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Whats In for your website visitors ?
Doesnt matter if you have the best structured ppc campaigns, high click through rates or great ad copies for all your ppc campaigns.Before you get really excited about it, do you know what happens next after your visitors lands onto your website ? The "Whats in for me" objective starts to kicks in for visitors whom came onto your website because of what they were told earlier on in your ppc ads, so does your landing page offer what they were looking for ?If Yes...good job...however the journey does not ends here....did they eventually completed the goal or objective which you hope they would do so (Be it signing up for your newsletter, filling up a form,etc...) once they landed onto your landing page ? Did they take action ?If No....Why ? And Why not ?Today in this post, I will be sharing some tips which you should give it a try and let the data speaks for itself:Whats the goal / objective once your ppc visitors lands onto your particular landing page ?Instead of landing your ppc visitors onto your generic homepage, try sending them to a customized page which is relevant to what they were looking for when they were clicking onto your ppc ads earlier on.Test which ppc ad copies work best for the individual landing pages (product/info /etc)Split testing your ppc ad copies constantly.Start small and learn from your testings before scaling up.Once youre confident enough, try Google Website Optimizer in testing different elements of your landing page; finding out which elements work together best in achieving higher conversions for your landing page goals / objectives.If youre really serious about getting better ROI for your ppc campaigns, try the above mentioned tips,not only will you get higher conversions but also getting to understand more about your website visitors behavior and in turn creating more targeted and relevant content for them.To end this post with a mantra: Learn, Analyze, Test, Repeat*Agree or Disagree ?Your Turn Now !
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2008 PPC Learnings
2008.With 2008 coming to a close,have you reflect back regarding your search campaigns in 2008 ? What can you learn and leverage for 2009 ?Heres some learnings to share for 2008:Daily Budget:How better to blow your budget overnight ?- Setting a newly revised daily budget and going for a holiday, going for a few day retreat, ignoring the budget over the weekend. Get ready to burn off your budget when you try the above mention.Keywords- Bidding on high click through keywords which has zero or very low conversion rates.- Over bidding on keywords without having taken into consideration of your revenue / profit per conversion.- Paying for negative keywords without knowing (Failure to run the reports in identifying the negative keywords which are costing you money but zero / low conversions)- Lumping all your keywords all onto a single ad group when you should be segmenting them individually onto respective relevant ad groups.ZERO testing:- Simply just running your only ad copy without any alternative copy in testing which has a better conversion rate. No split / AB testing conducted.- Which elements of the landing page are better enticing the prospects in converting ? (Call to action button, colours, hero image, form fields, copy content)Generic Landing Page:- Simply send all your potential customers to a generic page without a goal in mind; paying for all the clicks but zero conversions. When you should be sending them to respective product / promotions / information page.Your Turn.PPC search campaign learnings to share ?
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Optimize your PPC campaigns
2008.The year is coming to an end.How much are you spending on search marketing ?Are your marketing dollars well spent ?Or are you throwing your $ out of your window ?So how do you better optimize your ppc campaigns ?Enough said, heres some quick tips to implement now.PPC elements optimization:Negative keywords* Removal of non-performing keywords which are not converting but costing $Split testing* Any split test conducted on a on-going basis ?* Which ad group is converting better ? In individual countries ? In seasonal period ?* How long is the test conducted ? Too long ? Too Short period ?Historical keyword performance* Whats the historical keyword performance of individual ad groups / campaigns ?Other on-page elements to test:Call to Action Button* Colour - which colour on the cta button converts better ? In different countries ? In different seasonal period ?* Copy on cta - which copy on cta converts better ? In different countries ? In different seasonal period ?* Shape - Which shape coverts better ? In different countries ?Web Form* Which part of your web form field is actually necessary ? Or which part of web form fields are hindering conversion rates ?* Shorter web form field, have you tried testing the conversion after alteration ?Landing Page Load Time* How fast is your landing page loading ?* What is the landing page individual document size ?* What is the average Internet connection speed of your visitors ?Landing Page Copy Font* Is your landing page fonts visible ? (Even though visitors / potential customers scan web pages)* Which Font size / colour converts better ? In different countries ?Landing Page Friction Elements* Which element of your landing page is actually hindering conversion rate ? (Dont make the visitors / potential customers think !)* Are there any substantial claims or testimonials to support your copy content in reducing friction,thereby increasing trust factor ?Implement this:> Try using Google Website Optimizer, let the consumers test / decide for you, which on page elements work best at which country, for which seasonal period, for which promotional campaign, etc.Test, Test, TestLearn.Optimize.Re-Test, Re-TestAre you testing ?
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SEO / SEM: Online Tools Collection
Alright, here we go....A collection of free online SEO / SEM toolsready to be BOOKMARK !!SEO Tools:Search Engine AnalyticsSimply just enter any Url into the search query and voila you get a trend report from link popularity, PageRank™, Alexa Rank, keywords.Head CheckerThis tool will check any web pages header tags. Search Combination ToolThis tool will generate all possible combinations of two separate lists of search phrases.Keyword Density Analysis ToolEnter a page URL and this tool will tell you the keyword density of all the phrases on the page.Spider ViewerWonder how your page is viewed by a search engine spider / bot ?Index RankCheck and benchmark your website indexation against your competitionSeoDiggerFind out for which keywords your site ranks high enough to be in Google Top 20. Registering for a free account at SeoDigger gives you information per entire domain as well as per separate pages.Site Comparison Analysis A useful tool in benchmarking your website against a competitor via a radar diagram.Stomper RankerA firefox plugin in finding out how well your site fare against the competition in Google, Yahoo, and MSN/Live.SEO Site Audit ToolA quick audit on your website or competitor on how well your website is faring on search engines, social bookmarking, etcSEO Audit ReportFree SEO audit which provides score that incorporates things like website traffic, SEO, social popularity and other technical factors on how your website can be improved from a marketing perspective.Backlink Analysis Find out all the important information about your competitors links. This free tool reporting includes pagerank, anchor texts, no-follow information , etc.Website AnalysisAnother tool in digging out everything regarding a websiteSEM Tools:Keyword ToolThe free keyword tool from GoogleFind out how competitive your particular keyword is / are; Crawl your own website to determine which keyword / s are getting higher trafficTraffic EstimatorThe free Traffic Estimator tool from GoogleGet quick traffic estimates for keywords for your sem campaignsKeyword Competition ToolFind out how competitive the particular keyword /s is for your sem campaigns.Search RadarSearch for topics relevant to your search queryLanding Page Optimization Tools:Loading Speed of your websiteHow long does your website load in various web browsers ?Website Speed TestAnother tool in testing your web site loading speed Page Size CalculatorUseful in calculating the size of your web page and the estimated time it would take to download on a 56k Modem.Heatmap AnalysisIdentify how people view your website, photo or ad and which areas are getting most of the attention.If you know of any SEO / SEM tools that were not mentioned here or missed any goodies, drop a note and I will update the post.Bookmark.Share.
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Test Your Call to Action Button
Before we begin for today,lets do a little test below should we ?Yes, which call to action button would entice you to click onto it if you were a student signing up for your degree program ?Have your answers ready ?As a business owner / marketer, which copy would you put onto your call to action button ?Would a generic copy on the button entice more clicks from your users / visitors ?Or would a copy which inform your users / visitors on the next step or whats IN for them once they click onto the the call to action button ?Why not implement a simple A/B testing and let your users or visitors decide for you. Let them decide which copy; which colour of the call to action button; which size entice them better to click onto the call to action button.This is only part of the equation, make sure you test your landing page elements in an integrated approach, taking into consideration the following elements as well:Body copyHero shot imagesSign up form fieldsLanding page load timeAre you testing your landing page ?Or are you sitting in the cubic room guessing ?Are you optimizing your landing page ?You decide.
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Insight in Creating a Profitable Startup Company
Startups.Have you thought of starting your own business ?Or have you already started your own business ?You have a great idea.You have a great team to start with (Best case scenario)You are ready to gear up and kick start your startup.So you have everything in place....What else is required ?Idea + team + ? = ProfitIn the following video,David Heinemeier Hansson,creator of the Ruby on Rails framework and Partner at 37Signalswill be sharing his insights in creating a profitable startup company.Your Turn.Whats your view ?
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Tim Ash Interview: Landing Page Optimization
An interview conducted by Sage with Tim Ash on his book: Landing Page OptimizationHighly Recommended book written by Tim Ash:> Landing Page Optimization
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How crawable is your website ?
How does a search engine spider crawl your website you say ?Heres an analogy of how a spider might crawl your website: Imagine yourself visiting a newly constructed mall down by your town, what might you do when you first find yourself inside the mall ?Navigating around ? For something of interest to you ?Looking around ? For something of interest to you ?Which varieties of stores are available ? Which is / are relevant to your needs ?Where are the restaurants / fast food outlets / restrooms ?You decided to locate the restroom but to your surprise.....the door to the restroom was locked when you reached it.One week later, you came back to the mall and when you went to the same restroom...the door was locked once again.....Another week later.....history repeats itself.....Will you still try using the same restroom the next time round ?Yes ? No ?Similarly the search engine bot faces the same issue when their navigation is blocked either by your password protected content areas; your graphical images which displays nothing when being blocked by ad block programs, missing images....etc...So what could you do to prevent such mishaps ?Adding appropriate ALT attribute descriptions to your graphical image; Making sure the surrounding copy / text around your image clearly sets the context.Having password protected content area only for those content that would require registration such as pay-per view content / subscription based premium contents.Your turn.What could you ensure the crawl-ability of your website ?
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Ads on PDF ?
Ads on Adobe PDF ?A recent partnership between Adobe and Yahoo allows PDFpublishers to embed Yahoo ads in it and earn revenuesbased on the ads click through.To get started, Publishers simply just upload theirPDF files to Adobe for ad registration. After which ,the PDF isthan analyzed and relevant ads will be placed.UsersSo how will this have an impact on the current users ?Will they be enticed to click onto the relevant ads while readingthrough the PDF file ? Or will they find it an intrusion ?Only time will tell whether this model work or fail.AdvertisersSo how will this have an impact for advertisers ?How could you tapped into this new ad placement channel ?How can you better optimized your ad copy and content for PDF ?Your turn now.Your thoughts.
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A day in Twitter
Ever wonder how Twitters office is like ?Heres the video from Technology Review providing us with the peek into Twitters offices days before they prepared for a move to a more grown-up space.
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Search Engine Optimization Daily Digest - Issue 2
Domain Strategies for Search Engine Optimization > Are you choosing the right domain strategy?5 Reasons to Not Use Black Hat Tactics> Are you practicing Black Hat tactics ? Improved Flash indexing> Finally Google learns to crawl Flash Flash May Now Bring More Search Traffic, Does it Matter? > How does it relate back to your bottom line ?Visual Search The Future? Spare Me The Eye Candy> Being Cool or being useful to searchers ?Related Posts:. Search Engine Optimization Daily Digest - Issue 1
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Analyse Your Top Ranking Keywords
What are your websites top ranking keywords ?Which keyword phrases do you rank well for ?Which keywords are your competition ranking well for ?How could you better optimize your website and content ?Try SeoDigger, a free keyword utility tool which helps you in identifying the keywords your site ranks well to be in Google Top 20. In addition, data showing you the search popularity of the phrase are also determined from Wordtracker and Overture results .However, this free unregistered version only analyze a single page of your website.Sign up for the free registered version, in identifying the rankings of all the pages on your website.Take action now: Type in your website URL and let SeoDigger show you which phrases that website ranks for with-in the top 20 results.Analyze.Test.Optimize.Related Posts:. Keyword Analysis. Competitive Analysis Tool - Part 1. Competitive Analysis Tool - Part 2
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SEO Tip of The Day
Heres a tip from Google Webmaster Central blog:If you want to prevent search engines from generatingsnippets based from the Open Directory Project.Use the following meta tag to prevent search engines from using the snippet information for the pages description.META NAME="GOOGLEBOT" CONTENT="NOODP"However, do take note that it takes some time for the snippet changes to place.
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Google I/O Session: Search Friendly Development
In this Video and Presentation slide from the Google I/O session,Maile Ohye will be sharing techniques in helping bring your site more users through search engine traffic. She will be covering on how to maximize your site, your content, and your applications exposure to search engines.Session covering on:* Make sites with Flash, AJAX/JavaScript, and images better crawled and indexed by search engines* Create a strong, crawlable foundation through URL and site structure* Deal with duplicate content caused by URL parameters and dynamic pages (help search engines determine the canonical version)* Check that your site follows SEO best practicesView the Search Friendly Development presentation slide document
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Search Engine Optimisation Myth
"We Will Guaranteed Number One Ranking"Sounds familiar ?Ever receive calls from so called "SEO Experts or Companies"whom are self proclaiming they could help get you to theNumber One rank in Google or any other search engines ?What they could possibly help you in becoming the number oneranking is coming up with phrases that wouldnt even berelevant to / with what your consumers or customers aresearching or seeking for.Heres a quick question for them, should you receive callsfrom them again:Does your company own the search engines ?No one could predict whats coming up next in the varioussearch engine algorithms except the search engine owners themselves.If they promise you they could do so, kindly thank them for theircrystal ball predictions and bid farewell to them.
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Search Engine Optimization Daily Digest - Issue 1
9 reasons why you should be very worried about Buying Links > You better be worriedHow Many Terms/Phrases Should I Target on a Single Page? > Just how much is too much or too little ? It Pays to Link Consistently > Are your linking consistent ?SEO Is Not Free > You get what you pay for !Plural vs Singular Keywords > Which works better ?
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Optimize Your Email Marketing, Part 2
Have you tried utilizing the last email optimization tips which was shared in the last post ?More to share you say ?Alright let this post be the Part 2of Optimize Your Email MarketingLess talk...heres some additionaloptimization tips to share:> Allow your readers to opt in or opt outfrom your email communication conveniently.Yes, you definitely do not want your readers tolabeled your emails as SPAM just because theyfelt frustrated of not being able to opt out from youremail offers conveniently .> Instead of bombarding them with everything at once,try communicating relevant content with your segmentsat different stage of their relationship with you.Build an on-going relationship with them step by step andNOT a one-way dialogue.> Track all the clicks in the emails...be obsessed withtracking the readers clicking behavior. Let them helpyou determine what works and what dont with your copy,colors, hero shot to call to action buttons.> Remember to instill a control and variable groupfor your email marketing testings efforts. In order totrack which or what new elements work or dont in thevariable group as compared to the control.Your turn.Share your optimization tips with us.Related Post:> Optimize Your Email Marketing, Part 1
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Optimize Your Email Marketing
Email marketing.Are you utilizing it ?If so, are you communicating it effectively ?Are you communicating relevant content toyour segment of existing or potential customers ?How could you do better ?Heres some optimizing tips to share:> Call to action above the foldAccording to research, not many tend to scroll down theentire email communication offers they receive, thereby missingout on the call to action found at the end of the email. So be sure toinclude a compelling call to action above the fold to entice them intaking action.> Reduce graphic intensive email> Having ALT-text tagging embedded onto your graphicimage in your email helps ensure your readers getting toread your message even if its block by the email client.> Consistent layoutSince readers spent considerable time learning your emaillayout and structure, so dont make them having torelearn your new layout every now and than.> Test Test Test & OptimizeConducting A/B testing and let your readers decide for youwhat works and what dont in ensuring you are deliveringrelevant content to them.Yes test every element from copy to call to action.The testing doesnt ends here...Test...Test...Test...on a on-going effortYour turn.Are you taking action in optimizing your email marketing efforts ?You decide.
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Landing Page Optimization Daily Digest - Issue 1
Landing Page Optimization Daily reads will be the first of daily readings.More daily reads covering from Search marketing, PPC to web analytics to come.Optimizing Your Landing Page Part 1 - Case Studies from Marketing ExperimentsOptimizing Your Landing Page Part 2 - Case Studies from Marketing ExperimentsUncovering Site Problems for Landing Page - From landing page expert Tim AshYour turn now to suggest any good reads that youwould like to share with us.Share. Read. Learn. Optimize.
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Vinton Cerf talks about Web 2.0 and beyond....
Whats next for Web 2.0 and beyond ?Whats the next 50 years for internet development ?What impact will the internet be hitting us now and tomorrow ?How are our life intertwined with the technology and beyond ?Are you ready for it ?The VP of Engineering and Chief Internet Evangelist of Google, Vinton G. Cerf shared his perspective on the current trend and the future of internet development on an interesting evening held at Suntec City in the Lion City on 23th May 2008. In case you missed the event or just want to recap the fantastic event, hows the video:“Tracking the Internet into the 21st Century”Your turn.....Whats your perspective on the future of Internet ?Are you ready for it ?Is your company ready to make the leap ?If not, how could you leverage it into your business / communication strategy ?
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A Conversation...
Corporate man X : How could my brand / company tap into social marketing buzz that is happening now ?Agency Y: Oh Facebook will do the work !Corporate man X: (Getting excited) Really !! Get my company a Facebook page ! What a great idea !Does the above sounds familiar ?Without a doubt, Facebook is one hot place where you would want your brand to be in, leveraging the social community within. But in reality, what do you really hope to achieve through Facebook or any social community websites ?Heres some points to ponder:Whats your end goal through tapping into the social aspect ?How does it relate back to your business goals & objectives ?How are you going to measure it ?Are there any measurable metrics in place ?Is your back end team ready to support it ?Or are you just simply following what everyone else is doing ?Next time, when your creative agency recommends you withoutconsidering the above....FIRE THEM !Now its your turn....Follow the hype ?Or ?You decide.
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QR codes embedded on grave stones ?
In Japan, it is common to find QR everywhere and anywhere.But now a memorial stone maker Ishinokoe in Japan is taking that technology to be embedded onto grave stones soon. So the next time round, the visitors can simply just scan the code embedded on the grave stones with their mobiles and immediately getting information on the deceased.The deceases family can upload content such as pictures, videos and family information on what visitors can get to view on their mobile through the QR coding. Will this really work in other countries in the near future ? Or will it be widely accepted ? Only time will time.Have you thought of how you could integrate the QR technology into your communications ?If so, how can you better utilize it ?You decide.
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Optimize your Keywords
To begin with todays topic....heres some questions to ponderHow do people land onto your website ?Where do people land onto your particular web page ?If they came from search engines;What is / are the particular keywords that they keyed in that brought them into your website ? Are you finding out about which particular keywords that is most popular among your visitors with regards to your particular product or product lines ?If its a NO for the above....time to take actionIf its a YES for the above....congratulationsWhether its a YES or NO for you.....heres something to share with you today on optimizing your keywords.Generic Keywords or niche keywords ?You might be thinking that generic keywords are the best approach. As a rule, its better to focus on niche keywords related to your product or service. Even though highly targeted and specific keywords doesnt bring in as much traffic as compared to generic ones, however having target those niche keywords you can expect visitors to find what they want and have a higher probability of converting into customers. If someone searches for the specific name of your product, there is a high possibility they are looking to make a purchase. These keywords are too important to be ignored.Localized search termsSo how does localized search terms helps you ?Lets say youre a Italian cafe in Suntec, Singapore. Using keywords like "Italian cafe Suntec Singapore" or "Italian cafe Singapore" not only make people easily locate your cafe but also helps search engines refer most people from Singapore to your site.Heres the recap for this post:Finding out what are the general terms with relations to your business, then determining the relevant / specific keywords and optimizing your respective webpages for the most specific search term.Localized search terms characterizing your business.Dont stop at just one page; optimize all your webpages for localized search terms.
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Free SEO Analysis Tool
How well does your website or blog fare ?Whats your website or blog score out of 100 ?Try this FREE tool by Website Grader to find out.What this tool does is it measures the marketing effectiveness of your website / blog based on 5 broad search engine marketing factors. So what are the 5 factors taken into consideration ?The 5 factors taken into consideration namely:On-Page SEO* Your page titles - What is your website about ?* Headings - Is your heading relevant and friendly to both human and search engine spiders ?* Content - Is your content relevant and interesting ?* Meta tags - What is website about ? What are your keywords ?* Alt Tags - How do you want the search engine spiders to see your image ?* Readability level - How reader friendly is your content ?Off-Page SEODomain Info* Google PageRank - How well does your web pages fare in Google search ?* Google Indexed Pages - Spider crawling frequency ?* Last Google Crawl Date - Spider crawling frequency ?* Inbound Links - How many other sites are linking to your website ?BlogosphereIf your website is a blog or you have a corporate blog, this might be useful information for you.* Blog Analysis* Blog Ranking - Ranking based on Technorati* Subscription Methods - How people can subscribe to your blog easily either through RSS feed or an email subscription formSocial Mediasphere Your web presence outside of your own website is also vital.* del.icio.us bookmarks - Is your website bookmarked by many ?* Digg.com Submission Summary - How many of your website articles are being submitted ?Competitive Intelligence* Competing Websites* Historical Data AvailableTry this tool to determine how well your search marketing fare.
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Optimize Your Organic Click Through Rates
Your Pay-Per-Click (PPC) ads carefully deployed and optimize.You are found on the top search rank for the relevant search terms or keywords keyed in by your visitors and leading them to the respective relevant offer/ landing page.Now you have done all of the above, so whats next you say ?Are you stopping the process here ?Are you tracking your organic click rate as well ?How are you measuring your organic click rate ?And are you conducting any tests in optimizing it ?Or are you taking your search optimization driven traffic for granted ?If youre not taking any action in measuring and running tests to optimize SEO-driven traffic to your website, heres a lab test ran by MarketingSherpa which resulted in a 250% more Search Marketing Clicks which might just get you started:In the lab test, Search Marketing Benchmark Guide, MarketingSherpa conducted a study with business professionals. Through the test conducted on Google search, it is discovered that executives are 250% more likely to click on an organic listing if it:(i) had a fairly short URL and(ii) appeared directly below a listing with a long URL.So what does this meant ?Time to optimize by keeping your URLs short and precise.Time to take actionConduct a search on your website in comparison with the relevant keywords.And compare your organic listing URLs with your competition.How are you faring in comparison with the competition ?Short URLs ?You decide.
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