The SENSIBLE MARKETING BLOG for Startups and Small Business

Losing Money on AdWords? Part II

Focus on Your Landing Pages

Now that you’ve focused on finding the right keywords, setting up your Adwords campaigns, and choosing your bids, it’s time to divert your attention toward landing pages. Internet marketers have proven that a change in landing pages, to accommodate your specific keyword groupings, can have a positive impact on results. 

We all know landing pages are important and A/B testing is a common phrase among search marketers, but are we as an industry taking landing pages to the next level? Search engine marketing traffic is highly engaged and quite honestly, different from other online media. So, why do we direct this traffic to the same generic landing pages?

There is a new movement that centers Web design around search intent. Strong keyword groupings that in the past didn’t have a good “home” will now get a custom built landing page with tailored content. For instance, for a travel client, we created new landing pages with content specific to the psychographic intent of the search phrase or phrases.

Landing pages like this take time and effort to brainstorm and build, but the rewards are worth it if thought out. These custom landing pages are also lead generation forms. They created a great experience with tailored content for the consumer and also increased conversions by 25% when compared to the previous destination pages.

In another instance, we built out landing pages for certain geographic based terms that were important to our client, as it was a service offering that had not been hitting our online metrics. When a new landing page was created around the context of the keyword groupings, the cost per lead dropped significantly (think hundreds of percentage points).

The moral of the story is that search marketers should think more strategically in their landing page decisions. It is more than A/B testing these days. Work with your client and creative teams to enhance the full search experience from start to finish.

Filed under: Lead Generation, Viral Marketing, Web 2.0, ad words, analytics, internet marketing guides, marketing, online marketing, ppc marketing, ppc optimisation, ppc optimization, sem optimization, web marketing, web metrics, website optimization | 1 Comment

A recent study by Forrester Research reports that 92% of marketers using permission-based e-mail use it for customer retention. Where are they getting permission? How do they know what to ask for? Why does e-mail work so well for retention? One word: data.When done right, an in-house database is the foundation of your e-mail marketing success. It lets you identify customer needs and interests, use their feedback to fine-tune offers, and analyze behavior for maximum campaign results.

So, Where Does Data Come From?
Data sources are all around us-but the best place to start may be your own backyard. Compile names from existing marketing, customer service and credit lists, then supplement them with names generated at points of customer contact. Remember to ask for e-mail addresses and permission in every communication including:

• Point of sale (in-store and online)
• Satisfaction surveys
• Customer registrations
• Website
• Direct mail
• Broadcast or print advertising
• Tech support/customer service communications

In-house lists are the most valuable because customers already know you and are more likely to opt-in. However, highly targeted lists are also available from brokers and vendors. Here are some tips on what to look for when shopping:

• Make sure names were gathered in an opt-in manner.
• Check list usage, what companies tested the list and whether they used it again after testing.
• Ask how often the list is updated and when the last update occurred.
• Find out the list origination date to determine if e-mail addresses are current.

Data Points: What’s the Point?

When you start collecting data, it’s tempting to collect everything imaginable. You may have no clue how to use it all, but you might as well ask for it, right? Trouble is, too much raw data can be overwhelming. You’re probably better off to start with the most vital information and build from there, using criteria unique to your business. Here are a few must-haves:

• Full name (with first and last in separate fields)
• Gender
• City, state, zip (in separate fields)
• E-mail address
• Categories of interest specific to your company or product, e.g., hobbies or book preferences
• Demographics such as age, income, marital status and education

Using this basic intelligence, you can create segmented lists, analyze responses and begin mining data to send customized, relevant e-mail campaigns.

Data: Intelligence to Action
Database packages like Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle and IBM DB are powerful repositories, but transforming data from “nice to know” intelligence into actionable marketing information is the role of e-mail software. By capturing responses in real time, e-mail campaigns can generate immediate marketing ammo-even offline. For example, a clothing retailer’s e-mail campaign featuring three t-shirt styles indicates the hot seller; the results can be used to adjust in-store displays and floor set-up to immediately capitalize on the trend.

Integrated database and e-mail software duos can also make for powerful online promotions. Responses to an e-mail campaign for an online bank, for instance, show traction for a specific service for small business banking. The bank’s website home page can be changed to feature this offer, or a campaign providing transactional sign-up capabilities within the message can be sent.

Make Mine Manageable
Managing e-mail databases and marketing campaigns can be handled in-house-provided you have adequate IT resources and support. A second option is to outsource everything to an e-mail marketing service. Finally, e-mail marketing programs are available in the ASP model, which means the service provider maintains the software and equipment and you simply use it online for a monthly fee.

When outsourcing, make sure your vendor offers automated, real-time data loading; otherwise, your offer will lose its effect waiting days for traditional downloads.

Filed under: B2B Marketing Blogs, B2B Marketing Ideas, Database Marketing, Email Marketing, Lead Generation, Lead Nurturing, b2b marketing books, crm, digital marketing, double opt-in, email marketing best practices, email marketing services, email marketing software, internet marketing guides, lead acquisition, marketing, michael e. williams, web marketing | No Comments

  I’ve never been a big believer in spending time acquiring links from new sites. With so many changes in link building over the last twelve months, my thinking is beginning to change. Here is a great post on the subject from Justilien Gaspard of Search Engine Watch.

We’ve all heard it — people don’t want links from new Web sites. Why? It’s assumed that new sites don’t have enough quality backlinks, and haven’t earned “trust” in Google to pass real value. However, if you flatly skip over links from new sites, you’re losing out on immense opportunities. It’s time to rethink the matter.

I admit to having encouraged this line of thinking by telling people to go after links from old, trusted sites. Going after high-value targets is just one strategy. Even with that strategy, you cannot skip over new sites without any analysis.

That would be like a stockbroker refusing to consider a stock that hasn’t been around for at least 20 years, or an employer refusing to look at resumes from people who haven’t been in the workforce at least 15 years.

Today’s new site could be tomorrow’s rock star. Most successful companies start small. Cisco Systems was started in a garage by a married couple. GE was started in a barn. Starbucks started as a single coffee store in a public market. The same holds true of Web sites. Most sites, just as traditional businesses, start small unless a large corporation develops it.

If a large corporation is developing the new site, go after the link because the site has a greater likelihood of success. Usually such sites will have a superb promotional budget — not to mention links from the corporation’s site(s) to jumpstart it.

What to look for?

Usually, you can easily sift through sites by learning how they’re handling promotions. Look for those sites with marketing budgets, as those will be the safest bet. Be careful of sites that think they’re the “best” and expect the world to magically discover them. We all know the type and have heard the pitch.

Advertising Campaigns

Find out what type of advertising the site is doing. It might just surprise you to find out they have a targeted advertising program going after specific demographics. Most will gladly share with you what magazines, journals, newspapers, television and other media outlets they’re advertising with. Also, find out if they’re running a PPC campaign.

The Real PR (Public Relations)

Find out what type of PR campaigns they’re running. This might be in-house, or through an agency. Discover where they’re trying to get publicity. They may already have several mentions in mainstream media.

Quality of Backlinks

Examining the site’s backlinks can tell you a great deal about the quality of the promotions. If it looks like they’re gaining links from quality sites, then they’re on the right track and worth your time. Are there links from the media or industry sites? Go for it! If all their links are from blog comments, template links in blog themes, or low-value link trades, move on.

Serial Entrepreneur?

Is the site being developed by a company that has a record of successful Web sites? There are many large and small publishers who have a solid history of developing and promoting Internet properties. They’ve learned from their previous successes and failures. These types of sites generally will provide much more value over time than the new Webmasters that still operate under the fallacy, “build it and they will come.”

The point is not to skip over link opportunities just because a site is new. Instead, find out if they’re doing a notable job of promotions. The more they promote their site, the more valuable links from it will become over time. Think of it as investing in the stock market. Look for undervalued, or unnoticed, sites that have a high likelihood of rising in popularity.

So there you have it. Link building that includes “new” sites may pay dividends - opportunity or risk? You decide.

Useful SEO Tools & Techniques for Organic SEO to Optimize for the organic search results

•  Site analysis: An overall analysis is first performed on the site such as design, layout, navigation, Meta tags, web copy, architecture and more.

•  Keyword Research : Research and development of competitive keywords and drill-down keywords.

•  Competitive Analysis: The competitive analysis is used to determine the level of difficulty in ranking the site higher than the competition. It is also used to determine if the competition is actively optimizing their website. Competition is the main deciding factor in the cost of a campaign.

•  Optimization of content: Optimizing the textual content to promote relevance, target keyword density, prominence and more.

•  Optimization of Site Code (title, description, keywords, content-code ratio): Meta information is used to provide additional information about HTML documents so that the Search Engine crawlers are able to index the information more accurately.

•  Custom Site Map Creation : The creation of a site map page enables SE spiders better crawling of the site. We create Google sitemaps, as well as standard and dynamic sitemaps.

•  Search Engine and Directory Submissions: We use our own techniques to get pages spidered and indexed in a period of days to a few weeks. We also submit to the top Internet directories, such as DMOZ, Yahoo and others

Filed under: B2B Marketing Blogs, B2B Marketing Ideas, Search Engine Optimization, Sensible Links, ppc marketing, ppc optimisation, ppc optimization, sem optimization, seo, site metrics, small business software, tracking software, web analysis, web analytics, web design software, web log analysis, web marketing, web metrics, web reporting, web site analysis, web site statistics, web site traffic analysis, web statistics, web stats, web traffic analysis, web traffic statistics, webmaster tools, website visitors, webtrends, webtrends analytics | No Comments