What Yahoo and MSN Bring To The Table.

Besides Google, Yahoo and MSN are the two other major pay-per-click search engine providers.  Yahoo has around 20% of search traffic and MSN has around 5%.  This is compared to Google's 60%.

The reason Google dominates is because they're always innovating.  They're not after what's going to make them the most amount of money in the shortest amount of time.  They develop powerful features and tools that may not always generate any revenue in the short term.  More often than not, they end-up becoming popular and Google benefits later on.

Examples include when Google Analytics first came-out, their website optimizer, and their Google AdSense program.  They were also the first to consider other factors in determining what paid ads rank high besides just who pays the most per click.

Yahoo and MSN always seem to play catch-up.  When they do, their tools or upgrades usually pale in comparison to Google's.  Though, there are occasional exceptions.

This may lead advertisers to ignore the other two.  Often, this can be a major mistake.  Depending on your market, they might provide BETTER quality traffic than Google.

Why is this the case?

If you head over to Yahoo and MSN, you'll notice something.  They do a good job of providing quality articles, resources, and other content.  These visitors then are likely to make searches on the current site they're on (either Yahoo or MSN).  All of these visitors are currently looking for information.  There does not seem to be an apparent reason why they are not as good or even higher quality than Google's.  

The only difference is Yahoo and MSN might have far less of a certain type of searcher.  But, because of the content or the userbases they have, in certain markets, they could have much more traffic than you might expect.

In addition to having good quality traffic, Yahoo and MSN also may have less competition.  Advertisers may find Google a lot easier to use and ignore Yahoo and MSN.  Plus, if they do use MSN and Yahoo, then they might not put a lot of focus on them.  You can then come-in and clean-up.

Of course, the downside of these services is that they tend to not be as "User-friendly."  They might not have all of the advertiser-friendly features you're used to with Google.  Though, this might be a minor complaint.

A good way to think of Yahoo and MSN might be as the final two pieces to the search marketing puzzle.  Google is the biggest piece, but you need the other two to complete it.  One of those missing pieces might be very important to the overall picture.

Two Small, But Noteworthy Adwords News Stories.

Two notable news stories came-out from AdWords the other day.

The first is that they've launched a new site that outlines all of their marketing services at: http://www.google.com/advertisers/

This is a sales site, but if you're new to AdWords or talk to people often who are, then this site is a great resource to see and understand all of what Google offers you.  They announced it on the AdWords blog here.

The second news story is that Google switched-up the data for their main keyword research tool at https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal.

They now offer "Local Search Volume," which is based on the amount of queries in your home country and those that speak the same language.  You can get data on each type of keyword matching type.  Below it's "Exact" matches:

The Global search volume is then the data for all countries based on a twelve month period.

This is helpful when setting-up local campaigns because you have a better idea of where the traffic is coming from.  Although, keep in mind, that it's only country specific.  A tool that does give you an idea of what specific areas are searching is the Google Insights tool at: http://www.google.com/insights/search/#

Two links about this change are at:

• http://www.marketingpilgrim.com/2009/04/new-changes-to-adwords-keyword-tool-local-search-vs-global-search-figures-added.html
• http://www.sitevisibility.co.uk/blog/?p=293

Using Google Analytics Goal Data

In the last post here, we discussed how to set-up your goal data so you can track it.  Today, let's talk about how you can use the data you receive.  You get to view the following information:

In the overview section, you get a run-down of the performance of all of your goals from sales to newsletter subscribers:

Under "Total Conversions," you can look at each goal individually by selecting it here:

When you select each goal type, then you can see what days the goals occurred.

Next, you can examine your "Conversion rates."  This is one of the most important numbers in your account.  It tells you the percentage of visitors you're getting to complete your goals.  This gives you a number you can work toward improving.  

After conversion rates, you can double check to make sure your goals were registered properly with "Goal Verification."  You can see what URLs are registering as a goal conversion.

The next option is "Reverse Goal Path."  This option allows you to see the pages visitors went to in order to complete a conversion.  This is helpful to determine what pages are leading to sales.  For instance, if you have a blog, you can now find-out what posts result in sales.  Thus, content becomes accountable.

For "Goal Value," you can analyze how much each goal is worth to you based on the value you inputted when setting-up the goal.

After this, we now proceed to our funnel data.  With "Goal Abadoned Funnels," we can see how many visitors start our funnel process, but abandon it before a conversion takes place.  If this number is high, then you immediately know you have a problem that you need to troubleshoot.

Finally, you can get more specific data by clicking on "Funnel Visualization."  In this area, you can see exactly what pages you're losing your visitors.

The bottom line is that your goal data is where rubber meets the road. As the traffic flows-in, it gives you your most important numbers you can work torward improving.

Setting-Up Google Analytics Goal Data

Continuing in a series of posts about Google Analytics data, today we're going to talk about the goals data.  This data is important because it allows you to track how well you're achieving your objectives, such as getting visitors to a certain page, signing-up to your newsletter, and buying.  Before you can use it, you have to set-up it up.  This is easy to do.  

Let's quickly walk through the steps:

1.  First, click on the "Analytics" link in the top menu and when the profiles for each of your sites pop-up, you'll see the "Action" column on the right side.  Click on the "Edit" link for the site you want to set-up your goals for:

2.  You then see the option to set-up a funnel and goals:

Under the "Settings" column on the right, hit "Edit" for G1 (Your first goal).

3.  You're then asked for the following information:

Here's how to fill this information in:

Active Goal:  Do you want this goal to be tracked at this time?  Most likely, you want to set this on "On."  You can turn it off later if you want.

Match Type:  This is in regards to the URLs (or pages) you want to track visitors' progress through.  The first type is "Exact match" where the URL has to appear exactly as you specified.  You most likely want to choose this.

The next type is "Head match."  You should select this option if your URL is largely the same, but each visitor has a new ID at the end, such as http://www.yoursite.com?ID=23 where "23" is a different number each time.

Finally, the third type is "Regular expression match."  This is when your URLs will vary widely from user to user.  This match type is one you are least likely to use.

Goal URL:  This is the page the visitor visits once a goal has been achieved.  It's your "Thank You" page.  What this URL is depends on the match type you selected.

Goal Name:  Give your goal a name, such as "Sale" or "Newsletter sign-up."

Next, you can decide if you want the URLs to be case sensitive and you can set a goal value or how much the action taken is worth to you.

After you've selected this information, you can set-up your funnel (it's optional).  A funnel is simply the steps a user must take before a conversion takes place.  For instance, for a sale to take place, the visitor may have to visit your landing page "http://www.YourDomain.com/LandingPage.html followed by the shopping cart page "http://www.YourDomain.com/Order.html" before he or she reaches "http://www.YourDomain.com/ThankYou.html."

In this example, we can find-out how well our landing and order pages are doing their jobs.  This can be important because our landing page may work, but visitors may not be proceeding past the order page.  You can then troubleshoot and work on solving the road-block.

Without tracking this data, you would not know a road-block exists here.

Here's what it looks like:

Check the "Required Step" box if you want step one to be a required step for a goal to be counted.  For instance, if you're driving traffic to YourDomain.com/LandingPage.html, then you don't want to track visitors who ordered by coming in through YourDomain.com/index.html (your home page).

After that, you can save your goal.  You then have the option of entering several more goals that you want to track for that website.

When you've set-up your goal(s), then you can head back over to the reports for your site and view your data as it comes-in.

Google Analytics Content Data

Continuing in a series of posts about Google Analytics data, today we're going to talk about the content data.

This information is important because it allows you to see how well your pages are performing.  You can find-out if your landing pages are causing your visitors to stick around or flee.

Here's all of the information you can access:

In the overview section, you get basic data about what pages are getting visited in the "Top Content" section and you also see the big picture of the amount of page views, unique visitors, and the bounce rate (the amount of people that are not digging further in the sites).

After the overview, you can dig deeper into the "Top Content" data.  You then get the following data:

You can see how many views, visitors, average time on page, bounce rate, exit rate (the amount of visitors that did not visit another page and left.  Though, they may have visited other pages before then), and the amount each page is worth (how many sales or transactions the page led to).

You get this information for each page and for the entire site.  You can then pinpoint what pages are productive and which pages need to be tossed or optimized.

Next, "Content By Title" breaks the data down for each page according to the title of each page (same info as Top Content, but organized differently).  Similarly, there's also "Content Drilldown," which is the same data, but allows you to view your data according to folders each pages are in (this may not be useful to you).

After looking at your pages, you can take a closer look at your bounce rates by selecting "Top Landing pages:"

This is the amount of people that leave divided by the amount of entrances to that page.

This is compared to % Exits, which you can see next in the "Top Exit Pages:"

This is the amount of exits from a page divided by the amount of pageviews (visitors could have come-in from any page on your site where as bounces tracks only the amount of entrances for each particular page).   

Finally, you can move on to view the "Site Overlay."  This allows you to see how users are interacting with your site, including what links they're clicking on.

In the content area, you also have the option to set-up "Site Search," which allows you to see what people are looking for on your site.  You can also set-up "Event Tracking," which allows you to track when certain events happen on your site, such as interacting with a video or audio player.  For more on setting-up event tracking, check-out this guide here.  

Overall, content allows you to see what on your pages is working down to even the smallest of events. You can also pin-point pages that draining visitors and which ones are converting visitors into customers.

Google Analytics Traffic Sources Data

In the last post, we talked about the visitor data provided inside Google Analytics.  You can read it here.  Today, we're going to talk about the next set of data provided, traffic sources.

This data is important because it tells you where your traffic is coming from.  When you know this, you know where to focus your time and energy to get maximum results.

Here are all of the traffic sources data options:

In the overview section, you get a clear idea of where your traffic is coming from:

You can see that there are three types of traffic.  Direct traffic indicates that no referering URL was tracked.  When somebody types-in your URL, then it is tracked as direct-traffic.  Next, referring sites indicates that your traffic came from a link on another site. Finally, there is search engine traffic.

After you look at the overview, you can investigate each type of traffic further:

When you investigate each, you get precise data on how long visitors from each traffic source are staying, the most popular referring URLs, and the search engines your traffic is coming from.

You can find-out what types of advertising are sending quality or junk traffic.

After you look at each individually, you can select "All Traffic Sources" from the left menu to see all of the sources together.

Next, you can select "Keywords" from the left menu.  This option shows you what people are typing-in to find you.  This is also a good place to find negative keyword ideas for your AdWords campaigns.

After keywords, the "AdWords"  area is important for managing your campaigns.  You can access all sorts of data about your campaigns, including:

You can break down your AdWords traffic into all of these options above, including your ad data, locations of your traffic, type of browser or computer users are using, and much more.

Below "AdWords campaigns" is the option to get information on keyword positions:

This allows you to select your keywords and get the following information about its performance in various ad positions:

With enough data, it allows you to identify your most profitable search positions.

Finally, within the traffic sources data, you can get more specific information on your ads and campaigns.

Overall, traffic sources is vital to monitor to find-out where your time, money, and energy is best spent.

Google Analytics Visitor Data

We've already talked about why you should be using Google Analytics here.  There are four main areas inside your account, including "Visitors data," "Traffic Sources," "Content" and "Goals."  Today, we're going to talk more specifically about how you can use the visitor data.  In the days to come, we'll move-on to other areas.

Here are all of the visitor data options:

The first option "Overview" let's you know at a glance what's happening:

These numbers tell us how many unique visitors are coming to our site and how they're using it.  In this example, we have 71 unique visitors who load an average of 6.70 pages for a total of 811 page views. The average time on site on is 9 minutes and 35 seconds.  7.44% exit through the page they came-in on (don't browse further) and 57.02% of visits to the site are from new visitors.

This is a content site (full of articles).  A sales page tends to have much worse data here.  Though, it's not neccessarily bad because the goal of a sales page is to convert visitors into customers.

Other data provided in the visitor section are the browsers your visitors are using and the speed of their internet connection:

In most markets, the majority will use internet explorer.  It's important that you keep an eye on this data and make sure your sites are showing-up right in each browser.  Since Google Chrome is relatively new, you often see a lot of sites so poorly designed for it that nobody using this browser could make a purchase. In some cases, this may reduce sales by 30%+ in certain markets.

Similarly, you should monitor connection speeds.  In this example, virtually nobody is using dial-up anymore.  However, you should keep an eye on this if you use a lot of graphics, flash, or video.  Similarly, DSL tends to be slower than cable and if a high percentage of your users have this, then you may limit the sizes of the files on your site.

Let's move-on to click on "Map Overlay" in the top left menu:

 As you can see, virtually all of the visitors are from the United States.  Usually, it won't pan-out like this.  However, this data gives you an idea of who your customers are.  This then may influence what kind of content goes onto your site.

Next is "New Vs. Returning" Visitors:

On commercial sites, this number most likely is not especially important.  However, on content sites, you want a high number of returning visitors.  This tells you that you're doing your job.  You're giving visitors a reason to come back.

Next, is the "Languages" tab.  This might tell you that you have a lot of non-native language speakers coming to your site and you're not serving them or you could do a better job of connecting with them.  You may decide to have a landing page translated into another language.

"Visitor Trending" is important because it allows you to see your progress over time.

Finally, there's "Visitor Loyalty," which allows you to spot trends of how visitors are viewing your sites.  It tells if some visitors are bigger "Fans" of your site than others.

One important number here is "Length of visit:"

Most visitors tend to come and only stay a short time.  However, the ones that stay the longest tend to become customers.  Your goal should be to move more of those staying just a short time and get them "hooked" on what else you have to offer.

Another important set of numbers is in regards to the "Depth of visits:"

Above, you can see that those who stay past twelve pages on this content site, tend to go-ahead and read just about all of the pages.  See what you can do to increase these numbers and get your visitors to want more from you.

Alright, this concludes it for our look at the Analytics visitor data.  This information allows you to see how you're progressing on connecting with your visitors.  Before you have conversion data, you want to start by focusing on this visitor information.

Why Use AdWords Over Other Advertising Opportunities.

You have a lot of choices and opportunities to advertise your business.  On the web alone, there's social media, free search engine optimization, article writing, press releases, and hundreds of other places to place paid ads.

As a result, advertisers may wonder why they should be advertising on AdWords or allocate a large budget for their campaigns on it.  Is it really the best use of resources?

To answer this questions, let's talk about the advantages of advertising on AdWords.  

• First, the main benefit of any search engine advertising is that it gets you in front of those in "Buying mode."   If somebody types-in "Flip MinoHD Video Camera," then chances are they're looking to buy a video camera.  Even if they're still in "Research mode" at the time of typing this in, they've likely already made a decision to make a purchase.  You get your ads in front of the prospects at the right time.  Compare this to a radio ad.  The listener is focused on getting to a specific location.  He or she is not intent on making a purchase at that moment.

• You have the option to get precise in who and who does not see your ads.  You can narrow it down to a specific area on a website or exact search terms your target market types-in.  You can bid aggressively on the best locations and reduce your spending on those that are less targeted.  You don't have to pay for off-target ad space in order to get the profitable ad space.

• By tracking conversions, you know precisely the return on investment you're getting.  You can know to the penny how much you can afford to pay for every click you spend.  

•  You can get substantial results starting in as little as 15 minutes after launching a campaign.  With Google, your ads can start showing in minutes on Google.com and in days on the content network.  It's not a trickle of traffic here and there.  You can get traffic rolling-in fast.  This means it's a perfect way to test-out a new offer and get it off the ground. 

• You're rewarded for campaigns that perform well.  By boosting click-thru-rates on your ads and making your campaign relevant to searchers, Google charges you less.  You can get an advantage over competitors who are not optimizing their campaigns. 

• It's pay as you go.  You can pause your campaigns at anytime you want.  You don't have to pay to show your ads for a set amount of time.  

As you can see, there are countless reasons to make AdWords a priority.  If all you did was use AdWords, you could build a thriving business.  Of course, there are drawbacks.  The two most important are that there's a learning curve and it can be time-consuming.  If you don't put in the time to optimize your campaigns and uncover tactics to gain an edge, you may be disappointed in your results.  

3 Advanced Ad Writing Keys

We previously gave some great tips to creating winning ads in the post here.  This post focused on specific techniques you can use.

Today, let's talk about more general ingredients every ad should aim to incorporate:

• Dig-deep and make your ads benefit-oriented.  What is a benefit?  Most people confuse benefits for features.  A feature is what your product is.  A hammer may be made of rust resistant material and have a comfort grip.  These are features.  It's what the product is actually made of or has.  For a service, features are what you actually do.  A hair dresser styles hair.  He or she talks with you to figure-out what you're looking for.   One that has built good rapport, listens to clients' problems and worries.

On the other hand, a benefit is what the feature means to the customer.  Rust resistant material means it's going to last a long time and it's "worry-free."  A hair-stylist who listens, gives the client "peace of mind" and a feeling of belonging. 

In other words, a benefit is emotionally-based.  It's tied to how it makes the customer feel.  Where as features are based on logic.  The benefits are why the logical features are important.

When you create your ads, don't stop at features of your product and service.  Take it a step further.  Think to yourself, "So what?" For example, "So what if the hammer has a comfort grip?"  Well, if you use it a lot, it makes your job a lot easier.  You can then go a step further and ask, "So what if my job gets easier?"  You get the job done quicker, which makes a better day and a smoother run project.

• Add in urgency.  Give a reason to click on your ads right away.  

For instance, compare the two real ad descriptions for the term "Printer Inkjet Cartridges:"

Discount prices on all ink & laser
toner for Canon printers

Versus

Find Out How Much You Overpaid On

Ink Last Year at Print and Prosper!

Notice how the second ad says, "Find Out How Much You Overpaid On Ink Last Year."

This could improved further, but notice that it gives you an urgent reason to see what it's about.  The person getting ready to buy must check-out the ad before they buy their new set of ink cartridges for the office.  Otherwise, they could be making a costly mistake.

The first ad, on the other hand, emphasizes a discount is available.  This claim is made by most other competing ads as well.  There is no urgency to pick this ad to click on over others.

Another way to add urgency is to emphasize that your special offer won't last long.  Add scarcity.  For instance, the special may only last weeks or be limited in quantity.  If your offer is not scarce, then maybe a special bonus version or free shipping is only available for a limited time.

• Get specific with claims.  For instance, don't say that the searcher can get a discount on ink cartridges through you.  Spell-out that the searcher can get an "82% discount."  Even further, for the term "HP officjet in cartridges" say, "Save 82% on all HP officejet ink cartridges." This is a lot more believable than general claims consumers have become accustomed to and rarely turn-out to be accurate.

By using these three techniques, you attract attention to your ads and separate yourself from the competition. You make your ads and your offer stand-out.

New Conversion Data

Often when you're testing ads for a keyword, they perform relatively equally.  They get similar click-thru-rates and conversion data.  It then takes a while to determine a winner.

Luckily, AdWords just announced here and here that they're expanding how conversions are tracked.  They now allow you to not just track if a customer clicks on your ad and buys (or converts).  You can now track how many conversions each visitor generates with you over time.

This means you can find-out if one keyword is generating more repeat sales or conversions than another.  You get a better idea of what each keyword is really worth to you.