Friday, September 29, 2006
If you run a Google AdWords campaign try this ...
For every Ad Group you have always have at least two text ads running. Why? Well, every few days check which ad has the best click through rate and then when you think you have enough data, delete the worst performing ad and write a new one to replace it.
This allows your Ad Group to have a constant improvement mechanism for that all important "click through rate". This helps you in two ways, namely:
1. The more click throughs you get, the more eyeballs are looking at your website. Obviously, you want to make those eyeballs "targeted eyeballs" i.e. the ones you want ... but that is for another blog entry ...
2. Google will reward your great click through rate by making your related keywords and phrases cheaper. Google wants its visitors to find relevancy in all its results and with your (now!) constantly improving click through rate, you are doing just that.
Keep this cycle going throughout the life of your campaign and watch your return on investment improve.
Need further help?
Contact SearchPath Internet Marketing.
Thursday, September 28, 2006
Err ... well no they won't actually. It may have worked for Kevin Costner's baseball pitch in the film
Field of Dreams, but won't work with your website.
Think of it, you spend time, effort and money lovingly putting together your website and then ... nothing. Your visitor count never goes up and you never get the return on investment you planned. Why? You didn't really tell anyone about it!
Sure, you e-mailed your customers and mentioned it to a few people you know, but did you really market it?
Contact SearchPath Internet Marketing we have a hundred ways to get your poor website found. Your future customers
do want to find you. Let them!
Wednesday, September 27, 2006
Firstly, don't worry that you have done something wrong and Google just does not like you. There is nothing personal in it ... honestly.
Matt Cutts from Google has already commented that the placement of pages between the main index and the supplemental index is purely algorithmic i.e. computers do it and not human editors.
As with most things in search engine algorithms you can guess as to what the triggers may be. Then there is always the possibility that when you are pretty sure why something is occurring, they (the search engines) go and change the algorithm and you have to start all over again!
However, based upon the work we have done with some of our clients, we are pretty sure that the URLs Google puts into its "2nd" index are ones that it doesn't wholly trust. I'd like to point out that it is the "URLs" it doesn't trust, not the company or the website overall or the words (somewhat) or the titles (somewhat), just mainly the "URL".
"OK", you say. "Now that I have stopped taking it personally, why are some of my pages, sorry URLs, in the "2nd" index on Google?".
Well, Google has decided it trusts you enough to index your pages, but is not totally sure that they are what they seem. So rather than, possibly, clutter up its main index with these pages, it uses them as a stop gap when the first index comes up short. Because it is not 100% confident of your URL, and its stability, it doesn't want to risk lowering the quality of its up front search results.
From what I have seen if you have URLs that could be dynamically generated, i.e. the URL of the page is generated on the fly and won't be the same the next time it is accessed, then Google will put about twenty of your pages into it's main index (if you have a large site and the URLs are not a complete mess) and the rest into the supplemental results index. These, not wholly trusted, URLs are mainly generated from database driven content management systems e.g. the ones that look like this - http://www.YourSite.co.uk/?pageid=6743&subject=43#doggrooming.
So, in essence, if you want to have the best chance of staying out of Google's supplemental results you should:
1. Make sure you URLs are as clean as possible i.e. invest in a CMS system that uses pages names rather than pages numbers.
2. If your URLs are a mess (and these pages are in the supplemental results) and contain any (and certainly not more that five) numbers in the URL get someone to re-programme your CMS and use a different page calling/naming technique. N.B you need to use a technique that is search engine friendly i.e. no redirects and certainly no 302 redirects.
3. Don't use any special character in your URL, like "?", "#", etc., this is another factor that Google (crudely) looks at.
4. Lastly, if your pages
are dynamically generated and
do have a dynamic URL ... you are where you deserve to be and you are pretty lucky that Google has tried to index you at all. If you want any search engine presence ... get a new CMS (content management system)!
I hope this helps, if you want more information on this subject, click this link,
Google's supplemental results.
We would love to help you further, so ...
contact SearchPath Internet Marketing and we will be happy to talk some more.
Tuesday, September 26, 2006
How many pages of your website are in Google's supplemental results? To see type this into Google's search box:
site:http://www.YourWebSite.co.uk (substitute YourWebSite.co.uk for your actual site's URL)
Now, try to access the latter pages of the results. Do you see any entries with the term "- Supplemental Result -" next to the web page's URL?
If you do then you have some pages in this index. Go back up the results pages to see just how many.
There are various reasons why Google created this index and why your pages have been put there ... but more of that in tomorrows' blog.
The most serious part of this is that the supplemental results index
only gets accessed if there are no relevant pages from the main index. So the chances of any searcher actually finding these pages are very remote.
So, is a large part of your website destined to never be found?
Contact SearchPath Internet Marketing for more help and information.
Monday, September 25, 2006
Consider this ...
Word is out that your company (and brand!) are thinking of closing down your UK call centre and moving it all to India. In actual fact ... this could not be further from the truth.
So, what do you do?
Well ... you either do nothing (the bad press will go away by itself, won't it?) or if you choose to do something, you do all the usual crisis management PR things like issue press releases, put out some news feeds, place something on your website, etc.
Does this communicate with everyone? How about getting to the first page of all the search engines (which as we know are the eyes of the world) with your message? Does that sound like a good idea?
Basically, within an hour you can set up a pay per click (PPC) advertising campaign that will get in front of the eyeballs that are typing "xxx company job cuts" or "xxx company moving to india" into the search engines. Then you can direct them to a page that quickly and effectively prints the truth i.e. your side of the story.
Good idea?
Contact SearchPath Internet Marketing for more of the same.
Thursday, September 14, 2006
Have you ever run an
email marketing campaign?
If you have you will know the undoubted benefits of this marketing medium. Either way, even if you are new to the subject or have had mixed results in the past, read on ...
In our opinion, these are the basic rules you need to follow when you run an e-mail campaign. The creative part is up to you (do make it interesting though), but if you follow these guidelines then your campaign will have a good chance of being a success.
The Rules:
1. Ensure your e-mail recipients have opted in to your list i.e. they want and expect your mail.
2. Know what your audience wants/likes and send them a mail about it.
3. Make sure your mail is delivered correctly and in the correct format i.e. not too big, no big (or any) attachments, in the requested format i.e. HTML or plain text (or both if you use MIME), etc.
4. Get your mail opened. Make your subject stand out in their mail box.
5. Get read and get clicked. Ensure your text it geared toward creating a "want to read on" effect and then make sure the next part of the article is a link to your site.
6. Once you have them on your site make the most of it i.e. make it easy, attractive, beneficial, etc. for them to do what you want them to do.
That's it! Follow the rules and you will turn your e-mail marketing campaigns into what they should be - the best and most cost effective form of marketing there is.
P.S. there is a final rule - ensure you can track your campaign i.e. how many mails were opened, how many clicks there were, how many got delivered, etc. This will ensure that you can constantly refine your campaigns and make each one better than the last.
P.P.S. lastly, do make sure that the opt out process is painless and easy. You can add functionality to the e-mail administration side of things by adding "e-mail to a friend", "sign up to another interest category", etc. This will make the options available not just a negative i.e. only the opt out.
Please
Contact SearchPath if you need further help with your
email marketing,
Internet marketing or
search engine optimisation.
A quick test ...
Type your website's URL into your browser including the www subdomain i.e. http://www.yoursite.com. Your website appears, right? And, it appears with the www. before you domain name in the URL window of your browser. OK, good.
Now, type in your URL
without the www prefix i.e. http://yoursite.com into your browser window. What do you get? Does it display the URL with the www. or without it?
Basically, if you get your website appearing without the www. prefix when you type it in, then effectively you can reach your website's home page from two different URLs (which could turn into three if your site directs your visitors to the home page with index.html, default.asp, etc. ... but this is another article!).
However you publicise your URL you must have URL consistency. So, if you decide that you would like your site to be http://yoursite.com, then anyone typing in http://yoursite.com or http://www.yoursite.com should get the URL of the non-www version i.e. http://yoursite.com in their URL window.
Why is this important? Well, search engines view each URL as a
different URL. So, if your site can be accessed from two different URLs then the search engines will divide its weighting from inbound links between the both of them and only index one of them.
This means that the strength of your inbound links (the most important factor in search engine optimisation) is weakened. Also, your URL could be manipulated in the search engines by your competitors i.e. if you create enough links to the other URL, the search engines could index your web pages that way.
The solution is to set up a 301 redirect on the URL you don't wish to be accessed. This basically tells the world (and the search engines) that you do not use that version of your URL and have redirected the visitor to the URL you
do use.
This article was not designed to provide a solution for every situation and we would definitely advise that you get some help with rectifying this problem (if it applies to you).
However, here are some pointers to send you in the right direction ...
If you are not able to configure your web server, you can set up a 301 within your DNS settings or port your (not wanting to be accessed) URL over to a different IP address and create a 301 redirect using a PHP or ASP file.
If you can configure your web server you can alter the settings to ensure there is a standard URL you will get traffic to.
Lastly, Google have just incorporated URL standardisation in their sitemap programme. This is a great feature and we recommend you use it. However, it will only help you with Google and not the other search engines.
Please
Contact SearchPath if you need further help with your
Internet marketing or
search engine optimisation.
Wednesday, September 13, 2006
Following a trend established by Wikipedia, Digg and YouTube, Yahoo has just launched Yahoo Answers.
Yahoo Answers and other social search sites enable people to share advice and information with each other, as an alternative to search engine generated answers. These sites and others, are part of Web 2.0, the next stage of the Internet's evolution, enabling the public to choose what content is published, to create their own stories and to have increasing control over media output.
Every time a visitor comes to your site, they take a particular path. Their eyes move in quick motion, hopping from one hotspot to the next. If you don't know how your visitors are travelling, your conversion rates will suffer.
Fortunately, Eyetrack testing (tracking eye movements as visitors move through a website and how they scan any individual page) has revealed the common behaviours of people viewing web pages, helping website owners improve their site design, headlines, font sizes, navigation, article formats, and even their ads
So how can you use these results to improve your website effectiveness?
Navigation
Navigation at the top of a page works best – it was seen by the highest percentage of test subjects and looked at for the longest duration.
Your navigation is best placed on the top or left side of the page. Why? Simply because this is what people are used to.
Font Size
Smaller type encourages focused reading rather than scanning - larger type results in increased scanning of the page. The key is to find the appropriate balance that will encourage readers to focus on your text more than they scan, while still being readable.
Also, visual breaks, such as underlined headlines or a line, discourage people from looking at items beyond the break.
Article Format
Visitors do not read your website word for word. They are scanning and picking out relevant information that they feel is important. By placing content in the right place, you can improve your site's effectiveness, increase your sales, increase subscriber numbers and better your return on investment.
For example, the headline is often the first element that people see on your site. Make sure you have a compelling headline that speaks directly to your visitors’ needs and wants, to draw them into the site. A change in the headline on a sales page can produce a 1,900% increase in sales.
Start your articles with a boldface introductory paragraph - 95% of people will read some/all of it.
How do you get them to continue reading? Use short, snappy paragraphs - shorter paragraphs received twice as many eye fixations as those with longer paragraphs.
Most people also seem to focus on the left side of the page and look for related words that might entice them to read closer. Therefore, include some important keywords on the left-hand side of the page so that readers can quickly see pick them out and be pulled further into the material.
You can also encourage your readers to continue reading by using bolding and enticing sub headings.
Advertising
Many people ignore ads, but good placement and design can often improve your results.
For example, ads in the top and left areas of a page receive the most attention and perform better than those on the right.
Ads placed next to important editorial content can really help attract attention to the ads. These ads perform best when they are truly integrated into the actual content of the page.
Image ads receive much more attention if they are larger. For example, one of the test pages in the Eyetrack III test found that a postage-stamp sized image was viewed by 10 percent of the participants while an average sized photo (about 230 pixels wide and deep) drew the attention of 70 percent of the people.
Their research also showed that clean, clear faces in images attract more eye attention on homepages.
On the other hand, people seem to avoid ads when a visual barrier is placed between the ad and the content. These breaks can consist of either white space or a border.
Ads that blend into the look and feel of the page draw the most attention. In addition, text ads were also found to receive the most response.
Search Results
What do people look at when they are presented with a list of search engine results?
Studies have shown that the majority of eye activity, and maximum interest, happens within a 'golden triangle' at the top of the search results page. The study showed that the top 5 results (ones above the fold) received the most exposure.
Below is a chart showing the organic ranking visibility of the top 10 positions.
Rank 1 - 100%
Rank 2 - 100%
Rank 3 - 100%
Rank 4 - 85%
Rank 5 - 60%
Rank 6 - 50%
Rank 7 - 50%
Rank 8 - 30%
Rank 9 - 30%
Rank 10 - 20%
Side sponsored ads receive significantly less attention. See the overview below of the visibility of the side sponsored ads based on position:
1 - 50%
2 - 40%
3 - 30%
4 - 20%
5 - 10%
6 - 10%
7 - 10%
8 - 10%
This is largely due to an "F" shaped scan pattern in which the eye tends to travel vertically along the far left side of the results and then scan to the right occasionally if something catches its attention.
These statistics show the importance of ranking well and also of using relevant keywords within your title and description. With a relevant and interesting title and description, you can attract more eyeballs within the search engine results.
If you're looking to improve the effectiveness of your website, contact SearchPath today.
Friday, September 08, 2006
If you have found your Adwords prices increasing recently, check your landing pages, the pages on your website to which visitors are sent after clicking one of your adverts.
To provide searchers with relevant advertising, Google recently changed its Adwords algorithm to check advertisers' landing pages. How many times have you clicked on an ad for a specific term, only to be sent to a page that has no mention of that term. This provides a bad experience for the searcher and a very poor ROI for the advertiser. Poor landing pages will now reduce your Quality Score, higher minimium bids and increase your cost per click.
So making sure your landing pages are relevant and effective is now even more crucial - effective landing pages will help convert more searchers into customers, and it will help reduce your average click charges for Adwords.
If you landing pages are costing you money,
contact SearchPath today.
Monday, September 04, 2006
The robots.txt is a file you should have in the root directory of your web server. This file is used by search engine robots as a guide to which files and pages they should access on your website.
Here is an example of a robots.txt file.
# PARTIAL access (All Spiders)
User-agent: *
Disallow: /callme_generic.asp
Disallow: /cgi-bin/
Disallow: /new_style.css
Disallow: /images/
Disallow: /send_generic.asp
Disallow: /send_newsletter.asp
Disallow: /templates/
Disallow: /test.asp
As you can see there are two main sections to the file. These are:
User-agent: This is where you identify the search robot or robots you want to communicate with. The "*" means all robots.
Disallow: These are the files or directories that you do not wish the robot or robots to access or index.
There are two main uses for the robots.txt file, which are:
1. Telling the search engine robots which files or directories you do not wish them to index. This can be done because you want the robot to access your files in the most efficient way i.e. not waste time on the non-important pages/files. The other reason is because there are files that you do not want to appear in the search engine results for confidential or relevancy reasons.
2. It is a good and quick way of seeing how many times your site has been visited by search engine robots in any one period.
Of course, we would be happy to help you with this aspect of search engine optimisation,
contact SearchPath today.
