What Botox teaches us about eggs in baskets

December 17, 2011 Google Adwords, Website Promotion No Comments

In the past there have been a few Custwin blogs about Botox and its gradual death within Google Adwords.   Since then we’ve had numerous visits to the website from people who have used various search phrases related to Botox and Adwords.   The screenshot below shows just a few of the types of phrases typed (and how many people typed each phrase) …

Numerous clinics/people offering Botox to potential clients found themselves in a position where they dropped off the face of the Internet when Google eventually banned all Botox-related adverts.

The evidence of the impact is clear to see – you just have to look at the data we collected (via the link below) to see just those people who found their way to our blogs, having typed phrases related to Botox and Adwords, probably desperate to find the answers to their sudden lack of website traffic and enquiries …

http://www.a1webstats.com/stats/view-report.aspx?ReportID=8E38BBA9-1A88-4388-B9AF-D9BC7F266D1D

So was it ‘big bad Google’ that butchered the ability of Botox injections providers to gain business?  Well, yes (obviously), but they had their reasons.  But those business owners can’t blame only Google.

They can blame themselves.

When it comes to websites, laziness is the enemy of businesses.  Getting a Google Adwords campaign set up with Botox keyword phrases was, once upon a time, a good idea.  But done alone, it’s laziness.  Pay for clicks, get the traffic, convert the traffic, make the money, pay for more clicks.  Simple, but ultimately stupid if done alone.

The cleverer Botox providers had an arsenal of other marketing methods.  These could have included:

• Organic search engine positioning (in more than just Google)
• Print advertising in local media
• Local radio advertising
• Printed material in local public places (e.g. posters)
• Email newsletters
• Facebook
• Twitter
• …. the list goes on

The law of averages means that the more forms of marketing you’re using, the less impact there will be if one of those marketing methods fails for some reason.  This would apply regardless of marketing method used.

So, what Botox teaches us about eggs in baskets is that when you put your eggs in purely the Google Adwords basket you put yourself at the risk of a serious amount of yolk on the floor.  When you buy a series of smaller ‘marketing’ baskets that can contain only a few eggs in each, you are putting yourself and your business in a much safer position.

Winning business from email newsletter subscribers

December 3, 2011 Email Newsletters, Website Analytics 2 Comments

If you send out a regular email newsletter, how many of the readers convert to business?

More specifically, what can you be doing to nurture people towards doing business with you?

One thing you can do is use website analytics to reverse engineer certain website visitor patterns back to the original email newsletter subscriber.  Here’s a recent example to show how it works, in this case using A1WebStats (tracking) in combination with Campaign Monitor (used to send out and monitor the email newsletters) …

Step 1 – find something worth digging into

One of the Custwin email newsletters referred to A1WebStats, providing a link to the website.  We, of course, can see where website visitors originated from.  Looking at the screenshot below you can see that the person came in to the A1WebStats website, via a Custwin blog (see the ‘Referrer’ line) and they looked at the pages showing the prices and how to make A1WebStats work for them …

At this stage we think “hmmm, there may be an interest there, because they went further than the blog itself”.

Step 2 – track backwards

That person entered the A1WebStats website at 12:08.  By looking at our Custwin webstats we can see that only one person was looking at the website around that time and so it has to be them.  If you look at the screenshot below you can see similarities (e.g. location, browser, IP address etc.), so it’s clearly the same person.  You can also see that although they appeared to spend 2 minutes 44 seconds looking at the Custwin blog entry, that was the time they went off to the A1WebStats website, which they left at about 12:09 and then continued looking at the Custwin blogs at 12:10  …

The picture we’ve built up so far is that the person who ended up on the A1WebStats website and was looking at pricing, initially landed on the Custwin website and looked at blogs.  We also know that they came from our email newsletter that was sent a couple of days beforehand.

Now all we need to do is match up the date/time that the person landed on the Custwin website (2^nd December, around 12pm) with our Campaign Monitor information …

Step 3 – identify the person

We looked at our Campaign Monitor data and found only one person who clicked through from our email newsletter on 2^nd December around 2pm.  The screenshot below shows what they were looking at on the email newsletter around that time …

Ignore the fact that the location is Camberley, vs Leatherhead in the A1WebStats information – that’s purely down to IP techie stuff.  The person is actually from neither location and we know who they are.

In fact, the person is actually someone who is perfect to be white-labelling A1WebStats for their own clients.

Step 4 – nurture

So having identified the person, do we contact them and say “hey, we saw you were looking at A1WebStats and we’d love to have a chat”?  We could do, but the whole ‘webstats tracking’ thing can appear a bit creepy to some people so it’s often better to be more subtle.

We actually had a message from them recently about having a catch up.   We replied but nothing got organised.  We’ve now been back to them again about meeting up.  As part of that conversation, we’ll be talking about A1WebStats and we’ll know that they already know a certain amount about it.   There will be the opportunity to show that person how it can benefit them and their clients.   There are, of course, no guarantees but it’s always worth trying.   If that moves forwards we may blog about it as a follow up in the future, to demonstrate how the flow of business often starts from blogs/newsletters/information and can lead onto a lot more.

Conclusion

For most companies the process of analysis is really easy and can boil down to a few steps …

1. Create a regular email newsletter containing various articles, and always linking people back to your website.
2. Ensure that email newsletter is sent out using a system that allows you to track when people open and click on articles.  Commonly used systems are Mailchimp and Campaign Monitor.
3. About a week after the email newsletter has gone out, go to your webstats package and highlight the people who have landed on a particular website page (one of your articles linked to from your email newsletter).
4. If any of those website visitors went further than the article(s), e.g. to look at pages showing the services you offer or people you work with, then that could be a potential buying signal.   You would typically expect to see perhaps 1 in 20 people go further than the page they landed on from an email newsletter article.  They become ‘the potential’.
5. For those website visitors who looked as if they may be interested in more than just the article they read, reverse analyse their path to your website.  This is simply a case of matching up the date/time they landed on your website with the dates/times that people clicked through from your email newsletter (which you can see from systems such as Mailchimp or Campaign Monitor).
6. Then consider how you may be able to nurture that person in a non-threatening way.

Time-consuming?  Yes – perhaps.  A job that anyone in your company could do, if they’re taught what to look out for?  Absolutely.  All YOU want to know is the useful information and if you’ve got someone else who can be looking out for it then it makes sense to work in that way (says me, who has gone through the process here myself!!).

Case studies on websites

November 30, 2011 Website Development, Website Strategy No Comments

This week has witnessed a tale of three companies, each of which had a differing attitude towards case studies on websites.

Tale 1

The first is a client company who, through being busy, didn’t get round to creating case studies to go on their website.  However, we eventually got their commitment to create case studies related to a particular service they offered.

The difference was highly noticeable.  From a service page without case studies to a service page with 3 case studies and a link to more, the change was a significant increase in enquiries gained about that particular service.  The exact words of the client were: “we can see now that you were right and we’re now going to dedicate more time to creating case studies for our other services”.

Result: a client that will see business continue to grow, through showing potential customers not just what they can do, but what they have done for other customers.  Who cares whether a company ‘can’ make widgets?   What people care about are the widgets that have been made for people and how great those widgets were.

Tale 2

The second example is a relatively new client, a company that is well established and is always busy, but has an eye to the future (and so wants to develop the website further).  For over 2 months now I’ve been trying to get case studies from the client but them being busy has stopped that from happening.  There is no doubt that within no time of them having such case studies live on the website, that website visitors will be enquiring at a higher rate.

But time is the enemy and because only they know their subject well enough, it’s hard to get anyone else to create the case studies.

So I’m going to see them next week, having got commitment to a couple of hours within which we will do nothing but create case studies.  Them talking about the jobs done, and me creating the case studies.  Painful?  Yes.  Necessary? Yes.

Tale 3

The final example is a conversation with a previous client from years ago.  They now want to move their website forwards and before ‘signing up’ want an idea of what Custwin would be doing and what would be expected of them.  It’s very clear that they need a raft of case studies related to the products they’re selling BUT they have yet to be convinced that it’s worthwhile them investing time in it.  I’ve said that I’d be willing to sit with them and create case studies but even before that being accepted, they still need to be convinced case studies are needed (even though to me it’s blatantly obvious).

This is where website statistics come into play because there’s simple maths that can be applied:

1. Take the number of website visitors in the month.
2. Subtract those website visitors that don’t appear to be ‘useful’.
3. Compare that number to the number of enquiries gained in the month.

All the time that the enquiries to ‘useful visitors’ ratio is too low then it shouts out that the website needs to be strengthened (in this case, starting with case studies).

We’ll see where that goes but I’m hoping that the previous trust built up with the client company will result in a dedication to at least measure what’s currently being achieved from the website, before then pushing forwards through the creation of case studies.

Not convinced yet that you need lots of case studies on your website?

So, one week and three different viewpoints on whether case studies are important within websites.   If you don’t have any, or much, in the way of case studies on your website then the recommendation is to take some time out and create just a handful that can then be made live on your website.   Then track the people who look at those case studies and see how much of a difference it makes to enquiry levels.  Once convinced that case studies on websites are important then build them up higher and higher.

Analysing website visitors from mobiles

November 30, 2011 Google Adwords, Website Analytics No Comments

We’ve been working on a Google Adwords campaign for an American client recently and the results have surprised us.

The campaign is targeting people in the US who are searching for phrases like ‘free apps’, ‘free apps for my cell phone’, and numerous variations. Although the focus of the client business is very much ‘apps’, our original thinking was that we would be attracting potential buyers searching from desktop/laptop based computers. After all, if you want to get ‘free apps’ then it’s usually a lot easier to search and view via a larger screen (than a mobile phone).

The screenshot below shows a very different picture. It shows that the vast majority of people used Android to search on those phrases (e.g. ‘free apps’). These are people who then clicked on the Adwords adverts …

The screenshot shows only the top 7 of browser/operating system combinations but it’s noticeable that Internet Explorer, Chrome, and Firefox (all on Windows) between them only made up 302 of the 1,890 people who clicked on the Google adverts. That’s just 16%, meaning that 84% of Adwords adverts got clicked by people using mobile devices.

OK, there are two key points screaming out here:

1. The business focus is very much ‘mobile’ and so it’s perhaps natural that people would search on their mobile devices and click through on the Adwords adverts.
2. The campaign is running in the USA, which is, to be fair, much more ‘mobile’ in its attitude than here in the UK.
3. The target market for the US client is people born in the 1990’s.

The reality (for now) in the UK is that PC/Mac based searching, is going to remain dominant for quite some time (in most business sectors). However, in some business sectors searchers will lean more towards mobile (e.g. consumer brands).

Every business, regardless of sector, should be keeping an eye on which browsers/operating systems people are using in order to find their website. The reality is that, for now, the ‘mobile’ type searchers are going to be low and so it’s perfectly acceptable to check such things once every couple of months.

How do you check which browsers/operating systems people are using?

The answer is Google Analytics. It’s free, easy to get set up on your website, and for certain types of information like this, it’s useful. By monitoring which browsers and operating systems your website visitors use, and mapping it out (e.g. on a graph) from month to month, you’ll start to see changes in trends and, at the appropriate time, may want to adjust your online presence to cater for the mobile market in a better way than it currently does.

How much does a Google Adwords consultant cost?

November 29, 2011 Google Adwords No Comments

That was the search phrase used to find the Custwin website recently, as you can see in the screenshot below …

Because the person had taken the time to look through our website we took the time to contact them (they had signed up for the email newsletter) to help answer their question because it’s a very good question.

A Google Adwords consultant can cost from a very small amount per month through to a ridiculous amount per month.  However, there is a recommended path to help whittle them down to a shortlist, having identified a few to contact …

1. If they jump in straight away with a cost to work on Adwords campaigns then discard them immediately.  They will be purely interested in getting the business from you.
2. If they ask you some important questions, then consider them further.  Such questions would include:
   1. Do you know how many visitors you get to your website each month, and how many of those convert into enquiries?
   2. Have you had your website fully analysed to identify weaknesses that would stop Adwords clicks from adequately converting into enquiries/business?
   3. Are you prepared to make website changes that will help convert more visitors into enquiries?

Yes, an Adwords consultant could set up a campaign, working within a clicks budget, and it could convert clicks to enquiries.  But if the website isn’t strong enough then the conversion rate is going to be low.  The end result of that is:

1. The Adwords consultant gets paid for their work and they’re gone.
2. Google gain revenues from the clicks.
3. The website owner feels robbed because their perception is that “Adwords doesn’t work”.

In my view, a good Google Adwords consultant shouldn’t consider themselves to be an Adwords consultant.   Instead they should look on themselves as being a website profitability consultant because Adwords doesn’t work effectively without website strength.

Many many times we’ve spoken to people who want Adwords campaigns and we’ve (nicely) referred to website weaknesses that should be strengthened before spending any money at all on Adwords.

It’s the same rule as with organic SEO – if someone wants to charge money to raise positioning in Google then run a mile if they haven’t asked the same important questions that you should ask a potential Adwords consultant.  Whatever the traffic source, if it costs money then that traffic needs to convert into business.  And if that means holding back on advertising a business while the website is strengthened then so be it.

The costs of an Adwords or organic SEO consultant need to be recouped over a period of time.   Maybe not instantly but over a period of months.  If a consultant is willing to work with you over a longer period of time, rather than earn a big wedge of money upfront then that makes them much more accountable and so potentially of more value to you.

Website success through easy maths

November 26, 2011 Website Analytics, Website Strategy 1 Comment

People new to me often say: “my website doesn’t get me enough business – how can I make it a success?”.

The answer to that starts with some simple maths that works as follows …

Add up

… all your website visitors during a period of time (typically, a month).  Google Analytics and other website statistics packages will give you this figure.

If the total is less than around 300

… then your website doesn’t really have enough traffic to expect results from.  Focus on targeted, but gradual and inexpensive, promotion of your website to raise numbers.

If the total is more than around 300

… you at least have some figures to be meaningful. So ….

Subtract the rubbish

… this means look through all the individual visits to your website and subtract all those who don’t look like being ‘useful’ visits.  For example, people you can identify as competitors, students doing research from college, search engines visiting your website, you or your staff on your website.  There are many types of ‘not-useful’ visitors.

This bit isn’t quite so easy with most basic website statistics packages but a free trial of A1WebStats will help you here by showing you the information that you can subtract.

Determine the ‘useful visitors’ figure

… meaning: see how many of your overall website visitors were potentially useful to you (based on what they searched for and which pages they looked at on your website, plus also companies they visited from).

Divide enquiries gained by ‘useful visitors’

… however many enquiries you gained during the month, divide those by the number of ‘useful visitors’ (NOT by the overall visitors because that gives a false figure).

If the result is anything above 5% then smile

… based on work we’ve done over the years, if you are getting at least 5% of your ‘useful’ website visitors converting into enquiries then you’re on the right path.  For some sectors/focus areas we set an expectation of at least 10%   Anything above about 15% useful clicks to enquiries ratio is pretty much unheard of.

Equals

Enquiries gained divided by Useful Visitors equals your starting point.  Do this for 2-3 months to build up a proper picture and then consider getting help to raise the success of your website (if you need it).

Google Adwords poor customer service

November 25, 2011 Google Adwords 5 Comments

No, I’m not talking about when you speak to Google, I’m talking about the Google Adwords system providing a poor service to the customers, i.e. those people who are searching for anything within Google.

This is right at the top of my list of annoyances with the Google Adwords system and it flies in the face of Google’s so-called ‘quality’ message they keep spouting on about.

The wish

To use Google Adwords to advertise a product/treatment called Dermal Fillers so that when people are searching for them within a geographical area, they can see the advert and hopefully click on it.

The process

Create a series of keyword phrases such as:

• Dermal fillers Bexley
• Bexley dermal fillers

(and similar)

Link them to a relevant advert such as:

Dermal Fillers in Bexley
We’ve Been Delighting Our Dermal
Fillers Clients For Over 10 Years.

Give it a budget and let it run.

The result

Google rejects the keyword phrases because they are apparently ‘Low search volume’. According to Google, if they consider a keyword phrase to be low search volume then they won’t allow the advert to be displayed, regardless of how much budget is being offered.

End result: a campaign that can’t run because Google won’t allow it.

So, let’s see what adverts Google WILL allow if someone searches on a phrase such as ‘dermal fillers Bexley’ (i.e. someone who actually wants dermal fillers in the Bexley area) …

First, those in the yellow box …

And then some of those in the right-hand column …

See anything glaring about them?

That’s right – not one of them refers to Bexley! So, for the person searching for ‘dermal fillers Bexley’ they see Pay Per Click results that are generic and don’t refer to Bexley. Are they going to click on those adverts? Possibly, but after clicking on a few they’re not going to bother looking at others if there’s nothing catering for Bexley.

What happens in reality

Google is effectively saying to the advertiser:

“I know that your advert is highly specific but hey, we’d rather stop you from being visible and instead allow you to go head-to-head competing against other advertisers who all want to be visible under the much more generic ‘dermal fillers’ phrase”

You could type into Google ‘dermal fillers for my dog’ and you’d still see those same adverts appear, which shows that they’re all visible because of the ‘dermal fillers’ that the advertisers have chosen to be visible under (obviously, no-one would need dermal fillers for a dog!).

So the person searching for ‘dermal fillers Bexley’ may click on a few of those adverts but they’ll be disappointed because they don’t cover their geographical area of interest. The searcher feels cheated and the advertisers have paid for irrelevant clicks. So the searcher thinks that the adverts are rubbish and is less likely to click on those adverts in the future – which means that Google lose out.

What should happen

The Google Adwords system needs a good shake-up.

If an advertiser wants to be visible under ‘dermal fillers Bexley’ and accepts that even though there may not be huge searches for that phrase but they’re accept that, then that should be their right to be visible when people type that phrase!

The Google Adwords system should see such a keyword phrase and effectively think “ok, if someone searches for that phrase then we’ll make the advert visible right at the top because:

a) there’s a good match between the search phrase, the advert, and the website, and;

b) it’s more relevant than the other adverts that could display.

However, IF the ‘dermal fillers Bexley’ advert doesn’t get a strong enough level of clicks then we’ll penalise it”.

That is a completely fair system for Google to adopt.

But Google won’t do that.  Why?

Because it’s much more profitable for Google to stop advertisers from having their niche keyword phrases triggering highly-specific adverts.  Those advertisers are then forced down a path of using generic phrases (such as ‘dermal fillers’), which are more expensive per click.

The ultimate effect of all this

Searchers have to take longer to find what they are looking for in Google (which takes up their valuable time).

Searchers also think that the pay per click listings are poor, which makes them less likely to click on them in the future.

Potential advertisers can’t advertise under niche phrases, instead having to pay higher costs per click competing against everyone else who has to advertise generically. This makes the advertisers cost per acquisition higher, which damages their business strength.

Google win in the short term (people feeling as if they HAVE to abide by Google’s Adwords rules and so paying for expensive clicks) but long term will, I feel, take a right kicking if something seriously competitive comes along. Are you listening Bing.com, you ’slow-to-wake-up-to-opportunities-beast’?

There’s always a website worse than yours

November 24, 2011 Google Adwords, Website Development, Website Strategy No Comments

Sometimes it may feel that you have the worst website in your industry.   Day to day the visitor enquiries are non-existent or very low, and you think things are bad with your website.

We’ve reviewed and helped literally thousands of websites in our time and although there’s little excuse for having an underperforming website, it can sometimes be comforting that there are people out there with a worse website and focus than yours.

This one will appeal particularly to people in the holidays industry.  There are some brilliant websites in the holidays industry, particularly the niche holiday websites.  Then there are those in the middle ground.  And sometimes you find something that is spectacularly off target.

We had an enquiry come in recently and it said:

“i run a travel agency ..i do advertising on google. i want to buy 50 to 100 keywords for a year and i want them to be on top..can you please tell me how much it will cost me for a year?”

Apart from it being one of those ‘how long is a ball of string?’ questions (and actually impossible to answer even if knowing what keyword phrases were wanted), the focus was very much on advertising.

A bit of dialogue later and it turned out that the person wanted to be visible under various ‘holidays’ type phrases.  So I looked at their main navigation bar as there was nothing else jumping out from their website saying ‘holidays’.  I won’t name the company because that would embarrass them (no, they’ve not become a client – they ran very fast when they were told how much work they’d need to do in order to justify using Google Adwords).  That navigation bar displays as:

Nothing about holidays in there.

Eventually I worked out that if you click on ‘Flights’ it takes you to what is their holidays page and you can see a sample below …

Putting aside me wondering whether ‘Adeliade’ is anywhere near ‘Adelaide’ (I have a degree in being pedantic about website errors), I thought “hmmm, Adelaide for £811 – let’s look at that” and I clicked on the box.

Well, I tried to click on it.  But it doesn’t go any deeper.

On discussing that with the website owner they were surprised that anyone might actually want to look at details of the holidays on offer and “surely they’d see the price and ring up to find out more?”

So, we’re at the point where this company wants to spend money on sending Google Adwords clicks to a website that is woefully inadequate.  In fact, it makes even mediocre holiday websites look good.   At that point I (nicely) said that I wouldn’t be prepared to set up such an Adwords campaign and that they’d be advised to run a mile from anyone who would be prepared to (before the website is strengthened).

I suspect that they’ll do exactly that. God forbid, they’ll go directly to Google who will quite happily help them set up an Adwords campaign that links through to a rubbish website (they have a department dedicated to doing just that).   It was very clear from the conversation that they had an Adwords tunnel vision and nothing mattered more than sending traffic to the website.  Unfortunately, this is a common disease that can lead to financial death.

Maybe it’s time that we had some sort of central system where business owners can submit their website details and ask for people to grade it on various factors (design, content, depth, etc.).  Just a quick 2 minute appraisal ticking boxes and maybe adding in a few comments.  Everyday people could respond, as could website professionals.  The intention wouldn’t be to sales-pitch services on offer but to give just a small bit of time to website owners that need a collective view (rather than one opinion) of where their website needs to be stronger.

With such a rating system in place, people like me would be less likely to get enquiries about Adwords from people who are clearly not yet ready to line the pockets of Google.

11 for 11-11-11

November 11, 2011 Website Development, Website Strategy No Comments

Any excuse to come up with some website success tips, in recognition of today being the 11^th of the 11^th 2011, here are 11 tips that will help you gain more business from your website if you spend just a bit of time on one or more of them …

1. Increase your blogging frequency

   Blogs that are useful to people help to keep you in their minds for when they may need your products/services, or may be able to recommend you onto others.  If you don’t blog, then create just one a month.  If you do blog, then increase the frequency.   If you’re completely stuck on how to get started then take a look at http://jododdssocialmedia.com/op/business-blogging-2/business-bloggers-manual/ – a real bargain.

2. Follow up with 11 website visitors who didn’t make contact

   If people from companies visit your website but don’t make contact then it makes sense to see if you can salvage something (by making contact with them).  If you don’t have the ability to identify companies that have visited your website then take a look at http://www.a1webstats.com/what-is-a1webstats/a1webstats-features/companies-visited/ and take advantage of the free trial.

   And if you’re asking yourself the question “how do I know which person within the visiting company came to my website?”, the answer is “you don’t”.  However, using systems like LinkedIn and your existing contacts, you may find a route into that company.  If nothing else, a cold call to that company, trying to get through to someone who may have been interested in your products/services, has got to be worth a try.   Following the ‘11’ theme, if you contacted 11 companies who you know visited your website, and only 1 of them came to anything, you’ve still won more than you would have done by not doing anything.

3. Boost your testimonials

   How many testimonials do you have on your website?  Do you have testimonials related to specific products or services that you provide?  Do you think that potential customers could be more likely to make contact with you, having visited your website, if you have more testimonials from happy customers?

   Boosting the number of testimonials on your website by even just one is a step in the right direction.

4. Analyse the competition

   Select a phrase that you want to be/are visible under within Google.  Type it in and spend a bit of time looking through the websites of competitors.  What are they doing on their websites that make you think “that’s a nice touch”?    Replicate it and then beat it in some way.

5. Make a small website change

   If you know how many enquiries your website typically generates as a percentage of website visitors, then you’ll probably like to increase that.   By making just one small website change you can improve the website visitor experience.  For example, you could put in some fresh graphics, add in a video, offer something for free, or change the font to be nicer.   If you’ve followed tip 4 above you’ll probably have plenty of ideas for making changes.   Then sit back and see how that has an impact on visitors vs enquiries.  If it’s successful then make another small change.

6. Analyse your biggest landing page

   Apart from your home page, see which page of your website has most people landing on it (e.g. from search engines).   Analyse how each of those visitors then navigates through your website.  What did they type (e.g. into Google) to find that biggest landing page?   How many of them moved beyond that landing page?  Do you think their visits were a success for you?

   Don’t know how to dig deep into people who land on certain website pages?  Take a look at http://www.a1webstats.com/what-is-a1webstats/a1webstats-features/entry-exit-pages/ and feel free to sign up for the free trial.

7. Write something fantastic

   What could you write, as an article/blog within your website, that you think is the best article on that particular subject?   If you invested the time to create such an article and then made it visible online (e.g. get involved in online discussions about the subject and refer people back to your article), then surely that would bring traffic and interest back to your website?

   Everyone has at least one world-beating article inside them – it’s just a case of putting fingers to keyboard and start typing.   Create the article, promote it online, and then monitor it (see tip 6) to see when people click through to that page of your website.

8. Highlight your contact details

   People are short of time.   When they look through your website they may get to a certain page that interests them the most.   If your contact details (phone number and email are sufficient) are highly visible on every page of your website then it makes it easy for people to make contact with you (instead of having to go to a contact details page, where they won’t be able to still see the page that was of most interest to them).

9. Offer a guarantee

   What can you offer as a guarantee related to one or more of  your services or products?   If you had a big bold ‘Guarantee’ type graphic that links through to a page that explains the guarantee, could that give people more reason to buy from you/make contact?   Be big and bold and show people that you’re good enough to offer a 100% no quibble guarantee.  You will notice your enquiries to visitors ratio increase as a result.

10. Pick a poor performer

    Identify a page of your website that doesn’t get much traffic (see http://www.a1webstats.com/what-is-a1webstats/a1webstats-features/visited-pages/ for how to do this) and ask yourself whether it matters that the page doesn’t get much attention. If you think it’s a valuable page within your website then consider how you could adapt other parts of your website so that they point to that page in a better way.

11. Set a figure-based goal

    Just because of the blog subject, pick a number as the figure to base a goal on. For example, if you have 50 people who contact you via your website, over a 3 month period, set a target of an 11% increase over the following 3 months, and do whatever you need to in order for that to happen. Or, if your website traffic needs to be higher, set a percentage (11%?!) increase that you want to achieve within a certain timescale.

    Whatever the goal it needs to be related to you gaining more business from your website and it needs to be written down and measured at milestones along the way.

Keep watching for a similar blog on 12/12/12.

Google pushing PPC more again

November 3, 2011 Google Adwords No Comments

You’ve got to hand it to Google because they will innovate all the time that they think it’ll bring more money to their pockets via PPC advertising.

The search view for Google has recently changed and while on the surface it’s a cosmetic change,  there’s always an agenda that financially benefits Google.   The screenshot below shows a search for ‘private schools’ – can you spot the difference to how it would have been viewed before?

The ‘on the surface’ difference is that the map graphic on the right is much more of a rectangle, which looks kind of good.

The real difference though is that the organic search results don’t appear to have as much space and the PPC adverts now have a huge chunk of white space next to them.  This has the effect of drawing more attention to the PPC adverts.

It’s all very clever stuff from Google and I’m sure it’ll get more people clicking on the PPC adverts (and less people clicking on the organic search results).  But it’s yet another example of Google trying to force people into PPC advertising which can only ever push up the costs per click (as more advertisers compete for positioning).   Google win of course but for companies who want a presence in Google it’s going to become increasingly costly.

I continue to wait for Microsoft to finally wake up and work out that they can corner the ‘small business’ market with a more intelligent way of advertising via Bing.com PPC solutions.

Smaller businesses are suffering in the current economy but they have the potential to give things a kick start once they start succeeding more themselves.   A mass of smaller businesses doing better for themselves can have a much stronger impact on the economy than the bigger businesses can.   If someone (e.g. Microsoft via Bing.com) makes it easier for small businesses to advertise, cost-effectively, then Google will find itself out in the cold trying to retain advertising revenues from a search system that would have lower numbers of people using it, having started using Bing.com more and more.

If Microsoft don’t seize the opportunity then something else will come along and eat up chunks of what is currently a Google-dominated world.  I certainly wouldn’t be surprised to see some of the online directories (e.g. Applegate) really up their game to attract people to them for their searches, instead of going to the major search engines.

For now, expect to see Google continue to do whatever it can to push companies down the route towards having to use PPC advertising.