“Money out means money in! ” – That is the way advertising works.

One of the key objectives in participating in advertising is to pay less and get more. The better this ratio stacks up the happier the advertiser. Luckily, Google and the other online advertising sites make it possible to reduce the amount paid for advertising and get more benefit by paying attention to the quality and relevancy of the advert.

The snap shot above is the way my Google account stacked up over a particular six-day period. The top graph shows Click through rate (CTR) and the bottom graph shows Cost per click (CPC). The cost of a particular advert being clicked on has a few contributing factors and as outlined by Google they are.

• Ad Click through rate: about 60% – As users click on adverts so the CTR increases and the quality ratings of the adverts increase.
• Ad Relevance: about 30% – Determined by the correlation of the advert, the keywords being bid on.
• Landing Page Quality: about 10% – The information and user action when they arrive at the landing page being presented.

Looking a little deeper into my campaigns, I had the following breakdown. The top campaign is Content search; the others are all search advertising. It is quickly obvious again the correlation between CTR and cost from this breakdown. The second and sixth campaigns have much lower CTR than the campaigns around them and look what it does to the cost per click of these particular campaigns.

Ways to increase the quality score of adverts.

Break keywords into groups

Group all the keywords that belong together into a particular campaign. Go down to the next level which is the adgroup level and group the different concepts within the campaign into relevant groups. These groups may contain as few as one or two keywords. The idea is to get as specific as possible in targeting the keywords with the most relevant advert.

Target the keyword

Using the ability to change between broad, phrase and exact gives the ability to reduce the amount of noise surrounding an advert. The more exacting a keywords target is, the less the advert will be displayed for terms that are not related. Negative keywords play a role in minimizing irrelevant phrases that an advert may be displayed for.

An example of this would be if I am advertising, a caravan park and I target the city where the caravan park is found, then I may have my advert showing up for queries that are about the city council or library. Using the negative keyword library would stop an advert being displayed for search that is about the city library. What this means is that targeting more closely the intent of the person searching, means that the person who sees the advert is more likely to click on the advert.

Produce relevant landing pages.

If a person clicks on an advert because they believe that they are being taken to a place that sells hotel accommodation and they land on a page that sells cars then the user experience is lacking. This is a very out there example but the closer an advert is tailored to what is on the landing page the better the user experience and that leads to the possibility of having the user take the desired action. The correct correlation between intent and what is being displayed then helps to raise the quality score of the advert.

Online advertising is a full time job if done correctly. The size of the overall campaign also determines how much time needs to be spent in achieving the right result. If there is a struggle with time I would suggest that an advertiser cut done on the number of terms that are being targeted and concentrate on getting those campaigns which are running the best return. Aim to increase the CTR, by improving the quality of keyword relevance, advert and landing page. This in turn will lead to a decrease in the cost-per-click (CPC) of each advert and the overall cost of online advertising while providing greater return on investment.

Web Content ‘s focus determines its success.

What the internet aims to be is a repository of information that helps us solve problems. Every time useful information is published on the internet, it should help us do just that “Solve Problems.” Creating content that is useful and available through search may not be enough. Connecting the reader with what you have written is the key to successful content on the internet.

Useful, problem solving information can take many different forms from inspirational, tips, news, how to’s and so much more. How this information is received however puts a whole new spin on the term “Successful information.” An example of this would be if an article is published that solves the problem of hair loss. If I were losing my hair then this information would help me from going bald. However if I don’t read the information because of lack of engagement, I will never achieve the solution of a full head of hair that is being offered me. The article is no longer successful but is a failure in solving my hairy problem.

What structure should web content take on.

The question therefore raised is, “ How should content be constructed in order to be successful?” A lot of copy writing experts will explain the effectiveness of using headlines, dot points and WIIFM benefits of persuasion copy writing.

Taking the thought of writing to engage the reader one-step further, consideration must be given to the reader’s inherent reactions and personality. How much does personality and native make up play a part in the reaction to the information people are reading? If it does play a part and I believe it does, then the key to engagement is, “how can we write content to address the different personality types?”

Personality breakdown to apply to web content writing.

The 4MAT® Model which is aimed at teachers may provide insight into how we can write content that appeals to different personality and learning types. The 4MAT® model breaks people up into four different learning approaches. It maintains that although people use a wide range of learning experiences, individuals tend to favour a particular learning method. The four methods are…

1. Imaginative Learning – Feeling and watching, seeking personal associations, meaning and involvement.
2. Analytic Learning – Listening to and thinking about information; seeks facts thinking through ideas, what does the expert think.
3. Common Sense Learning – Thinking and doing. Experimenting, building, creating usability, tinkering.
4. Dynamic Learning – Doing, feeling. Seeking hidden possibilities, exploring, learning by trial and error.

Another factor that plays a part in how an individual inherently learns is the usage of left and right brain.

• Left brain – Operates best through structure and sequence.
• Right Brain – Comprehends images, seeks patterns.

When the left and right brains are both used during the learning process higher learning and thinking is achieved. There is a greater range and depth of understanding leading to a greater implementation or take up of the new ideas.

The model extends to include a breakdown of

1. How we perceive the information – Take new information in and this scales from THINKING (Conceptualizing) to FEELING (Experience).
2. How we process the information – What is done with the information which scales from DOING (Active or Experimental) to WATCHING(Reflective or Observing).

All of this information can be depicted in a diagram as follows.

Web Content and the therefore what question?

In creating information that takes into consideration people’s inherent personality and learning types the key questions that relate to each sector are important. Making sure that each key question is addressed and in order is important. Review the content adding in elements that will help a particular learning type connect with the information. This may be an image or stats in the correct place.

If you have read all the way down to here the key challenge is to take the knowledge of how people learn and apply it to your writing. Can you increase your circle of influence? Some web stats that maybe useful in determining the impact of writing content in a way that considers how your readers best learn is loyalty and recency.

If you have any further insights, thoughts or experiences I would love to hear from you.

Lunar Park Sydney saw a host of internationally renowned SEO experts attending SMX Sydney 2009 and presenting SEO information and giving the audience the benefit of years of SEO experience. For two days, a mix of information swapping, questioning and learning preoccupied the attendees. The other activity revolved around social networking with a number of people professing that they went to bed too late the first night. It was encouraging to know that all the tweeters still knew how to interact with real people.

Some of the stand out presentations that I went to…

Monte Huebsch -Blended Search Tactics 2 – Maps & Local Listing Optimisation

Starting out Monte made the following statement: “The search engines advice when considering what to do always emphasis two elements”

• Maps/ Local Business directories
• Blogging

The presentation tackled the first one of these areas talking about local directories. Focusing on Australian local directories, he emphasized that a website does not have to pay for listings in three of the top five local directories.

These directories are good for traffic from the people who use the directories; they also contribute to a site’s overall Google rankings.
The list of top five directories in Australia presented is as follows.

• Google -> Free plus has street view
• Yellow Pages -> $$$
• Hotfrog -> Free
• True local -> $$
• Aussie web -> Free

Factors in utilizing Local directories correctly include

• Proximity of address
• Number of quality reviews
• Keyword relevance
• SEO characteristics of the website
• Links within the local community

Greg Boser from 3 Dog media – 301 Redirects, Why are they important?

Starting with this statement: “A 301 is a status code served in the http header that informs the requesting user-agent that the URI being requested has been permanently moved to a new location”

Greg moved on to say that he thought that the 301 redirect tool was one of the best and most powerful tools available to SEO’s. The reasoning was that it is the only redirect to pass or carry the link juice from one area to another area.

Greg mentioned the difficulty with developers in getting the correct redirect implemented.

When to use a 301 redirect

• Domain migration
• Canonicalization (www vs non-www)
• Site Architecture changes
• Type-in, misspelled, and marketing domains

Greg also spoke about the new canonical tag, which he called RELCAN. This gives webmasters the ability to help inform the search engines, which is the preferred page with in a site. The tag does not work across domains but will work across sub-domains. It helps hugely in the area of duplicate content and refines the process, which previously had to be done using robots.txt and other tools, which could cause other problems.

The resource he quoted was http://www.netconcepts.com/learn/301-redirect.php

Stephan Pavlovich – Conversion Rate Optimisation

A great presentation highlighting some really good best practises when thinking about conversion. Conversion of visitors to the intent of the websites existence is important. Stephen covered two topics in a list that his company uses when approaching a website’s conversion problems.

He addressed

• Understanding your visitors (particularly the non-converting ones)
• Designing your webpage experiment

Starting with Understanding your visitor Stephen defined that there are two types of non-converting users. The first is the visitor that wants what you have to offer and would like your service or product but struggles to get to the point of engagement. To fix this a webmaster needs to focus on the funnel path to conversion and clarify what the user needs to do next to achieve engagement.

The second type of non-converting visitor is the person that needs persuading. To deal with this a departure from conventional A/B testing of change something and see what happens is required. What he suggests is use the formula

What is the Objection / Counter the Objection

To achieve this he gave a few possible objections and their counter objection

• If they don’t trust your company -> Build trust elements
• If they don’t believe your product
• is better than competitors -> show advantages over competitors
• is better than nothing -> show benefits over nothing
• works -> show proof it works
• If they don’t understand what you are offering -> Use techniques to improve comprehension
• If you aren’t making enough offers -> Make more offers
• If they see the decision as being too risky -> Use risk reduction strategies

The biggest tool in helping to improve a websites conversion was the art of listening. A number of tools were highlighted which helped in getting feedback from visitors. This included survey and live chat tools.

He lastly covered off a number of methods for handling objections.

• Handle objections head on
• Give a reason why
• Be authoritative (image of someone in authority etc)
• Create Urgency, Scarcity, Exclusivity
• Provide something that is helpful (AID = advertising in disguise)
• Proof Demonstration, Media testimonials, Evidence of success, Social
• Perform Cost-benefit analysis
• Bargain appeal
• Risk Reversal
• Simplicity
• Desire to belong
• Common Enemy

His resource http://conversion-rate-experts.com/articles

Cindy Krum – What’s New In Mobile Search

“The Web has become so pervasive, so ubiquitous that it is fading into the background. It is becoming invisible. It just powers everything that we do and it is almost completely transparent; In that we often don’t even realize that we’re getting data or information from the Web. It’s just how we do things. We just expect it to be there and work. Flawlessly, at all times.”

Cindy specializes in web mobility, which seems to be the next large break through for internet search. Cindy empathised that mobility search is in its infancy and has huge benefits to offer early adopters. Likening this to the web of 10 years ago, Cindy said those that get involved now will have to test and play but grabbing the market share ahead of the heard would bring large benefits.

Why the Importance of Mobile Search

• Mass mobile coverage
• Most personal marketing medium ever
• More interactive marketing possibilities

Hurdles to Mobile search

• Lots of browsers
• Many different handsets
• Inconsistent coverage
• Expensive mobile data pricing
• User education

Cindy also talked about styling of mobile web pages, best domains to use(.mobi is dead), SEO mobile factors including directory submission.

I find it almost impossible to interact with all the different social networking opportunties that are available. Recently Australia celebrated the eight hour working day.

Listening to an ABC reoporter talking about the history of the day I was lead to realize that not only was the idea to only work eight hours a day but to have eight hours recreation and eight hours sleep. This all makes sence to me. Following this advice would make my life more balanced.

One of the problems I have found with social networking sites is the amount of time it takes to interact, communicate and update each site. There is no way that I can be effectivly active on digg, stumbleupon, twitter, linkedin, facebook, bloglog, blog catalog, dropjack, sphinn and a host of other places that can provide me with a return on time invested.

Looking at the list of social sites in Australia through the eyes of hitwise I took the top 12 social sites and ranked them according to market share, age reach and lifestyle reach.The idea of this is to start giving me an idea of where best my time and effort should be invested. Hopefully I will be able to connect with people who I want and need to communicate with that will help me achieve my goals.

Australian social sites – Market Share
Which social networking site gets the most traffic from Australian visitors?
I believe that this is the first important metric. The more traffic the more potential there is to be seen. From the hitwise data, Facebook.com is the stand out winner.

Australian social sites – Age
Which age group can be found on which site?
As I have grown older I have noticed that my interests have changed. I am still me but different. When trying to connect socially with people I believe it is important to approach each group with something that resonates with them. Depending on who I am trying to reach socially I should choose where I spend my effort. If I am trying to talk to the 18 year olds Yahoo answers, if I am trying to talk to the over 55’s then twitter (Yes this did amaze me)

Enlarged graph

Australian social sites – Lifestyle
What type of people visit what type of social networking site?
This is very similar to age as a consideration and is taken from the mosaic group clasifications. Different people have different expectations from life. They have different back grounds and respond in different ways. Understanding this and speaking their language will make the interaction so much more valuable. Twitter.com won in the priveldged prosperity catagory and orkut.com was the champion with students and young profesionals.

Enlarged graph

If a social networking campaign is something you are aiming at or you just want to get connected, it is important to think about who and where your target audience are interacting. Once this has been identified use the social site that will give the most value for the time you invest.