The Sapient search team is blogging over at algofreaks.com! Go check it out and send us your thoughts.
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Had someone ask me about running a campaign of common misspellings for her keywords in AdWords and whether it was worth her time. Well, the answer, as with most things, is “it depends.” I used to always include a misspellings campaign for clients but haven’t bothered recently and here’s why.
If you’re running most of your keywords on broad match (don’t forget the negatives) then chances are you’re going to be showing for misspelled queries. Google automatically corrects query spelling and shows results based on the correction.
On the other hand, if you’re running everything on exact match then it may make sense to include some misspelled terms on exact match as well.
In addition, some people believe that overall quality score for the account can take a hit if you run misspellings because searchers generally won’t take action on a result for a misspelled query. Despite the impression you may get, click-through rate goes down and so does your quality score.
In the end, it’s really up to the person running the campaign. Does the audience require a little help to reach you? Is your product name hard to spell? Try out some misspellings and see if they convert. If they don’t, give them the boot quickly and spend your time on the optimizing and developing the keywords that do.
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The traditional take on the purchase cycle funnel has a lot of fancy words that are meant to describe the behaviors a consumer goes through when in the market for something. It goes something like this.
Awareness ⇒ Consideration ⇒ Preference ⇒ Selection ⇒ Purchase
Now for the sake of comparison, let’s see it in action.
Let’s say that a dude is in the market for a gift to reward himself for a strong year at work. He knows he wants something nice, but not too extravagant. After weighing some options and talking with his circle of friends, he decides on a fancy new timepiece. This isn’t an impulse purchase by any means. He’s been thinking about it for a while but he’s not familiar with the styles, types, brands, or why a Rolex costs more than a Seiko besides for the fact that it’s got a reputation. He’s seen some ads on TV with Tiger Woods sporting a Tag Heuer and has flipped through the pages of the Dupont Registry a few times where he’s seen plenty of watch ads but doesn’t remember much about them. He starts out by examining the choices out there, starting with increasing his awareness of the brands by walking into a couple of different stores in the mall.
He tries Mayors, a couple department stores, and finally stumbles into Tourneau and tells the sales guy he’s interested in a new watch. The guy shows him a few brands, tells him about each brand’s origins, explains the various movements and complications, and the dude asks a few basic questions and tries on a couple that fit his budget and taste. By the time he walks out he’s got an insatiable hunger for a new black-faced timepiece and has few different brands and models on his list that match what he likes.
When he gets gome he goes online and continues to read about IWC, Rolex, Breitling, and Hublot. He checks watch forums, social network groups, and shopping comparison sites. After sleeping on it, he decides on a Panerai Radiomir. Being the smart consumer he is, he checks prices online and at a couple other local shops. Eventually, he heads back to the shop and reminds the sales guy that he promised to beat the competition’s price with a 20% discount and an extra strap and hands over the credit card.
Now having gone through this scenario, ask your self a couple questions.
Does it seem like this guy went through this process and came to the purchase decision all by himself?
Can you see any opportunities you have as a marketer to engage with the potential customer to influence and guide his ultimate decision?
If you could get inside the customer’s mind it’s likely that you’d have a specific tactic you could employ between each step of the process, right?
Why, then, aren’t you doing it?
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The problem we are currently running into is that everything we are invested in is affected by the times. And the only product we have that may be immune, the party pass, was never even built out. Right now we have no decent prospects with our current businesses. If we couldn’t figure out how to grow it when things were good we’re never going to figure out how to do it when things are bad. What we have now as a business is a product of bootstrapping an operation between 3 people who have different priorities 90% of the time, the only common one is probably to make a little money. as a group, we are not risk takers. Individually, maybe. but without that tendency a small biz/startup/whatever will never get legs. We all know what we know and only are interested in what we’re interested in. take yang for example. Yang never adds to the discussion when we talk big ideas and instead looks for little pieces to nitpick and argue about. But, the other night when he was talking about how to handle clients and talk on the phone and whatever else, he was on fire. He was probably out all night last night talking the talk with club people, hitting on chicks, etc. only to fuck up at work today. Why aren’t we taking advantage of his priorities to advance the business?
Yet, throughout the few years we’ve been working together I don’t think we’ve ever taken the time to determine what we’re all good at, and how we fit together properly. With that, we’d probably be able to all take individual responsibility for things and get further, faster. For example, if we had all determined that yang added little to the strategy conversation, we could have empowered him with 5 goals for the year that had little to do with the overall next steps of the operation and instead were very tactical things… like get a party pass venue for each night, determine pricing, contacts, and availability, train the freshmen team, etc. These are things we don’t all need to do as a team. The problem has always been that although there is a very limited understanding of what role each of us plays here, we have very little in terms of roles and responsibilities aside from the very obvious tasks. We all believe that when we’re working hard the others are probably watching tv or whatever and just riding on our coattails - look at all the pent up anger that comes out from time to time about what you’re doing and what he’s not doing and so on. I don’t know why this has come to be but I don’t think we’ll ever get anywhere like that. It’s like having meetings about meetings like the other night. Maybe it’s just the nature of our business that contacts are flakes and we have to try to do something 3 or 4 times before it actually happens. That’s fine and that’s how life is sometimes. New Year’s season every year is our high point. We all come together and do our parts. We should be studying why this works and build it into our operation. I just feel like though we have been successful in certain areas at certain times, we have never had individual initiative to advance the business since we started because we’re too worried about what everyone else is doing.
And when all this is figured out we have to ask ourselves… do I want this company to be something special or am I just playing businessman? It’s all about execution and motivating yourself. No one is going to tell you to do it over and over and no one is going to check your work. We’re 3 people here. We all need to own our roles and strive to add value every day.
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A friend sent this over today and I happened to read it while I was sitting in a meeting this morning. I immediately related with the opening as the wifey is a kindergarten teacher and I’ve heard some great stories from her days with 5 and 6 year olds.
A kindergarten teacher is trying to explain to her class the definition of the word “definitely.” To make sure the students have a good understanding of the word, she asks them to use it in a sentence.
The first student raises his hand and says, “The sky is definitely blue”.
The teacher replies, “Well, that isn’t entirely correct, because sometimes it’s gray and cloudy”.
Another student says, “Grass is definitely green.”
The teacher again replies “If grass doesn’t get enough water it turns brown, so that isn’t really correct either.”
Another student raises his hand and asks the teacher “Do farts have lumps?”
The teacher looked at him and said, “No…But that isn’t really a question you want to ask in class discussion.”
So the student replies, “Then I definitely shit my pants.”
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Twitter was a heavy topic throughout 2008, and recently made headlines all over when it was announced that its traffic had surpassed that of Digg.
I’ve been on Twitter for a while now, operating a few accounts for various businesses and “personalities,” one of which being my own account, likesocool. When I first got involved it was for the same reason that I partake in most of the things I do online… to know what the hell I’m talking about when it comes up in client discussions. Before I started I had read all of the hoopla surrounding the service itself, but I was still weary of its true purpose as well as its place in my, and everyone else’s, daily routine. After being a part of it I’ve decided that Twitter is both important and unimportant at the same time.
Why Twitter is Important
Twitter has arrived on the scene when attention spans are at an all-time low and our thirst for information is at an all-time high. We want interaction, answers, and attention. And we want it now. We all have something to say and we’re looking for people who are willing to listen. We want to focus on a chosen discipline and be recognized for our contribution. Twitter does all of these things.
We can all argue that at its core, Twitter doesn’t really do anything different than a Facebook status update, but that’s where we miss the purpose of Twitter. The difference lies in how it was positioned for use. By asking a simple question, “What are you doing?,” the creators opened up a new communication medium that was only limited by how people chose to use it. Its simplicity is its strength in many ways. The people asking why Twitter are the same people that are updating their Facebook multiple times a day letting people know that they got out of the shower, dropped a deuce, and are feeling hungover. You may ask, “Why do we need another tool to let people know that we’re watching Lost?” I completely agree with you. But, have you noticed that you can now turn someone else’s Facebook status update into a conversation by responding to it? Hmm. That’s interesting. Where did that idea come from?
Did you know that major national news usually breaks first on Twitter? Did you know that you can get a glimpse, albeit abbreviated, into the minds of some of the greatest thinkers of our time? More importantly, did you know that you can join in the conversation with them?
The thing we all must remember is that Twitter is probably the Commodore 64 of whatever this technology will ultimately become. We will certainly see 140 character communication platform technology become a commodity in the next couple of years and without a viable business plan Twitter itself is likely to become a feature of someone else’s communication suite.
Until then it’s up to you to determine Twitter’s role in the way you communicate and you can be sure that the early adopters will continue to preach their sermon: “It’s not why, it’s how, you use it.” And they’re probably right.
Check out some related posts on the subject:
CEO predicts future uses for Twitter
Promoting yourself with Twitter
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Seems like everyone is getting into paid search these days.
Take a look at Adwords and you’ll see why. After nearly 8 years Google has managed to make its setup process essentially idiot proof. Idiots can sign up and be running search ads in just a few minutes. Google even offers a Ron Popeil “set it and forget it” option for idiots with money to burn. Let’s just say that it’s never been easier to open your wallet, take out a couple hundo and hand it to Google for marketing expenses.
What this really means is that a decent share of voice is getting harder to come by and that we as search marketers need to be ready to respond with tactics that make their idiot heads spin - if they’re even paying attention in the first place. Take a look at my favorite query to see some idiots in action.
One of the best strategies for an effective paid search campaign is to go local. Here are 7 tips to get the most out of your local search campaign.
1. Think you’re local? Get closer.
It’s a pretty well known fact that people are lazy. If a customer has to drive some place to do business with your client, it’s probably not going to be much more than 10 or 15 miles, especially in urban areas like Miami. If your client is a nationwide retailer with multiple locations in a DMA like Miami, break down the targeting within the DMA into smaller, more local, campaigns. That means that Miami Beach, Aventura, Kendall, etc. should all get their own campaigns for targeting and reporting purposes. I can’t wait until we can do local IP targeting on the ad group level. Run a few locally targeted national accounts at the campaign level and you’ll see what I mean.
2. Let them find you 2 different ways.
It’s one thing to target local customers with a keyword like “Aventura computer repair.” But what about the customer who searches for “computer repair” from their lovely beachfront condo in Aventura? Make sure you’re running those generic terms with IP based targeting in addition to your localized keywords.
3. Build a dynamic landing page.
Create a landing page template which is capable of replacing text blocks with localized copy. The copy blocks should be written so that we can insert some location and it will still make sense. The location could be the city, the state, the county, or even the neighborhood. I like to make the page respond to query parameters like city= and state= so that even my URL has the location in it. Take advantage of all of the free tools like Google Maps to display the client’s locations. Make the page as local as possible.
4. Add those landing pages to the sitemap.
Once you have your dynamic landing page created and capable of dynamic insertion of the locations, take all of the URLs with the locations inserted (think yourdomain.com/repair.php?city=aventura&state=florida) and add them to the sitemap. The search engines will index those pages as well and before you know it you’ll be feeling the benefits of ranking in natural search for localized keyword searches as well as showing up in the paid placements - which is a good problem to have.
5. Use the location often in copy.
Since we’re taking the time to get as local as possible make sure to use the location in the ad copy. Use it in the headline, the body, and even in the display URL. Customers like to deal locally so use it to your advantage. Also, an IP targeted campaign which serves a local ad for a generic keyword search will show your target location below your ad in the results, so you’ve got the potential to show the location up to 4 times.
6. Build keywords programmatically.
Find out which keywords will drive traffic for your client: Google’s Keyword Tool, the new Search-based keyword tool, and Aaron Wall’s SEO Book Keyword Suggestion Tool are good places to start. Once you have your basic list, save it. That’s going to be the basis for your IP targeted campaigns. The next step is to take your list and localize it. The key here is concatenation. We’re going to take our basic list and attach all of our location targets to the terms to build our localized keywords. I highly suggest you use some of the free tools available to get this part done. I’ve created a simple keyword builder to help you get it done. There are a couple of USPS databases which can help with this as well. Don’t be surprised if you end up launching 400k keywords when you’re done building.
7. Track everything by location.
Setting up a good local search campaign isn’t easy. It takes a lot of time to build the keywords, organize them, test, and get them all loaded into the engines. Since we’ve gone through all the trouble to compartmentalize our account structure, target our customers in multiple ways, and create copy and landing pages to speak as locally as possible to our customers, we need to get as much out of the numbers as possible. Based on the response to your campaign you can determine not only which markets to further invest in online but also where to spend in traditional local advertising like local radio, TV, and out of home.
There are plenty of other amazing references out there for local paid search. I recommend a fellow mick, Matt McGee. Check out his Small Business Search Marketing blog for a great place to start.
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