SEM Huntsville Articles

I just read a great article by Ian Lurie at Coversation Marketing titled Things You Don’t Know About Your Customers. Perhaps more aptly named Things to remember when designing a website, its a great read with clear points we all need to remember. In summary:

1. Reading onscreen is hard, for everyone.
   • Use short paragraphs.
   • Use short lines.
   • Use wide line spacing and nice margins.
   • Use dark text on a light background.
   • Scrolling up-and-down is OK
   • Use lists.
2. They browse in an F-shape
3. They can’t remember your web address (being at the top of search results for your name means nothing)
4. They don’t search for your name (they search for answers to problems)
5. They don’t want to log in (or anything standing between them and their goal)
6. They don’t want an ‘experience’ (simple is better)
7. They do want your newsletter (make it prevalent and easy to sign-up)
8. They don’t care how clever you are. (just the facts please)
9. They aren’t enticed by mystery.
10. They get lost a lot (make navigation easy, redundant, and extend to your 404 pages)
11. They aren’t using cell phones  (at least not in big numbers)
12. They still use Internet Explorer (so be sure it works in IE)
13. They’re using big monitors. (so don’t create 800 X 600 layouts)
14. They need to want (create desire)

A list of designers I work with and recommend is here: web designers

SEM Huntsville, SEO Huntsville content tips, designing a website, SEM Huntsville, web design

The big news in the press today is the Microsoft/Yahoo deal. I have already received questions about this from a couple of clients, so I thought it best to expand here.

In the deal the search brand at Yahoo will remain to be “Yahoo Search” but it will be  “Powered by Bing.”  There will be no immediate changes however until they get regulatory approval, following approval the integration effort will move forward (expected early 2010).

What about allocating advertising dollars?
In the deal it appears that some mix of Yahoo Marketing and Microsoft AdCenter advertising will continue.  It was reported that Yahoo ads will continue to run in the Yahoo properties with Microsoft getting 12% of the revenue and some Yahoo ads will be syndicated over the Microsoft network. Bing will run ads on Microsoft properties (and may run some ads on the Yahoo network as well), but the details are unclear at this point. It will take some time for all this to shake out, with conversions rates ultimately determining where ad dollars will need to be spent.

What about optimizing for Bing?
This is really a non-starter, Google’s market share is so large that doing anything that could compromise your traffic from that engine would be a mistake. Unless Bing’s market share increases more than just picking up Yahoo traffic, there is really no point – as long as the feature sets remain similar. If  features emerge that are unique to Bing, and could be supported without impacting your Google traffic, then optimizing for those features would be in order.

Press Release: http://www.choicevalueinnovation.com/thedeal/pressroom/Default.aspx

SEM Huntsville, SEO Huntsville adcenter, bing, yahoo marketing

Google Analytics is updating their their system. To ensure AdWords continues to pass information to your Google Analytics account, a setting change may be needed. I have already taken care of this for my customers and in doing so found several cases where a change was required.

I wanted to alert other readers that you should check your AdWords account to be sure the information is correct.

For instructions see this Google Post Important change to AdWords/Analytics cost data importing

 Thanks to Rusty Brick at Search Engine Roundtable for the heads up and Brad Geddes for his coverage (here).

SEM Huntsville, Web Analytics adwords, google, Web Analytics

It is beneficial to separate and track your Pay Per Click traffic from Organic in Google Analytics. If you don’t make the effort, PPC and Organic traffic will be lumped together, making it difficult to know how your SEO efforts are progressing.

Once you make the link between Google AdWords and Google Analytics accounts, the tracking will occur automatically. To set this up, simply access the Analytics tab in your AdWords account and then either select Create New or Link to Existing.  Once you have done this, all your campaign information, keyword information et cetera will be nicely broken out in your Google Analytics account.

If you previously messed up and selected Create New (when you had an existing account) this can be corrected. You use to have contact Google to have this done manually. This recently changed with this AdWords announcement explaining how you can now un-link and link AdWords and Google Analytics.

In addition to seeing Google (CPC) broken out, you can also have Yahoo (CPC), MSN (CPC), and others broken out in Google Analytics.  While tracking additional marketing campaigns in Google Analytics requires a little extra work when you set the campaign up, it’s definitely worth the effort.

Tracking other campaigns is accomplished by editing and adding a tracking code to the end of each of the URLs used in your ads. While adding this “tracking code” stuff may sound complicated or technical, it’s not. But just in case, Google has created a tool that simplifies things. To set these up go to the Google Analytic URL builder , enter the URL of your landing page with the associated campaign information and the tool will generate  an updated URL complete with the code . The codes can be placed on any incoming links you wish to track enabling you to track banner ads, paid placements, and so on with your Google Analytics  account.

Note: AdWords will automatically appear in your Analytics account as “Google (CPC)”, so using “CPC” (cost per click) as the “Campaign Medium” setting for other Pay Per Click marketing campaigns will make them appear in like fashion, Yahoo (CPC), MSN (CPC).

SEM Huntsville, SEO Huntsville, Web Analytics adwords, incoming links, ppc, SEM Huntsville, tracking campaigns, Web Analytics

Google just published updated information on ‘Quality Score’ and how is it calculated. Quality Score is a major factor in determining what advertisers pay for ad phrases.

I believe this is the clearest information so far on this import, evolving algorithm.
What is ‘Quality Score’ and how is it calculated?

Past Articles:

• How Google AdWords Bidding Works – Quality Score
• Landing Pages to Improve Quality Score
• PPC Campaigns and Quality Score
• Chasing the Long Tail

SEM Huntsville ppc, quality score, SEM Huntsville

I have been participating in Microsoft’s AdCenter beta program. This type of desktop PPC management tool is essential to managing PPC programs. I have participated in, and managed several beta programs in my career and you expect things to be a clunky at first. if you have used the early releases, I am sure you would agree, there was room to improve.

A Little History

We were once satisfied to manage out PPC campaigns in an excel spreadsheet. Tabbing, cutting, pasting, searching and replacing. However the bar was raised when Google’s AdWords Editor program was released. My weekly drill of checking position and conversions was made dramatically easier with the release of AdWords Editor. Tasks that required HOURs to perform in a spreadsheet were reduced to minutes. Read more…

SEM Huntsville AdCenter Desktop Beta, adwords, ppc, SEM Huntsville

Great article that explains Google’s AdWords auction process. No real insight into Quality Score here, but it does explain how it figures in the mix.

Google Quality Scores and Ad Auctions

Added 11/08/2008

More on Quality Score woes here:
The Account Quality Score: Money Pit for the Uninformed
Google’s Ever-Evolving Quality Score

Added 11/11/08
Google AdWords Quality Score — That’s Old-School for SEO

SEM Huntsville adwords, ppc, quality score

I have always felt that conversion tracking was an absolute necessity if you are running Adwords Campaigns.

The Google AdWords team just announced that displaying the AdWords Site Stats logo is no longer mandatory. This is good news as I always felt the logo was unattractive and distracting for customers/prospects coming in through AdWords campaigns.

Information on changing the conversion code out for the non-logoed version here :

SEM Huntsville adwords, conversion code, SEM Huntsville