Learning from the King of AdWords
January 2, 2009 by Efficient Entrepreneur
Filed under E-Commerce, Programs
You’re not the only one hurting in the bad economy…Google is too!
In response to lowering advertising budgets and less money being invested in Google AdWords advertising, Google did something pretty sneaky. Advertising with Google AdWords means that you pay every time someone clicks on your ad. For the most part, the more you’re willing to pay for an ad or the more your ad gets clicked on, the more often and the closer to the top of the page your ad will show up on a Google search. Obviously if your ad is more popular or Google gets paid more per click, it’s in their best interest to have it show up more. When setting up your Google ad you can choose which search terms your ad will show up for. You could also choose whether or not your ad would show up only for the specific search terms you specified or for a broader range of search terms similar to your chosen focus. For example, if “diapers” was my specific keyword my ad would only show up when someone typed in “diapers”. If “diapers” was my broad keyword my ad would likely show up if someone searched for anything from “toilet training” to “baby butt rash”. This would be beneficial because most likely someone looking up these terms could use diapers too. But recently Google has decided to broaden the term “broad” and now when I typed “diapers” into Google at least one ad was for Custom Cake Creations. This is a sneaky little difference that could drain your Google AdWords budget in days by attracting people that aren’t really interested in buying what you have to sell.
Do you want to know where I learned this valuable information? From Perry Marshall, the man many consider to be the King of AdWords.
Perry Marshall offers quite a few educational resources and even one-on-one consultations that are full of information. But this article is just focusing on the Google AdWords-focused offerings, including a free newsletter packed with valuable info.
Perry Marshall Adwords Fluff 5%, Meat 70%, Gold 25%
Meat and Potatoes: 70%
Every product you receive from Perry Marshall, even the free ones give lots of straight-forward, usable, relevant information. He starts you off with AdWords and how to make it work for you, but then continues to teach you about changes you can make to your site and other marketing channels you are using in order to attract more customers, increase the number of visitors that become customers and how to build strong relationships with your customers. He’s been around a pretty long time, (check out his bio) meaning he can offer some good packages of information. He has experience making the web work for huge corporations and mom-and-pop solopreneur’s running affiliate or e-commerce sites.
Gold: 25%
Perry Marshall offers incredibly focused and valuable information that he tests out on a regular basis. He is only one of the very few internet gurus that offers levels of membership to cater to everyone’s learning budget. You can start with the Free 5-day Google Adwords Course if you just want to get comfortable with what Google AdWords is and how to use it to get your website noticed. Once you’re ready to bump up your online paid advertising, you can join the AdWords Mastermind Course(runs about $99) to help you turn more of your paid clicks into paying customers. And if you’re looking to get the most intensive and personalized course available on the web (to my knowledge), you can apply to be a part of Perry’s Bobsled 12-week intensive (runs about $3000). That’s right. He doesn’t want to waste anyone’s time, including his own, so he only takes people with a solid business plan and a commitment to follow through and do all the homework. Still feeling like you want some more one-on-one attention, how about four-on-one attention?! Perry has assembled a team of 3 other web business experts to give you all their attention for one year. You attend various 2-day intensives focused on you and your business and in various amazing locations around the world. This is another program you have to apply for, but Perry Marshall’s Roundtable Club(~$1500 per month) is like having your own presidential cabinet of experts all working to get your business to succeed.
Fluff: 5%
This man spends his time keeping track of what’s going on with Google AdWords and just gives you the information you need. Unlike the newsletters you get from quite a few of the other experts who are windbags and fill their emails with tales of trips to the grocery store and updates on their 6 year old’s ballet concert, Perry Marshall’s emails are mostly straight-forward and full of info. All his Google AdWords products are focused and virtually fluff-free. Occasionally you will get an email that seems more directed at reminding you about Google AdWords rather than to give you any news. Which may be fluff, but it isn’t necessarily a bad thing to be reminded occasionally to check on your AdWords strategy, budget and conversion rate.
AdWords can be an amazing tool, but it can also be a great way to drain your budget quickly. Get the most bang for your buck by avoiding general phrases and by only advertising for search terms that real customers that are ready to purchase are using to find you. And check out what experts like Perry Marshall have to say!
Here’s the lot of Perry Marshall’s Google AdWords-focused offerings:
Free 5-Day Google Adwords Course
Google AdWords Mastermind Course
Perry Marshall’s Bobsled Invitational AdWords Intensive
Perry Marshall’s Roundtable Club
Trouble finding your site?! Free tools so you know where your site stands
December 20, 2008 by Efficient Entrepreneur
Filed under Busi-Tips, Free, New to SEO, News, Other Resources
Figuring out where your site stands and when you’re making progress.
Progress can only be measured if you have a starting point, an ending point and a form of measure. Businesses for centuries have been desperately trying to find ways to measure whether or not they are succeeding. Business classes are rampant with equations to tell you how your overhead compares to your gross sales and how your profit margin compares with your inventory, etc. But the fact that your business is on the Web gives you a huge advantage to a brick-and-mortar shop. Web businesses, more than any other type of business, already measures immense amounts of data without you having to lift a finger. Your problem now becomes choosing which data to ignore which will help you best gauge where your site stands in the turbulent sea of websites out there.
Tool #1: Google PR.
As of April 2008, Google is the primary search tool in over 60% of U.S. households according to Nielsen Ratings. Because of this, most websites choose to optimize their site to attract Google’s attention, and increase their rankings when potential customers enter a certain search term.
Google is constantly changing their search algorithm to combat against spammers and “black hat” tactics, but their focus never changes. Google wants sites with lots of original content with lots of visitors to rank higher than others. Basically, Google’s ultimate goal is to provide every search with valuable relevant information or products on every search. We still have a ways to go, but Google has gotten the closest out of any search engine. That’s why they rule the search engine market. But how do you know how Google feels about your site?
Page Rank. Google actually ranks every single page on the web (every page the Googlebots have found) and ranks them on a scale of 1 to 10. This information is entirely public and free to access. It’s called the Google Toolbar. I would recommend Googling “Google Toolbar” since there’s a different one for every web browser. For example, this link will take you to the Google Toolbar download for Firefox. When you download the toolbar it installs as a line of customizable tools in your browser. After installing the bar it will ask you if you are willing to send data to Google and enable PageRank.
I visited CNN.com. Notice the PageRank icon on my Google Toolbar has almost the entire bar filled with green.
CNN has really high PR
And when I mouse-over the PageRank icon on my Google Toolbar, I find out Google awards CNN.com a 9 out 10 page rank.
The importance of this site is a 9/10
Check out some of your competitor’s sites and see where they stand. When your site first hits the web it will rank as a 0/10. As you gain visitors and links to your site, your PR will go up and so will your position in the Google’s results.
Tool #2: Alexa Rankings
Alexa is a site that tracks all visitors to all web sites, and then nicely reports its findings on its site. The data is broken down by website or webpage and globally, by country, or by category. For example, at this moment, the number one site for kids and teens is Wikipedia. Alexa also will compare 3 sites for you by reach, rank and pageviews. Search by site name and find out exactly how popular your site is. Right now, Yahoo is the number one site globally and Google is second! Maybe Yahoo will gain back some search engine market share. =) Just for kicks, download a list of the top 1 million sites.
Alexa also offers a toolbar for you to easily see where your site is on its massive list of sites. And if you are looking to sell your site in the future, Alexa rankings can be a powerful tool in negotiations. At the very least, you can watch your site climb the Alexa ladder of top sites on the web. Just type in your site’s name into their search bar and find out exactly where you stand, even if it’s 9,435,064. Be aware, though, that brand new sites will take a little while before being catalogued by Alexa. Googlebots will find your site way before Alexa does. In the meantime, though, check out your competition and other sites in your industry that have been around for a while and see where they stand.
Tool #3: Your Site Statistics
Every hosting account provides you with an overabundant amount of information on your visitor like:
- Where they came from to your site
- What browser they’re using
- What country they’re in
- How many visitors you had each hour
- What search terms they typed in to find you
- What bots have decided to stop by
This can be WAY more information than you need. But it’s not a bad idea to jot down how many daily visitors you have on average, or weekly visitors before you try some marketing strategies to see which have the greatest impact. The rest of the information, like how visitors are finding you, will be crucial to your marketing plan, but this article is really just focused on finding ways to gauge if your site is getting more popular or getting lost in the muck.
Tool #4: Google Analytics
Essentially Google Analytics offers you the same information you would find on your site statistics but with a more pleasing interface and convenient access to Google’s many other useful marketing tools (like Google’s AdWords program where you can purchase sponsored ads on Google searches). Google Analytics will monitor your visitors and where they click and when. Their reporting and data analysis is probably much more in-depth than what your host will provide you with.
Because most webmasters are trying to impress Google, seeing how Google views your site can be incredibly eye-opening. Google Analytics, in fact, evolves to cater to Google’s own priorities and reports to you when your site lacks information Google thinks is important in legitimate sites. You can take the Google Analytics video tour for more info.
All these tools are free and will give you a great place to figure out where your site stands now and to measure how your visitors react to various marketing plans you develop. These are the same tools that the top internet businesses are using to gauge their own success and these are the same tools some expensive consultant will use to tell you where your site stands. Just remember to stay consistent with your measuring. Check your placement often but not obsessively and especially before and after any major changes. Best of luck!
Making Friends the Virtual Way
December 11, 2008 by Efficient Entrepreneur
Filed under Busi-Tips, News, Other Resources
Social Marketing
Facebook, MySpace, Digg, Reddit, Twitter and beyond! To stand out as a business, it helps to grab as much attention as possible. It’s sad to say, but the internet isn’t much different from High School, and you want to be the most popular kid in school. Google notices, Yahoo notices and your visitors notice. These are the major categories and how to use them to help your site get the hottest date by prom.
Popularity Lists: (Digg, Del.icio.us etc.)
At the bottom of every article on this site and, for that matter, every article on most other sites you’ll see a button or series of buttons that let’s you add this article or site to your special list of favorites. Digg was the first major player in this arena. Essentially the thought is that everyone has a list of bookmarks or favorites on their web browser, but what if you want to share your bookmarks with other people, or you want to find other cool sites but you’re sick of looking through the search engines. Voila! The power of Digg. You Digg an article or website you like (basically add it to your specific Digg list) and the more people that like the site and Digg it the higher up it goes in Digg’s rankings. Essentially everyone is school is voting for who they think is interesting and relevant and the more so you are the better you’ll do.
And as is typical on the internet, when a good idea explodes, everyone makes their own versions. =) So here we are with probably hundreds of Digg-type sites out there, some targeting very specific topics. In fact, using a free, open source product called Pligg, you can actually create your own Digg on your site. *-If you didn’t already know, I am a huge proponent of open source.
The Benefits: If others Digg you not only rank well on Digg, you will rank better on more traditional search engines, and you will draw attention from random Digg-browsing people. All in all, it nevers hurts to support the community of people that like to Digg.
How to do it: You could go to each and every digg-esque site and copy down the code for their respective “Add to” button, or you could just use one of the many easier services that give you the code for all the major sites. If you cater to a very specific niche industry (even a big one like Christians) I would recommend adding a button to a specific Digg-type site created for that market. Why make it hard on your visitors to up your popularity?!
I used AddThis to create the button on this site. Easy, straightforward, not overly cluttered with tons of symbols and it only redirects my visitors to the specific site they are looking for. Two versions are provided (one for blogs and one for regular sites) and offers 8 different looks. And, of course, it’s Free.
If you don’t want to wait for your visitors to add your site to the mass amount of bookmarking sites on the web, you have more than a few companies at your disposal that will add your site to all the bookmarking sites and search engines for a small fee or for free. (Fees listed below are accurate at the time this is written, always check with the site to verify prices before purchasing)
SocialMarking will add your site to 1000 web directories for $10, and $25 for 240 social bookmarking site. They also create a customized code for your site to help visitors add your site to their preferred social bookmarking site.
SocialPoster automatically creates a new account for you for 79 social bookmarking sites and adds your site to their registries for you. The most useful feature of this site is the PR and Alexa ranking info. This site tells you exactly where the mass of digg-type sites (at least the ones they follow) stand in the ratings battle. It also lets you easily pick and choose which sites would be most relevant for you with categories like News, Twitters, and Bookmark.
Social Networking (MySpace, Facebook, Linkedin)
MySpace was the original pioneer in the market. It is still a fairly strong contender for certain businesses, primarily music groups and restaurants. The advantage of MySpace over the quickly surpassing contender Facebook, is that MySpace pages can be completely public and easily accessible. Facebook has this capability as well, but standard MySpace is open and public, while standard Facebook is friend-only viewing. Your popularity is determined by the length of your friend list or fan list. MySpace is more conducive for sites and companies to create pages and connect with customers. While Facebook does also offer members the opportunity to create company-specific pages, the real strength of Facebook is to build up an individual’s relationship with the community rather than building a company’s reputation. Both though can be invaluable assets in building your site’s following online.
What if you want to take this concept a step further? Do you have a specific niche that would welcome having their own private social networking website? You might be interested in adding your very own “MySpace” to your site. This has become incredibly popular on sites aimed at aspiring actors (or glorified movie extras).
Ning is one of the most popular create-your-own-social-network sites around. It’s the ideal place to set up a social network if you don’t mind it being hosted on Ning. Your social network’s name would be something like actorsunite.ning.com. But you could link to it easily enough from your site. Ning boasts over 635,000 networks, and yours could be profiled on their front page. Other users already part of one Ning network could easily move to your network, making it easier to gather a following on Ning than one your lone site floating in webspace.
If you’re looking to integrate the social network into your site rather than only being able to link to it, Kickapps may be your answer. KickApps came out just before Ning a few years ago and initially allowed users to physically download the entire program onto their site’s server. Now it seems they host the majority of the site and just have developers integrate various controls into their site.
And this is only the beginning. TechCrunch wrote a great article about 9 Ways to Build Your Own Social Network that profiles a few more do-it-yourself social networks. Any social network you choose can be a great asset for your customer base or any group with similar interests.
The Collective Conscious (Twitter, the latest and greatest):
Twitter gives a constant stream of what any individual is thinking to anyone interested. Although a majority of twitter may be trivial information, it has proven to be particularly influential. Large corporations are regularly monitoring twitter feeds for their company’s name. In fact, some people have found that they’ll get faster support by complaining on twitter!
So what does that mean for you and your site? You can keep in touch with your customer base (or fan base) as an individual, giving your site a more human side. You can also keep them informed of the latest developments in your shop or of interesting findings at a conference you are attending. And in the true meaning of creation for the good of society, Twitter is completely free and in fact the creator Evan Williams, still hasn’t figured out a way to monetize the site.
All these tools are focused on finding ways to connect, maybe even reconnect, people on the web in a more personal way. Shopping on the web is becoming increasingly popular and if you can connect in a more meaningful way with your target audience it may mean the difference between a one-shot sale and a long-lasting customer relationship.
