25th November 2007
If you’ve done any reading about paid search campaigns at all, you know good landing pages are essential to conversions. Of course you may be asking yourself what actually makes a “good” landing page. You’re not alone. That’s why the team at Marketing Experiments offers up two great case studies this week.
The case studies feature two non-profits using pay per click advertising to drive traffic. The team shows before and after images of each site’s landing pages and carefully outlines exactly what changes were made and why. Most of the changes center around creating a fluid message by using the same words and phrases in the ad and on the landing page and by appealing to a customer’s triggers. The newly focused landing pages each produced a more than 50% increase in conversions, showing the value in doing a little experimenting of your own.
If you’re a paid search advertiser and haven’t perfected your landing pages yet, make sure you take ten minutes or so to look over the changes made by the Marketing Experiment team and to ask yourself whether there might be some valuable lessons you can apply to your own campaigns.
25th November 2007
1. Headers defined
Nos. : Position according to popularity
Count : Number of sightings of keyword in database.
Keyword : The keyword itself
2. The top 300 surge report
These are the top 300 queries from the last 48 hours, which
represents the complete queries from the largest Metacrawlers
on the web (Metacrawler/Dogpile etc..) for the last 48 hours.
Nos. Count Keyword
===========================================
1 3401 myspace
2 2879 youporn
3 2681 google
4 2641 ebay
5 2370 youtube
6 2226 kim kardashian
7 2152 veterans day ecards
8 2039 yahoo
9 1940 myspace.com
10 1780 rihanna
11 1463 free games
12 1389 you tube
13 1326 victoria schattauer
14 1284 webkinz
15 1249 download music
16 1235 facebook
17 1165 animal shelter
18 1137 yahoo.com
19 1113 mapquest
20 1104 girls
21 1100 free e-cards
22 1095 craigslist
23 1094 free lady sonia
24 1026 veterans day
25 1014 vanessa hudgens
26 1008 redtube
27 987 timbaland
28 953 online tv
29 922 linkin park
30 919 white pages
31 906 celine dion
32 877 carmen electra
33 874 britney spears
34 861 walmart
35 847 home depot
36 830 youporn.com
37 813 hotmail
38 780 xtube
39 765 search
40 753 alicia keys
41 733 target
42 713 wikipedia
43 705 hotmail.com
44 693 jessica alba
45 682 myspace layouts
46 682 tila tequila
47 680 sears
48 680 nudist
49 673 jenna jameson
50 672 best buy
51 665 hot
52 662 rammstein
53 649 zoo tube 365 com
54 640 madden 08 cheats
55 627 naruto
56 623 soulja boy
57 617 james blunt
58 608 espn
59 605 abba
60 597 test
61 595 lingerie
62 590 hannah montana
63 588 google.com
64 587 beatles
65 587 jessica simpson
66 582 lowes
67 581 airline tickets
68 580 www.myspace.com
69 579 amazon.com
70 575 my space
71 575 tose proeski
72 572 msn
73 570 xmas shopping
74 568 paris hilton
75 568 mortgage calculator
76 567 yahoo mail
77 557 raven riley
78 556 akon
79 556 anime
80 554 justin timberlake
81 548 queen
82 543 ashley tisdale
83 541 avril lavigne
84 539 eminem
85 530 bikini
86 529 amy winehouse
87 527 scooter
88 526 dictionary
89 526 shufuni
90 525 ask.com
91 525 search engines
92 524 christmas
93 518 sugababes
94 516 amazon
95 504 led zeppelin
96 504 angelina jolie
97 500 circuit city
98 499 mika
99 499 consolidate debt loans
100 499 skinny dipping
101 498 free galleries
102 497 pornotube
103 495 craigs list
104 492 50 cent
105 489 youtube.com
106 483 metallica
107 480 drink recipes
108 478 high school musical
109 472 games
110 471 chris brown
111 471 boysfood
112 467 u2
113 460 gmail
114 458 ebay.com
115 458 madonna
116 455 nickelback
117 451 beyonce
118 447 babes
119 436 www.playon.domplayer.com
120 436 pthc
121 433 lindsay lohan
122 432 pink floyd
123 431 timberland
124 425 gambar pemerkosaan
125 422 lyrics
126 418 free online games
127 418 jessica biel
128 415 foo fighters
129 415 lil wayne
130 409 pamela anderson
131 409 fergie
132 408 dogpile
133 407 acdc
134 399 rolling stones
135 399 limewire
136 398 charmaine dragun
137 396 pink
138 396 playon.domplayer.com
139 395 bed bath and beyond
140 392 kanye west
141 390 nfl schedule
142 390 fall out boy
143 386 girl
144 386 thongs
145 386 booty
146 386 map quest
147 385 cars
148 385 wii
149 383 thong
150 381 maroon 5
151 380 jennifer aniston
152 378 michael jackson
153 376 miley cyrus
154 375 dogs
155 374 ebony
156 373 mature
157 372 cleavage
158 371 asian
159 369 red tube
160 367 nancy shevell
161 364 shakira
162 363 alicia keys no one
163 357 wild girls
164 356 unsecured personal loans
165 355 we live together
166 355 bon jovi
167 347 msn.com
168 347 paramore
169 347 megan fox
170 347 nirvana
171 345 panties
172 343 bcs standings
173 343 www.yahoo.com
174 341 nightwish
175 340 bushido
176 339 aol.com
177 339 ask
178 336 vida guerra
179 334 pokemon
180 331 santana
181 328 puberty
182 327 jennifer lopez
183 326 walmart.com
184 326 naughty
185 324 yuvutu
186 323 john cena
187 322 kiss
188 320 bebo
189 318 apologize
190 317 weather
191 315 trish stratus
192 315 runescape
193 315 female photography
194 314 flowers
195 314 korn
196 314 wwe
197 314 spice girls
198 310 sido
199 309 tera patrick
200 308 women
201 307 elvis presley
202 306 overstock.com
203 306 thanksgiving
204 304 george osmond
205 303 search engine optimization
206 301 zac efron
207 301 eagles
208 301 family guy
209 301 costco
210 300 facebook.com
211 300 maps
212 298 nena
213 297 bob dylan
214 297 my chemical romance
215 297 toys r us
216 295 bruce springsteen
217 295 google earth
218 293 southwest airlines
219 293 online games
220 293 nicole scherzinger
221 292 xtube.com
222 291 kids
223 291 www
224 291 dog
225 290 nudists
226 289 breasts
227 289 hto las vegas
228 288 depeche mode
229 288 funny
230 286 pretty girls
231 285 vanessa anne hudgens
232 283 crank that
233 283 lolicon
234 283 seal
235 283 taylor swift
236 283 nfl
237 280 skimpy thongs
238 280 badjojo
239 279 sublime directory
240 277 lions for lambs
241 275 culcha candela
242 274 black friday
243 273 love
244 273 utube
245 271 virtual pets
246 269 bob marley
247 269 naturist
248 268 round and brown
249 267 topless
250 267 movies
251 266 enya
252 266 cascada
253 266 brazzers
254 265 simpsons
255 265 redtube.com
256 263 christina aguilera
257 263 scorpions
258 262 kohls
259 261 kelly blue book
260 261 g string
261 261 qvc
262 258 elton john
263 257 yellow pages
264 257 sting
265 257 fleetwood mac
266 257 green day
267 257 nintendo wii
268 256 carrie underwood
269 256 aol
270 255 sade
271 253 hairstyles
272 252 eric clapton
273 250 people search
274 250 wicked weasel
275 250 music
276 249 slipknot
277 249 good charlotte
278 248 cheerleaders
279 248 woman undressing
280 245 ikea
281 245 ashanti
282 241 natasha bedingfield
283 241 phil collins
284 240 dans movies
285 239 sasha
286 237 mariah carey
287 236 2pac
288 236 game cheats
289 236 kelly clarkson
290 234 amateur
291 233 richards realm
292 233 www.hotmail.com
293 232 sum 41
294 232 baby names
295 232 al4a
296 231 bubbly
297 231 www.webkinz.com
298 231 brooke burke
299 231 nfl.com
300 230 free music downloads
3. The top 200 long-term keyword report
Our current database contains 317,442,194 search terms
and represents the complete queries from the largest
metacrawlers on the web (Metacrawler/Dogpile etc.) for the
last 90 days.
Nos. Count Keyword
===========================================
1 192933 myspace
2 167139 play game
3 161723 google
4 134086 yahoo
5 133189 ebay
6 113900 myspace.com
7 111656 vanessa hudgens
8 111377 play games
9 104626 youtube
10 86155 youporn
11 85026 music lyrics
12 84105 yahoo.com
13 84068 mapquest
14 66875 game cheats for ps2
15 65241 you tube
16 62221 britney spears
17 61658 craigslist
18 61448 facebook
19 60876 soulja boy
20 59600 girls
21 54428 baby boy names
22 51366 proxy https
23 49436 obituaries
24 48165 madden 08 cheats
25 47808 hotmail
26 45715 hotmail.com
27 41899 paris hilton
28 41577 kim kardashian
29 41413 jenna jameson
30 41309 dictionary
31 40793 play hunting games
32 40779 linkin park
33 40553 wikipedia
34 40261 naruto
35 39306 rihanna
36 39134 yahoo mail
37 38715 jessica alba
38 38618 lil wayne
39 38127 google.com
40 37740 walmart
41 36677 hot
42 36475 home depot
43 36469 msn
44 35995 gospel music lyrics
45 35659 free radio stations
46 35388 crank that
47 34992 anime
48 34977 bratz games to play
49 34923 home video
50 34346 halloween
51 33721 halloween costumes
52 33715 pumpkin stencils
53 33660 50 cent
54 33144 cars
55 33113 white pages
56 32930 webkinz
57 32600 akon
58 32592 aol.com
59 32383 pictures of cats
60 31786 helmsley’s trouble
61 31620 www.myspace.com
62 31527 games
63 31165 xtube
64 31033 newspaper obituaries
65 31021 bikini
66 30808 ask.com
67 30714 my space
68 30616 dogs
69 30513 games cheat
70 30206 fergie
71 29860 search engines
72 29563 free lady sonia
73 29433 carmen electra
74 29385 free english course
75 29339 weather
76 29161 play pokemon games
77 28903 amazon.com
78 28714 myspace layouts
79 28571 kanye west
80 28278 redtube
81 27777 craigs list
82 27502 ebay.com
83 27370 test
84 27218 best buy
85 27163 meaning of names
86 27127 youtube.com
87 27026 pamela anderson
88 26718 high school musical
89 26026 lowes
90 25944 maps
91 25801 youporn.com
92 25600 shufuni
93 25454 nudist
94 25226 map quest
95 25066 target
96 24966 local newspaper
97 24679 eminem
98 24260 dog
99 24109 amazon
100 23911 dogpile
101 23875 halo 3
102 23844 vanessa anne hudgens
103 23838 lingerie
104 23545 msn.com
105 23507 hannah montana
106 23507 sean kingston
107 23498 sperm shack movies
108 23426 www.yahoo.com
109 23248 music
110 23140 cnn
111 22917 thong
112 22674 raven riley
113 22664 sears
114 22633 poetry
115 22590 chris brown
116 22569 about
117 22180 babes
118 22127 play sonic games
119 21987 girl
120 21730 games play
121 21725 jessica simpson
122 21466 zac efron
123 21425 avril lavigne
124 21166 fall out boy
125 21087 funny
126 20968 mature
127 20768 play arcade games
128 20660 beyonce
129 20638 metallica
130 20517 www
131 20417 lyrics
132 20304 asian
133 20299 pornotube
134 20152 airline tickets
135 20141 gmail
136 20035 breasts
137 19932 thongs
138 19734 jonas brothers
139 19705 yellow pages
140 19698 ask
141 19456 timbaland
142 19341 paramore
143 19290 nfl schedule
144 19153 korn
145 19010 espn
146 18917 free online games
147 18887 nickelback
148 18785 contact
149 18630 panties
150 18588 circuit city
151 18587 pink
152 18552 song lyrics
153 18510 free music lyrics
154 18452 booty
155 18346 privacy
156 18306 pokemon
157 18297 justin timberlake
158 18142 my chemical romance
159 18110 john cena
160 18108 lindsay lohan
161 18056 google earth
162 17849 stronger
163 17832 vida guerra
164 17817 shakira
165 17770 james blunt
166 17765 breaking news
167 17733 love
168 17605 games to play
169 17552 comcast.net
170 17428 boysfood
171 17263 tila tequila
172 17259 wwe
173 17172 aol
174 17111 family guy
175 16946 runescape
176 16912 mapquest.com
177 16905 southwest airlines
178 16802 women
179 16770 high school musical 2
180 16704 madonna
181 16635 job nigeria
182 16520 kelly blue book
183 16445 bebo
184 16362 jennifer lopez
185 16309 play free games
186 16259 people search
187 16235 scooter
188 16135 three days grace
189 16083 pthc
190 16048 ebony
191 15920 www.hotmail.com
192 15847 slipknot
193 15638 driving directions
194 15557 t-pain
195 15552 queen
196 15526 football
197 15497 free games
198 15429 tera patrick
199 15371 www.google.com
200 15348 angelina jolie
Find keywords that apply directly to your site. Try the free trial at Wordtracker (aff) as many times as you like!
25th November 2007
“Chinese Wall - The ethical (not physical) barrier between different divisions of a financial (or other) institution to avoid conflict of interest…”
- Investopedia.com
“While Google never sells better ranking in our search results, several other search engines combine pay-per-click or pay-for-inclusion results with their regular web search results.”
- Google’s Webmaster Help Center FAQ
“NO pay for inclusion, and a complete separation of the search index part from the money part.”
- Google Chief Engineer Craig Neville-Manning, Search Engine Strategies 2004
The good people at Google have long maintained that there is a Chinese Wall between paid search results and organic results – that is, the department responsible for advertising is completely separate from the department responsible for organic search engine placement. The company insists that Google Adwords is a completely separate entity than the Google search engine, and never the twain shall meet. This all sounds very good, in theory. But do they live up to this ideal in practice?
You don’t hear Google talking much about Chinese Walls these days. This is certainly in part because they have had great difficulty gaining traction in the literal and very competitive Chinese market (headlines such as “Google Hits Chinese Wall” or even “Google Advance Halted at Great Wall of China” were commonplace). But might there be other, more nefarious reasons? Is there a reason why we hear less and less from Google about the virtual wall that separates paid search results from organic search engine placement?
What Is Google Really Doing for Its Big Spenders?
It has long been rumored that Google will offer technical assistance in achieving better organic search engine placement to those who spend more for paid search results. I know for certain that these rumors are true in at least two instances. In fact, I actually have the minutes from one of these technical assistance meetings after the company met with Google engineers. While the identity of these two companies is irrelevant, suffice to say that they are companies that you have almost certainly heard of and that they spend millions of dollars on paid search words each year.
To be fair, based on the meeting minutes I have, the advice that the engineers gave to the company does not include anything groundbreaking. It is mostly common sense advice that a good search engine optimization firm already knows about organic search engine placement and other issues, and much of it is already covered in the publicly-available Google Webmaster Guidelines. This, however, is beside the point. Google has obviously decided that it must offer perks to its big paid search spenders to keep them happy (or rather, happy enough to not pull their advertising). Clearly, one of these perks is access to Google engineers and the ability to glean information about organic search engine placement, a luxury that smaller advertisers do not enjoy.
Organic Search Engine Placement for Sale – The New Google Reality?
From a business perspective, this makes perfect sense, of course. Big-dollar advertisers make up the bulk of Google’s revenue for paid search, and any intelligent business will take whatever steps they deem necessary to hold on to their most valuable customers. This is why larger advertisers already have a designated account representative from Google. I am willing to bet that this perk was not Google’s idea. Rather, it almost certainly stemmed from the sense of entitlement that those spending large sums on paid search felt and the fact that technical help with their organic search engine placement is what they demanded.
Unfortunately, this reality leaves an advertiser with a small budget for paid search at a disadvantage. If Google is willing to offer this secret perk to larger advertisers now, what might they do in the future? Offer price breaks to larger paid search spenders? Increase the minimum monthly spend to squeeze out smaller companies and please the larger ones? It certainly has the potential to become a slippery slope, and I am interested to see where it goes next.
One final point – since Google is willing to give advice about organic search engine placement to companies that spend a great deal of money on Google advertising, is the phrase “While Google never sells better ranking in our search results…” truly accurate? I suppose this is open for interpretation. It may be technically true, but offering advice regarding organic search engine placement straight from the horse’s mouth in exchange for millions of dollars in money for paid search results isn’t far from selling rankings, in my opinion.
Conclusion
Please don’t get me wrong – I still believe that Google is the best search engine out there, I greatly admire the way that they are continually reinventing themselves, and I think they are still the target for those seeking the most benefit from organic search engine placement. They have the folks in Redmond constantly guessing and always three steps behind, and I love how they have started from humble beginnings to take on one of the biggest corporations in the world (and consistently win). I simply believe that they have played the underdog, anti-corporate card for too long, and that even if it has not outlived its usefulness, it has outlived its truthfulness. Google is now a huge multinational corporation that answers to its shareholders. To pretend anything otherwise is silly, but it seems that, for now at least, the charade will continue.
Google’s overriding principle, one that they have been happy to espouse to the media, has long been “Don’t Be Evil.” Whether they still adhere to this principle since they have become a public company is another question that is open for interpretation. If you are a smaller advertiser and feel that Google’s favoritism toward larger paid search customers regarding organic search engine placement is evil, it probably seems as though the “Don’t Be Evil” principle no longer applies. You may conclude that the principles of “Don’t Be Evil” and “Keep Shareholders Happy” are mutually incompatible, and that the latter has gained the upper hand.
25th November 2007
Feed subscribers are quite possibly your most loyal readers therefore it’s important to grow your subscriber community as much as possible. With Google’s purchase of FeedBurner as well as their own proprietary subscriber calculating technology don’t be surprised to see feed subscribers becoming a variable in Google’s ranking algorithm. In today’s post we’ll talk about how to increase your feed subscribers with some very simple tips.
Prominent, Accessible and Ease of Use: Make your subscription buttons available on all pages and place them above the fold. Using technology like FeedBurner you can get a sense of your subscribers’ favorite feed services and begin making subscribing to those services even easier.- Repeat in Footer: Something that has worked well for me is adding the subscription option to the footer of each individual post. What this does is remind visitors to subscribe after reading one of my posts.
- Subscribe by Email: Depending on what industry you’re in adding an option to subscribe by email can dramatically increase your subscribers. Many authors of travel sites have noticed that email is even more popular than feed readers.
- Add Option in Emails: In FeedBurner you can also publicize your feed’s content by placing a widget in outgoing emails. Through this widget people can also subscribe to your feed.
Increasing Feed Subscribers: Additional Resources
25th November 2007
Jack was stumbling along today and found a great example of Link Bait and a unique way for eCommerce sites to drive more traffic to their site.
What is more boring than luggage and suitcases? Nothing right? Except for maybe toothpicks, umbrellas or carpet cleaner. Luggage Online took advantage of a cross-promotion for their market and has capitalized on it big time.
Their linkbait piece 20 Bizarre Hotels is well-written, well-designed, entertaining and memorable. The tie-in to their market is obvious. People looking to travel need luggage and they are counting on bringing those people to their site.
The thought process is simple. The visitor reads a great article on travel and the next time the visitor needs luggage, they will probably remember Luggage Online. It’s a win-win situation for the visitor and the company. Brilliant work by Luggage Online.
More tips for driving traffic to eCommerce Sites:
- Use a powerful content management system. A solution like Joomla is perfect for a site like this. You can only customize so much with a Yahoo Store.
- Look for cross-segments in your market. In this example, they are using a much larger market like travel to sell luggage.
- Other examples would include: a piece about the benefits of running to sell shoes or a piece about marriage and relationships to sell diamonds. Always be creative and look for ideas.
- Create a piece like this on a monthly basis. By nature, most eCommerce are not dynamic in nature. Meaning, they do not use RSS feeds and are not constantly updated. Adding fresh content will add momentum to your site.
