hard to prove

I know you are a SEO expert or beginner reading this post. And, of couse, running your own clients. If you are noticing a fall down in traffic, please take part here and let us know if less people are searching and clicking on your ads.

Google's Matt Cutts Talking How to be visible on Google
2009-04-30 22:05:39

I assume we all SEO know Matt cutts very well. Matt cutts is the pioneer Google engineer who is responsible for SPAM checking on Google results. Spam has been implemented on a huge level these days, and being a SPAM CHECKER he is going to check with the Google algorithms, search results and manipulate to deliver the best results out of SPAM. Recently he was interviewed on "How to get better visibility on Google", Here is the video:

Make Your Website a Lead Generating Machine
2009-06-16 05:44:41

Everybody knows one-sided relationships never work. The same is true with websites. If a website is focused entirely upon you, you will lose any visitors that may stumble across it. On the other hand, a website done correctly (one that focuses on the visitor) can easily become a lead generation machine! When designing your website, think about these four ideas:

• People are egocentric. Subconsciously they're viewing your website and thinking, "There's tons of companies just like you. What are you going to do for me?"
• People love being entertained. If they believe your website is providing interesting information, you'll have them hooked.
• People want their opinions valued. This is why most companies have incorporated a blog or forums-so their customers can put in their two cents.
• And this is the ticket for generating leads for your business: visitors want to do something.

Give your visitors something to do. Give them something free to download. Offer a free report or whitepaper. Ask for their opinion on a blog entry. Do something, anything, and once the person responds, you "Require" the following information: name, address, phone number, and email. Guess what you just got? A qualified lead. Qualified because they stayed on your site long enough to take action.


Thinking of building a fresh website or re-working a current one?
2009-10-22 19:35:02

If you are at the moment thinking about a new internet site and you would like big visitor numbers for the site then now is the right time to adopt the services of a search engine optimization company. The services provided by some of this organization are necessary if organizations are to validate the time, effort and cost that will be invested in a new site.

Depending on the difficulty of the website that is about to be composed or re-worked your spend could rather easily reach the thousands of pounds mark. If the goal is that the site brings new customers, leads and business then it could be the best designed site in the world but if possible customers don’t get to see it, it’s useless. This is where the Search Engine Optimization Company comes in.

though more expenditure at this time may not be great it is absolutely crucial if any investment is going to create results. You could have the best appealing website in your industry but if customers do not see it appear on page one of their searches results all the effort has been in futile. Your competitors will be occupying the coveted positions one to ten and the customer will definitely find what he is looking for among them, meaning that your expenditure in your new website has been wasted.

If you employ with the Search Engine Optimization Company at this early juncture they will be able to steer you and your web designer down the best possible path to make certain that your site is obvious to the search engines. Whilst this input without help rarely means that you will achieve page 1 search engine positioning without additional action, it can radically cut down the amount of money you will need to spend on Online Marketing once the site is live.

Once the site itself has been optimized to its up most the Search Engine Optimization Company will then support the site using a variety of strategies to make certain that the required Search Engine Placement is attained, i.e. page one of the search results. They can then continue to hold you on that page with regular online PR for an indefinite period.

It is possible toban existing website but if this has not been constructed with optimization in mind then the issue is more time consuming and therefore costly. Nevertheless if the existing site already has a valuable number of returning buyers and a reasonable Search Engine Placement already it might be better to work with what you have. Either way employ with them as soon as you can.


Happy Birthday, Digital Advertising!
27th October, 2009 17:09 PM

The Banner Campaign that Started a $24 billion Business, and Got a 78% Click-through Rate

Oct. 27 marks the 15th anniversary of the industry's first banner display ads, which appeared on Hotwired.com. To the many of you reading this who weren't in the business back then, that's not a typo; I'm not referring to www.HotWire.com, the travel site, but HotWired -- the first commercial digital magazine on the web and the offshoot of Wired magazine.

Its launch in 1994 was not without debate internally as to whether the ad units offered to the advertiser community should be simple text links or graphical ad banner units. Graphical ad display banners won out and the rest is history. And take a look at the hilarious come-on AT&T used to generate a click-through: "Have you ever clicked your mouse right HERE? You will!"

The reaction ran from enthusiastic to somewhat leery. MCI, as one would expect, was truly supportive of our proactive initiative. Their corporate culture encouraged exploration. Volvo, on the other hand, understood the value of our experimenting with the new medium, but did not want to push/urge any interaction with the consumer. They didn't know what to expect, did not know how to handle responses and was concerned legal implications were involved. As a result, you see the first Volvo ad banner was nothing more than the Volvo logo and photo of an auto. No call to action or direction to click was to be incorporated into the Volvo banner. In fact, if someone clicked on that banner in October of 1994, it would take them to a simple questionnaire that could be emailed by the consumer on what kind of Volvo they might be interested in.

HotWired was the first commercial web magazine to attract blue chip corporate sponsorships dollars on the web. The site launched shortly before Netscape's browser, and the advent of such other new media such as Pathfinder.com (Time Inc.'s commercial web content offering) and Cnet.com.

Looking back at the birth of this industry and the first simple graphical banners, I am still amazed at how much has been achieved in the first 15 years. That said, I anxiously await the further advancements coming our way in terms of new ad technologies, ad forms and ad measurement capabilities (e.g. attribution modeling). The issues surrounding display banners and online brand measurement are many and have been well chronicled (see the recent special eMarketer report entitled The Online Brand Measurement: Connecting Dots for example).

Research suggests we have a long road ahead in terms of measurement -- and I don't disagree; however, I'm not convinced we're that far off. I don't believe there will ever be a "silver bullet" to solve all of our problems, as our industry is constantly evolving, becoming more complex and proving to be a moving target. But all that said, from what we have learned through the use of fundamental building blocks of acquired knowledge, industry and case studies, the use of traditional media metrics, the use of existing best measurement practices for digital and a quest to continually "test and learn," we will ultimately be successful.

Has any one item in our industry been encased with so much debate -- at times even disdain -- as to its true value, role and contribution to marketing communications from its inception in 1994 to this day? Yet the display banner is the impetus to the creation of the online advertising category that will reach beyond $24 billion in 2009, according to eMarketer. Perhaps more important, no other development since has advanced advertising measurement, effectiveness and accountability than the display banner.

So on Oct. 27, I hope you will join me in toasting the birthday of the banner display ad -- whether you are a "cup is half-empty" or "cup is half-full" type of person. Some days I love the business and others day... well, not so much... but I have to admit: it's been an unbelievable 15 years.

I leave you with a challenge... Can you guess the two-word copy from one of the original banner ads that generated 78% click-through rate? I look forward to your answers.

Google Social Search Launches, Gives Results From Your Trusted “Social Circle”
30th October, 2009

Google Social Search is rolling out, a new service from Google that allows you to easily find material written by people you know and trust. It’s a pretty cool idea, especially in that it’s pretty painless to get started using it. The service will be available through Google Labs Experimental later today. Below, a look at the service.

Social Search Is Trusted Search

So what is Google Social Search? It’s a way that Google figures out people you trust, then ensures that you see content from them showing up in your search results.

That sounds like a pretty simple idea, and companies have approached this in various ways (see Search 4.0: Social Search Engines & Putting Humans Back In Search). Typically, the social concepts for refining results have been to allow people to form social networks and then:

• Refine search results based on actual search activity in that network
• Share results among each other
• Define only certain sites that should be included in results

The first two have privacy concerns, among other issues. The last two especially involved work. You’ve got to actively chose to share results or actively define a set of sites you want to search against. Who wants to do all this?

With Google Social Search, there’s still some work required. But it’s minimal if you already make use of Twitter, Flickr or an existing public social network. Heck, if you use Gmail or Google Reader, you may already be social search ready.

Ranking, Sorting & Directly Using Social Search

So what comes first in social search? Google says it’s using its normal ranking algorithm to pick content, so factors such as the number of people linking to a page; the quality of links to that page, the content of the page itself and so on all can have a factor.

Down the line, presumably Google could do more, such as look at the links only between pages authored by those in your social network or by trying to assign an authority score to those you know, based on how closely you seem to be associated with them. But that’s not happening now.

By the way, want to use Google Social Search without hoping it just happens to show up at the bottom of your regular results? After you do any search, use the “Show Options” box just under the search box at the top of the search results page. Then select the “Social” link along the left-side of the page. Now you’ve got social search results.

Your Google Social Circle

One thing I love about the new service is how it makes use of the “social circle” term rather than “social graph,” a phrase more popular in 2007 and 2008 but which doesn’t really explain much to people. Social circle makes sense — these are people you are connected with. They’re in your “circle” of friends.

But how does Google know what your social circle is, in order to produce the social search results? Three methods, the company told me, when I talked with Google about the service:

• Your Google Reader account
• Your Google Chat / Gmail Contacts
• Your Google Profile

Google Reader is pretty easy to understand. If you subscribe to blogs using Google Reader, Google figures you like or trust content from those blogs, so they effectively become part of your social circle.

Google Chat is harder to get your head around. If you have a Gmail account, you have a “Chat” section on the left-hand side of your screen. Anyone you’ve enabled chat for is considered a trusted contact by Google, so they become part of your social circle.

But wait, there’s more! Gmail also has a contacts area on the left-hand side of the page, where you can classify people as friends, family or coworkers. Putting someone into one of these categories makes them part of your social circle, as well.

But wait, there’s … confusion. Above, I showed an example of how Eric Goldman is part of my social circle through Gmail. The problem is, he’s not one of my chat contacts. I’ve not tagged him in contacts into the friends, family or coworkers categories. He IS a Gmail contact, so in his particular case, that seems to be enough to put him in my social circle.

Also keep in mind that if you use a Google Apps account (as I do) for email, chances are, social search won’t tap into your email contacts. That’s because to use social search, you need to be logged in using a Google Account. That Google Account will have a contact list that is separate from your Google Apps contacts.

Finally, Google Profiles are used to form your circle. Our Hoping To Improve People Search, Google Launches “Profile Results” article explains how Google Profiles work in more depth. The short story is that if you list a social network you belong to on your profile, Google can use that to effectively import those people into your social circle.

For example, on my Google Profile, I list things like my Twitter account, my Flickr account and my Digg account. Google can then look at these accounts and know who my contacts there are. That’s why in the examples above, you can see Google reporting that I was connected to someone through Digg or Twitter and so on.

Your Social Circle & Knowing Their Content

Knowing your social circle is one thing. Knowing what they’ve written is another. The magic behind the scenes all comes down to links. Here’s an example scenario:

1. Google sees I have a friend on Twitter
2. That friend links to their blog from their Twitter profile
3. Google understands that they are connected to that blog
4. The friend’s blog has a link to their Flickr account
5. Google may understand, then, that the person I know on Twitter is also related to their Flickr account, even if that account wasn’t listed on their Twitter profile