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Sunday, February 01, 2009
Free SEO Tools at FoundPages
With SEO and SEM becoming more common and understood, there appears to be an upsurge in interest in tools for improving Google PageRank and traffic. For most websites, most visitors come via search engines (even if they know your name) than any other way. Something we don't promote but you should use are the free SEO tools available on this website. Use it freely, as there is no cost, but keep in mind that they are tools. Tools that can help you analyze and measure your current situation, but they don't improve your website - only you can do that! There are many other resources on this website to help you with doing that. One of the easiest things, is to update your website regularly. Updating content and adding more pages will get your website noticed by search engine crawlers, and new pages will add to the number of pages you will get indexed by the search engines. You don't need specialists to do this, and no one knows your business better than you do. The pages don't have to be about your product or service. For example, if you sell cargo nets (like one of our customers), it can be about the legislation and laws surrounding the requirements. Or a page on how to install it properly on a truck. All this can get indexed, and help you with the 'long tail' in search. Just remember to add unique tags to them, and to add the page to the sitemap. The long tail refers the keywords that are not searched a lot, but the many searches for various unique phrases that are very detailed and relevant for a searcher. For example, 'cargo net law' is a long tail search, that would bring visitors interested in cargo nets regulations, that then might interested in purchasing a cargo net that complies. I'll have more on the SEO tools in the next few blogs, on what the benchmarks mean and how to improve them. These tools should be part of every online marketer's toolkit today. If you are a small to medium size business (SMB), you ignore search engine marketing metrics at your own peril. Labels: FoundPages, free seo tools, Google rankings, online marketing, SMB
Sunday, January 04, 2009
Lower Bounce Rates Mean More Leads
Among web analytic statistics, the bounce rate is one of the metrics often overlooked by many marketers. A bounce rate is the percentage of single page visitors to your website that left your website quickly after arriving. Some advanced systems also use visit duration to calculate bounce rate which treat visitors as bounces if they stay on the site for less than 5 seconds. Bounce rate can also be defined as negative statistic. It measures how engaging your website is to your visitors and how it relates to the intention of them. It also measures how effective and 'sticky' your landing page is when it's used with a campaign. Lack of relevancy is a major cause of bounces, and solving this will increase lead generation by an order of magnitude sometimes. A high bounce rate usually indicates something wrong with your website's landing pages. However, the problem can also be caused by where you acquire your traffic. Let's look at a few things you can do to reduce bounce rates (lower is better). Analyze the bounce rate for your traffic sources
Many inbound marketers use social media as part of their marketing campaigns. However, many of these referrers are low-value. These visitors aren't "looking" when they arrive at your website so they tend to leave immediately. You don't have to worry too much about bounce rates from these traffic sources but you should know which referrers contribute to the high bounce rates. If you are using social media advertising like Facebook ads, you should have a specific landing pages to create demand and guide your visitors to whatever you're advertising. Not giving the banana to the monkey
This is a classic conversion problem. When people arrive at your website and can't find what they want, they would leave right away and go to your competitors websites instead. You only have a few seconds to let the visitors know that they are at the right place so "give the banana to the monkey." Make sure you have clear and obvious conversion points for your visitors. These conversion points should also tailor to the different interests of the visitors such as home buyers vs home sellers at a realtors website. While home buyers want to see what listings are available, the home sellers want to know why they should use the provided services to advertise their homes. Match interests to the sales cycle
This is mainly related to organic search engine traffic. A website might rank highly on certain keywords but these keywords are often irrelevant. Similar to the previous point, when people don't find what they are looking for, they leave. Many 'content' websites with high search visibility often receives high traffic for irrelevant search terms. You should understand the Search Buying Cycle and adjust your content to use keywords according to different phases of the buying cycle. Also avoid having too much unrelated content, like too much profile information on every client. Improve landing pages
Pay-Per-Click campaigns often have high bounce rates. Simple landing pages with only one call to action are often the issue. Email marketing campaign can possibly cause high bounce rate too if the subject line is misleading or the links take recipients to an unrelated page. It might also be the offer that's too aggressive (eg buy now) on the landing page. Consider having micro-conversions on the landing pages. A micro-conversion doesn't turn the visits into sales but it turns visitors into leads so that you can nurture them into sales. This is particularly effective for B2B. B2B websites typically have average bounce rate of 10-30%. If your bounce rate is higher than that, you should flag it and find out why. Having high bounce rates doesn't mean the end of the world if you understand what's causing it and take actions to improve it. It might take a few round of tests to nail it down but the effort you put in will turn you website into one that's relevant for your visitors. They will engage if it fits their needs. Labels: b2b search engine marketing, online marketing
Monday, January 21, 2008
Marketers to Change Ad Agency in 2008
The Chief Marketing Officer Council’s just released an annual forecast that predicts in 2008, many marketers will be changing strategies to focus more on online activity. As a result they found, will also see many marketers changing their advertising agencies. Online marketing activity, such as email campaigns and search-engine marketing, will attract a larger part of the budget this year as marketers continue to focus on online strategies. "A lot of research we've done shows that web is the top priority in terms of brand, customer engagement, insight, and it is becoming a bigger area of focus," said Dave Murray, executive vice president of the CMO Council. There is resistance by the agencies to adopt fundamental online strategies, leading Deloitte Consulting, the sponsors of the survey to say: "The CMOs tell us that the agencies are not delivering.". I'm reminded of the 'ostrich head in the sand' metaphor that I learned years ago. Some of these agencies are sticking their head in the sand, hoping that online marketing is just a fad that will go away if they ignore it long enough. With online advertising overtaking TV advertising in markets like the U.K., these agencies need to wake up before they find they are one of the 45% of advertising agencies that are going to be dropped by their clients in 2008, according to this survey. All they need to do is to hookup with the new guys on the block, like FoundPages, to keep this fate from happening. Have a great (online) marketing year! Labels: advertising agencies, CMO survey, online marketing
Monday, September 10, 2007
Yahoo Stays in the Online Ad Game
Yahoo became the latest Internet search engine to make a big move into online advertising networks. By buying BlueLithium for $300 million in cash, Yahoo counters somewhat similar moves by Google (DoubleClick) and Microsoft (Aquantive). So who is BlueLithium and what do they do you ask? BlueLithium has a user base of 120 million, and has the 5th largest advertising network on the Internet. In other words, 120 million users visit the website network they have strung together from many hundreds of highly trafficked websites. What this means to an online marketer, is that the big 3 search engines, are also the big 3 online ad networks for display ads, contextual ads etc. Just as FoundPages has evolved from mostly search marketing to online marketing, the search engines have as well. Does that diminish search engine marketing? Absolutely not. Search is still usually more effective than any other online marketing and is our calling card. However, online advertising is a natural follow on from search marketing and uses similar talents, tools and assets. We have found in some cases than contextual advertising is more effective than even search advertising. Contextual ads are displayed beside related articles, blogs, videos and even email (like Gmail). This is similar to traditional advertising whereby an ad is 'placed' articles that will be welcomed by the audience reading the article. eg. ads on 'victoria condos' beside an article on retiring in Victoria. You can expect to hear more from us (and Google, Microsoft and Yahoo) about online ads - all types of them. Labels: bluelithium, online advertising, online marketing, search engine marketing, yahoo
Saturday, June 09, 2007
Times Are A-Changing - Online
To borrow a line from Bob Dylan, things are changing online. For example - more clothes is sold online now than computer hardware now. Something I never thought I would happen, given that most people are used to going to retail stores to buy clothes. Another change that is more subtle, is almost 90% of restaurants in the U.S. have a website now. This survey was done AIS Media, who surveyed 6000 restaurants. More and more websites are putting their menus online, and email was being used as the primary way to communicate by 68% of survey respondents. Even more surprisingly, 29% sent out a monthly targeted email campaign. What's not surprising is this is a great way for a retail business to bring back customers and nurture new ones. Coupons are common in the retail food business and email is a great way to get them out AND get them forwarded to their friends and family as well to get new customers. The survey goes on to say that the majority of these establishments use a professional services firm to provide this capability. It goes on to say that 'With over 89% of restaurants in America currently having a website, the competition for restaurants will be to have a highly specialized website that speaks to their specific clientele', said Thomas Harpointner, CEO of AIS Media, Inc. These changes remind me of something that Bill Gates said 20 years ago. 'People overestimate how fast technology will be adopted, and underestimate how widely it will get adopted'. I think the world's richest man still has that right. Labels: email marketing, online marketing, professional websites
Friday, May 11, 2007
Bill Gates Says Future of Advertising is Online
This week, Microsoft Chairman , Bill Gates stated that he will spend the remainder of his employment at Microsoft, focused on advertising and marketing services. Speaking at Microsoft's annual Strategic Account Summit, Bill Gates said that his main focus before he left his full-time position would be on 'search, buyers and sellers'. While that will only be about a year since he is leaving in mid-2008, his comment, 'That will be my biggest thing', is fairly telling. 'We're saying newspapers will go online, and there will be massive innovation that comes out of that,' he said 'We're saying that TV, the biggest ad market in the world, will completely go online and have the kind of targeting interaction that you only get out on the Web today.' According to BizReport, the shift to online, with its associated lower costs and enhanced user experience will, Gates said, contribute to the shift of advertising online over the next five years and beyond. This is important announcement in the online marketing world. First, he is predicting Microsoft's future, and the future is online advertising, particularly search. Not a small change, considering their business has been primarily Windows and Office. And secondly, he is admitting that their future is to catch up to Google. In my opinion, this is a watershed moment - and one that may define the future of the Internet. Microsoft has $50 billion cash in the bank to make the shift. Labels: Bill Gates, Microsoft, online advertising, online marketing
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