Posts Tagged ‘search engines’

It’s the New Year and a lot of people make New Year’s resolutions. Some time ago Google released a very valuable market research tool that allows you to see the search trends that show what people are searching for, when and where. The graph at the top shows the search trend for one of the common New Year’s resolutions (weight loss). The horizontal axis of the main graph represents time (starting from some time in 2004), and the vertical is how often a term is searched for relative to the total number of searches. It’s funny how it spikes as every New Year shown comes around and then slowly dies off until next year.

So how can this be valuable to you? Here are a few examples:

1. You can see when your customers are more interested in your products/services and plan to market yourself more aggressively during that time. A lot of them are obvious. In the example I showed it is evident that a lot of people want to lose weight around the New Year’s. A lot of people search for “summer camps” before the end of the school year. Others are not so obvious and it may be very valuable for you to check out when your customers are interested in your products and services.
2. If you’re starting a new business you can check if demand for your product or service is going up or down. For example interest in software development has been on a steady decline since 2004.
3. You can check which geographical market is most interested in your product or service.
4. You can compare different markets. For example did you know that dogs are more popular than cats or any other house pets?
5. If you’re in retail you can check when holiday shopping really starts.

These are just some of the uses, but the possibilities are mind blowing.

Technorati Tags: double my sales, E-Commerce, Internet Marketing, ppc, promoting your business, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), search engines, selling products online, seo, site promotion, website promotion, website traffic

One of the most popular questions that I get from people that are interested in doing SEO or PPC today is: “Which search engine is the most popular one?” This is a very logical question.  Ten years ago, most business owners knew that if they wanted more customers all they had to do was call the local Yellow Pages representative or a newspaper, choose which ad size they wanted and that was it!

Now that people have dumped their newspapers and phone books in the garbage and simply go to search engines to find what they are looking for, business owners definitely need to know which search engines are the most popular ones so that they can ensure that their business is front and center when their potential customer does the search.  Of course, internet marketing companies are always willing to help as well!

So what kind of changes happened in 2008? Here is the information you have been waiting for. Well, we can definitely call it the year of Google, again. Although it wasn’t news to anyone that Google was the most popular search engine, by the end of 2008 Google broken through the 80% market share ceiling! In fact it is estimated that close to 82% of searches worldwide are now done through Google.

While market share of most other search engines remained mostly unchanged the recent gains of Google seem to have come at the cost of Yahoo!, which has been in a steep decline of late and now stands at around 10% in second place after Google.

Now what does this mean to your business? Well it’s certainly good news and bad news. We’re again in the market were you can only deal with one or two organizations like it used to be before with yellow pages and one or two newspapers. Because Google and Yahoo have close to 92% of the market why bother with the other 8%? The problem of course is that Google has a monopoly on the search market and it’s only increasing. This means that if you were thinking of starting a Search Engine Optimization (SEO) or PPC campaign it is better to start it sooner rather than later as more and more of your competitors are focusing their sights on Google and SEO and PPC will only get more expensive. In fact PPC costs have been steadily rising at a pace of close to 30% each year over the past 10 years due to consolidation of search engines market and shift of advertising spending to online channels.

Technorati Tags: Internet Marketing, ppc, promoting your business, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), search engines, seo, site promotion, website promotion, website traffic

   Not many people are aware of this but these days PPC and SEO go hand in hand. Ever since Google introduced the concept of quality score and landing page quality scores, search engine ranking of your site and landing pages will affect the amount of money you pay for each click. Google puts it this way:

“Advertisers who may be providing a poor experience on their site will notice that their traffic will decrease and their minimum cost per click will increase.”

   How can you ensure that your website doesn’t have a low quality score? Here are some tips:

• Work on SEO for your site, if your site ranks well you will have a higher quality score
• Provide relevant, unique and substantial content on the product or service.
• Add an ‘about us’ page
• Add a short privacy policy
• Add details on returns / refunds if you’re selling something on your website
• Add a contacts page
• If your site displays advertising, distinguish sponsored links from the rest of your site content or think about removing completely.
• Don’t link to shady sites.

Here’s what Google has to say about this https://adwords.google.com/support/bin/topic.py?topic=9356.

Technorati Tags: Internet Marketing, ppc, promoting your business, Search Engine Friendly, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), search engines, seo, site promotion, website promotion, website traffic

It seems that everyone is seeking better search engine rankings. If you have a high ranking in the search engine results for the right keywords, you’ll get a lot of targeted traffic to your website. But how many of those visitors become your customers?

Conversion – not ranking – is what pays the bills. Conversion is converting website visitors into customers (if they can pay you right on the website) or getting them to take a certain action like filling out a contact form or a signup sheet for something like a newsletter or a webinar.

Search Engines, referrals, print ads, and hyperlinks all play an important role in an effective web marketing strategy. But once visitors arrive at your site, how do you go about persuading them to take the actions you want them to take? There are two main considerations: usability and content.

Usability

Make it easy for your website visitors to find what they came for. Consider creating landing pages that are directly relevant to the search terms they used to find your site. Visitors will quickly understand that they’re in the right place and can begin to move along the conversion process: fill out a form, contact you, or make a purchase.

You need to plan for different visitor scenarios. Do you have an understanding of the steps a typical visitor to your web site will take? Good navigation leads them through the conversion process with clear action steps. They should always know what to click next to achieve their goal.

Don’t overwhelm prospects with too many options. Eliminate unnecessary information like copy that doesn’t really say anything, links or banners that distract from the conversion process and graphics that serves no function. You got it right – less is more.

Test the conversion process yourself and get your or someone’s grandma to try it. Fill out a form. Register for membership. Make a purchase from your own shop. If it’s not painless for you or your grandma then you’re on the right track. Otherwise it is going to be tough for anyone coming to your site for the first time. Here’s the golden rule: keep it simple.

Put your efforts into improving your conversions. Think about it. Even a small increase in your conversion rate from 0.5% to 1% wills double your sales! Your targeted traffic will then be that much more valuable to you.

Content

Make sure that your basic message is very clear to your web site visitors. Don’t make them think. Provide clear answers to their most obvious questions and you’ll build your credibility.

Good copywriting may be the single most important factor in raising your conversion rate. The text on your pages should speak to your visitors in a consistent and appropriate voice. It should offer the right information at the right time.

Support the personal and psychological variables of your potential clients. It is also important not to overwhelm your website visitors with too much text. Some people want to read, but others prefer to see photographs and diagrams. Provide basic information to everyone and additional information (pictures and documents they need to fully evaluate your products and services) to the people who want it. When including pictures make sure they’re really useful: not every picture is worth a thousand words. Use high-quality detail shots and enlargements to tell the full story.

Technorati Tags: conversion rate, double my sales, Internet Marketing, leads generation, promoting your business, search engines, selling products online, seo, site promotion, usability, website optimization