Internet Marketing is not easy. You may find it hard to get an internet business up and going. Here are some reasons why internet businesses fail.
1. No one wants your product.
You should really concentrate on a market and audience, not a product. When you find a market of consumers who have a need, and you can fill that need for them, you are on your way to success. Rather than selling, you are just standing in front of the traffic and letting it come to you.
Take a note from Bert Ingley who makes well over six figures a year selling Madden Football information online. Bert himself will tell you he visited Madden Football sites, chatted with players, and posted in forums long before he had a product. He came with his product AFTER he learned what the people in his market wanted and needed.
Could you do the same? How much to you know about your potential customers? Google you own keywords. Visit related websites, even your competition and see what people are saying. Post on forums. Chat with people. Answer email questions. The more you know about your potential customers, the better you'll be able to market to them.
2. Talking about features, not benefits.
You probably concentrate on features of your product or service in every other aspect of business. You are probably adding features to product as the market demands or standards change. Many of your thoughts may be feature oriented.
In marketing, you never want to talk about features. Instead, you need to talk about what the feature will mean to the customer. Will it save them time? Will it make their task or life easier? Will it save them money? These types of things are benefits. In your marketing, you want to talk about benefits, not features.
3. Trying to do it all yourself.
Many times you may try to do it all yourself. You may not want to relinquish control or spend the money on outsourcing.
But, back to Bert Ingley again, he hired a professional writer very early on. Sure Bert new his product and his market. However he also knew that others were more knowledgeable and also better writers. Bert outsourced the writing and he concentrated on the marketing.
4. Not being patient.
Internet marketing is not easy. It doesn't happen overnight. It takes time to write articles, build an email list and split test messages.
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Saturday, March 27, 2010
Adwords Keywords Quality Score - Page Load Time
Adwords began calculating Quality Scores for ads for each consumer search in September 2008. Part of the new calculation is page load time. You'll learn what is page load time, how does it affect your Quality Score and what can you do to improve it.
What does page load time mean?
Page load time is the time it takes for your page to render after it is requested. The life cycle of a page is straightforward.
1) The request for the page is made
2) The server will perform any server side processing, like dynamically generating content or accessing a database. When the page is completely constructed, it will proceed to the next step. NOTE: Static HTML pages do not have server side processing, only PHP, JSP or ASP.NET pages have server side processing.
3) The server begins transmitting the response over the internet
4) The client computer receives the response
5) The client begins rendering the response in a browser window. Additional requests are made for flash scripts, graphics and javascript.
6) When the page is completely rendered, and all other requests are complete, the page has loaded.
Adwords must really be measuring the time from the request until the response is read. I doubt Google can actually be attempting to time to render the page on the client computer, and make the child request for graphics and so forth. Google would have to add some javascript code to the page in order to know when the client side rendering was complete. I seriously doubt they would do this.
How does it affect your Quality Score?
Google has this to say about why it considers page load time.
"Two reasons: First, users have the best experience when they don't have to wait a long time for landing pages to load. Interstitial pages, multiple redirects, excessively slow servers, and other things that can increase load times only keep users from getting what they want: information about your business. Second, users are more likely to abandon landing pages that load slowly, which can hurt your conversion rate."
Based on this paragraph it seems Google is trying to crack down on Advertisers using server side redirects and interstitial/ad pages. A server side redirect would be when the destination url is requested, the server side scripting language redirects the request to another url. This really performs two requests, and thus increases the page load time. An interstitial page is an advertisement page that is shown (briefly) before the content, and may be achieved with a redirect.
It also seems that Google is saying if your page takes too much to respond, it's likely doing something sneaky.
What can you do to improve your page load time?
1) Optimize your server side scripting
If you do use PHP, JSP or ASP.NET, make sure your server side code is optimized. This is especially true when using a database. You need to optimize both your database, and your code for speed.
2) Get dedicated web hosting
Most cheap web hosting happens on a shared server. That means that many websites from many website authors are all on the same server. All of these websites compete for server resources, like bandwidth and memory. Heavy traffic to some other website on a shared server can slow your page load time. A dedicated server is one where only your website(s) resides on it. It's more expensive, but you get dedicated resources.
3) Compress the size of your page
A web page is really just a file. That file must be transmitted from your server to the client computer over the internet. If you can decrease the size of the file, the file will transmit faster. You can compress your pages by removing white space. You can remove any unnecessary HTML tags. You can use relative urls instead of absolute urls. Do anything to decrease the size for the file.
4) Lose the Flash Animation
Flash animation is generally rendered on the client side, so it may not factor into the Page Load time. But then again it may. Either way, Flash animation tends to be slow, so get rid of it for the sake of your customers. Sure it looks great, but you can't afford to lose sales because nobody waits around for the Flash animation load.
5) Strip out unnecessary elements from the page
Again, elements rendering on the client may not affect the page load time. Then again they just might. Remove any unnecessary graphics or images. These take a long time to load. Minimize javascript or CSS includes. Additional requests need to be made for these files, so keep it to a minimum.
6) Optimize your page
As a final effort, you can optimize the HTML itself. For example, table HTML tags tend to render slower than a CSS/Div layout. If you have tables, you might consider switching to a CSS/Div layout.
What does page load time mean?
Page load time is the time it takes for your page to render after it is requested. The life cycle of a page is straightforward.
1) The request for the page is made
2) The server will perform any server side processing, like dynamically generating content or accessing a database. When the page is completely constructed, it will proceed to the next step. NOTE: Static HTML pages do not have server side processing, only PHP, JSP or ASP.NET pages have server side processing.
3) The server begins transmitting the response over the internet
4) The client computer receives the response
5) The client begins rendering the response in a browser window. Additional requests are made for flash scripts, graphics and javascript.
6) When the page is completely rendered, and all other requests are complete, the page has loaded.
Adwords must really be measuring the time from the request until the response is read. I doubt Google can actually be attempting to time to render the page on the client computer, and make the child request for graphics and so forth. Google would have to add some javascript code to the page in order to know when the client side rendering was complete. I seriously doubt they would do this.
How does it affect your Quality Score?
Google has this to say about why it considers page load time.
"Two reasons: First, users have the best experience when they don't have to wait a long time for landing pages to load. Interstitial pages, multiple redirects, excessively slow servers, and other things that can increase load times only keep users from getting what they want: information about your business. Second, users are more likely to abandon landing pages that load slowly, which can hurt your conversion rate."
Based on this paragraph it seems Google is trying to crack down on Advertisers using server side redirects and interstitial/ad pages. A server side redirect would be when the destination url is requested, the server side scripting language redirects the request to another url. This really performs two requests, and thus increases the page load time. An interstitial page is an advertisement page that is shown (briefly) before the content, and may be achieved with a redirect.
It also seems that Google is saying if your page takes too much to respond, it's likely doing something sneaky.
What can you do to improve your page load time?
1) Optimize your server side scripting
If you do use PHP, JSP or ASP.NET, make sure your server side code is optimized. This is especially true when using a database. You need to optimize both your database, and your code for speed.
2) Get dedicated web hosting
Most cheap web hosting happens on a shared server. That means that many websites from many website authors are all on the same server. All of these websites compete for server resources, like bandwidth and memory. Heavy traffic to some other website on a shared server can slow your page load time. A dedicated server is one where only your website(s) resides on it. It's more expensive, but you get dedicated resources.
3) Compress the size of your page
A web page is really just a file. That file must be transmitted from your server to the client computer over the internet. If you can decrease the size of the file, the file will transmit faster. You can compress your pages by removing white space. You can remove any unnecessary HTML tags. You can use relative urls instead of absolute urls. Do anything to decrease the size for the file.
4) Lose the Flash Animation
Flash animation is generally rendered on the client side, so it may not factor into the Page Load time. But then again it may. Either way, Flash animation tends to be slow, so get rid of it for the sake of your customers. Sure it looks great, but you can't afford to lose sales because nobody waits around for the Flash animation load.
5) Strip out unnecessary elements from the page
Again, elements rendering on the client may not affect the page load time. Then again they just might. Remove any unnecessary graphics or images. These take a long time to load. Minimize javascript or CSS includes. Additional requests need to be made for these files, so keep it to a minimum.
6) Optimize your page
As a final effort, you can optimize the HTML itself. For example, table HTML tags tend to render slower than a CSS/Div layout. If you have tables, you might consider switching to a CSS/Div layout.
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Inside the Quality Score - Geo-Targeting
Google began determining a Quality Score per search for Adwords Ads in September of 2008. Prior to this time, a Quality Score was determined once and used across multiple searches. Determining Quality Score per search gave Google the opportunity to use geo-targeting. Learn what this means and how you can use it to your advantage.
Geo-targeting is when Google boosts an Ads Quality Score, thus giving it higher ad positions, traffic and CTR based on the geographic location of the advertisers. Google determines the geographic region of the consumer by checking his IP Address. Google must check the geographic region of the advertiser by the IP Address of the landing page. If both the consumer and advertiser are in the same geographic region, the advertisers ad will get a Quality Score boost.
Could geo-targeting hurt a nationwide or global campaign?
Potentially, yes. A nationwide or global campaign may face competition in metropolitan areas. If other advertisers in these metropolitan areas are deemed "local" merchants, they could get Quality Score boosts. This lowers the ad position of the nationwide or global advertiser. A lower position results in fewer clicks and less CTR. This damages the Quality Score further, resulting in lower positions and higher costs per click.
Is it good for the consumer?
One large appeal of the internet is to be able to view goods and service offered by merchants outside of a local area. If the internet offers no more diversification than driving around town, the internet is likely to some of its appeal.
How can you use this to your advantage?
Adwords experts often recommend using a high cost per click for two or three weeks to get a high CTR. When a CTR becomes established, you can often lower the CPC bid with losing ad position because of the high CTR.
You could use a similar tactic with geo-targeting. You could limit your Adwords ad to run only in the geographic region where your hosting service is located. You would then get a Quality Score boost from the geo-targeting, result in higher ad positions. High ad positions translate to better CTR. Then after two or three weeks at a good CTR, you can allow you ad to running nationwide or globally while still reaping the benefits of a high CTR.
Also, you could have two identical or similar websites, one hosted on the East Coast of the United States and the other hosted on the West Coast. You could target your ads for specific regions, and send visitors to the correct website for their region. Perhaps more granularity is needed than just East Coast versus West Coast, but you get the idea.
Geo-targeting is when Google boosts an Ads Quality Score, thus giving it higher ad positions, traffic and CTR based on the geographic location of the advertisers. Google determines the geographic region of the consumer by checking his IP Address. Google must check the geographic region of the advertiser by the IP Address of the landing page. If both the consumer and advertiser are in the same geographic region, the advertisers ad will get a Quality Score boost.
Could geo-targeting hurt a nationwide or global campaign?
Potentially, yes. A nationwide or global campaign may face competition in metropolitan areas. If other advertisers in these metropolitan areas are deemed "local" merchants, they could get Quality Score boosts. This lowers the ad position of the nationwide or global advertiser. A lower position results in fewer clicks and less CTR. This damages the Quality Score further, resulting in lower positions and higher costs per click.
Is it good for the consumer?
One large appeal of the internet is to be able to view goods and service offered by merchants outside of a local area. If the internet offers no more diversification than driving around town, the internet is likely to some of its appeal.
How can you use this to your advantage?
Adwords experts often recommend using a high cost per click for two or three weeks to get a high CTR. When a CTR becomes established, you can often lower the CPC bid with losing ad position because of the high CTR.
You could use a similar tactic with geo-targeting. You could limit your Adwords ad to run only in the geographic region where your hosting service is located. You would then get a Quality Score boost from the geo-targeting, result in higher ad positions. High ad positions translate to better CTR. Then after two or three weeks at a good CTR, you can allow you ad to running nationwide or globally while still reaping the benefits of a high CTR.
Also, you could have two identical or similar websites, one hosted on the East Coast of the United States and the other hosted on the West Coast. You could target your ads for specific regions, and send visitors to the correct website for their region. Perhaps more granularity is needed than just East Coast versus West Coast, but you get the idea.
Sunday, March 21, 2010
What to do if you still have a Poor Quality Score
If you think you have done everything recommended by adwords gurus to get your quality score up. But, Adwords has still assigned you a Poor Quality Score. What do you do? The following list of items are the things you want to check to raise that poor Quality Score.
(1) What is Adwords saying is wrong?
Adwords provides some diagnostic information when they assign a poor Quality Score. Take a look inside Adwords and see why Adwords gave you the poor score. When you know what Google thinks is wrong, you can attack the problem. Adwords reports on three categories of problems.
(a) Keyword relevance
Generally this means you have a poor CTR. More on how to fix it in a moment.
(b) Landing Page
This means your Landing Page is not tailored to your keyword. Create a unique landing page for your keyword and optimize the page for it.
(c) Landing Page Load Time
Your Landing Page was too slow. Start removing images, javascripts, stylesheets and any other elements not directly related to your message.
(2) How is the CTR of the ad?
Once you begin to get traffic (impressions) of your ads, the CTR becomes a major factor in the quality score. Google is letting the human consumers determine if your ad is relevant to their searches. If the ad is relevant, human consumers click your ad and the CTR goes up. If the human consumers don't click your ad, the CTR goes down. Google alters the quality score based on the CTR. It's a survival of the fittest ad when you begin to get impressions.
The rule is you must have a half percent CTR to maintain a Quality Score. But, I recommend shooting for a 2% or 3% CTR. If you don't have a CTR of at least 0.5% you should do one of the following...
(a) Improve the sales copy of the ad.
This is crucial if you want to keep the keyword. Your ad needs to be compelling enough to make consumer want to click it. If you don't have a 0.5% CTR your ad isn't doing it's job.
(b) Increase the max CPC bid.
You can increase the max CPC to get a higher ad position. A higher CPC bid means higher ad position, more traffic, and (hopefully) more CTR. After you have achieved a CTR of 2 or 3% for two weeks, you can start lowering you CPC bid because the CTR is likely boosting your Quality Score, and you can maintain the higher ad position without spending as much.
(c) Delete the keyword.
The Quality Score of your entire campaign can be damaged by poor performing keywords. Delete them if you can't keep the CTR above 0.5%.
(3) Revise your Landing Page.
Can you optimize the landing page more? I assume you have the keyword in the page title, meta tags and heading tags. Have you used it throughout your sales copy as well? Adwords likes to see the keyword in the content. Assuming you have read the Advanced Guide, you can still use PHP to dynamically insert the keyword just like you did for the page title and meta tags.
(1) What is Adwords saying is wrong?
Adwords provides some diagnostic information when they assign a poor Quality Score. Take a look inside Adwords and see why Adwords gave you the poor score. When you know what Google thinks is wrong, you can attack the problem. Adwords reports on three categories of problems.
(a) Keyword relevance
Generally this means you have a poor CTR. More on how to fix it in a moment.
(b) Landing Page
This means your Landing Page is not tailored to your keyword. Create a unique landing page for your keyword and optimize the page for it.
(c) Landing Page Load Time
Your Landing Page was too slow. Start removing images, javascripts, stylesheets and any other elements not directly related to your message.
(2) How is the CTR of the ad?
Once you begin to get traffic (impressions) of your ads, the CTR becomes a major factor in the quality score. Google is letting the human consumers determine if your ad is relevant to their searches. If the ad is relevant, human consumers click your ad and the CTR goes up. If the human consumers don't click your ad, the CTR goes down. Google alters the quality score based on the CTR. It's a survival of the fittest ad when you begin to get impressions.
The rule is you must have a half percent CTR to maintain a Quality Score. But, I recommend shooting for a 2% or 3% CTR. If you don't have a CTR of at least 0.5% you should do one of the following...
(a) Improve the sales copy of the ad.
This is crucial if you want to keep the keyword. Your ad needs to be compelling enough to make consumer want to click it. If you don't have a 0.5% CTR your ad isn't doing it's job.
(b) Increase the max CPC bid.
You can increase the max CPC to get a higher ad position. A higher CPC bid means higher ad position, more traffic, and (hopefully) more CTR. After you have achieved a CTR of 2 or 3% for two weeks, you can start lowering you CPC bid because the CTR is likely boosting your Quality Score, and you can maintain the higher ad position without spending as much.
(c) Delete the keyword.
The Quality Score of your entire campaign can be damaged by poor performing keywords. Delete them if you can't keep the CTR above 0.5%.
(3) Revise your Landing Page.
Can you optimize the landing page more? I assume you have the keyword in the page title, meta tags and heading tags. Have you used it throughout your sales copy as well? Adwords likes to see the keyword in the content. Assuming you have read the Advanced Guide, you can still use PHP to dynamically insert the keyword just like you did for the page title and meta tags.
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Starting of with a high cost per click
You want to start off your Adwords campaign with a high cost per click. For anyone on a marketing budget, that certainly sounds counter intuitive. But the simple truth is you are looking to save money in the long run.
Setting an initial high cost per click is one of the best kept secrets of the Adwords industry. The number of consumers who click your ad largely determines your quality score for any keyword. Google allows the marketplace to determine the best ads in a Darwinian survival of fittest game. The more clicks your ad gets per impression, the more Google increase the quality score.
Lets assume you've already optimized your Adwords ads and landing pages according to the Adwords Strategy Guide. When you do so, your ad starts with a high quality score. This is important so that you will get better ad positions and more traffic for a much lower cost.
But if you bid a low cost per click your ad is going to show at lower ad positions. That means your get impressions, but since you are not in the top 3 ad positions you are going to get fewer clicks. Impressions without clicks lowers the CTR. Lower CTR causes Google to think the ad is not relevant and lower the quality score. You need a CTR of at least a half percent.
Instead, you start with a high initial cost per click. You bid for the top three ad positions, or perhaps the top ad position. Keep in mind you'll still get the top spot cheaper with the Adwords Strategy Guide than without out. Now your getting many clicks per impression and your CTR is on the rise. Your quality score goes up.
About two weeks after the launch of your campaign you can begin to slowly lower the click per click. Your high CTR will allow you maintain your top three position while the cost per click is dropping. As long as the CTR remains high, you can keep dropping the cost per click and still maintain your ad position.
You will have a few weeks of a high cost per click. However, in the long run you will be able to have cheaper costs per click because of the CTR you captured in those first few weeks.
Setting an initial high cost per click is one of the best kept secrets of the Adwords industry. The number of consumers who click your ad largely determines your quality score for any keyword. Google allows the marketplace to determine the best ads in a Darwinian survival of fittest game. The more clicks your ad gets per impression, the more Google increase the quality score.
Lets assume you've already optimized your Adwords ads and landing pages according to the Adwords Strategy Guide. When you do so, your ad starts with a high quality score. This is important so that you will get better ad positions and more traffic for a much lower cost.
But if you bid a low cost per click your ad is going to show at lower ad positions. That means your get impressions, but since you are not in the top 3 ad positions you are going to get fewer clicks. Impressions without clicks lowers the CTR. Lower CTR causes Google to think the ad is not relevant and lower the quality score. You need a CTR of at least a half percent.
Instead, you start with a high initial cost per click. You bid for the top three ad positions, or perhaps the top ad position. Keep in mind you'll still get the top spot cheaper with the Adwords Strategy Guide than without out. Now your getting many clicks per impression and your CTR is on the rise. Your quality score goes up.
About two weeks after the launch of your campaign you can begin to slowly lower the click per click. Your high CTR will allow you maintain your top three position while the cost per click is dropping. As long as the CTR remains high, you can keep dropping the cost per click and still maintain your ad position.
You will have a few weeks of a high cost per click. However, in the long run you will be able to have cheaper costs per click because of the CTR you captured in those first few weeks.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Why You Should Avoid Broad Match Keywords?
Broad match keywords in adwords has now a days really become a big source of earning for google. I am a google adwords qualified individual working with about 20 clients at the moment. I have stopped using braod match keywords because of showing ads against irrelevant keywords which result if lower ROI. I track each keywords of the campaign and add the negative keywords on daily basis. I am having very bad experience with broad match keywords in the last 6 months or so (even the long tail). I would like to give particular example of the irrelevant keywords triggering ads. I will just give example of two broad match keywords from March 10, 2010.
1. Keyword in the campaign is {Generator Installation} and the keyword user searched for and google triggered the ad {windows movie marker upgrade}.
2.Keyword in the campaign {electrical services} and the keyword user searched for and google triggered the ad {ggmain}.
This is a kind of thing that I see daily with some of the campaigns I am working on.
But there are industries where using broad match keyword don't create any problem. Like moving industry and other.
So be careful when you are going to launch your campaign otherwise you will end up doing nothing.
Friday, March 5, 2010
Better & Effective ad texts, better performance!
As a basic rule, use clear, well-written, and specific ad text that highlights what sets your product or service apart from the competition.
Below are some specific tips to help you create compelling ad text. You can also watch this short video demo:
Below are some specific tips to help you create compelling ad text. You can also watch this short video demo:
- Create simple, enticing ads.
- Include prices and promotions.
- Use a strong call-to-action.
- Include one of your keywords in your ad text.
- Choose the best destination URL.
- Test multiple ads in each ad group.
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