The search marketing industry is abuzz on the heels of Google’s announcement that Google Suggest, previously available through Google Labs, is now a default feature on the Google home page.

Google Suggest offers search term suggestions in real-time as you type a query, and ranks these suggestions based on the most commonly searched phrases. So if you intend to search for the phrase “Dallas Cowboys,” you may only get as far as “Dal…” before Google steps in and offers to complete your query for you.

From a user standpoint, Google Suggest is a welcome addition to the already incredible functionality of the most utilized search engine in the world. Gone are the days when we had to (gasp!) type in a complete search term before getting instant access to an incomprehensible heap of information related to the topic, much less know how to spell it. If searchers embrace the Google Suggest tool and essentially reduce a majority of searches to the few most popular queries, what implications would this have for search marketers? I would venture to guess that:

• The highest volume search terms (which are the ones being suggested by the tool) will become even more popular.

• Users’ intended search queries may be frequently abandoned in favor of suggested queries, reducing the volume of searches for long tail and misspelled search terms that once served a valuable purpose to search marketers.

• Competition for the most searched terms will intensify on the natural and paid search ends of the spectrum, resulting in higher cost per click rates as well as intensified competition among online businesses for popular phrases in the natural search results.

Again, this is merely my speculation; perhaps searchers will continue to search by their own rules and the impact of Google Suggest on the search marketing industry will be minimal. Only time will tell how this new feature will impact search behavior and the search marketing industry as a whole. The rollout of Google Suggest is not the first move Google has made that affects the way marketers approach search, and it certainly will not be the last. At minimum, it underscores the need for search marketers to stay informed and involved with the industry as it evolves. Check out Jennifer Liu’s At a Loss for Words? article on the Google blog for more information.

-Pam Westbrook, Ecommerce Marketing/Copywriting

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If you don’t know what you are doing, setting up Google AdWords can feel a lot like playing a slot machine in Vegas. You keep paying and paying, and nothing happens. Meanwhile, the experienced retired grandmother in the Wayne Newton t-shirt finds the right machine, slaps in a dollar token, and wins $5000.

Several key steps to improving your PPC performance include finding the right keywords, setting up negative keywords, and writing compelling copy. But the ad itself is just half the equation. Another key element is the page the customer lands on after clicking the ad. When considering landing pages, Offermatica CEO Jamie Roche classifies them in three categories:

• Home page-like landing pages:
  Sometimes, your best bet is to frame the landing page with the standard home page components. This doesn’t mean that you don’t target the product or offer, or limit options in order to be relevant, but you would want to be heavy on branding, trust statements and imagery that reflect a visitor’s desire to talk to you as a company. Your goal is to get people to self-identify as quickly as possible. On comparison shopping sites, for example, you might try to discover if the visitor is interested in news, reviews, or price comparisons. Visitors arriving from the keywords you designated as “brand” words or relatively broad categories like “loans” could be sent to this type of landing page.
• Offer-based landing pages:
  These pages are very offer-specific with a goal of convincing visitors to act on the interest they’ve already expressed by clicking on the original ad. These pages have more limited navigation or off-linking. For a retailer, there is the classic product page, with a product shot, pricing, features, and other elements. For lead generation and direct marketing, this type of page will usually hit the major selling points and get you started on the order form or application. For publishers, this could be an article that has advertising or other links to content. In all cases, reinforce the source of traffic and experiment with the balance between focus on the offer and availability of off-links and branding elements.
• Category landing pages:
  When somebody has clearly shown an interest, but the interest is in a relatively unstructured area, such as “loans” or “jeans” or “concerts,” your goal is to funnel them more deeply into your content or offering. You might do this by grouping information in a way that allows them to make choices based on their own preferences for searching — for example, by price, theme, editor’s recommendations, most popular, etc. Visitors from the terms you designated as “category” words would be sent to this type of page.

When looking at your ads and keywords, try to classify each one in one of these categories. This will make it much easier to create effective landing pages.

Michelle Greer
michelle_greer(at)volusion.com
http://www.volusion.com

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“Write better ads, strengthen your marketing initiatives and create higher-converting websites.” And, it’s “absolutely free”.*

Google Analytics Overview

At no charge, Google Analytics allows online business owners of all sizes and across all levels to gather crucial information on the behavior of visitors on their site. Learn how visitors found your online store, how they navigate through it once they’re on it, and most importantly- how those visitors become customers (or why they decide not to). With the ability to create over 80 different reports, site owners can examine these behaviors to improve their overall site’s look and functionality, as well as improving online marketing efforts. Google Analytics can be used to track clicks, conversion rates, ecommerce transactions and more. Heat maps show detailed information on where your best customers live, helping to begin or improve any local or offline campaigns. With Analytics content optimization tools you can learn how to optimize your landing pages and overall navigation, and your site’s design and layout on a page-by-page basis. Funnel reports give information as to what percentage of people completed steps within the checkout process, and where these visitors go if they decide to not complete a purchase. Automated help and tips are also available within each report.

About Google Analytics

Google Analytics and AdWords
Google Analytics integrates fully with a user’s AdWords account. Once integrated, you’ll be able to see how each campaign, ad group and keyword performs and affects conversions on your site. If you have an AdWords account, you can signup for Analytics by simply clicking on the Analytics tab from the admin area. Google Analytics works with AdWords to track cost and conversion data, giving users the information needed to better their ad text and keywords to help increase conversion rates.

Google Adwords
Linking Google Analytics to Your AdWords Account

Google Analytics Features Overview

Google Analytics Product Tour Video
Google Analytics Features

Google Analytics Installation for Volusion Clients

Google Analytics Integration for Version 5

Google Analytics Help and Support

Google Analytics Help Center
Google Analytics Help Forum

Google Analytics Tips and Training

Conversion University
Learn about marketing and content optimization and read web analytics tips from industry experts at Conversion University, the Google Analytics companion site. Includes tips on driving traffic, converting visitors, tracking and testing, and analytics in context.
Google Analytics Blog
The latest news, tips, and resources straight from the Google Analytics team.
Google Analytics YouTube Videos
Full-length presentations on advanced analytics implementation, best practices, how to create a data driven culture and more.

Google Analytics and Urchin Software
Urchin software is another analytics tool, free to use for your site. It differs from Google in that is uses different codes, and tracks visitors in different ways.

Google Analytics and Urchin Software
Urchin 5 Web Analytics Software

-Stacie Leonard, Ecommerce Marketing/Copywriting
* Google Analytics Homepage

Technorati Tags: volusion google analytics, web analytics, google analytics, web site analytics, webtraffic analytic, web analytic software, analytics software, web traffic analytics, sell online, online selling

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Acording to Goggle, 10-20% of all Goggle searches are actually mispelled.

If you didn’t catch that much of that sentence itself was misspelled, you are probably also missing out on the 80-90 percent of searchers who aren’t misspelling their search terms. As crucial and somewhat obvious it seems to ensure you actually spell your own keywords correctly, it’s also important to catch the ones that are not. It’s something that is very easy to overlook, but 10-20% of your customer base is certainly worth finding in any way you can.

Take the often misguided, yet popularly searched Britney Spears. “Britney Spears” is misspelled 20 percent of the time in Google, and there are about 600 common misspellings of her name, according to Google founder Sergey Brin. Here are different ways that Google users happen to misspell their targeted keywords:

1.) Flat out misspelling words
Example: britney spears–>brittany spears

2.) Hitting the wrong key
Example: britney spears–> brotney spears

3.) Hitting a letter one too many times
Example: britney spears–> brittney spears

4.) Omitting a letter
Example: britney spears–> britny spears

5.) Transposing letters
Example: britney spears—> britneys pears

How important are factoring in misspellings to your site? Although meta keywords are not nearly as heavily weighted as they once were, misspellings here can come into play during a search. Misspellings are also important to factor for your internal search feature on your site. Customers who enter their product in the internal search bar are more likely to buy than those who search for and find their products. Adding misspellings to your keywords will ensure that Spellcheck junkies everywhere will always be able to find what they need on your site.

If you have a pay-per-click campaign, you have probably noticed that certain keywords are more expensive than they are worth to you. Many simple misspellings of these keywords are much cheaper, and they might get the kind of traffic to actually justify the expense. For certain keywords, the misspelling can actually heed better results than the correctly spelled word. So much for having spelling bees.

Looking for possible useful misspellings without spending all day on Google? Check out this tool for generating typos. Until everyone actually chooses to use the spell check feature in Firefox and IE7, you might pick up a couple of sales as a result. Just make sure to double check the addresses before sending anything out.

–Michelle Greer, Marketing Specialist
http://www.volusion.com

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An efficient Pay Per Click (PPC) campaign will drive qualified traffic to a website, helping to gain exposure and increase sales. The best vehicle for driving this traffic is a well targeted list of keywords. Targeted keywords can also improve your Quality Score, lowering overall campaign costs. Gain more efficient leads while weeding out those searchers you’d like to avoid by adding negative keywords to your list.

Keyword Matching Options

Let’s say you have an online store that sells only one type of item: high-end regular organic ground coffee. Only one item, yet a very specific type of item. An obvious keyword for this campaign would be the general name of the product- organic coffee.
You can then make a keyword list with that term, as well as all other Keyword Matching Options:
Broad Match:
organic coffee
Phrase Match:
“organic coffee”
Exact Match:
[organic coffee]

Your keywords are now specific enough to target only those searchers that type “organic coffee” into the search engine. Now the overlooked step comes into play. Although your campaign is equipped with keywords to specifically describe that item, think about the variations on the broad match keyword that may not apply to what you sell. As noted earlier, your site sells “high-end regular organic ground coffee”. However, as of now, if a searcher types in “cheap decaf organic coffee”- your ad will be displayed. An easy way to eliminate traffic you’d like to avoid is through the use of negative keywords.

Use a Keyword Tool to Find Negative Keywords
Once you generate an overall negative keyword list it can often be applied to several campaigns. Some basic negative keywords to include in PPC advertising may be words like “free” or “image”, depending on those items you have for sale. When making your negative keyword list, you can add general terms as well as terms that apply to the particular item you are targeting. Use a keyword tool, such as the Google Adwords:Keyword Tool to view keyword variations. Then, list out those keywords that do not apply to the item you’re trying to drive traffic to.

For example, type “organic coffee” into the tool now and take a look at the searched for terms. You’ll notice those that would not apply to the “high-end regular organic coffee” for sale, such as bean, kona, decaf and so on. Each of these keywords can now become a specific negative keyword to add to that list.
-bean
-kona
-decaf

Remember the underlying goal behind pay per click campaign efforts. When gaining exposure for your products, those exposed should be your ideal customers!

-Stacie Leonard, Ecommerce Marketing/Copywriting

Technorati Tags: negative keywords, ppc, ppc advertising, ppc management, pay per click, pay per click advertising, keyword list, volusion

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