Lorna Li | Green Marketing 2.0

by Lorna Li

Search engine marketers, bloggers, and social media fanatics wore their favorite hats at Search Marketing Salon’s “Wear Your Favorite Hat” Launch party at the chic and intimate Otis Lounge in San Francisco. Tips were swapped, secrets were traded, and product ideas were bounced around that would take search marketing to the next level.

Forest Kolb, Sharon Lin, and Julie Blaustein.

“We need a Google Adwords Editor that also includes Yahoo and MSN on a single UI,” stated Clay Schulenburg, Interactive Marketing Manager for Healthline. “This will take search to a whole new level.”

F*ck the Yahoo bulk upload, is what I say to that!

Hear that, web entrepreneurs? That’s big bucks for you!

Jacob Morgan, Search Marketing Alchemist and Nicolette Toussaint

Search-obsessed bloggers that dropped by included Michael Brito, who writes a fantastic blog about Social Media & Conversation Marketing, Lisa Whelan social media queen on Vox, Jim Yu on how to be a Search Marketing and SEO Maven, and Andy Kaufman, the real estate blogger and Twitter king.

William Gauthier, Alicia Lin, Damon White, and Lorna Li.

e-Storm’s William Gauthier, Lisa McGuire, and Daniel Riveong

Leon Krishayana and lovely lady in black beret

Leon Krishnayana of iSpionage, offers a technology platform that helps search engine marketers track competitors’ PPC ads on Google, Yahoo, and MSN ads daily. It allows you to see the ad copy, keywords, and average rank on the major search engines side by side. Very handy indeed.

Vera Belenky and Alex Gamburg

Other attendees included Mark Fiske, Senior Online Marketing Manager at Gap, Pete Park of web advertising agency Vectorhaus, Yan Rozovsky VP of LeadClick Media, Jason Hart of the search-focused Online Marketing agency Domain Methods, Jeff Rohrs, VP of search marketing agency ExactTarget, Leo Haryono, Head of Natural Search of Shopping.com, Josh Pierry and Clay Shulenburg of Healthline, Biren Talati, of Sandalstore.com, Peter Koontz, Founder and CTO of Sprenzy, Vera Belenky of Walmart.com, Alex Gamburg Search Marketing Director of Trulia, specializing in real estate search, Gabriel Carrejo, the original sinner, Forest Kolb of BizzFlip who has cracked the secret of the Digg first page, Sharon Lin, Online Marketer for Web 2.0 companies, Irina Greenman, and Danny Cheung, who is about to revolutionize the world of WordPress publishing the Good Magazine way.

More pictures can be viewed on the Search Marketing Salon Flickr album.

Join Search Marketing Salon on Facebook!

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Tags: searchmarketing salon, e-Storm, iSpionage, Domain Methods, Good Magazine, Sandalstore.com, Michael Brito, Andy Kaufman, Jim Yu, Lisa Whelan, Sharon Lin, Josh Pierry, Clay Shulenburg, Peter Koontz, Jeff Rohrs, Biren Talati, Jason Hart, Gabriel Carrejo, Pete Park, Mark Fiske, Yan Rozovsky, Leo Haryono, Leon Krishnayana, Vera Belenky, Nicolette Toussaint, Lorna Li, Jacob Morgan

It’s time to wear your favorite hat, because Search Marketing Salon launches this Thursday. White hats, grey hats, and black hats are welcome - we do not discriminate.

If you are obsessed about search engine rankings, gaga about the SEO benefits of social media, and have a tale or two to tell about how you dominated the SERPs, have a drink with us!

When:

Thursday March 27 6:00pm - 9:00pm

Where:

Otis Lounge

25 Maiden Lane (b/w Grant & Kearny )

San Francisco, CA 94108

Join Us!

RSVP via Eventbrite for Search Marketing Salon’s Wear Your Favorite Hat Launch Party.

To become an official member of Search Marketing Salon, join Search Marketing Salon on LinkedIn.

You can also connect with Search Marketing Salon on Facebook.

Technorati Tags: search marketing salon, search engine marketing, search marketing, sem, seo, ppc, social seo, web 2.0 marketing

presented by Giovanna & Aaron Wall

Tuesday night I went to one of the first SF Blogger Meetups to gather after a long hiatus and it was well worth the wait.

The group practically took over Amici’s pizzeria on Lombard and, with the exception of my bub.blicio.us buddy Victor Karamalis, included no one I recognized from the Web 2.0 circuit.

But it did include a treat - I got to meet, sit next to, and pick the brains of Aaron Wall and his wife Giovanna. Yes, THE Aaron Wall, of SEO Book and one of the most well known SEOs of our time. In fact, the couple is so successful with building monetizing blogs that they now occupy the ranks of the New Rich - a term coined by Tim Ferris of the 4-Hour Work Week. Both Aaron and Giovanna are seasoned veterans of blog monetization - they’ve optimized and monetized websites so that several of them bring in over six figures in income. Sharing their blogging secrets, as well as picking up the tab for 40+ attendees, was their way of giving back to the community.

They also threw in a free resource The Blogger’s Guide to Search Engine Optimization.

Alas, if only I could spend an ENTIRE DAY learning from Aaron or Giovanna!

The Blogger Meetup was largely made up of novice bloggers, and folks unfamiliar with the term SEO. Most of what the Walls shared was pretty general knowledge, seasoned with nuggets of valuable insider wisdom, some of which they urged, to keep to ourselves.

Topics covered were:

1. How to Generate and Grow Traffic

Content is King

Write good content that caters to your target audience - ideally content that is so good that it redefines the industry. Be sure to create a unique angle the reflects your personality. Mention and link out to other blogs - the owners will notice the incoming link, and often they too will share some link love.

A good tip from Aaron on scrapers stealing your unique site content is to create links to older articles in your blog post. That way, if scrapers pick up your content, at least they are providing links back to your site

Community Participation

Start online friendships by in conversations on blogs, forums and social networks related to your topic. Try to have a popular blogger mention you and link to you - this can bring considerable traffic to your site. You can also offer to write for other well-known bloggers.

Create a community project related to your topic and ask web-savvy experts to give their opinion about it. If your project is buzzworthy, all of the sudden you will have organic citations from thought leaders in the field pointing to your site from around the Web.

Pay Per Click

Use PPC to build traffic. My take on PPC is that it’s worthwhile if you have a product to sell that would at least enable you to generate some kind of ROI, otherwise buying this kind of traffic can get very expensive very quickly.

However, Aaron and Giovanna maintained that even if you’re not selling anything, buying traffic through PPC can be powerful, because, if your content is good, it can go viral. And niche keywords can actually be very cheap - around 5 or 10 cents a click, so if you have a small budget to play with, PPC traffic can be relatively inexpensive and worthwhile.

StumbleUpon Ads

For a nickel a visitor, StumbleUpon, a social search application, can drive considerable traffic to your site. StumbleUpon allows users to discover Web sites, people, videos, online communities, product information and more in a manner very much like channel-surfing, but for the Web. You can use StumbleUpon as a social media marketing tool for free - join a Stumble group for maximum impact - or as an advertiser. Other Stumblers vote your content up or down - the more positive votes you get, the more the StumbleUpon recommends your site to other Stumblers.

Paid Reviews

Solicit paid reviews from other bloggers through ReviewMe.com and PayPerPost.com.

2. Building a Large Subscription Base

RSS

Encourage RSS subscriptions by promoting RSS buttons aggressively. Create a page that explains what RSS is.

Create Brand Evangelists

Make your email accessible or use a contact form. Aggressively solicit comments and answer every real comment.

Encourage Registration

Encourage registration if you want to build a community and offer bonuses for registering.

3. Monetization Strategies

Adsense

The easiest way to monetize is Adsense, which is good for setting a baseline. Aaron recommended staying ad-free in the beginning and to avoid putting ads on your homepage unless you are very well trusted.

Affiliate Offers

Make sure that they are selective and relevant to your topic - and put the offers section on another part of your site.

Create or Sell a Product

Create or sell a product that is relevant to your topic; this works best if you are a recognized expert in your niche. You can also try to sell information-based products created from your intellectual capital, such as e-books, videos, or DVDs, or consulting services and speaking gigs.

Do not pollute your blog with advertising - it becomes a roadblock.

4. Technology

Aaron and Giovanna’s recommended blog platform of choice was WordPress, Drupal if you want to start a community. They also recommended Google Analytics or HaveAMint.com for site stats.

5. Other Takeaways

Trendspotting

One of the key takeaways from the Meetup was the value of spotting trends. According to Giovanna, “The best way to make $ out of blogging is to spot trends and be an early adopter.”

Here’s how to do it:

1. Research trends

Tools you can use to spot upcoming trends include Google Trends, trendwatching.com, ebay’s Marketplace Research Pro, which for $20/month gives you access to what people are searching for on eBay.

2. Keyword Research

Once you’ve zeroed in on a new trend, research the keywords around those trends, buy a domain name with those relevant keywords. Remember:

• Make sure the keyword is in the url
• Hyphens are branding suicide
• It doesn’t matter if your domain is a .biz, .org, or .net

3. Launch a blog about it.

Now all you have to worry about is creating a continuous stream of compelling content. Good luck!

As a blogger, creating quality content is probably the most difficult and time-consuming aspect of blogging, and not all of us have budgets to hire writers.

But according to Aaron, if you have a niche site optimized for niche keywords you can still receive a healthy stream of organic search traffic without the need to aggressively create content. The need for fresh content depends, a great deal, on the market.

Aaron, “I would never start a blog about SEO now - it’s too saturated a field.”

Giovanna, “If you are starting a blog about mortgages now - good luck!”

Given that the blogosphere only seems to be expanding exponentially, like a rogue galaxy hurtling out into space, it seems nearly impossible to gain any traction at all on anything, let alone monetize it.

Following these tips from Aaron and Giovanna Wall, you too, can earn money from your blogs. May the force be with you.

Technorati Tags: sf blogger meetup, blogging, blog monetization, blog seo, seo, search engine optimization, aaron wall, giovanna wall

A/B tests for landing pages allow you to compare the performance of 2 entirely different pages, so you can try out different layouts, move around different sections of the page and change the overall look and feel of the page.

Google’s Website Optimizer makes A/B split testing for landing pages extremely simple.  All you need to do is identify 3 pages:

1. Your control page
2. Your test page
3. Your conversion page

If you have a desired action, such as membership registration, mailing list sign-up, or a sale, indicate the confirmation or thank you page of that transaction as your conversion page.

1.  In the Campaign Management tab, click on the Website Optimizer link.

2. Click on “Get Started

3.  Agree to the User Agreement

4.  Create a new experiment

5.  Enter the page names and urls for each page.Google will automatically verify the urls for those pages.

6.  Click continue and the website optimizer will ask whether you or your webmaster will install the javascript tags onto your experiment pages.

If your web team will install the tags, Website Optimizer then generates a link to the page whereyour webmaster can access the necessary javascript.

If you will install the tags, then you will be taken directly to the page.

7.  Copy the control and tracking scripts and follow the instructions on the page as to where to paste the code in your experiment pages.

8.  When complete, click the Validate pages button, and Google will verify whether the script is correctly installed.

If validation is successful, all you need to do is let the experiment run for 1-2 weeks.  Google will automatically alternate the different landing pages and track their conversion performance. To see how they are doing, go back to the Website Optimizer experiment list by clicking on the Website Optimizer link, and view your report.

Technorati Tags: google website optimizer, landing page optimization, testing landing page, ppc, pay-per-click, a/b test, a/b split test, lorna li, lornali

According to Hitwise, in December of 2006 Google handled nearly half the volume of all searches executed by U.S. Internet users. In January 2007, this proportion increased to 63.1%, with Yahoo losing the most market share. Based on JP Morgan 2007 estimates, Google revenues amounted to approximately $8.6 billion. Advertising on the world’s largest search engine is as lucrative as oil these days.

Source: Fast Company

Since search hit the mainstream in 1994, users have been fickle, hopping from one search engine to another, leaving some to die by the wayside. Ask.com is a mere blip in the timeline.

Source: Fast Company

Ever heard of Northern Light and AllTheWeb?

Of all the search engines who have shared in the limelight, Google, by far, has held reign the longest. And yet, according to Jimmy “Jimbo” Wales, founder of Wikipedia, Google still produces too much “spam and useless crap”.

Technorati Tags: the search market 2006 to 2007, search volume 2006 to 2007, search engine market share, the history of search engines, google, yahoo, ask.com, lorna l

Both Google and Yahoo offer PPC conversion tracking. While measuring impressions, clicks, CTR, cost, CPC, etc. is important, ultimately, what you really want to get down to is measuring and improving conversions.

Why?

If you approach PPC from the perspective of generating traffic, you are essentially throwing money into a void. Oh - some call this branding.

Branding is important, but, sales are better. Measuring conversions boils down to understanding your return on investment (ROI).

Also, you will find that some of your keywords may generate a high CTR, but never convert. You definitely want to ferret these keywords out and reassess your bidding strategy with them.

How does Conversion Tracking Work?

Conversion tracking involves placing a cookie on the user’s computer when the person clicks on an ad. If the user clicks on your Google PPC ad and reaches one of your conversion pages, the user’s browser sends a cookie to a Google server, and a small conversion tracking image is displayed on your site. When such a match is made, Google records a successful conversion for you.

In order to enable Google Conversion Tracking, in your Google Adwords UI, go to your desired account’s “Campaign Management” tab and click on the “Conversion Tracking” link. Follow the steps to generate a snippet of javascript, which you will then need to paste onto the”Thank You” page for one of your desired actions, such as sales, request for info, registration, etc.

Once this is set up, your Google reports will now show additional columns of data related to conversion statistics. For more detailed information about how Google Conversion Tracking works, download the Google Adwords Conversion Tracking Guide.

Technorati Tags: Pay-Per-Click, PPC, PPC conversion tracking, google adwords, SEM, search marketing, paid search, lorna li

Congratulations - you’ve set up your Google Adwords account and are ready to launch your first PPC campaigns!

Somewhere very quickly down the road you are going to want to test your ad copy and perform landing page tests in order to continually identify winning creative and improve your conversion rate. Here is an overview of how you might set up and perform basic A/B split tests in Google Adwords. These insights can be applied to other paid search programs.

A/B testing is a method of advertising testing by which a baseline control sample is compared to a variety of single-variable test samples. While a classic direct mail tactic, A/B split testing has been recently adopted within the interactive space to test PPC ads, banner ads, emails and landing pages.

To perform A/B testing correctly, you will need to deploy a control - usually the strongest, most consistently performing version of your ad - alongside at least one or more variations of this ad. Bear in mind, in order to correctly identify which variable is responsible for changes in response rate or desired outcome, the ads must essentially be identical except for one variable difference.

Confused?

If you are simply testing ad creative, you have 3 lines to work with, or 3 variables. Some might include the destination url as the 4th variable, but for simplicity’s sake, I will focus on 3.

1. Title
2. Description 1
3. Description 2

You have limited space, so understand that each line must carry its own weight, yet at the same time, reinforce the whole message you are trying to convey through your ad.

PPC Split Testing – Step by Step Instructions on Testing Ad Copy

1. Make sure ‘ad optimization’ is “off” the campaign settings in order to ensure all ads are served equally.

2. Determine how many ads you can successfully test based on your daily volume of impressions. If you have a large volume of impressions, such as 10,000 daily impressions, you can serve more ads than if you had 100 impressions a day. However more ads means more data to crunch. Also, bear in mind that more ads you have, the less proportion of time each one is served, and the longer it will take to gather statistically significant data.

3. Create 2-4 titles (T below), description line 1s (D1 below), description line 2s (D2 below), and then mix and match them. Remember, these go up exponentially, testing 3 lines is 27 ads (i.e. #t x #d1 x #d2).

Graphically, your ads will plot out to look something like this:

Ad# T D1 D2
1. A A A
2. A A B
3. A B A
4. A B B
5. B A A
6. B A B
7. B B A
8. B B B

As you can see, with just 2 variations of each line, we now have 8 ads, thus the more copy you test, the more your data analysis work will expand.

4. Determine your time frame for testing. Give yourself at least a few days, though 2-3 weeks should yield solid data. Also factor in any holidays, and allow more time to account for any deviations in user behavior during this period.

5. Once you’ve reached your time frame for testing, it’s time to analyze the results. Export your data into an excel spreadsheet. Google’s robust reporting tools will allow you to export practically every data point imaginable in a myriad of ways. In this case, you will want to download a report on Ad Performance, which will give you stats on the performance of each ad by Impressions, Clicks, CTR, Cost, CPC, and Avg Position.

However, in order to get a read on conversions, you will need to enable Google Conversion Tracking. With Google Conversion Tracking enabled, you will have additional columns of conversion related data in your reports that will help you better analyze your PPC split test results.

Technorati Tags: Pay-Per-Click, PPC, A/B testing, split testing PPC, PPC ad testing, SEM, search marketing, Google Adwords, lorna li

According to the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization (SEMPO). North American advertisers spent $9.4 billion on search engine marketing (SEM) in 2006, a 62 % increase over 2005. SEMPO researchers also estimate SEM spending to double by 2011, at an aggregate spending total of $18.6 billion.

However, while only a tiny percentage of small and medium size businesses currently contribute to this huge volume of advertising spend, many analysts predict that the number of small businesses will grow significantly over the next few years.

If you are a small, environmentally sustainable business with a limited advertising budget or a nonprofit seeking other avenues of funding, PPC ads can be an inexpensive, cost-effective way to reach a targeted segment of customers. And now is a great time to get in on it, before the green industry gets uber-competitive.

PPC - More Bang for the Buck

Pay-Per-Click Ads are small Internet text ads with a short description that link to a Web site that usually appear on the right hand side of your search engine results pages (SERPs) and in designated sections on many content-driven Web sites and blogs. Advertisers bid to have their ads show up when users search for certain keywords, or when Web site features those specific keywords in the content of that web page. Advertisers only pay when a user clicks on their ad and visits their Web site.

Depending on how competitive your market is, the cost-per-click on certain keywords can be as cheap as a few cents a click to $5, $10 or even more. However, anyone can start a PPC advertising program on as little as a few dollars per week.

The first great thing about PPC advertising is that it is treeless. With print direct mail, at a 2% response rate - which is considered to be good - 98% of your mailing gets trashed. In my opinion, no matter how “successful” the campaign metrics, print direct mail is an incredible waste of time, energy, and resources.

The second great thing about PPC advertising is that your campaign results are available within days of the launch of your campaign. By contrast, direct mail advertising campaigns often take at least 3 months to close, and the first responses typically roll in 6 weeks after the mail date. Other forms of traditional marketing - print ads, TV and radio commercials - can be extremely expensive, yet, entirely unmeasurable. It is nearly impossible how many people viewed your glossy magazine ad, and how many of those people actually went out and bought your product.

With PPC, you can track all metrics from number of clicks to conversions in less than a week. Furthermore, based on your campaign statistics, you can tweak and adjust your bids, edit your text ads, and perform A/B split tests on ad creative and multivariate tests on your landing pages as often as you want, when you want - and see the results the following day. This is impossible with other forms of traditional media - not only will it prove to be very expensive, it will drive your designers and media vendors utterly crazy. And you won’t receive your results, if you are lucky, until the following quarter.

Understand PPC before you begin, or you will waste your money

Implementing a successful PPC campaign requires a certain level of skill and understanding, so read up about it before you begin. You will need to:

• set up your account correctly
• know how to select and price keywords
• know how to write compelling ad copy
• have at at least one landing page
• know how to perform ad testing and landing page tests
• be willing to monitor and tweak your campaign frequently

While PPC professionals will employ a number of arcane techniques and strategies, there are 4 main factors to PPC success that everyone should know. I will start with what I believe to be the most important:

1) Get Creative With Your PPC keywords, then Narrow it Down

Come up with a large, robust initial list of keywords and key phrases, and then narrow it down to the ones worth bidding on. To further fine-tune your targeting and avoid paying for clicks from people unlikely to buy your product, create a list of negative keywords - search terms where you don’t want your ad to appear. For example, if you are selling gourmet, organic, hand-crafted and fair-trade chocolate truffles, you will probably want to include the negative keywords “free”, “cheap”, and “discount” in your campaigns.

Also, if you have a limited budget, you may want to choose to display your ads only on the search network and turn the content network off. In general, content network ads tend to have a lower click through rate (CTR) than search ads. By showing your ads only to people actively searching for those keywords, you will get more bang for your PPC buck.

2) Put Your Keywords In Your PPC Ad Text

If your ad text is not relevant to the search term, chances are, no one will click on it. A low click through rate (CTR) can cause Google to render your ad inactive for that keyword, which will require you to increase your initial bid in order to enter the market.

Make sure your keyword is in the headline, and if not, at least in the description. The user’s search query will show up bolded on the SERP, so if your ad creative has matching keywords, these will appear more prominently as bolded text, and your ad will stand out more on the page.

3) Send PPC Traffic to a Relevant Landing Page

One of the most important factors to PPC success is driving targeted traffic to a landing page, NOT your homepage. Your landing page should be directly relevant to the ad that links to it. For example, if you have listed a text ad for “Sustainable Bamboo Cutting Boards”, be sure to send visitors to a landing page about eco-friendly bamboo cutting boards, and not bamboo products in general, or you will lose them.

Design your landing page to quickly take your visitors to product selection, purchase and check-out with a little clicks as possible. If you want them to sign up for something, make the form as simple and hassle-free as possible. Think of your landing page as funnel. Create no distractions, leave no option for escape.

If you are running a nonprofit, link your text ad a donation page, and not a general info page about your organization’s mission and vision. If you are raising money for your rainforest Adopt-An-Acre campaign, make sure your Adopt-a-Rainforest text ad takes the visitor to a landing page about this specific program, and not a page about a different conservation initiative, nor your general donation or membership page.

4) Test, Test and Test Some More

Finally, running a successful PPC program depends on your ability to track results and tweak your campaigns on a frequent basis. As the bidding landscape changes daily, you will need to monitor and adjust your strategies accordingly.

You will want to test ad creative and improve your ad creative. Google and Yahoo are set up so that split testing is easy. You will also want to test your landing pages and determine which variables - such as headline, main image, ad copy - attract more conversions. Google Optimizer allows you to easily perform multivariate testing on your landing pages.

Finally, running a successful PPC program depends on your ability to track results and tweak your campaigns on a frequent basis. As the bidding landscape changes daily, you will need to monitor and adjust your strategies accordingly.

You will want to test ad creative and improve your ad creative. Google and Yahoo are set up so that split testing is easy. You will also want to test your landing pages and determine which variables - such as headline, main image, ad copy - attract more conversions. Google Optimizer allows you to easily perform multivariate testing on your landing pages.

The fun part about developing your PPC strategies is testing “out of the box” ideas. For example, most of us who care about environmental conservation are keenly aware of how active the Bush Administration has been in dismantling existing environmental laws and undermining the nation’s overall environmental policy. The Bush Administration’s environmental track record is, for most conservation-minded individuals, a miserable failure.

Some of you might be familiar also with the Google bomb for the keywords “miserable failure” that linked to the biography of George W. Bush.

The last time I Googled “miserable failure” a text ad pop up that said, “Yes, We Think So, too”. Who was that ad from? The Natural Resources Defense Council.

Technorati Tags: Pay-Per-Click, PPC, SEM, search marketing, paid search, green marketing, PPC primer, lorna li