Whether you just pushed the launch button or you've been live for years you've probably asked yourself "How am I going to get my site out there and bring in more traffic?"
The problem is, no matter how fancy your website is, unless it's loaded with exciting, fresh content, or you sell a remarkable product then people probably wont want to share your site. A site without interesting content or people spreading links is likely to be a site that doesn't get close to the coveted first page of Google.
Luckily with a little bit of research and hard work you bring in more customers from a wider audience and keep them coming back for more.
If you still need convincing to start Linkbaiting...
Bring in more traffic from many diverse sources. When other sites link to you. you expand your audience, growing sales, leads and brand awareness.
Improved search engine placement. Having lots of people link to your site tells Google that you've got something valuable to say. Getting higher up the search list is a huge boost to your traffic.
Get your site indexed by Google more often. The more links your site has the more ways the Google spiders have to reach your site and evaluate your content
Come up with a strategy
The idea is to create content which is focused on a specific group or goal..
Who do you want to relate to?
Why would they care?
What would make them likely to spread your idea?
You don't need to blog about the latest celebrity gossip to get people linking to you. Even the "driest" subjects can become exciting with the right content. If you run a local finance company your site doesn't have to be limited to a few dry sentences and a Contact Us form. If you're an expert then show it! Blog what you think about the latest start up company, share market predictions and offer practical advice.
Tips to get you started
Make sure you content is useful! People come to your site because they have a problem, make sure you answer it!
This means providing good quality information. Give your content more authority by linking to other sources.
Be controversial! If everyone in your industry is saying the same thing try saying something different. Some of the most linked to blogs discuss contentious issues and fire people up.
Stay relevant and fresh by posting regularly. There is something huge happening in your industry every week, make sure your opinion is heard.
Become indispensable - With regular, valuable content your audience will rely on you and want to share your website.
A few quality articles can be better than a hundred fluff pieces. If you're site has the best step by step guide on the Internet to re-financing your loans, or building a pizza oven in your back yard, it's like you've created a highway to your website that people will keep using for years to come.
Putting the word out
There's no point creating great content without promoting it. Once you've posted something new you need to get the word out.
Share it on all the common social networking sites e.g. Facebook and Twitter
Post it on social bookmarking sites e.g. Digg, StumbleUpon
Promote within you blog, if you're article has some cross over make sure you link to other relevant posts you've made.
Send out a email marketing campaign
Contribute the post to relevant online forums - if you've followed our guidelines your content should be useful and on topic. You don't want to look like you're spamming.
One step closer to a winning website
Once you've created content that people read, enjoy, and link to, you have generated an inbound link which is like a "vote" for your blog in the eyes of the search engines when they come to rank your website.
Because of this it is a good idea to setup your blog on the same "domain" or address as your business website. For example www.zeald.com/blog or www.blog.zeald.com. If you want more freedom to post and publishize your articles then you should look at getting the Blogs and Social Networking Add-on.
We are often asked, "What should my bounce rate be? what is a normal conversion rate? What should I be aiming for?
With this post we bring together stats and metrics from around the world to help us formulate the most accurate and up-to-date averages most relevant to small New Zealand business, to use as benchmarks. Please keep in mind, that these averages are just that and, these figures will vary wildly depending upon your industry, your target customer, your goal types etc.
Conversion rate
In a report from Google based on website metric data from hundreds of thousands of anonymous Google analyics accounts. From November 1, 2010 - February 1, 2011.
New Zealand 1.8% - Is rather high in comparison to the rest of the world.
Bounce rate
In a report from Google based on website metric data from hundreds of thousands of anonymous Google analyics accounts. From November 1, 2010 - February 1, 2011.
New Zealand 0.42 - is somewhat lower than most other countries around the world
European B2C e-commerce is growing in waves.
JULY 30, 2007 - With an annual growth rate of 25% over the next four years, the market will triple in size by 2011, reaching $407 billion.
B2C E-Commerce Sales* in Europe**, 2006-2011 (billions and % increase vs. prior year***)
The UK, Germany and France currently dominate European e-commerce, accounting for 72% of total online sales
What Works, and What Doesn't, in Online Marketing
In an end-of-the-year survey, online marketers were asked to look back at what worked for them in 2006 and also peek ahead at their spending plans for 2007.
Search Engine Facts
The power of search engines - facts:
46% of all websites are found through search engines 55% of all online purchases result from websites found through search engines 95% of people do not look beyond the top 20 search engine positions
How websites are found:
46% by search engines 20% random surfing 20% word of mouth 4.4% magazine ads 1.4% television
sources: Neilson/Net Ratings, IMS strategies, Harris Interactive and NPD Group
Annoying Website Characteristics
Website Characteristics that US adult internet users find extremely to somewhat annoying when they visit websites to obtain information about products or services that they are interested in purchasing - July 2005
Source - Taylor Nelson Sofres (TNS) commissioned by Hostway, July 2005
Without a doubt, one of the biggest trends in the online space at the moment (aside from social media) is the rise of the use of mobile devices to browse the internet. Widespread acceptance and use of devices such as the iPhone and iPad, along their Android-compatible competitors, has seen a huge rise in the number of people with access to the internet through their phone and, as mobile data rates come down, this trend is only going to accelerate in the coming years – both in New Zealand and abroad.
As NZ businesses become more aware of this trend, we are starting to receive the odd related question – do I need to have a specific mobile-compatible version of my website? Am I losing business by not having one?
A bit of history - mountain to Mohammad & all that ...
In the early days, mobile devices were very restrictive in their navigation of websites. This resulted in some websites being created specifically for browsing on mobile phones. However, it was always highly unlikely that the internet would reinvent itself to support these restrictions. According to the Netcraft Web Server Survey, as at June 2011 there were around 346 million websites on the internet – that’s a lot of sites to rebuild to support these technological restrictions!
Instead, what we have seen over the last few years (especially with the release of the iPhone – thanks Mr Jobs), is a major leap forward in the ability for mobile devices to correctly display normal websites, and allow people to navigate them easily. In this day and age, provided the site is well designed & built, it should be relatively easy for a mobile user to navigate and read – as is.
Check out our quick video demo of browsing the web on an iPhone 4.
Let’s back up for a second
To objectively consider the relevance of a mobile specific website for your business, I think it’s important we step back for a moment and consider your objectives in getting a website in the first place. For most businesses we encounter in the NZ marketplace, their primary objective is to generate sales and/or leads.
So when we are asking – “should I have a mobile website?”, one could argue the question actually is “will a mobile website generate more sales or leads for my business”. Or even more accurately, “will the time and money I invest in building, running and maintaining a mobile version of my website provide me with more sales or leads than other activities I could be investing that same time and money in”.
The success of your website is ultimately determined by your ability to get targeted prospects to your website, and once they arrive, convince them to do business with you – to actually pick up the phone and call, or enter their credit card details and make an online purchase.
So should I get a mobile version?
Unfortunately, the majority of NZ businesses we encounter are struggling with the core requirements for a successful website. Because of this, I believe we could compile quite a list of areas to invest into with regard to the average website that would provide greater return on investment, than the creation of a mobile version of the site.
Would a well thought out, well planned mobile version be useful? Most definitely. Would I recommend it in a perfect world where businesses had unlimited resources? Most definitely. However, in the world of very limited time and budgets, I would argue there are much bigger fish to fry. Areas such as; testing headlines, strategy sessions (to help understand your target customers better), planning and organising targeted promotional campaigns and usability testing would all provide greater return on investment than the creation of a mobile version of the site.
Only once all of that is sorted, would I recommend you get down to the ‘finer details’ such as custom versions of the website for mobile devices.
Ultimately, it is essential that our website is persuasive in the first place - otherwise you just end up with a mobile version of your website that still doesn’t persuade customers to buy – it’s fractionally easier to use, but still convinces no one.
Have one website that works for everything.
My advice is to keep it simple. The last thing we want to do is distract you from is having a highly persuasive website – especially when killing two birds with one stone is so easy. A Zeald website naturally suits mobile browsing in a lot of ways:
We recommend that all your web content is in HTML (rather than in images etc). This means it will load quickly and automatically scale to a phone’s browser window as a visitor zooms in and out.
We help you create a website that loads quickly – essential for slow and costly mobile web connections.
We educate & assist you to identify topics for large (in font size), compelling headlines which spark attention – these can be read when ‘zoomed out’ on a mobile device & can be used to convince the visitor it is worth their time to zoom in on that section and read the detail.
We don’t recommend using flash, which doesn’t work on iPhones.
We avoid drop menus or any ‘rollover’ functions – they don’t work on phones either.
Users who visit your website with an iPhone or similar mobile device will still be able to browse it easily and look for the information they want. For return visitors it has the additional advantage of looking familiar when they loaded your site on their laptop (navigation hasn’t moved, the layout of the website is as they would expect).
Whatever the case – it will be the effectiveness of the content on the website that determines whether they buy from you or not. How well you answer their questions, and persuade them to trust and do business with you.
Written by David Kelly on May 3rd, 2011.
0 comments
Email marketing is an extremely powerful website promotional tool. It is one-to-one direct marketing that is personalised, with well-defined targets, where the results are instant, accurate and easy-to-understand.
So as you can imagine, many companies and individuals have started sending out promotional emails to every email address they can find. Just about everyone hates unsolicited email- or SPAM. Many people have associated email marketing with SPAM, but it is important to understand that not all email marketing is SPAM.
It is possible to use email marketing legitimately, without fear of being banned by your Internet Service Provider (ISP). For instance, people who have agreed to receive promotions from you, and where there is a facility for them to request they don’t wish to receive another message from your company, is perfectly fine. This is called ‘opt-in’ email marketing.
An important website rule is:
Get your visitor’s email address whenever you can!
Once you have a visitor’s email address you can encourage them to return time and again to order from you, for little or no extra cost.
Text/HTML
The first thing you need to understand before creating and sending email promotions is the difference between text and HTML emails.
They look different– text-based emails are written in plain text (type)– they do not contain any formatting. You cannot bold or underline anything or change the font in a text-based email.
HTML emails, on the other hand, are written using a markup language, which resides in the backend code of the message. This allows you to use an array of ‘formats’ (typeset/design) in your email.
Text or HTML… which is better?
Some people advocate text-based emails, because they are quick to download by the recipient, are reliable for displaying correctly and do not carry ‘viruses’ or ‘worms’ that may be embedded in the code of an HTML email.
Those who advocate HTML-based emails prefer them for their ‘attractive’ qualities and readability. Most email viewers can display text or HTML-based email perfectly.
Some people argue that email marketers get better results using text-based emails and some people argue the other way. The results differ, depending on your ‘opt-in’ email list.
Test both types of emails and monitor the results. For example, send plain text messages to half your list and HTML email to the other half. Then compare the results. Whatever works best– use it!
Segmentation
One of the keys to any successful email marketing campaign is the targeting of your promotions. You can target your promotions by segmenting your customer database as much as possible. Break your customer lists down into groups. You may want to ‘segment’ your customer database based on characteristics such as:
Existing customers versus prospects
Customers based on geographical location
Existing customers– segmented by the products they have bought
Age
Sex (male/female)
Once you have your customers segmented you can then target your promotions at those segments at will. For example, if you are writing a promotion for your existing customers, you may concentrate on certain value-added cross-sells, or up-sells, that you have on offer. A promotion aimed at new members may promote a new member offer.
Personalisation
Just as in other forms of direct marketing, one of the interesting areas of email marketing is personalisation. In general, the more personalised an email is, the higher your success rate will be.
Remember, the most incredible ‘sound’, with the most impact on any person, is the sound of their name. Good email marketing packages will allow you to heavily personalise your emails. Some of the most common things that you will want to use to personalise your emails are:
First name
Last name
Address
City or location
Last product or service purchased
Date of last purchase
Most common product category of purchase
Depending on the abilities of your email marketing program, any information you have collected about a prospect can be used to personalize your email promotions to them.
Firstly, it's important to understand that the success of any website is measured by the results that it achieves.
What do we mean by website results?
When visitors of our website complete the actions we want them to complete - i.e., more sales, more enquiries, more bookings, more business and more customers.
So how do we get more visitors to take action on our website?
There are 5 factors to work on...
Find visitors who are motivated - this will happen if the promotion is relevant, i.e., it's attracting the right kind of people to our website
Convey the value proposition - the website needs to communicate this aspect quickly and clearly
Reduce friction - make it easy for the visitor to navigate around the website and complete the website goals smoothly (for example, long or unnecessary forms can lose visitors).
Relieve anxiety - get the visitors to trust you so they are willing to do business with you
Create incentive - offer something to prompt action (putting a time frame on it can also create urgency)
But....... the one thing that most websites ignore and the one thing that can make the most difference (from our experience) is a value proposition conveyed clearly and concisely!
What do we mean by value proposition?
When anyone visits a website, they have 2 questions in their mind....
What? What is this about? What can I do, buy or get here?
Why? Why should I be interested? Why should I continue?
Marketing Experiments study shows that if your website can't answer these 2 questions in about 3 seconds, visitors are less likely to take action.
Therefore, in the first 3 seconds, the top part of the page needs to tell the visitor why they should stay here to look for the solution..... rather than look somewhere else.
The order is important
Not only does the page need to answer these 2 questions, but it's important that the questions are answered in the correct order.
Our tendency is to rush into 'why' before we have answered 'what'. For example, it's no use describing the unique flavour if I don't even know that you sell ice cream.
Otherwise you create confusion..... & confusion creates mental resistance.
How does design fit in?
The visitor must be interested, understand and believe the message and design is the art of presenting that message.
Great website design will communicate the message...
Clearly
Concisely
Quickly
How can design do this?
Using an eye path
Design controls what the visitor sees 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th. There are 6 ways to control this...
Size
Colour
Shape
Motion
Depth
Position
We use these methods to emphasise one thing over another - we create a visual hierarchy to control what the visitor sees 1st, 2nd, 3rd & 4th.
Let's see that in practice....
Present the message in a linear format so that the visitors' thoughts come in the right order. Their eyes should travel from top left down to the center through the headline and vertically down the page.
Incorporate the value proposition in the opening headline. If the visitor reads anything on the page, you can guarantee that it will be the opening headline.
Make the message short and sharp. Get straight to the point - provide just enough reason for the visitor to continue with the next step.
Break content into headings and sub-headings - Use bullets or icons such as a 'tick' to break up text and draw the eye
Use large text for important words
Remove clutter
Reduce distractions - Remove, separate, tone down 'related content' so it does not distract from the primary message
Convey the message with images - take care not to confuse or distract with irrelevant images
Tell the story with case studies & testimonials - convey your value proposition through a story and build trust and credibility
Convey your message with your 'call to action' - let the visitor know exactly what you want them to do next
Use white space - to reduce clutter and make the message easy to read. Think of it like a 'pause for effect'
Use depth - depth can be used to separate and emphasise content. Textures and drop shadows create the illusion of depth
And finally... our golden rules
'Quirky no worky' :-)
And always remember to measure, review and improve for continual progress and improvement on your website results.
It is easy to design a good looking website. A good web designer will create a website design that is unique, reflects the brand and builds instant trust with the visitor.
It is hard to design a website that generates results. It takes an expert designer to create a website that presents the right information, in the right way so it achieves your business goals.
In The Benefits of Long Sales Copy on your Website we covered the merits of long copy versus short copy, and how long copy usually outsells short copy. With email promotions, you need to perform more of a balancing act.
Email promotions should be ‘to-the-point’ and not long-winded. Your email promotions should say just enough to get the purpose of your communication across. Remember, your customer’s email inbox is getting busier and busier. Your customers will soon know whether you get to the point in your emails, or bury your message in unnecessary paragraphs or pages of hyperbole.
Email promotions that get to the point are far more likely to be of interest to your readers on an ongoing basis. Your recipients will open and read your email if they know they are going to be able to quickly satisfy their curiosity.
However, your emails still need to be written in a warm, friendly and personable way. Give your regular email promotions their own “voice” and character (which should not be too removed from your brand’s personality). Make them easy for your customers to relate to. Email is a very personal medium and a personable approach to email always works best. Remember, one-to-one!
Email promotion components:
From line
Subject
Headline
Greeting
Opening hook
Call to actions
Body
Sign-off
Signature
Opt-out information
From line
The ‘From’ line is the most important part of the entire email, and despite what some email marketers think, the ‘From’ line is even more important than the ‘subject’ line. If you think about when you are scanning the new email messages in your own inbox, you would usually run your eye down the ‘From’ column, first seeing if you recognise the people your messages are from.
So when you set the ‘From’ line in your email promotions, use something people recognise. If your recipients will recognise your individual name, then use your name. But if it is your company name that they are more likely to recognize, use that. You can even use a combination of both – e.g., “David Kelly – Zeald”. Personalise and perfect it; perhaps use the word ‘team’ in your ‘From’ line; for example– ‘The Zeald Team’.
Subject lines
The second most important part of your email is the ‘Subject’ line. It should capture the attention of your reader and draw them into opening your email. The ‘Subject’ line of an email is similar to an advertising headline, except it needs to be more ‘real’. It won’t be as ‘hard-sell’ as an advertisement headline typically is. Remember, just about everyone hates SPAM, so make sure your ‘Subject’ line does not look like a SPAM message, otherwise it will be deleted, or worse still, it won’t even arrive in your customer’s inbox (thanks to Spam filters). Make sure you go easy on CAPITAL letters too, as they can look tacky and Spam-like. Your ‘Subject’ line should be short, friendly and to the point.
Some common themes for subject lines:
Sell a major benefit
Offer a solution to a problem
Ask a question
Make an announcement
Personalise your 'Subject' line by using your customer’s name. This will often drastically improve your results.
As always make sure you test and measure everything– results always speak for themselves– so do what works!
Headline
You may decide to start your emails with a headline. You can use all the techniques for these headlines that we outlined earlier in the ‘Load’ module.
Greeting
Personalise your greeting as much as possible. Use the recipient’s name. You may decide to use either an informal and friendly greeting (“Hi David”), or be more formal (“Dear Mr. David Kelly”). It is generally accepted that informal and friendly works best when writing emails. Consider using phrases like, “Good morning/afternoon/evening/”, as these have a nice, warm feel to them, and indicate a degree of familiarity.
Opening hook
Your ‘opening hook’ is what should hook your reader into your email. Make it clear right up-front what you are writing to them about and explaining why they should read the rest of your email. Remember, they will be thinking – “So what’s in it for me” (WIIFM)? Show the reader what they will get out of reading your email.
Call to action
This is when you state exactly what you want your prospect to do. In an email promotion it is important to include a ‘call to action’ very early in your message. This gives a recipient the opportunity to respond immediately without reading through the rest of the email. In this initial ‘call to action’ you should not use ‘hard sell’– merely point them in the direction they can go if they are interested in your offer.
You should look to include your call to action throughout your message. But the first ‘call-to-action’ should be very ‘soft’ and your final call-to-action will be the complete opposite, almost with a sense of urgency. Summarise the main benefits for responding to your ‘call-to-action’, and then state exactly what you want them to do.
The body
The body is the main part of your promotional message. Make sure you focus on the benefits you are offering. It must be obvious what’s in it for them. Use bullets to outline the benefits clearly. Your body should be around two to four paragraphs at the most. Use short, punchy paragraphs and include lots of white space around the paragraphs.
Sign-off
Use a friendly sign-off such as:
Best regards
All the best!
Take care
Yours faithfully (more formal)
Signatures
Email signatures are extremely powerful, and are highly under-rated marketing tools. The next section looks at email signatures in detail.
Opt-out information
Don’t forget to include your opt-out information at the end of your email. This information gives your recipient the ability to opt-out from receiving further communications from you. It also shows you have their best interests at heart- that you listen to your customers!
Most email marketing programs will automatically include this information at the end of all emails you send.
Formatting
When communicating by HTML email, there are a number of formatting options that will help make your writing more interesting:
Fonts
Make sure you use a black font on a white background– anything else is very difficult to read. Do not use a ‘fancy’ font. Generally, Serif fonts are used for print and Sans-serif fonts are used for computer screens. The most common Serif font is Times New Roman. Common Sans-serif fonts are Arial and Verdana.
Emphasis
Use bold, italics, underlines and font colours for emphasis, but use them sparingly. Tables and borders can be used to frame specific sections of text that you want to emphasise. Always use emphasis to drive-home your critical points.
Lots of white space
Use lots of white space– this makes everything easier to read and is generally more attractive to the eye.
Vary paragraph lengths
Vary the length of your paragraphs as well– this keeps things interesting. Make sure your sentences are not wider than 55-60 characters across the page– more than this is difficult to read.
Graphics
Only include a graphic or illustration if it is relevant and supports your message. Graphics, for the sake of graphics, are a waste of time as they increase the size of the email and take longer to load. Your recipient might get tired of waiting and hit the delete key.
If you use plain-text email, formatting will be almost non-existent. Again, make sure you use lots of white space and keep paragraph lengths really short. Make sure your sentences don’t exceed 55-60 characters across the page– more than this is difficult to read. Use capitals (sparingly) for emphasis only.
And finally - don’t forget to use your spell checker!
Zeald Example Email Marketing Campaign
OK, let’s try putting everything together, by writing an email promotion to be sent to the Zeald customer base.
Zeald has a new product called ‘Zeald Email Marketing’. This module plugs into the Zeald Website Adminstration Software and allows the merchant to send email promotions to their ‘opt-in’ email database, as well as to track and measure their results.
In this section we will draft an email promotion that can be sent to the Zeald customer-base, promoting the new Email Marketing module.
From Line: David Kelly – Zeald
Subject: New Product Launch – Low-Cost Email Promotion
[Element #1 - Headline Start]
Do you collect your customer’s email address? If ‘yes’, you could be using email as an extremely low-cost way of advertising and promoting your company’s products and services to your customers.
[Element #1 - Headline End]
[Element #2 - Greeting]
Good afternoon [Customer First Name],
[Element #2 - Greeting End]
[Element #3 – Opening Hook]
You have probably heard of email marketing. Many people have been talking about the power of email and how you can use it to send out monthly, or even weekly, promotions to your customer database, for little or no cost!
[Element #3 – Opening Hook End]
[Element #4 – Call to Action (soft)]
The great news is that Zeald has just released a new module for the Zeald E-business Suite. It is called ‘Zeald Email Marketing’ (creative huh!). Jump straight to all the details.
[Element #4 – Call to Action (soft) End]
[Element #5 – The Body]
The one question I always have when using any form of marketing or promotion is – can I measure the results? Otherwise– how do I know that the latest marketing or promotional tip is not just the latest craze or buzz? I need to know if it has made a positive impact on my bottom line? If you can’t measure your results then you should probably not bother doing it– especially if you have a tight advertising budget.
The great thing about the new Zeald Email Marketing module (in my humble opinion) is that everything can be tracked and measured. You can measure:
how many people have read your email promotion
how many people clicked on your promotional offer
how many people purchased a promotional item
what the total value of the purchases were.
This means that you can run email promotions and continually improve them by measuring their results. But ultimately, you can work out whether it is worth going to all the time and effort with an email promotion in the first place.
Your 9am – 5pm access to a Zeald Internet consultant.
If you have any questions or concerns, please call 0800 72 55 23.
We would love to be of assistance!
---
Zeald – “Websites that Work!”
E-Centre
PO Box 102-904
North Shore Mail Centre
Auckland
New Zealand
Ph: +64 9 415 7575
Fax: +64 9 443 9794
Mbl: (NZ) 021 434 105
Web: www.zeald.com
[Element #6 – Signature End]
[Element #6 – Opt Out Information]
I no longer wish to receive promotional communications from Zeald.
[Element #6 – Opt Out Information End]
Promotional Signatures
Email signatures are one of the most highly ‘under-rated’ marketing tools on the Internet. Your email signature should appear at the bottom of every email that you send. Most signatures contain the sender’s contact details, but why not make your signature a small advertisement? This advertisement goes out to every single person you ever send an email to. These small signatures can have a huge impact on your website’s success and your bottom line!
So how do we write a great email signature?
The first key, as always, is ‘know your target customer’. If you don’t know this by now, then you have a problem. What are your target customer’s goals? What do they want to achieve? What need do they want to satisfy?
Your email signature should be based around a great headline that will grab your target customer’s attention. It should focus on the strongest benefits that fit into your target customer’s goals, problems or needs. Use your unique selling proposition (USP) as the basis for the majority of your signatures.
Straight after your headline should be the ‘call-to-action’. Your ‘call-to-action’ should be completely focused on getting your target customer to click-through to your website, where you can hit him/her with your full sales copy… or alternatively, to call you on the phone.
It is absolutely vital that you have a number of different email signatures. Email signatures are generally not a ‘one size fits all’ solution. Think about it– you don’t want to send an email to an existing customer with a signature that promotes a product that they have already bought from you. Instead, you would present a signature that focuses on providing them with the information they need to obtain customer service, support, or up-selling them to other products and services you offer.
For the sake of simplicity let’s focus on a ‘signature’ that promotes your core product. Let’s look at the headline and opening hook that we used in the ‘Load’ module:
---
STOP! Is Your Website Delivering Amazing RESULTS?
Many websites are a complete waste of time and money because they don’t deliver results! BUT if you have a good product or service, it is possible to produce a website that generates excellent results; a website that sells!
---
This can be used as the basis for a promotional signature. In the following way:
---
David Kelly
CEO – Zeald
Is Your Business Website Delivering Amazing RESULTS?
Your business website should make sales or generate enquiries for your products or services. Is Yours?
If not… it will be because of one of three simple reasons.
As with all promotional writing, you will want to review and sharpen your signature until it is perfect.
Tracking & Measuring
Finally, you need to track and measure your email marketing results. The basic figures that you will want to track are:
Impressions – the number of people that your email was sent to
Click-throughs – the amount of click-throughs to your website that you received from your emails
Conversion rate (visitors) – the percentage of click-through visitors that placed an order, or made an enquiry
Enquiries/Orders – the number of enquiries or orders placed by visitors, generated by your email.
Most good email marketing systems will provide you with the facilities to track and measure impressions and click-throughs. Unless the email marketing system is completely integrated with your website, it will not be able to measure the conversion rate and enquiries… or orders. The Zeald Email Marketing Manager measures all these key metrics including the exact value of the purchases made.
If you are interested in using email marketing to promote your organisation talk to your E-Business Consultant or the Support Team about the Email Marketing Manager.
As soon as a customer confirms an order on your website, a confirmation email is automatically sent to them. Order confirmation emails are extremely important as they further reinforce your credibility and professionalism.
The natural tendency for many customers, after making an order, is to be plagued with fears and doubts; i.e., “I hope I did the right thing buying that”; “I hope my order arrives”, and so on. This well-recognised condition is called ‘buyer’s remorse’, and is very common.
The order confirmation email can be structured to help alleviate ‘buyer’s remorse’. Thank the customer for their order and inform them about the delivery process from this point forward. Remind them of your guarantee and provide them with contact details should there be any queries or concerns.
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is the way you structure your website and your content so that it can be found and indexed by search engines like Google. When you optimise your website for search engines, it makes your site visible to search engines and therefore to the users.
Why is SEO important?
Studies show that 95% of NZ adult Internet users research goods and services online before making a purchase. This means that even though people might see your offline advertising offline or a sign they are highly likely to jump online to search for the products or services.
It's also well known that most users only browse through the first page and if they don't find answers to their query, they will click through to the second page but very few go past the second page. So if your website is not listed in the first couple of pages, chances are no one can find you. Instead, the users will probably find your competitors. Therefore, being seen on the first page of the search results should be one of your priorities when promoting your website.
To get your website ranking highly on Google, it pays to understand how Google actually works.
We are often asked this question not long after a new website has gone live. To answer this question we first of all need to explain how Google works…
Google employs some of the world’s greatest minds to continually develop the complex ranking process which ensures that the top results of a user's search are of the highest relevance and quality.
This is of course what makes Google the world’s most popular search engine.
Understanding how Google works
Google is constantly looking for new websites and updated content on the Internet using automated programs known as 'spiders' or 'robots'.
These robots use links between websites to travel around the internet and find new websites. If your website is not linked to the rest of the web, the robots will not be able to access it. And Google will not be able to find it.
When Google finds a new web page, it will analyse the content, known as 'crawling' the content. It will then transport the information back to the Google data centre, where Google stores it, known as 'caching'.
Once Google has a copy of your website in its index, it will send out the robots to check for new content on a continual basis. If the robots find new or updated content Google will add it to its index. The period between visits will vary from site to site, but the robots are intelligent and they will not waste their time visiting websites regularly if the content does not change regularly.
Relevancy
Once Google knows about your website, it then needs to calculate the 'relevancy' of each page to a user's search term. So when a user performs a search with Google, Google calculates the relevancy of search term to the web page. If the search term is not relevant, or the search term does not match the content of the web page, Google will not list the page in the results.
Google also uses geographic location to help match a website to a user's search query. Google will try to serve web pages that match the users geographic location.
Quality
Relevancy is just part of the equation. Remember there are likely to be hundreds, thousands or millions of other websites that are 'relevant' to a user's search query. And only a few spots on the front page of the search results. Therefore, the next thing Google does is calculate the 'quality'. This allows Google to position the web pages that are most relevant and of the highest quality at the top of the results page. This is of course what makes Google the world’s most popular search engine.
Calculating the relevancy and quality
Google uses a very complex 'formula' or 'algorithm' to calculate the relevancy and the quality of a web page to a user's search query.
This formula uses many factors to help calculate the relevancy and quality of a web page, including and not limited to:
Keywords found in the content of the page
The headings
Links on the page
Hidden Meta data found in the code of the page
External links that link to the page
Google awards ranking for a page based on how often the keywords appear, how prominent they are on the page and the location of the keywords on the page.
Therefore, the more focused you are on a certain topic, the better you will rank, as Google will believe that you are an expert on the topic.
Let’s use an example
Let’s say you have a website focused on photography services in Wellington. Let's say a user performs a search using “photography wellington”. Google, at the time this article was written, lists 411,000 web pages that match this search term. That is 411,000 different websites that are relevant to this search term.
Google has a tough job to order this list to ensure the websites at the top are the most relevant and of the highest quality.
The top listings are websites of photographers based in Wellington. If we look further down the list we will see websites with less relevant content, for example photography equipment suppliers, etc..
Now we know how Google works...lets apply this knowledge to our website...
Does Google know about my website?
Now that we have a greater understanding for how the search engines work, we can turn our attention to finding our website on Google.
The quickest way to find out is to perform a 'site' search. You can do this by entering Site: [your website address] into Google as shown below:
If your website has been listed you will see a list of all the pages of your website that Google has stored in its cache.
Next you can find out which search terms your website is ranking for. The easiest way to do this is to check your Search keywords, traffic report. If you are a Zeald client, you will be able to find this report in the admin of your website under the "Reports" tab.
If other people have found their way to your website via these search terms, chances are your website is ranking well for them. Try a Google search using the search terms to see where your website is currently positioned.
What if my website is not listed?
If your website is not listed with Google, your search for the site will result in something like this:
This means that Google has not discovered your website yet, or has not completed the content crawling and storage process.
Tell Google about my new website
You need to ensure that Google knows about your website or connect your website to the rest of the internet so Google robots can find your website. You can do this by submitting your site to Google and/or generating inbound links to your website.
But I have already submitted a sitemap?
Once you have submitted your sitemap, there is usually a delay before which you can find your website on Google. This is because the robots still have to find their way to your website and complete the process, which can sometimes take up to 3 months. Unfortunately you can't rush Google but there are things you can do to speed up the process.
How do I speed up the process?
There are a few things that you can do to ensure that your website is found and the content crawled as soon as possible:
You need to ensure that you have submitted your website
Or that you have some inbound links to create a pathway for the robots to be able to access your website
To get your website instantly to the top of Google for targeted search terms, use Google’s advertising program, called Adwords.
How do I get my website to the top of the Google results for a keyword of my choice?
There are various techniques you can do to improve a web site's ranking in Google's organic search results for chosen or targeted keyword phrases. This process is known as Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and is a large topic that requires another article.
>Stay tuned for our next article on how to optimise your website
Or... you can get your website to the top of Google for targeted search terms using Google’s advertising program, called Adwords. By setting up Google Adwords you can create a listing and choose search terms that will trigger your listing or advertisement. The good thing about Google Adwords is that you don’t pay unless someone actually clicks on your ad and visits your website.
You might pay as little as 5c per click, especially if it is your own business name, which will be less competitive.
When you did the keyword analysis, you would have ended up a whole bunch of keyword phrases which are part of keyword segment groups (i.e., the keywords within each segment group share a common theme. So for Giveaduck, one segment would be 'bath toys', with a number of phrases associated with it like 'baby bath toy', 'water toy' etc.) For each of these segments you will create an Adgroup. And for each Adgroup, you will create an advert that Google will display when a user searches for any of the keywords within that keyword segment. If a user clicks on your ad, you will pay Google an amount that you setup.
The structure of a Google Adwords account
The structure of Google Adwords is made up a campaign (which could be area specific like NZ or Aus). Under each campaign, you have an Adgroup (which is the keyword segment) and you will create an ad for each Adgroup which will use the keyword phrases under that particular segment.
How does Google position your ads?
Google calculates your position in the paid search results based on the number of other companies competing on your target search phrases. So if there are no competitors, you will pay the minimum cost of 5c per click and be at the top of the page. However, it is unlikely (and very lucky) that you will have zero competition. So when there are other companies competing for the same phrases, Google calculates your ad position based on an equation which is determined using maximum cost per click (CPC) and the relevancy of your ad and the landing page compared to the keywords.
Make your ads and landing pages relevant to your keywords
If there is one thing that you should always keep in mind when setting up a Google Adwords campaign is RELEVANCY. It is very important that you make your ad and landing page highly relevant to your keywords. This is why we go through so much trouble to segment our keywords. For example for Give a duck we determined a segment “Bath toy” which contains many phrases centered around the theme “bath toys”, such as "baby bath", "bath for baby", "bath toy", "water toys", "bath for kids", etc. So with this in mind we would create an ad using these keywords and we would also make sure that these search phrases were incorporated into our landing page so it all ties in togethere and makes sense for the user.
Create new campaign
Before you create a campaign you'll need to sign up to Google Adwords account - simply follow the directions supplied by Google.
You should create campaigns to target customers who browse the Internet:
from a specific geographic area
using a specific language
with a certain type of device, i.e., only mobile phones
using different networks, i.e., Google search or display network information sites using Google Adsense programme
Setup different campaigns if you are targeting different geographic locations. For example, we might decide to sell rubber ducks to New Zealand and also Australia. We would create a separate campaign for each country and label them 'Rubber duck nz' and 'Rubber duck Aus'. We can also create a campaigns specific to regions within a country i.e., Auckland and Wellington. For example a photographer in Wellington, will target Wellington only.
A few steps to help you set up your campaign on Google Adwords:
Name your campaign
Select the relevant location. This can be either entire country, a city or a radius from a certain point or an arbitrary shape that you can draw on the map.
Select the language
Choose the device type (we recommend starting with all devices)
Choose a network (we recommend just the search network to begin with. You can always setup a new campaign to target the display network.)
Select your bidding option (we recommend starting out with automatic bidding to maximise clicks)
Set your budget, which is the amount of dollars you want to spend per day. This means that if you have a budget of $200 per month you would divide by 30 to give you about $7 per day. We recommend that you start with at least $200 per month, but a maximum of $500 to a $1000 per month. Of course your budget will depend on your marketing budget and how much you would like to dedicate to your website. The number of clicks that you will receive for your daily budget will depend on how competitive your industry is. So how many other people are competing for your same keywords and how much budget they are allocating towards it, which is known a 'bidding' for the keywords. The number of clicks will also depend on how relevant and compelling your ads are to your target keywords and your landing page. We think that $200 is a great start and it will give you a good idea as to your return on investment. This budget per day means that if you receive $7 worth of clicks for the day, Google will hide your ads and not show them again until the next day. If you do not receive $7 worth of clicks then you will save the money.
Don't worry about advanced settings
Click next
Setup Adgroup
Before we go over how to set up an Adgroup on Google Adwords, we have a few tips below on how to write a good ad:
Use your most popular search phrases in your ads, especially the title of the ad. Meaning for every keyword segment you have identified in the keyword analysis, you'll have a list of keywords and you need to pick the ones with the highest search volume and high relevancy. Choosing these phrases means that your ad will be relevant and cost you less to get to the top. Google will also bold the keywords in the ad to highlight them to a user. This will make them more attractive to the user.
Check out what local competitors are doing and also look at what what might be working globally i.e., try a google.co.uk search for the same keyword phrases and see what the ads look like.
Convey your unique selling proposition (USP) in your ads. For example, “money to charity”, “Largest range”, "Good price", etc. are all good USPs.
Add a call to action and it's always great to create a bit of urgency i.e., "Buy Now", "Don't miss out", etc.
Add a compelling offer. For example, "Free delivery", "Mothers day sale", "Half price", etc.
Think about qualifying your customer. For example if we only sell rubber ducks, we don't want to incur the cost of people clicking on our ad if they are not interested in rubber ducks. So whatever segment you are creating an ad for, you need to make up an ad that compels clicks that result in buying your products or services.
Include prices if possible - again this is a great way to make sure that people that click on your ad are actually willing to pay the price. It's also a great way to convey discounts.
Split test multiple ads. This means for each Adgroup, create at least two ads with one or two elements that are different so you can find out what's working better. So you can choose to change the headline to see if that makes a difference or you can choose to change the offer in the ad to see what's perceived as more important. It will also allow you to test which ad clicks actually result in sales.
Avoid using competitor brand names
Steps for setting up an Adgroup
Choose a keyword segment for your first Adgroup. We have decided to start with the segment “bath toys”.
Review the top most popular search phrases to work out the keywords that you should use in your ad. Our top phrases include: "bath for baby", "bath toy", "water toys", "bath for kids", "bath toys", "toys bath". We would use phrase “bath toy for baby” in our ad which includes most of the words from all our top phrases, especially the headline.
Write your headline
Write each description line
Set your display URL. Again use your target keywords or phrases that help to qualify the user. For example we used www.giveaduck.org/RubberDuck. Note this does not need to be the actual URL. It is there to give the user an idea of where they are going to be taken. It must incorporate your domain i.e., giveaduck.org
Set your description URL. Find the most suitable landing page that the visitor is taken to when they click on your ad. Make it specific to your ad, make it relevant and ensure that it uses the target search phrases. Avoid sending people to your generic homepage.
Copy and paste all the keywords associated with the chosen segment from your research, into the keywords field.
Save your ad. Once you have set this up, the ad will be sent to a real person at Google to authorise the ad who will make sure that it fits their ad guideline.
Split test your ad
It is very important that you split test your ad. This means just changing one or two aspects of a Ad group to test out what's working better. It will allow you to test which offer is perceived as being more attractive and which ad click actually converts into a sale. But remember not to set up more two ads at a time for each Adgroup, unless you have many 1,000s of people visiting your site.
Steps to create a split test
Create a new ad under the campaign. You can do this once you have saved your ad, you can click to add a new ad under the campaign.
Avoid making too many changes to the ad - just change either the headline, or your offer or your USP.
In our case, we want test out our offer vs. the USP. So we are trialing out to see if users are more motivated to click an ad because of charity or because of free delivery.
Note that Google will start monitor your split tests and if one them if really under performing, it will cease to run that ad so as to make sure that your click rate is high.
Billing
We recommend that you use the Postpay billing option to ensure that your ads are running smoothly. Often a prepaid balance will run out and your ads will dry-up, meaning once your prepaid balance is out, you will have no click throughs. This means that you will start to lose traffic and more importantly you will lose important test data. It makes it difficult to test and tune your ads and your landing pages if you have big holes in your reports.
Postpay billing option doesn't have to be a scary option because you will have set your budget before hand anyway so there is not way Google will let your spend go over your budget and if you decide that you don't want to spend anymore money on Adwords, you can go in and cancel anytime you like.
Going Live
Your ads will not go live straight away because Google will need to review the ads to make sure that they pass their criteria. This will usually take around a day or so before your ad can go live.
Set up the next Adgroup
Follow the same steps to setup ads for the rest of your keyword segments from your keyword research.
We've tried to make this process as simple as possible but if you're finding that this is too complex or it is taking too much of your time, you can fast track it and get us to help you with it instead. Contact us to find out more.
Studies show that nearly 75% of all online shopping carts are abandoned. In order to understand the reasons why, a Customer Experience Management firm conducted a study - have a read of the results.
How can you stop this from happening? A few tips from us:
1. High shipping prices
Shipping is a tricky area - free shipping is obviously a great incentive for the shopper to buy from you. But if you do that, you might have to absorb the costs, which can become expensive depending on the size of the product and how far you have to deliver the product.
There a number of strategies to stop this from happening:
Offer free shipping for orders over a certain amount. This is a 'win-win' for both you and your visitor.
If you have a physical retail store, offer the option of picking up from store to avoid the extra cost.
Offer a slower shipping option (which is hopefully free or at the very least cheaper) and also a faster shipping option.
2. Comparative shopping
This is where a visitor is considering a few websites that sell the exact same product. Even though you might be selling the same product or service as another website, there are things you can do to stand out:
Loyalty programs can also be very successful - you can use email marketing and social media to promote your programs and establish loyalty.
3. Changed mind
To persuade your website visitors to go through the sale before and stop them from changing their minds, you can use a few techniques:
Use detailed testimonials from customers that are happy with your products and services - include all their details and even a picture if possible so your website visitor is persuaded of the benefits of your products.
Create urgency by offering specials for a limited time. You could include free shipping for a limited period or you could offer discount on products - whatever works with for you at the time.
Indicate how much stock you have left of the item - especially for ones that are low. Kiwi t-shirt company icon, Mr. Vintage customise their site with a scale to indicate stock amount, which almost always creates urgency.
4. Total cost of items is too high
There are things you can do to help your visitors if the cost of items is too high:
Offer discounts on multiple product purchases.
If you sell bigger price items like furniture offer loan options if possible or monthly payments if they are on-account customers.
5. Checkout process is too long
Optimising your checkout process is a very important part of making sure that you convert visitors into customers. A few tips from us:
Make it easy for your visitor to access the shopping cart at all times. They should be able to stop browsing on any page and click through to the cart to complete purchase.
Once they have started the checkout process make sure that you minimum number of steps to finish the purchase.
Don't make it compulsory to create an account, offer the option of buying the products without signing up. Chances are that if they are happy with the products they will come back and sign up if you offer benefits like remembering details so shopping process is shortened.
6. Checkout process requires too much personal information
This is an easy mistake to make - many websites use the sale process to get as much information as possible where as it should be the opposite.
Make it as easy as possible for the visitor to purchase from you - only ask the absolutely vital information. You can always get the rest after the purchase or you can email them.
7. Site requires registration before purchase
We touched on this point above - don't make it compulsory to create an account. This can often deter - instead split the page into two and offer both options. Sign in/register and go through checkout without signing in.
8. Site is unstable or unreliable
It's extremely important to regularly check your site and all the pages to make sure that everything is functioning as expected. You don't want your visitor to feel like they are dealing with an unstable site. Part of having a reliable site is also going with a reliable web developer who makes sure that the site doesn't go down frequently, making your visitors nervous about placing orders with your site.
The other aspect is building trust in your site - if you want someone to put in their payment details on your site, they need to be sure that you can be trusted with their credit card details. We highly recommend using a payment gateway such as DPS or PayPal. These days most e-commerce sites display some form of secure payment gateway which put the visitor at ease especially when ordering from a new site.
9. Checkout process is confusing
If you're unsure whether your checkout process is smooth and easy to navigate through, try out some usability testing:
Approach a few people - family or friends and ask them to participate in a quick test.
Get them to go through the process of ordering something from a few of the most successful online stores like Amazon (they don't have to completely finish the process - just get as far as payment).
Then get them to try doing the same on your site. Watch them work through it and get them to give you objective feedback.
This can be very valuable in seeing if your user finds it easy to navigate through or if they are feeling a bit stuck in certain areas.
To successfully sell products online, you need good promotional activities in place so you can attract visitors to your site and then you need to persuade them to buy your products or services. Once you manage to get them all the way to the shopping cart, you want to make sure that you do everything possible to make the sale happen. But studies show that nearly 75% of all shopping carts are abandoned! So all that hard work in getting them that far, is pretty much wasted.
So why do people leave carts? A leading Customer Experience Management (CEM) research firm conducted a study that explained the reasons. They studied the purchase experiences of 719 customers and found the main reasons for leaving a shopping cart are as follows:
High shipping prices (72%)
Comparison shopping or browsing (61%)
Changed mind (56%)
Saving items for later purchase (51%)
Total cost of items is too high (43%)
Checkout process is too long (41%)
Checkout requires too much personal information (35%)
Last year was a huge year with major changes in the way that people have used the Internet, which in turn changed the way businesses market their products and services. 2011 is set to follow the trends started in 2010. Here are our top 8 picks of the some of the predictions:
1. Video will continue to rise
With the rise of mobile handsets that have video capability, the use of video has become very common and this year video will become very important for sales and support. The growth of streaming TV with Apple TV, Google TV and Zune, TV will become more popular. These technologies will make it easier and give users more choice to watch TV as they like and when they like. This will also cause a huge amount of bandwidth to be used up both through cables and mobile. It is predicted that this will slow down the Internet so it's still very important that websites are fast loading.
2. Growing cloud computing
There will be a rise in web apps following the success of mobile apps and as a result cloud computing will grow. This means a lot of content will be shared online - documents, files, videos and audio.
3. Social media will continue to grow
Experts everywhere believe that social media is here to stay and it will no longer be considered new or an optional marketing activity. People now expect to be able to communicate with businesses on multiple platforms and instantly. As a result, businesses will start integrating social media into their other marketing activities - with a focus on ROI. Facebook has developed a great weekly reporting system along with analytics on every post which makes it easy to measure the level of interaction.
4. Referrals based on network
Search engines have already started including results which include any mentions from anyone in your social network to do with your search phrase. This will start to grow even further as your network will start influencing your search behaviour even more. Users will be able to see who in their network knows the dentist they are researching or went to school with the accountant they are looking into.
5. Online advertising
More business will start testing out online advertising - not just with Google Adwords but also Facebook and Gmail advertising which will be content based and highly targeted.
6. Email marketing
Despite the rise in social media marketing and online advertising, email marketing will still be a strong player in marketing activities for businesses. It will still be seen as a low-cost and highly effective tool to promote products and services.
7. Mobile marketing
Marketing on mobile devices has been talked about a few times over the last few years but finally it is predicted to take shape this year, especially for the small business market. This doesn't meant that more businesses will start texting or using mobile ads but instead it's about offering mobile payment systems and any apps related to it. Increase in usage of location-based social media like Foursquare means that location-based offers could come into play in 2011.
8. Local searches will become prominent
Searches relating to a particular location will start becoming very prominent in 2011. The potential to attract new customers via local search is massive. Depending on the IP address of the computer, search engines are already able to provide search results relative to the location. Now with mobile devices, it's even easier for Google to find out the exact location of the user and therefore provide them with very targeted search results. This provides a massive opportunity for small businesses like restaurants, accommodation facilities, lawyers, plumbers, retail etc. so getting your web pages optimised for location will become very important.
In this article, we are taking you through a "simplified version" of the exact process our Google Adwords specialist follows to arrive at the right phrases (we simplified it a little to make it a bit easier). We encourage you to follow this process but please note that it is complex and there is no other way to simplify it without losing value. If you feel that the full process is too difficult to follow, you can get started on the first couple of steps which will still give you a good idea of what your customers are searching for on Google. Otherwise, you might be interested in our Pay per click (Google Adwords) service, which includes a keyword analysis - contact us to find out more.
Tools for the job
We recommend that you use Microsoft Excel spreadsheet or a similar package to follow this process - and you will need to have sound Excel skills to complete this process. You will also need access to the Google Adwords Keyword tool.
Step 1: Brainstorm seed keywords
Brainstorm all the phrases your customer could be typing into Google to find your business. Now put yourself in the shoes of your customer and imagine yourself in front of Google. What would you type into the search field to find a solution to your problem? This means starting with 'seeds' which is an idea and then thinking of a few search phrases under each seed. So for Zeald's Give a duck website which sells rubber ducks for charity - one seed might be 'rubber duck', another might be 'toy', etc.
Think about the primary search phrases that describe your website or industry in general i.e., for the rubber duck website we would use "childrens toys".
Make a big list of phrases - think of every possible scenario including local searches like 'rubber duck nz'.
Consider famous brands that you might also stock as part of your business - be careful to not use a competitor brand though.
Also consider related topical themes like "baby shower gift" that might have low competition than say "childrens toy" but still has high traffic.
Solve the problems of your target market
For large catalogues consider different product categories. For example rubber duck is a small catalogue, but it might be just one category of a larger childrens toys website.
Step 2: Segment the keywords
Group the phrases you have come up with into various themes, usually the 'seed' you start with can be the segment heading. The segments might be for different product groups that your company offers. Or they could be different target customer groups searching for your company's products and services in different ways. Consider different uses of the same product or different target customers or the same customer at different buying stages.
For a traditional website that does not have a large catalogue, you should have up to 5 different segments initially. You will use these to optimise your homepage and the site in general.
A large catalogue website may have many more than 5 segments. For example an automotive parts website might have many different themes, such as brake parts, windscreens, wheels, oil, cleaning products, etc. To begin with, you should focus on the general theme of the website which would be something like "auto products", or "car parts", etc. You can repeat this exercise later to research the different categories.
Step 3: Determine search volume
We can determine the volume of each of the search phrases you have brainstormed using Google's Adwords Keyword Tool. This tool also allows you to determine search volume of a phrase specific to New Zealand or other geographic locations.
Once you have setup a Google Adwords account and logged in, click on 'Reporting and Tools' in the menu bar and select 'Keyword Tool'.
First thing change your geographical location to match your business, i.e., for Give a duck this would be New Zealand. Click on 'Advanced Options' (next to United States and English) and choose the your desired location.
Now copy and paste your seed keywords, one segment at a time into the 'Word or phrase' box and click 'search'. Google will come back with a big list of search phrases related to your seed word segment along with search volumes for each.
On the left hand menu, Set the 'Match type' to be 'Phrase' - Google will return the search results with quotes around the phrases which are the exact search phrases in the order that you typed into the box. It might have additions around it like adding 'buy'. This step will be very helpful later on when you start a PPC campaign.
Export the results to Excel using the Download button. Copy and paste the results into an Excel spread sheet - call the tab something like 'Primary keywords'.
Keep the words in keyword groups by adding a new column at the start of the sheet and filling it with the segment title, i.e., rubber duck. So every keyword should have the relevant segment heading next to it.
Repeat this for each segment and make sure that you run a separate keyword search for every different geographical location. Keep adding the search results back into the Primary Keywords tab and write the name of the segment heading next to the words for each word.
Step 4 - Shortlist your words
We now need to shortlist the phrases to a more manageable number:
1. Tidy the spreadsheet
You can do this by removing unused columns, leaving just the following columns:
Global Monthly Searches
Local Monthly Searches
Estimated average CPC
Advertiser competition
Plus keyword phrases and segment headings of course
2. Shortlist by search volume
Order by 'local search volume' or 'global search volume' depending on the location of your primary target market so that the most popular terms appear at the top. Use the Excel sort function for this operation.
Delete all the rows which have 0 or low search volume, maybe 10% or 20% of your total search phrases depending on how many you have and how thorough you want to be with this process. The less phrases you have the quicker it will be but the greater the chance you could miss out on a golden opportunity.
3. Shortlist by relevancy
Remove all duplicates. Because we have researched the popularity of each keyword segment separately with Google Adwords, there is bound to be some cross over. We need to remove this crossover. You can use the 'Remove duplicates' option under the 'Data' tab within Excel. Make sure that you choose the 'Keyword' column only.
Work your way down each keyword/phrase and remove any rows that are obviously not relevant to your business. For example the phrase "Toy story3" is the name of a movie with a large number of page views and not really relevant to our business. Likewise with "wooden toys".
Consider removing competitor brand names. It is not considered good practice to use competitor brand names. For example with the Give a duck website we would remove the phrase "Toys are us" because this is a competitor.
Consider commercial intent. There is a tool available online which can give you a bit of guidance on commercial intent if you are not sure of a certain phrase yourself. Click on the 'query' button, type in the search phrase and click go. The result is a percentage so 'commercial intent of .29' indicates a commercial intent of 29% and 'non-commercial intent .29' indicates a commercial intent of 81%. Phrases with really low commercial intent can be removed as well.
This is a long and can be tedious task that requires a lot of concentration.....have lots of caffeine on hand.
Once you are done re-order the spreadsheet based on the 'Group' first and then the 'local/global monthly searches' using the 'Sort & filter' function.
Pheeeew ! Well done!
If you have followed this whole process, well done! Now you have a comprehensive list of keywords grouped into relevant themes, and ordered by their popularity.
You should also have a sound understanding for the type of language that your target customers are using online.
You should have had many different insights and hopefully discovered some nice little opportunities.
What next?
Now you can setup a PPC (Google Adwords) campaign using these search phrases and the themes you have created will form your Adgroups. You can then craft your ad-creative using the search phrase from each group with the highest popularity as your headline.
Stay tuned for our next article on setting up your own PPC campaign. It's best to work on a PPC campaign before starting with optimising your website for organic search engine rankings because PPC will give you a clear idea of which of these keyword segments and phrases are working well for your business in terms of results. Based on that you can start working on your search engine optimisation.
Keywords are the words or phrases people type into search engines like Google to find products and services that might relate to your business.
Why is it important to do a keyword analysis for your business?
1. Doing a thorough keyword analysis means that you will be putting all your efforts and investment into getting your site to the top of Google rankings for search phrases that are relevant to your business. And for phrases that people are actually looking for in the biggest numbers. This will help send targeted quality traffic to your website.
2. Going through the process of identifying your keywords will also help you learn the language of your target customers. Too many businesses use jargon that they are familiar with, but their customers don't understand what that might mean. Speaking the same language as your customers can improve your conversion.
3. You can spend a lot of time, money and resources to obtain and hold a good ranking for a search phrase. If later down the track you realise that you didn't get the right search phrases, it can be difficult to change your target phrases. This is because part of ranking well in search engines involves getting links to your site from other credible sites. An important part of those links is the 'anchor text'. 'Anchor text' is the visual text on the page that links to a site. For example in this article, one of the anchor texts is 'Pay-Per-Click campaigns' (below). The anchor text should incorporate your target search phrases for a good Google ranking. It's difficult to change the anchor text on other websites, therefore finding the right keyword phrases will prevent this from happening.
4. Knowing the right keywords is the starting point to setting up effective Pay-Per-Click campaigns.
An example...
A pig hunter ran an online business selling pig hunting DVDs internationally. Doing a keyword analysis revealed that very few of his target customers actually referred to it as 'pig hunting'. His American customers referred to it as 'hog hunting'. His European customers referred to it as 'boar hunting' and only Australian and New Zealand customers called it 'pig hunting'.
A quick check on Google Insights can show this information:
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Keywords are the words or phrases people type into search engines like Google to find products and services that might relate to your business.
