Holistic Technology Enabled Internet Marketing Solutions

After many years of being neck-deep in Google Analytics, I finally had the chance to complete the Google Analytics IQ test. While reviewing for the test, I rediscovered features that I do not use nearly enough when looking at site data. Perhaps if I am skimping on them, some of you are too – so let’s take a look!

1. On Site Search and Search Refinement Report
   By reviewing search terms that people searched for within your site, you can not only see keywords not previously identified for AdWords campaigns, but content that visitors are trying to find that is not easily navigated to. Search refinement, on the other hand, occurs after the original internal site search is performed. By seeing how visitors refined their searches is an opportunity to modify the initial result page for the first internal search.
2. Search Navigation Report
   Adding onto #1, you can also see where the visitor started the search, and follow the path where visitors who search on a specific keyword go after viewing the search result page. You can see if that site search leads to a conversion or sale. By looking at Start pages, you can assess the effectiveness of that landing page, and learn about the keywords searched on from that page. This can provide details on how you can make the landing page more useful so the visitor doesn’t need to work as hard to get to what they are looking for.

   Site Search reports are located in the Content area of Google Analytics and need to be activated in the Profile Settings. For more details watch the Google module on this topic.

3. Search and Replace Filters
   You can create a Custom Filter that can replace a Request URI with a more meaningful description. For example, in the Top Content Report, you may have a list of URI’s that are not descriptive, and make it hard to analyze, such as /category.asp?catid=5, /category.asp?catid=41, /category.asp?catid=32 and so on. By using the Search and Replace Filter, you can provide content names to specific query stings, making the report a lot easier to digest.You can read more about search and replace filters on the Analytics module on Filters.

   

4. Reverse Goal Path Report
   Sometimes the path people take on their way to completing a goal you have set up is much different than the path you intended for them to take. Knowing that information can really help you with your site elements and goal conversion strategy. Found in the Goals section, you can see goal data defined without a sales funnel. It lists the navigation path that users took to arrive at a goal page, and provides the number of conversions that resulted from each path. This report demonstrates internal linking opportunities that you haven’t considered before, and offers ideas on how you can most efficiently provide visitors with information that they are looking for.

   If you want to know more about goals and funnels, check out the learning module on those topics.

5. $ Index
   Found in the Content area, the $ Index metric is the sum total of (Revenue + Goal Value) / Unique Views of Page Before the Conversion. It allows you to see the value of pages that have the most potential for site profitability. It’s most useful as a ranking metric and and shouldn’t be used as a standalone number. In order to use the $ Index metric, you need to have assigned goal values or have e-commerce revenue, otherwise the $ Index metric will be zero.

   You can read more about the $ Index on this learning module.

6. Graph Dayparts Against Transactions
   If you manually tag your ads, you can only see campaign and keyword data, and won’t receive many of the dimensions that can offer actionable insight. We already implement AdWords autotagging as a common practice, one feature to take advantage of is to graph dayparts against Transactions. Click on Traffic Sources > AdWords > Dayparts. Click on the top Visits tab, and choose Compare Two Metrics. I chose to compare Vists and Transactions below. Then drill down to Keyword – you can drill down even further by keyword and hour of day, and adjust AdWords bids accordingly. To see the full review, watch this video.

All of the study guides are located here. Because many are in presentation format, they are easy to digest. Definitely recommended if you are regularly in your site’s analytics.

Photo credit: Stéfan

Panda, Panda, Panda… Pandas haunt me again*.

I am sure most of you know about the big Google Panda (or Farmer) update and now it is suspected the next version of that update is rolling out. This update is meant to help websites with unique content rank higher than content scraping sites.

In theory this is perfect but in real life some businesses who were practicing good SEO got hurt in the process. We know some customers, peers and vendors who saw their search rankings go down after this update was launched.

One big example is if you are selling a product and a bunch of different retail outlets are selling your product. In most cases they take the approved copy from you and post it on their own site. To a Google bot that looks just like scraped text – which is a big no-no, especially now.

Picking up the Panda pieces

In his live video chat, Matt Cutts got a lot of questions about the Panda update and he let us know there would be an update at some point (soon). Many people in the chat and on blogs have expressed their frustration with the slap on the wrist from Google after this update and they want to know how to get back in good standing.

I just read a blog from Search Engine Watch about their Top 5 Google Panda Update SEO Survival Tips. The biggest being – don’t rely solely on SEO for your website’s success. That makes a lot of sense! If you can spread your traffic sources around, your site will be building in other areas even if it takes a hit in one. You can read more about types of traffic sources on this blog post here.

PPC can help

In the Search Engine Watch article Garry explains why he feels PPC has several advantages over SEO:

• Product: Guaranteed exposure to only those products and services you want to promote in search results. Match keywords to exact product offerings and watch conversion skyrocket.
• Price: In this case, it’s not the price of the product or services offered, but the price your business pays for the traffic itself. Don’t forget to factor in all the time and effort invested into ranking for keywords in organic results, and how often changes may be required.
• Promotion: While you can change the content surrounding your products, you may not have the same amount of creative license to change that content as quickly for mainstay (SEO targeted) pages versus paid search landing pages, nor will you necessarily have control over which pages Google chooses to display in results pages for any given query.
• Place: Distribution of your product won’t change, but distribution of your product in organic SERPs may be highly elastic versus highly-controllable paid search campaigns.
• People: Perhaps the most important component is your inability to control and target behavioral cues in search queries using SEO. It doesn’t get much better than the complete control that multiple keyword match types, negative match keyword lists, and advanced query performance reporting affords a search marketer.

Pretty smart. There is some security in a well-planned and targeted PPC campaign. Pandas or no Pandas – PPC can help bring some new website users to your site that you couldn’t dream of with SEO alone.

Are you prepared for Panda 2.2? Did you even notice a change with the original Panda update?

* Who is haunted by Pandas right? Want to know the ONLY word that rhymes with ‘Amanda’? You guessed it – PANDA! Know what I got for every holiday and birthday? Pandas! Panda clothes, stuffed pandas, panda radio, panda jewelry box, walking pandas, panda air freshener, panda coloring books, panda EVERYTHING. It was actually a bit scary if you saw my room as a child. I should probably see a therapist that specializes in panda overload.

Photo credit: KB35

In paid search (pay-per-click/PPC), like Google Adwords, there is a number that indicates the quality of the keywords you are using and affects it’s ranking and cost-per-click (CPC). The quality score is influenced by many factors like click-through rate (CTR), account history, quality of your landing page, relevancy of the keyword in the ads, and relevancy to the search query. The number is rated on a scale of 1-10; the higher the Quality Score, the higher your ad placement will be at a lower CPC. Microsoft is slated to start having Quality Score available to marketers very soon according to their Advertising blog.

Why is Quality Score important?

Though Quality Score doesn’t directly affect conversions on your landing page, it can lead to insight about how well your ads rank relating to the amount of media spent. The guts of your paid search campaign are:

• Choosing the right keywords to target your audience,
• Integrating those keywords on your landing page and into the ad text,
• And having the ad text relate directly to the landing page.

Knowing and understanding your Quality Score can give you actionable feedback to understand your competitive space as well as improve your campaign. One of the goals of a paid search marketer is to get their ads to rank higher than other ads at a lower cost-per-click. The score allows you to understand how it’s currently ranking and then make educated tests to improve that number.

Here are some ways you can improve your Quality Score:

• Check out your keywords! Are you using the right ones? How do the keywords you’re using in paid search rank for the website organically?
• Review on-page SEO elements. Are the keywords you’re using in paid search found on the landing pages? If not, consider adding or rewriting the content that implements those keywords.
• Do you need more ad groups? Maybe some of the keywords don’t relate to the others – try segmenting the keywords into different ad groups so the keywords in each group are relevant to each other and to the specific ad text used for each group.
• Google Adwords suggests that optimization is the best way to improve the keywords’ performance without raising the costs and recommends using their keyword diagnosis feature to provide insight as to why your ad might not be showing up.

The primary goal is to get the user to convert and although Quality Score doesn’t directly relate to those conversions, having a high Quality Score gives your ads the best opportunity to rank well for those keywords.  The more targeted the keywords, ads, and landing pages are the more likely the user will click on the ad and convert on the page. Using the right keywords for your campaign, making sure that they are relevant to the ad text as well as the landing page you are using is the best way to obtain a good Quality Score.

Much like a saloon in an abandoned western town, without visitors your site will not make you a penny. Among the best methods to drive potential customers is Pay-per-click advertsing (PPC) through Google’s Adwords or Microsoft Advertising’s adcenter- which delivers ads to both Bing and Yahoo. While Google receives a full 2/3 share of the U.S. search market, adding Adcenter to your mix raises your reach to 94.6%.

Before you begin any advertising campaigns, you must set clear goals for what you are trying to achieve. For example: Are you trying to Increase awareness? Increase leads? Perhaps Close more sales? For each of these, the campaign configuration would be different.

Increase awareness
To increase awareness, you would create a long-tail keyword list of relevant terms. Your keyword list should be very broad, and consider a variety of scenarios where your site would be a relevant result.
To build this campaign, create 4 lists of search phrases:

1. For your brand use phrases that include your name or unique products. You want to be sure that you rank well for people who are actively trying to find your site.
2. For your industry, categories, or market. Use association sites, trade groups, email newsletters, industry journals and consumer magazines for your market, as great sources for seed phrases.
3. For your products or services. All names aside, what is it that you sell? List your wares as you would search for them, as wells as how your customers would search for them. Regardless of your product, it’s possible your customers may describe it differently than you do: consider ‘watches’ vs. ‘timepieces’ or ‘chronographs’, ‘pens’ vs. ‘writing implements’.
4. And for your value proposition. What pain can you alleviate, what problems do your products solve? List the phrases that bring customers calling, and hopefully appear on the search engine results page (SERP) when they need you.

Each of these lists contributes ideas for potential keyword categories; develop each group of search phrases by adding variations of each and collect them into 4 ad groups within your campaign. Then set low maximum bids across the entire group- ensuring the most new visits for your advertising spend.

More leads
Bringing leads in the door means qualifying the above list, and not allocating spend toward reach. These terms should be product, pain, or need specific- and copy would appropriately respond to the search. Key word bids may be higher, but the budget must be carefully considered to provide volume and maintain your margin.

Set your maximum bid based on the value of each new customer to your business, the ratios of site visitors to leads and close rate. Let’s say 1 in 20 visitors becomes a lead, you close 1 in 5 leads, and a sale yields $200 in profit.

Maximum CPC=(lead conversion rate)*(close rate)*NewCustomerValue
Maximum CPC=(0.05)*(0.2)*$200=$2

Since only 1% of your PPC visitors will become new customers, you can not afford to buy visits for more than 1% of your margin (or $2) per visitor. If the resulting number is too low for your critical search phrases, revisit your conversion strategy.

Close sales
To connect people in a buying phase, your campaign’s budget would be focused on searches of an evolved and comparative nature. No longer appropriate to target searches that are exploratory, you should narrow your efforts to bid on searches that are most likely to result in a purchase. Consider the searches of two potential visitors:

These phrases exemplify the critical value of long-tail campaigns: the more specific the phrases that you bid on, the lower their averaged cost-per-click. The latter visitor is farther along in the buying cycle, knows what they want, and is more likely to buy if you have what they are looking for. While that narrow phrase offers only 28 potential visits per month, it carries only 1.5% of the cost.

To close more sales, drop higher-cost broad phrases and develop a litany of lower-cost, lower-volume searches that more narrowly describe the specific problem a site visitor could be facing or products that you offer.

Wrangling Customers to your Door
If your site is ready to turn visitors into leads, and leads into customers, then you are ready to dive into the pay-per-click marketplace. I encourage you to start with Google Adwords first, since it does have two-thirds of the market. As you construct your PPC campaign, round up the keyword lists you created above for each ad group, and develop ad copy that is Relevant, Compelling and Valuable for each search target.

You should set measurable goals for your new campaign, but if you’re new to this- how do you set your targets? To see what possible keywords in your market are going to cost, check out the Google Adwords: Keyword Tool, and use the Traffic Estimator to see how many visits you could anticipate.

As you kick-off your online advertising effort, make sure you can monitor your site in Google Analytics, and setup Goal Conversions to the see the effects of your PPC campaign. Calculating your PPC costs versus your “Goal Completions” will tell you the ongoing profitability of your efforts. Once you’ve found success, you can recreate your winning PPC campaign in Microsoft adcenter to expand your reach by almost 42%!