6th
APR

Landing Page Optimization Deep Dive: Interview with Tim Ash

Posted by under Pay-Per-Click

Tim Ash is a marketing machine. He writes a blog, contributes to Search Engine Watch, hosts a weekly show on WebmasterRadio.fm, is author of the book “Landing Page Optimization”, speaks at numerous conferences and is the chair of the upcoming Conversion Conference in May. Oh, and he also runs SiteTuners , a successful landing page optimization consulting business and has launched a new tool called AttentionWizard that offers eye tracking “without the eyes”. Tim has worked with American Express, Sony Music, American Honda, Coach, COMP USA and many other major brands. “Landing page testing is the best accelerator of your business that you have available.” Tim is a very smart and very nice guy who took a few rare moments of time to answer a few questions about measuring social media ROI, budgets for testing, common mistakes, tips, tools and how he stays current in such a fast paced and changing field. Please tell us about your background, your business, and the book? I am a recovering technologist. I almost got my PhD in computer science, but dropped out to start my first Internet consulting business. Over the years we have focused on driving traffic. But after a while it became clear that the bigger problem (and business opportunity for us) was to improve the efficiency of that traffic once it landed on the website or landing page. That’s how SiteTuners was born. We offer a range of consulting services to improve conversion, full-service landing page tests in which we guarantee performance improvement, and software such as out cutting-edge TuningEngine testing software, and the AttentionWizard visual attention prediction tool. We work with some of the biggest companies in the Internet universe, as well as scrappy smaller companies. I wrote the Landing Page Optimization book a couple of years ago and it has been very well received. Wiley Press has asked me to write a second edition that I am co-authoring with Rich Page and Maura Ginty. It will be out early next year and will have over 150 pages of completely new content. There’s a lot of speculation about social media and measuring ROI . Do you have examples where conversions were improved from content on a social network or other social media site as a result of a/b or multivariate testing? What is significantly different about measuring social media marketing efforts versus search marketing where the goals are conversions? The fundamental principles are the same – you should be trying to increase the efficiency of conversion actions that have a measurable impact on your business. The only difference is that the conversion actions might not be sales, but rather “micro conversions” such as re-tweets, fan page sign-ups, or visits to blog or content pages that you are trying to promote. So if you can lower your cost-per-acquisition for any of those actions, that is good. What makes testing a bit more tricky to conduct in a social media setting is that you need steady traffic sources over an extended period of time. Unfortunately much of social media happens very quickly and results in one-time traffic spikes that go away. The type of social media marketing executed by many SEOs does seem to behave according to the “go hot” principle where content gets voted on and attracts spikes in traffic. However, many companies are building networks on social channels and community participation often drives more steady streams of traffic according to the content publishing schedule of the brand. When it comes to measuring social ROI, are you seeing more social media marketing efforts fall in the first situation versus the second? Many social media programs are based on “go hot” kinds of activities. The content is often “perishable” and time-sensitive. But there is also long-term “content farming” activities which continue to add to a pool of general company awareness through creation of new content pages on the website, whitepapers, blog posts, and media placements. This takes a more disciplined approach and a long-term commitment of resources, so in our experience is more rare. This is one of those “it depends” questions but let’s give it a shot. Is it your experience that most marketers allocate budget for testing as part of overall web analytics? What percentage of that budget should go towards ongoing testing for say, an ecommerce site? What advice do you have for getting more approved? Landing page or conversion rate optimization is not a part of Web analytics. It is a top-line revenue-growing activity. How much would you pay for a 5% increase in volume? 10%? 50%? Landing page testing is the best accelerator of your business that you have available. It should not have a fixed budget. The economically rational thing to do with any marketing activity is to keep spending money on it as long as it produces a positive ROI. Setting fixed budgets is the same kind of silly logic that some companies use when driving traffic. If you have a fixed pay-per-click budget and you could buy more profitable traffic above that threshold, you are just throwing profits away. It’s interesting that you say that when it comes to budget allocation, since both concern measuring and improving web site performance. Of course there are many things that make sense to a consultant or service provider that don’t necessarily fit with the reality of how companies forecast their marketing budgets. Have you been successful at winning more budget with the “keep spending money on it as long as it produces a positive ROI” argument or do you only work with companies that have more flexibility with where they spend? Technically landing page testing is part of measurement and Web analytics should always be actionable. Unfortunately often it is just looking in the rear-view mirror at things that have happened in the past. My friend Jim Sterne insists that all Web analytics should be forward looking and actionable, otherwise it is useless. But in practice most analysts spend more time on data mining and not on landing page testing. If you have a testing mindset, then the question you continually ask is “Where can I make the biggest impact on our business by tweaking a mission-critical step in our value creation chain?” If you do that, the resulting improvements should make the business a big pile of money and will create psychological momentum inside of your company for further testing and experimentation. Once an organization gets excited and buys into this continual-improvement mentality, the testing budget question often goes away. What are some of the most common mistakes experienced search marketers make when it comes to landing pages? Top 5? That’s easy – I can give you more than 5. If you have heard my “ Seven Deadly Sins of Landing Page Design ” presentation, you know that there are seven common types of mistakes on all landing pages: unclear calls-to-action, too many choices, asking for too much information early in the process, too much text, not maintaining continuity with the expectations that were set upstream of the actual landing page, visual clutter and distraction, and lack of trust and credibility. What tools do you recommend (in addition to Google Website Optimizer and those at SiteTuners like AttentionWizard) for corporate marketers that are still fairly new to conversion rate improvement? Advanced tools? There are a number of tools that have come out in just the last couple of years that make it much easier to diagnose and correct conversion issues. These include ClickTale.com , CrazyEgg.com , UserTesting.com , and CrossBrowserTesting.com . How do you stay current with practices? Do you have favorite conferences, books, blogs, newsletters or other resources that you rely on? Wow – that’s tough. There is an explosion of resources around landing page optimization. I pay attention to Bryan Eisenberg , Avinash Kaushik , Anne Holland , and try to look for interesting resources through Twitter tags like #lpo, #cro, and #measure. Conferences like Search Engine Strategies, eMetrics, and PubCon always feature solid content on the topic. Conversion Conference is coming up soon (May 4-5 in San Jose) with some big names in the conversion and testing space including Bryan Eisenberg, Jakob Nielsen, and yourself. Who is the conference for and why should they come? What prompted you to start it? I created the new ConversionConference.com series to give conversion improvement it’s own home. Until now, conversion has been a side topic at conferences that focused on driving traffic. The first event will be in San Jose next month, and then in Washington DC in the fall. There is also a German show in Hamburg, and other international shows on the drawing boards. The San Jose show will feature three dynamic keynotes that you mentioned. There will also be twenty six fast-paced sessions over two days covering all aspects of conversion. The presenters are all top notch. The show is held in parallel with eMetrics and will share the expo hall, lunches, networking events and the Conversion Bash party put on by WebmasterRadio.fm. The top conversion tools and services companies will also be there. If you want to turbocharge your online marketing you should be there. By the way, your readers can use an exclusive promo-code “ CCW562 ” for an additional $100 off of the early bird rate if they register by April 15th. Thanks Tim. You can connect with Tim Ash on the social web at: Twitter Facebook LinkedIn Blog © Online Marketing Blog , 2010. | Landing Page Optimization Deep Dive: Interview with Tim Ash | No comment | http://www.toprankblog.com

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Landing Page Optimization Deep Dive: Interview with Tim Ash

6th

Writing Ppc Ads That Get Most Click

Posted by under Pay-Per-Click

I always research keywords first, and then write ppc ads thats the actual ad. If you find yourself setting up your AdWords Campaign before you have had time to write ads or do keyword research, then just create a bogus ad, and pause your Ad Group, so you can move on to the next step. You can return later to revise your writing ppc ads. In the keyword research, you grouped keywords into relevant groups. You’ll want to write ads for each of these groups of keywords. Then when you bid on keywords, you will specifically use those keywords in the ppc ad copy so that your ads correspond to the keywords in their respective Ad Group. Match your ad copy as closely as possible to the  keywords in each family of keywords that are contained in individual  Ad Groups.This will give your ads a higher relevancy score which will result in a lower cost per click. Google has some basic AdWords guidelines to consider while writing your ad. Your headline must be less than 25 characters (including spaces). You are given an additional 2 lines for text. Each line is limited to 35 characters (again including spaces). As you can see, you have a fairly limited space in which to entice your customers. Use it wisely! This is not the time to sell your product. This is the time to attract your customers, spark their interests and get the clicks. Your first eye catcher will be your headline. After your customer has clicked though your ad, the merchant site will list all the important features of their product or service. Get to know these features and ask yourself “How do these benefit the customer?” When writing ppc ads, don’t just think like an affiliate, but also think like a customer. Consider what brought the customers to your ad and what benefits they can gain from your product or service. Utilizing your keywords in your ad copy is one simple method to call attention to your customer’s interests and needs. If the customer reached your ad by typing in Tiffany Lamps then Tiffany Lamps in your ad will surely catch her eye. the more you load your ad with keywords from the ad group, the higher the relevancy score. Knowing that you are going to include keywords in your ad copy, begin writing your ad in sentence and/or paragraph form. State what it is your customer should know. Then reduce it and refine it. Get FREE 5-Day Course Gives You The Skinny On Google AdWords Via E-mail From Perry Marshall – About the Author: BILL ACHOLA WRIGHT writes Business Reviews programs to help online users to purchase the right program and to be full time and part time successful entrepreneur.Currently he is in the Internet marketing industry,where by he have developed the TOP BUSINESS MONEY MAKING PROGRAMS. Article Source

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Writing Ppc Ads That Get Most Click

4th
APR

Develop Your Ppc Plan

Posted by BlogPostman under Pay-Per-Click

No good business happens without a good plan.  No good PPC marketing campaign can happen without an effective PPC plan . Know your resources The possibilities are endless (quite literally) once you enter the world of the internet.  Before you even press the power button on your computer, you need to assess your resources.  Set your own budget, know the time limits of your advertisements, decide if you are able to handle the influx of attention from PPC.  Once you know your resources, you will know which venues are best suited to you and which you will prefer. Know the players There are the “big three” that are very trustworthy, tried-and-true.  These PPC publishers are good options for nervous first-time advertisers.  However, these venues carry heavier traffic and, therefore, heavier competition.  Smaller publishers abound endlessly, but they carry a higher risk in terms of exposure, but also fraud.  Knowing who is out there and their track record can mean a lot later in the planning phase. Know your goals Deciding what you want to get out of the PPC advertising experience is important to maximizing PPC effectiveness.  Knowing who you want to reach, what you want to say to them and what you want them to see about you will help determine your ad and ad placements.  Goals and budget must be reconciled with each other, but can unite to create a very successful PPC experience. The most important thing when forming a PPC plan is to educate yourself at every step.  Knowing the industry norms will help you maintain status as a savvy advertiser.  Setting high expectations within the realm of what is considered normal will acclimate you to the industry and promote a tradition of positive PPC experiences.  No matter what you do, however, planning is the key. – About the Author: Joe Praveen Sequeira ~ is an award winning, best-selling author, speaker, educator and professional Internet Marketing Consultant focused on helping businesses of all sizes, increase their online sales, boost web site traffic and strengthen their overall brand through established online marketing strategies. He has overseen hundreds of Internet marketing campaigns for fortune 500 companies and is the Founder & CEO of The eMarketing Pro , a thriving Internet marketing and eBusiness consulting firm. Article Source

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Develop Your Ppc Plan

3rd
APR

Ppc Campaign Builder: How To Profit From It!

Posted by under Pay-Per-Click

Speedppc campaign builder presents you with a never-seen-before opportunity to make so much money off the internet that it’s unreal or so your favourite guru would tell you. Have you ever wondered why some people can get rich off Adwords when they use speedppc or any other ppc campaign management software? and yet many seem to sit there, never able to convert a single sale? The crazy thing about this is that there is so much info out there, so many people telling you how to run your ppc campaigns and yet the vast majority of online marketers are still broke. Well, I use to be part of the 90% that got nowhere, until I made a few strategic adjustments and now I am making a very good living promoting CPA products via the squidoo lens not even a site. And all this came from my improved high CTR from the gudiance of speedppc campaign management software that iam using upto now. My strategy is very different to the one that most gurus imply. You see, all this talk of click thru rate and quality score algorithms and various other technical issues masks the basic fact of promotion: the niche / product / the sales letter you are promoting is king. It doesn’t matter how many keywords you add to your list, if you get the product wrong, everything else will flop. Since you don’t know which products work and which don’t you should expect to experiment quite a bit. Instead of focusing on the details of my ppc campaigns, I simply launch very many products across multiple niches. Each niche takes me about an hour to locate, and an hour to setup a simple “no frills” ppc campaign. Then, pretty soon, I know if the product I am promoting will sink or swim. Sounds simple, sounds profitable, but are you doing it? I simply switch on my speedppc campaign management software and rinse and repeat, and every four or five attempts I run into a profitable niche and focus on it, setting up more ppc campaigns within the niche. When I find a profitable niche, I spend time on my ppc campaign, but only then. This method allows me to go through about 10-20 niches and micro-niches per month. And every so often I come across a little gold mine that everyone else has overlooked because they were too focused on beefing up their keyword list or whatever. Throwing stuff out there and constant experimentation is the way to make money from ppc. Never forget that it all comes down to the product (sales letter) that you are promoting, and you don’t know which product works unless you try. So try simply throwing stuff out there and not being so anal when you first setup your ppc campaigns. You will be very surprised at the results, and nine times out of ten you will be making money with Speed ppc campaign builder within a few days. I strongly urge you to take what you’ve learned in do at least 1 thing right now. Not tomorrow… but right now! Sign-up for SpeedPPC Campaign Management Software Free 7 day Email course that will help you improve your PPC marketing and overcome some common problems. – About the Author: Am BILL ACHOLA WRIGHT and I write Business Reviews programs to help online users to purchase the right program and to be full time and part time successful entrepreneur.Currently am in the Internet marketing industry,where by i have developed the TOP BUSINESS MONEY MAKING PROGRAMS. Article Source

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Ppc Campaign Builder: How To Profit From It!

30th
MAR

Ppc Advertising For Small Businesses

Posted by under Pay-Per-Click

Pay per click advertising is one of the many advertising method in the Internet to make money online. Pay per click is the best choice for small businesses to increase their online exposure since they do have to compete for search engine rankings. Below are some reasons why pay per click advertising is best suited for small online businesses. Small online businesses can not compete to other big online businesses in terms of search engine rankings. So pay per click advertisement is the best choice for these small businesses to promote their products and services online. Pay per click allows a certain business to get on the fist page for a specific keyword and bypass the hassles of SEO. Niche keywords are important for a much better PPC advertising. Targeting the niche keywords will attract specific audience. When this happens, there is a bigger chance to make a great sale. A small online business can really do well in making money online by avoiding the big keywords and focusing on creating advertisements for the niche keywords. PPC advertising offers the opportunity to small online businesses to display their advertisements to certain sites for a low cost. In this method of advertising, it reduces the amount of clicks that has no chance into converting into sales. If a certain business want only to target local customers, then, PPC advertising is the best choice to make money online. Pay per click advertising is really a great help for small online businesses to promote their products and services in the web. – About the Author: I’ve been making money online for years and have had much success. Because of this, I created this blog, to give back to others. My goal is to teach as many people as possible to do the same, and start make money online as soon as possible! Article Source

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Ppc Advertising For Small Businesses