Bite Back at Google's Greed

For some types of business it's becoming harder to use Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising cost-effectively. There are numerous reasons for this but, knowing PPC as in-depth as we do, one big reason is the greed of Google.

Because we're passionate about clients getting the best return on marketing investment we're constantly looking for ways that clients can benefit while sending a clear message to Google of "if you're not cost-effective then we'll deprive you of dollars".

One such method is through making better use of online directories.

Online directories have boomed in recent years and each one has a different model that makes them money out of the investment they put into ensuring that they get strong natural search engine positioning. We're not fans of the directories that rely on displaying Sponsored Links adverts amongst the other companies listing because in our view, that's a lame way of making a small amount of revenue. However, some directories do innovate more than others and in that innovation is the opportunity for companies such as yours to gain traffic from the strong search engine positioning of those online directories.

Your starting point is to go to Google and type a range of phrases that are related to your type of business. If you're geographically targeting potential customers then it's even easier.

Here's an example:

Type 'london chiropractors' into Google and you'll see high in the natural search results a link to http://www.city-visitor.com/london/chiropractors.html. That directory has a general list of chiropractors further down the page - you could list there for free as a starting point. But what dominates the page are the Enhanced Listings because they have logos and more details about Chiropractors in the area. With prices from £200 per year for such an enhanced listing it doesn't take many new clients to recoup that cost. You can go a step further by investing in a Priority Listing (from £350), which gives you a banner at the top of the page and therefore a much more visual presence. It's almost twice the cost but it's also likely to bring in far in excess of twice the business.

The recommendation is to type in a range of phrases that you think potential customers would type into Google and you'll see what directories appear prominently (top 5 positions) in the natural search results. Most of those directories will allow you to add a free listing and many of them will have upgrade paths. Quite often you'll find that in your line of business there are few competitors taking advantage of a prominent (paid for) position in these directories. That's insanity really because if numerous people are typing phrases related to your business and a link to a directory is appearing prominently in Google then surely it makes sense to at least experiment for a period of time to assess what results you get?

Of course, if you've got a proper system of tracking where your website visitors originate from (ask us how if you don't) then you'll be able to identify how many visitors/enquirers found you via your directory listings and will be able to judge whether it's worth further investment at the time that your subscription renewal is due.

So, why not give it a go? Type a few phrases into Google and see what directories appear in the natural search results and weigh up the potential benefits versus any costs there may be to get a prominent listing in one or more of those directories.

If you'd like any further advice about listing in online directories then please do contact us. We'll be happy to advise you without any obligation to use our services.

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Client Focus: Proactivity

Proactivity isn't the name of a client but is instead what we're seeing in various clients at the moment and it's great to see!

It's fairly typical for companies to be permanently busy in the business and so issues such as 'websites' tend to take a back seat.

However, we're finding that a combination of ongoing advice to clients and also the economic downturn is having a positive effect.

In a nutshell, many clients are looking at 2009 as being a potentially tough year but are doing something about it through their online presences.

The activities vary, but include:

• Analysing visitors to websites - what companies they came from, what they typed, whether they became a lead and if not, what to do about it.
  
  
• Making changes to websites so that visitors have more reason to make contact.
  
  
• Focusing more on gaining stronger positioning in natural search engine results instead of relying purely on PPC advertising.
  
  
• Asking more questions of us - giving us the questions we love such as "we need more of .... - how can you help?"

This is good for us to see because we want clients that have a hunger to succeed and who 'get it' that their websites are a fundamentally important part of that happening.

Where all this becomes interesting though is when you consider the impact of companies (not just our clients) who are being proactive about their websites and online marketing. If some companies are being proactive and others aren't, then those that are making the effort will take business away from those who are blinkered and so it'll be those that don't have that focus who will be scratching their heads trying to work out why they're not getting as much business as they used to.

Are we in a recession? Apparently so. Do we have to accept doom and gloom? Of course not! The vast majority of companies have future success firmly within reach - they just need to gain a greater understanding of how their website can make a big difference.

Experience that 'lightbulb moment' by discovering at least one way in which your website can generate you a lot more business - contact us for a short discussion that'll give you free advice whether or not you wish to work further with us.

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Video Within Websites

As time passes, people have increasingly higher expectations from websites that they visit. They only have to look at a few other websites that have something flashy in them to make them expect the same from every website they visit.

This makes it hard for smaller businesses to retain the attention of people who visit their websites because quite often, what's flashy on other websites is beyond the budget of most small businesses.

In an ideal world, most businesses would have budget put aside so that they can make their websites at least equal to, or better than competitors. But we don't live in an ideal world. Here we look at the subject of video within websites and what the options are when budgets are restricted.

Let's say that you sell office chairs and one chair you sell is called the Ergohuman. It's an ergonomic chair that costs a few £hundred and you want to sell as many as possible. You think that you've done everything right on your website by focusing on the chair in the following ways:

• Features
• Pictures
• Price
• Options (e.g. colours)
• Free trial

But what does a typical buyer want? They want to get a better idea of how it works. Static pictures are one thing but that doesn't really get the message across properly. Of course, video would be nice to have but how many companies have money to invest in getting video made for the products they sell? Not many.

Take, for example, the website page http://www.simply-ergonomic.co.uk/shop/Ergohuman.html. It's not going to win any design awards but it has the basic details about the Ergohuman chair. What more can that site do in order to get people wanting to buy the chair from them, but working on a tight budget?

The first step is to go to the Ergohuman website and see what's available on there. Amazingly, on that site (http://ergohuman.com/), the closest you get to a video review of the chair is on the Blog/Reviews page but then you find the review has been removed when you try to click on it. It never ceases to amaze us when manufacturers of products that could so easily be demonstrated through video, don't have a good example on their own website.

So what other options are there? Well, the ever-popular YouTube is a good idea because a search on 'Ergohuman' provides several videos of people demonstrating the chairs. Although the quality of the video is often dubious it is perhaps better than nothing and all it takes is to copy the link to that video and include it within the website. Better still, include links to a few different videos to give a wider view of the product features.

Of course, it makes sense to link to videos of companies that aren't direct competitors. For example, the Ergohuman videos on YouTube are mostly US-based companies and so someone who clicks on the video link is highly unlikely to go to the US company to try and buy the chair.

So how does the inclusion of links to video look from the viewpoint of the potential customer?

It's possible that they think "ah, they couldn't afford their own video so they provide links to the video other people have made". That would be a negative view.

It's also possible that they think "they're not wasting resources on creating a flash video of their own, which means they can probably pass on cost savings to me, the customer".

But most likely they'll think "this chair is interesting, I've gone to some video links that show me how it works, I appreciate that this website has given me that option and so I may make contact with them to ask them about this chair".

For many types of business though there's no immediately obvious 'product' that lends itself to video but it's always worth getting alternative viewpoints of people you know or please do contact us as we're likely to have some ideas about how video can become a useful selling tool within your website.

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Using Negatives in PPC

PPC advertising is easy to set up according to Google. True enough. But is it easy to get the best out of it? Absolutely not unless you live and breathe it as we do.

One of the pitfalls of PPC is when you're looking purely at the PPC clicks figures each month and you make assumptions about those clicks.

On the surface it can appear that PPC isn't working because you've had hundreds of clicks to your website for your various keyword phrases but yet they're not converting to enquiries at the rate you think they should be.

Let's look at an example ...

You sell timber frames that are used for building houses and commercial buildings. You have keyword phrases such as "timber frames", "timber frame suppliers", and more.

Your PPC figures tell you that you've had 1,000 clicks during the month but you've only had a small number of enquiries in comparison.

If you're not running any form of website statistics analysis software then you'll forever wonder why your enquiry rates are so low. However, if you ARE using a decent website statistics analysis system (ask us if you need details of one we recommend) then you'll be able to identify the full keyword phrases that each person typed to bring up your PPC advert and then click through to your website.

This is where you realise that you need negatives set up in your PPC campaign.

Using the phrase 'timber frames' for example, if someone types 'oak timber frames' into Google then your advert will still appear because of 'timber frames' in the search phrase. If your timber frames aren't made of oak then you've wasted click costs. So, the PPC campaign may tell you that you've had 500 clicks for 'timber frames' but the reality could be that many of those included the word 'oak'. Google PPC won't tell you the actual phrases people typed though. It's their silent way of saying "if you're not monitoring your website traffic closely enough then we'll be happy to continue taking your budget expenditure".

Similarly, people may type a phrase such as 'timber frames for a garage' but you only supply for houses and larger buildings. Again, because you have 'timber frames' as a keyword phrase, the phrase 'timber frames for a garage' will still trigger your advert.

In both of these situations you need negatives added into your PPC campaign. So, by adding the words 'oak' and 'garage' as negatives into your campaign it means that if someone types phrases such as 'oak timber frames' or 'timber frames for a garage' then your adverts won't display and so you won't get irrelevant clicks and wasted budget.

In our experience, any company that isn't analysing their website statistics to identify the actual phrases that people type before clicking on their adverts, won't be able to identify types of phrases that don't have a strong enough link to the business and so won't be in a position to have the PPC campaign amended so that it includes negative keyword phrases and so avoids wasted clicks budget.

Custwin always encourages clients to have website statistics software running on websites because it makes the difference between average business levels gained and superior business gained through cost-effective PPC budget expenditure.

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Guarantees Within Websites

Let's face it, there's a lot of competition out there. Whatever business sector we work within, everyone is trying to get a slice of a smaller pie of business to go round.

So what can you do to try and encourage people to buy from you?

One method is to use some form of Guarantee within your website.

This is actually easier than it sounds. After all, you're in business because you're the best at what you do or you offer superior products for sale at the best prices. Whatever you do, there must be something you can guarantee and you should take the opportunity to highlight this within your website.

For example, you're a courier company and you guarantee to deliver parcels within a certain timescale. Or you may be a business consultant that guarantees £X,000 in extra monthly revenue or the clients don't pay. You could have a miracle slimming machine or product that is 100% guaranteed to make people drop a size or two.

The vast majority of businesses must have something that can be guaranteed and that guarantee should be highly visible within the website.

At Custwin we guarantee that as long as clients follow our recommendations, they'll have business that quickly exceeds their investment and continues to exceed their investment in our expertise each month (http://www.custwin.co.uk/our-guarantee.htm). Without wishing to make this look like a cheap sales-pitch, we can offer that guarantee because we have a proven method of success and know that it can't fail as long as clients follow recommendations.

Any such guarantee deserves a page of its own within a company website. It's something to be proud of and the fact that it's a page on its own means that you can build links to that guarantee page from text on numerous other pages within the website so that people are always reminded that you're guaranteeing something. You can even allocate a graphic on every page of your website, that reminds people of that guarantee. It works, as proven by our own statistics of how many people click on that graphic within the Custwin website.

The most important element of a guarantee though is that it helps to retain the interest of window shoppers. Let's say someone is looking for a business consultant. They type a phrase into Google and start looking through the websites that appear. Many such sites blurb on about expertise in this or that and some give examples of results gained by clients, but it'll be the website that gives a very clear guarantee that is likely (as long as the other elements of the website are strong enough of course!) to gain that enquiry from the potential customer.

So, think about your company. You're brilliant and the best (obviously!). Now, how can you create some form of guarantee out of that and ensure that people are always aware of it within your website?

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