All-in-One SEO Tools: Competitors, Ranking and Analytics

February 17th, 2010

Search Engine rankings may not be as meaningful as they once were, however they still do hold some value, and if they are combined with things like competitive data and web analytics- search engine rankings can be quite useful. We have had our share of demos of search engine ranking software over the years, but the latest one from SEO Rank Monitor deserves a second look. Before we get into the details, there is a full 30-day trial available, which allows you test drive 10 domains and 2500 keywords – Data is collected daily.

The setup is quite standard, like most ranking SEO tools, you add your domains and keywords (with their appropriate groupings) and select your search engines (in this case 30 to choose from). Next you add your competitor’s domains, which is not revolutionary, but very useful to your SEO Campaign nonetheless. Finally, you have the option of connecting your Google Analytics account so you can tie together rankings and visits. This will help you decipher whether a rank 5 for one keyword provides more visits than a rank 8 for a separate keyword.

The way the dashboard is setup is quite unique. It provides a week by week by week comparison allowing you to see rankings at a very high level, for example: Total keywords ranked in positions 1-10, 11-20, 21-30 one week vs. another week. See example below:

SEO Rank Monitor also provides other reports (examples below), including Analytics Monitor (visits correlated by rankings) and Domain monitor (domain level data such as pages indexed and backlinks).

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It just gets easier with Click-to-Mobile Ads

February 9th, 2010

A few weeks ago, Google released a mobile feature that allows marketers to add a click-to-call mobile paid search ad to their paid search campaigns. While paid SEO marketing is nothing new to the mobile world, the new feature of click-to-call has made it a much more accessible space to advertise in. This is an ideal setting for local businesses to advertise in, but it is also is great for direct response marketers, especially those marketers looking for leads.

Let’s take a step back and consider that one of the biggest obstacles for marketers when it comes to advertising on the mobile platform is the diverse operating systems used by the various cell phone carriers. Creating several different mobile versions of a website can be difficult and not always a profitable option for some advertisers. While this is still somewhat of a problem, the click-to-call feature has helped the customer skip over the website portion of the chain and get connected right to the company they are looking for. Sure, any local business can benefit from this new feature. The click-to-call feature makes it easier for people who are on the go to get connected with the closest source to what they need. But for a lead generation direct response online search marketing campaign, this is a fantastic bit of news.

Many lead generation campaigns are based on a “cost-per-call metric.” Many times there can be qualifiers within these calls, but the base data set that is analyzed is cost/calls. Now that Google has eliminated a step in the process of getting the phone to ring, a paid search campaign that is optimized for click-to-call advertising can provide many more leads to a direct response campaign. Also, according to Paul Feng, Google group product manager for Mobile Ads, clickthrough rates for these new search ads have seen increases up to 30%.

Google charges the same price for the click-to-call ads as it does its normal paid search ads. All bidding still takes places on an ad group level so a marketer’s current campaign can be optimized for click-to-call advertising in a few simple steps. While the volume may be low at first, this will obviously be an area of growth as smartphones continue to dominate the mobile phone market. Google has made it seamless to include click-to-call advertising in a SEO marketing campaign. Advertisers are well-suited to jump on board now and take advantage of this new space.

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Maximizing your PPC Split Testing Strategies

February 3rd, 2010

Search Marketing Standard posted a blog about how to test your PPC Campaigns with useful tips like re-writing ad copy, headlines, description lines, incorporating heavy keywords and even the length of time you should run split-testing. Check out their blog below to find out some more useful tips you can use to increase the efficiency and return of your PPC Campaign.

Split testing, also known as A/B testing, is commonplace for most pay-per-click (PPC) advertisers. The idea of testing two different ad copies or landing pages is nothing new, but I bet there are many advertisers that could dive a little deeper when it comes to split testing and discover a new level of clarity for their PPC campaigns.

First, here is a quick definition of split testing as regards PPC. With split testing, two or more items are tested side-by-side to determine which performs better at a specific metric. The importance of testing is critical to optimization. If you don’t test, you cannot improve your campaign. It is as simple as that. Most advertisers will find that the first couple of tests will have the most dramatic results, but it is important to continue testing various elements of your campaign at all times.

So what can you test when it comes to PPC? The most prominent thing to test is ad copy. Testing multiple ads for every keyword you are bidding on is essential to PPC success. Testing new headlines, description lines, display URLs, and destination URLs are all important areas to test when it comes to ad copy split testing. The idea of testing multiple ad copy translates very well to the content network also. Rich media campaigns are probably on the forefront of split testing and, if they are a component of your PPC campaign, you need to make sure to test new creative all the time.

On an ad copy level, split testing should run for a minimum of one week, but running for one month is ideal. Every day has different characteristics, and each week has variances (think about pay weeks). Ads should attain a minimum of 300 clicks, but 1,000 is ideal. You need to allow for enough data to accumulate for each ad before making any decisions regarding how effective it is. You also want to let every ad gather at least 15 conversions. Each advertiser will have a different set of results. This is simply a rough guideline.

Landing page testing is another very important aspect to test when it comes to any online marketing campaign, PPC included. Testing new layouts, copy, fonts, colors, forms, and shopping carts are just a few things to consider when split testing your landing pages. Knowing how much weight your landing page has in regards to quality score and conversion rates, you should spend ample time testing out countless versions throughout your SEO campaign.

A few other things you should make sure to split test are: match type, ad position, max CPC, time of day, day of week, and month of year. Look at it this way, anything you have an option for should be tested. This also applies to testing elements. Click-through rate, conversion rate, total conversions, cost per conversion, page views per click, cost per click, and total cost are just a few outcomes that most PPC campaigns test.

Make sure you take that deep dive when it comes to split testing within your PPC campaign. It is a large ocean and even though surfing the waves may be appealing, you don’t want to miss out on what lies beneath the surface.

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Search Keywords are your Market Segments

January 26th, 2010

People who know how to do offline marketing often have no idea on how to get started with one of today’s most efficient forms of marketing – search. They know their market segments, and they know how to think about them in terms of demographics. They know which magazines to buy ads in and which industry trade shows to attend. But search seems so much different, because there are no demographics to latch on to. When they come talk to the SEO Professionals, we explain that search keywords are their search market segments… – That’s when it all begins to come together.

It’s not that demographics will never be important search as an SEO Strategy. As personalized search begins to take off (and especially as mobile search grows in importance), marketers are likely to know much more about how their market segments are searching than they do today. So, you might, in fact, know gender, age, industry, and other demographics (and firmographics).

But that’s not the place to start. Instead of trying to map your existing market segments onto search, you need to give in to the idea that the first level of segmentation in search marketing is the keywords that your customers type into the search engine. Those keywords give you the insight you need to craft the message. There is a huge difference in the proper message between those two segments, just as in offline marketing, you have different messages for different segments.

That’s the key to success. Put your copywriting mind to work. Instead of trying to think about what message you want to send, and blanketing it over as many people as possible, you must do your keyword research to find out what people are looking for. Then, like any good salesman – you tailor your pitch to hit the points they need to hear.

So, market segmentation isn’t dead when it comes to search engine marketing. You just need to take what you know about segmentation and apply it in a new way. If you do, your skills in messaging will suddenly start to make you successful in search marketing too.

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