http://www.wordstream.com/google-adwords

The Grader examines key campaign features including:

• Effective use of negative keywords
• Quality score for text ads and keywords targeted
• Click-through rates
• Impression share
• Long-tail keyword optimization
• Text ad optimization
• Landing page optimization
• PPC best practices.

The Grader’s interface is easy-to-use and clearly points out how you’re doing and where you can improve with your AdWords campaigns, providing an overall score similar to other graders:

By looking at the metrics for your campaign, the Grader is able to provide you with some feedback on how you can improve:

And by comparing your results to others with similar budgets, WordStream can give you feedback on how you stack up:

Give WordStream’s free AdWords Performance Grader a try and let us know what you think.

There’s Value for You too

The value of social media for companies is in the ability to interact with individual customers, have conversations, get feedback, and reach a niche target audience much more cost-effectively than with traditional media. When you respect your audience, by actually having conversations and providing valuable content, instead of just marketing and advertising, social media will provide you with powerful connections and feedback.

Meeting the “ME” Needs of Your Audience

You may not know exactly how to meet the needs of your audience. The great thing about social media is that you can listen and ask. By using searches on various social networks and search engines, you can listen in on conversations that are happening about your brand, products and industry. When you think about other topics that your audience is interested in, you also open the door to a more value that you can provide. If you’re still not sure, connect with your audience and ask them, both individually and as a group.

A little “me” is ok too

Once you’re interacting and engaging and providing the “ME” needs of your audience, it’s ok to throw in a little bit of “me” needs too. Everyone expects businesses to throw in a little bit of promotion and advertising, it just shouldn’t be anywhere near the major portion of your content. I like to tell companies to stick to the 80-20 rule (or the 90-10 rule is even better), where 80-90% of your content is interaction and adds value to your audience (“ME” needs) and only 10-20% is promotional (the “me” needs). Yes, you still have to meet the “me” needs in order for social media to provide a return, just remember to keep it to a minimum.

Remember what the “me” needs are

The “me” needs of your company aren’t just marketing and advertising, you’re also getting valuable feedback and information for sales, customer service and product development. Don’t sacrifice these more important “me” needs by overdoing it on the promotions. Some companies never really do any promotional content because being engaged with their audience is extremely valuable. Find and strike whatever balance makes sense for your company.

How do you balance the “ME” needs of your customer with the “me” needs of your company?

(image by Velvet Von Grimm)

Listen to Your Audience

The difficulty with keywords is that sometimes the words that consumers use are different than what industry insiders or companies use. Make sure you’re using the right keywords for your audience so that your message and content match their needs.

First, find your target audience online. Start by doing some searches with Google and Google’s Blog search. Scan through any communities, blogs or forums that are targeted at your audience (or written by members of your audience) and make a list of the most popular ones. Look for what terms and phrases are used. Also, check out Twitter search and Facebook search to see what topics and keywords your audience is using.

Spy on Your Competition

Take a look at your competitors’ sites and look at the keywords and phrases they’re using. Their keywords may not be the right ones for your consumers, but you’ll get an idea of where to start. Take your list of blogs, discussion groups, communities and competitors’ sites and use a tool like SEOmoz term extractor to find the keywords that are being used to target search engines. Go to the sites and use SEOQuake’s browser plugin for viewing keyword density.

Check Your Own Data

Take a look at Google Analytics and Google Webmaster Tools for your own sites and blogs. Also run them (and your list of other sites) through Google AdWords Keyword Tool (which you can use without an AdWords account) to find possible keywords (their suggestions can be very useful). Google also has a Search-based Keywords Tool which can give you some great suggestions too.

Just Ask

Still not sure what your audience calls your products or the topics they’re interested in? Just ask them — either directly in person or online. Or post polls or posts on social media asking for feedback.

How do you find keywords for social media content and monitoring?

(photo by Bruce)

Cost per Acquisition (CPA)

Cost per Acquisition (CPA) is a measure of how much is spent to get a sale (conversion). Take the amount spent on a campaign over a time period and divide it by the number of sales. Ideally this number is less than the average amount purchased. If your CPA is $25, but your products are only sold at $10, you’re losing $15 on every transaction made through that advertising channel.

Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)

Remember Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) from yesterday? It could be that your CLV is much more than your cost per acquisition (CPA) and so maybe you’re spending $25 to acquire a customer who will spend $100 or $200 with you eventually.  This certainly changes the equation and shows why it’s important to understand CLV.

Cost per Action (CPA)

CPA can also stand for Cost per Action. If you’re advertising in order to get people to do something that isn’t directly a sale, think in terms of Cost per Action.  For example, let’s say you’re running a Google AdWords campaign in order to increase your newsletter subscribers. Cost per Action in this case would be how much you’re spending for each new subscriber.

CLV is still important in this case, but you’d want to know what the CLV is of your newsletter subscribers.  How many subscribers actually purchase from you, how much do they purchase from you and how long are they customers? Now you can start to understand not only the value of your newsletter subscribers, but also how much you should spend on acquiring new subscribers.

What to Improve

CPA provides more data on what may need to be improved. In Google AdWords if you get caught up in your click through rate (CTR), you may miss whether you’re spending too much for each new customer. If you’re spending money to increase the number of newsletter subscribers, how much are you spending versus the payout of those customers?

How do you use CPA?

(image by Daniel Borman)

Social Media has SEO Impact

Search engines have started to incorporate social media into the results. By being more active on social media, there’s more opportunity for you to show up in these results. For example, in this search for Biggby coffee (a regional coffee shop), there are some results from my social circle:

Build Reputation

People are more likely to believe the opinions of their friends and colleagues. Using social media increases the chance that people will see your brand, as well as increases the opportunities of having conversations about your brand (which then show up on search engines).  Since social media shows up in search engines, people will see if people in their social circle are talking about your brand when they search.

Increase Incoming Links & Traffic

Creating and posting great content and sharing it out via social media also increases the opportunity for people to see that content and then share it out to their own network.  The more your content is shared, the more opportunity there is for people to see it and click on links to view the full content, as well as post to blogs or websites which builds the links to your site (which are used for building your reputation with search engines).

Thoughts?

(photo by Ryan Wick)

Add to the Conversation

Don’t just say things like “great post” or “I agree!” These types of comments add nothing to the conversation. A lot of bloggers (myself included) just mark such comments as spam (which they are).  If you want to build a relationship (which should be the goal), have something to say which adds to the conversation.  Add your opinion or thoughts on the topic, don’t just blindly agree.

Quality over Quantity

Pick a few bloggers which are in or close to your niche. Work on building relationships on a few blogs instead of trying to comment on as many blogs as possible. There’s no way you have time to monitor a ton of blogs for responses, which is a good way to build relationships. Choose 5 or so blogs first and work from there.

Comment on Comments

Adding your thoughts to other’s comments is a great way to connect with the community who reads the content. Remember to add some thoughts or an opinion to your response, don’t just say “I agree.”

Monitor for Responses

Once you’ve posted a comment, make sure you check back to see if anyone has responded (including the content creator).  Many commenting systems will allow you to subscribe to the comments to make it easier. Read responses and respond thoughtfully.

Be Respectful

Even if you completely disagree with a post or comment, remember to be respectful. Everything you post online contributes to your reputation and brand (and goes on your permanent record).  If a post makes you angry, take some time to cool off before you respond (or don’t respond if you can’t keep your cool). Everyone is entitled to an opinion. Treat others like you’d like to be treated (remember what you learned in kindergarten).

Support Your Argument

Whatever your opinion, try to support it with fully formed thoughts and facts (as much as possible). Well formed opinions are more likely to be respected (even if people disagree) and can be helpful for your online reputation.

Think Outside the Box

Think about factors or arguments which may not have been brought up. Think in new ways and expand the conversation for everyone involved. Be a thought leader.

How do you connect through commenting?

(photo by StuSeeger)

AdWords Quality Score is assigned by Google based on relevancy and click-through rates and has a big impact on how successful campaigns are. WordStream’s new Quality Score tools help advertisers improve their campaign structures according to proven best practices which will increase exposure in search results for lower costs and increase traffic as well as better qualified leads.

The new features include:

• AdWords Campaign Organization Tools useful for quickly creating tightly related ad groups and strategically organized campaign structures.
• Negative Keyword Tools which are easier to use and have been improved to further reduce irrelevant impressions and wasteful ad spend.
  
• Long-Tail Keyword Expansion Tools provide thousands of highly targeted long-tail keyword suggestions tailored to your product or service niche.

You can check out WordStream’s AdWords Quality Score Management Tools for free at: http://wordstream.com/try

The Wrong Message

Your website visitor came to your site for some reason… to read your blog, to find your phone number, to find out where you’re located. A splash page puts a barrier in front of where they’re trying to go.  You’re telling your visitor that your message is more important than they came.

Confusing

Depending on the design of the splash page, and whether it has a way to skip it or redirects automatically, many visitors may be confused.  They expected to see your home page and instead found a page that isn’t what they were looking for.

Bad for SEO

Many search engines have a difficult time getting past splash pages, depending on how they’re coded and designed. If search engines only see your splash page (which often doesn’t have any “readable” content), you’re missing out on opportunities to reach potential customers through search.

An Edge for Competitors

Most of us have competitors that potential customers can go to instead.  Using a splash page may give them a reason to visit a competitor’s website instead (where they can more easily find the information they’re looking for).  Why give them that opportunity?

Results Speak

Removing splash pages from client sites has undeniably increased traffic and engagement. Clients score better on search engine rankings and have improved conversations and response from their customers and potential customers. While there are ways to do this with a splash page in place, why put a barrier on in front of your customers?

A Good Use?

I have seen splash pages used well, but these tend to be very well designed and coded, and only show up for new visitors.  The pages also are really another home page, giving visitors a quick overview of the site and some suggestions as to the most likely destination they’re looking for.

Site overlays (which essentially are splash pages) have been effective for short promotions or when asking people to fill out a survey.  But they’re most useful when they’re not always there and when they have a very specific call to action (hopefully with a benefit to the visitor).  Site overlays also tend to work better and be better received by visitors.

What do you think?

(photo by nathalielaure)

Find Topics

Hashtags make it easy to search for keywords in your industry to see what topics people are interested in.  They also make it easy to follow conversations (and then contribute to those conversations).

Find Trends

Twitter’s Trending Topics, as well as those created by other applications, are often based off of hashtags.  Get a feeling for what topics are hot by taking a look at these trending topics.  Look for hot topics in your own industry as well.

Backchannel

Ever been to an event and see people typing furiously on their laptop or phone? They may be having conversations on a backchannel — an online conversation happening about the event.  Twitter hashtags are one common way that these backchannels happen.  Usually events will post the hashtag that they’d like you to use.

Host an Online Chat

I’ve seen many businesses have successful online conversations through Twitter by posting a date and time and a hashtag for people to follow. Hosting an online chat about a topic of interest to your audience and customers, is a great way to connect with people on Twitter.

Hashtags for SEO

Many search engines do index and show Twitter posts in their search results for keywords. Using hashtags may help you show up in those search results (help your tweet show up).

What Not to Do

Don’t overuse hashtags in order to try to get attention.  It’s considered spammy and makes your tweets hard to read. Keep it up and people will either ignore you or unfollow you.

Don’t use hashtags that aren’t useful in terms of people understanding the content of your tweet.

Don’t (for the most part) use more than one hashtag per tweet.  Two may be ok if they’re used properly.  More and you’re getting spammy again.

How do you use Twitter hashtags?

(photo by jeffisageek)

Infographic by computer school.org

(photo by Temari 09)

Search Engines

Many search engines use RSS feeds in order to be able to keep track of when your site (or blog) updates. Post a blog entry and it probably shows up within a couple of hours. While Google does have crawlers out there looking for new content, it’s the RSS feed sent out by your website which makes it easier for Google (and other search engines) to pick up your content more quickly.

RSS feeds for eCommerce sites are especially crucial for having your products show up in product-specific searches and search engines.

Social Networks

Do you have your blog automatically post to Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter? You’re using your RSS feed to update those sites so they know when to post (and what to post).  RSS feeds are an important way to distribute your content and make it available to a much wider audience automatically.

Monitoring

Have any Google Alerts setup for monitoring mentions of your product, company or name? (If not, you should.) Yup, RSS feeds.  Even if you’re having alerts sent to your email, in the background there’s probably an RSS feed kicking off the process.

Customers & Readers

Even your customers and readers may use RSS feeds and not realize it if they subscribe to your blog or website and get updates by email or in a reader program (they may not realize its a RSS reader). If you have an email signature that sends out a link to your latest post, that’s using RSS. If you’re using a widget to show your latest blog posts on your company website, you may also be using RSS.

RSS is Behind the Scenes

While many people may not know what RSS is, they’re probably using it in some way even if it’s hidden in the background.  RSS is vital for your business to distribute content to a wider audience (automatically!).  And since RSS is included in many blogging and content management systems, you may already have RSS on your site and not even know.

How do you use RSS for your business? (or how do you think you may?)

(photo by Hot Flashes)

Follow Best Practices

Best practices for SEO include things like using header tags (h1, h2, etc), having descriptive titles and descriptions and just the right amount of important keywords within the text.  If you follow best practices, your site will be more effectively indexed by search engines, but it should not overly affect the readability of your site.

Choose Only Important Keywords

Pick the top one or two keywords for each page and concentrate on using best practices to highlight them.  Don’t choose too many keywords or search engines will be confused as to which are important.  And people trying to read your content won’t have a clear understanding of what you’re trying to say.

Communicate Your Message

People are selfish.  They want to know what’s in it for them.  Your marketing messages need to communicate the benefits of your products or services to your potential customers.  These messages are vital for converting people into customers.  Make sure your marketing messages don’t get lost in your effort to optimize your site for search engines.

Give it the Human Test

To make sure your website still communicates your benefits and marketing messages after you’ve optimized it for search engines, have a few people who haven’t read it take a look at it.  Ask them what the major points are of the site and key pages.  Ask them if it’s comfortable to read and if it makes sense.  If not, fix it.

Strike the Right Balance

SEO is important for initially getting people to your site, but it’s even more vital that your site is readable by those people.  Find the right balance between SEO and readability so that you’re effectively communicating the information people are looking for as well as why people should by from you.

Thoughts?

(photo by Dannerzz)

When to Worry About Content

If your website only has a few pages — Home, About, Contact, Services — you may have enough content for a potential customer to get information about your business, but probably not enough for them to come back more than once (or to spend much time on the site).  Having additional content on your site, even if it’s just some how-to articles or additional information about your products or services, can make a big difference both to people spending more time (and coming back) and to search engines trying to figure out what keywords your site has.

A Reason to Blog

Providing regularly updated content is becoming increasingly more important to search engines, who will no longer rank a site with a lot of content highly if it hasn’t updated for awhile.  Regularly updated content is important for people too and gives them a reason to check out your site on a regular basis — giving you more opportunity to get your message across.

A Great Partner to Social Media

Connecting with customers via social media is so vital to any business these days.  Having a great place to direct those people to when they are ready to purchase from you (or get more information) is key to sealing the deal.  Content is part of that equation.

What do you think?

(photo by chrislugosz)

Google Analytics – Keyword Report

Located under Traffic Sources in the menu on the left, this report lists the keywords used to get to your site by the number of visits, but also tells you the average amount of pages viewed per visit, the average time on the site, the % of new visits and the bounce rate.  You can also sort the list by any of these variables (for example, taking a look at the keywords that lead to the longest average time on site can be very insightful).

Google Webmaster Tools

Google’s Webmaster Tools give you a look at the keywords the googlebot attributes to your site (with their significance), as well as when your site shows up for search queries (and information about how often it was clicked and for what keywords).

Sorting the queries by clicks and CTR can give you nice insight to which keywords actually lead people to your site.  Seeing all the keywords for which Google shows your site on search results may lead to some unexplored topic areas.

Google AdWords Keyword Tool

AdWords has some nice tools for optimizing ad campaigns, but they can also be useful for understanding what keywords Google finds for your site along with their search volume (global and local) and competition.  Using this tool can help you find niches with less competition — both for ads, but also for content creation.

Other Keyword Tools

There are definitely other keyword tools available, some of which we’ve covered here, here and here.

What tools do you use for keyword research?

Think this isn’t happening to you? Take a look at your analytics and see how many people are getting to your landing page (they’re interested) and how many people are actually going through with the sale (sales or thank you page).

Now, there may be other things people don’t like — maybe the offer wasn’t clear or the price is too high — but oftentimes they just don’t know what to do next.

It happens time and time again.  Often when I look at the usability on a client’s website, especially the sales funnel, and I start mapping out the pages involved, I get this horrible mishmash network of links going every where.  There’s no clear path to a sale.

Take a look at your landing page.  Do you have a clear call to action — a clear next step? Is it above the fold (top part of the page)? If your copy continues down the page, do you have your call to action repeated every so often?

Make it as easy as possible for people to understand what the next step is when they want to purchase from you.  Getting people to your landing page is half the battle.  Don’t stop there! Increase your sales by helping people buy from you.

Copyblogger has a great list of tutorials on landing pages.

(image by House of Sims on Flickr)

Powered by WordStream Internet Marketing Software

Free Keyword Grouper

Powered by WordStream Internet Marketing Software

Free Keyword Tool

Powered by WordStream Internet Marketing Software

To create your own custom versions of the WordStream keyword tools that you can embed on your website for free, visit: http://www.wordstream.com/free-tool-embed-generator/

If you add the free WordStream keyword tools to your site, let me know what you think.

• Traditional Keyword Research – Similar to other keyword tools, WordStream offers a deep database of keyword suggestions.
• Personalize Keyword Suggestions – WordStream also mines your own site data to provide relevant keyword ideas that people are already using to find your site.
• Keyword Analytics – Instead of popularity estimates, WordStream provides accurate visit and goal data from your own site on an ongoing basis.
• Keyword Organization – WordStream has created very sophisticated grouping and organization capabilities so you can effectively segment your keyword list to identify content suggestions, to analyze your data for strategic clusters, and to create a SEO-friendly information architecture.
• Content Authoring – The WordStream SEO for Firefox plugin connects your keyword research with your content creation efforts to help you focus your blog posts or product pages.

The Discover Keywords tab is where you conduct traditional keyword research, allowing you to aggregate data from a range of different sources:

WordStream SEO for Firefox plugin provides some great functionality for integrating keyword research and content authoring and integrates into blogging platforms like Drupal, WordPress and Blogger.  To start you can research a new topic and get help in narrowing a broad topic into something more targeted:

As you select a topic, you can see all the keywords in that group, viewing results as phrases, single words or in question form.  As you write, the plugin also keeps a running count of how many keyword phrases you’ve used:

WordStream is offering a free trial if you’re interested in learning more about their new keyword management SEO tool.