In May this year, Google updated the Maps desktop version to make it easier to use. It also allows you to solve new problems like – which cafes are near my client’s office for a quick catch up? Or which of my friends has reviewed a Japanese restaurant in Auckland that will make my decision to pick one so much easier?
This is all good news for the “directionally challenged” like me. As I’m possibly one of the world’s worst navigators, Google Maps has been one of my all-time favourite applications.
The desktop addition of Google Maps was the precursor of all things mobile. It launched a whopping eight years ago, which is an eternity in Internet time when you realise that Facebook started the year prior. The “Street View” option found here is a particular favourite. Knowing what the outside of an office looks like can save precious time when struggling with Auckland’s cryptic street numbering system.
The mobile version is also a winner. I used to find it within the native mapping app on my iPhone until Apple replaced it with its own. Remember the disaster that was? (I just checked again and still Apple Maps tells me that Bondi Beach is just on the edge of Cornwall Park in Auckland.) Needless to say it was a quick rush back to Google when they launched their own iPhone app.
Changes to the desktop version
The core desktop part of Google Maps received a complete refresh in May. Thankfully what remained of the old version was the super-simple way to find where you want to go. However, Google tells us this is now achieved by using a mapping environment that’s more personalised than ever before. As you click, apparently Google learns.
As I write this, access to the new Google Maps is by invitation only. By the time this is published I expect everyone should be allowed in. Once you have access, the first obvious difference is the way in which it looks on the screen. Here’s a snapshot to follow:
Notice how the search box sits in the top left of the screen. It’s a place that works well. Just type away and see the map move before your eyes as it hones in on the location you are looking for.
Or, if you don’t know where you want to go BUT do know what you want, then you can use the map to help as it suggests a range of options nearby. For instance, type in “cafes near Jervois Road, Auckland” and ba-boom – cafes and their location are shown directly on the map.
All of this relies on businesses having previously registered their location with Google. This is not an obvious process to follow for most business owners – which is probably why I only see four cafes suggested for the full length of the latte-rich area of Ponsonby’s Jervois Road.
Anyway, once you find the place you want to visit it’s a piece of cake to learn how best to get there. Just pick where you are leaving from, “home” or “work” (both are configured settings) and Google will plot the best route for your pick of transport options – walking, driving or taking public transport.
The opportunity for business
The new opportunity for business owners is to advertise to a new set of potential customers – i.e. those who know what they want, but not where to find it. In this new version you now have two options available to achieve this task. The first involves placing your paid advertisement below the search box AND on the location of your business directly on the map – as bold as brass. Below is a snapshot of a business doing both.
The second option is a relatively plain alternative where your ad sits just below the search result. However, it isn’t that much more complex to do the first, so that’s our suggestion for those of you wanting to give it a try.
I’m picking that the “search within the map” interface is one that will catch on with many. It just seems to work well. This will drive traffic, which drives clicks, which should drive conversions.
The only thing that could spoil all this fun is the content that people see when they find the location they want and click to read more about it. Think of this as a mini Google website that you populate describing your business. Google calls it your Google Plus Local page. Born of Google’s social media tool, Google Plus, this naturally includes a space for people to place reviews. You cannot disable this feature, so it pays to regularly monitor what people are saying.
Other benefits for personal use
If you are a Google Plus user with a bunch of Google Plus friends, then these reviews become even more relevant. Now you can filter the results you see on the map by those reviewed by people in your “circles”. Or you can pick a rather nebulous category, “Top Reviewers”. See the screenshot below which shows how I can filter my options when searching for a Japanese Restaurant in Auckland.
Tips for getting started
If you’d like help with any of this, then give us a call at the office and one of our team will help you move forward. Happy Mapping!
Last month I met a marketer who works for a New Zealand company that spent $10 million on Google AdWords in 2012. What made this even more fascinating for me was that I had never heard of the company name and I would pretty much guarantee for 99% of you the same would apply.
She told me all of the industries that they operated within and all were legitimate business categories that were quite boring. No exotic borderline operation here. Just a worldwide network of normal businesses that run on the strength of their ability to optimise their spend with Google.
At first I was just shell-shocked by the amount they were spending. I mean just thinking through the actual mechanics of managing something like this was hard to comprehend. For instance, just getting the money to Google each month would be on a whole different level from charging a Visa card. I half jokingly suggested that the Google people must be waiting outside their office ready to collect the next suitcase of cash. Apparently the truth is very boring – automatic bank transfers on a daily basis.
Nevertheless, they must be on a Google Advertising short dial with this spend? Yes they have dedicated account management but only see people who come across from Sydney once or twice a year. (Don’t expect a sales call for your $50k per annum spend.)
Fortunately we were able to chat for a while before the next session of the conference we were both attending began its next session. So what did I learn that I can share with those with a fraction of this spend? Well from what I learnt, here are a few principles that I can share as working well for those keen to squeeze more value from their Google clicks.
Firstly – It all starts with a sound understanding of your “AdWords Numbers”
Now when you are spending over $800,000 on clicks each month you would assume there was some wastage factored in when it came to analysing the effect that the clicks caused. Not in this case. Each and every click was accounted for in precise detail.
So while this company operated a number of websites – think more than 100 – each and everyone used a well tuned Google Analytics account to reveal exactly how much each sale cost in clicks. This was compared to the acceptable marketing spend for the margin they spent. If the sums made sense then they just kept on buying those clicks.
It’s a simple math problem really that was asked every minute of every day. Were they “buying” the sale from Google for the right amount to enable them and Google to remain in business?
Secondly – Once the math is solved then the world is your playground.
This company is based in Auckland but has offices in Australia, the UK and North America. But it all started from solving a very simple problem in Auckland. Could they make the math work selling one service to one set of buyers? Then, once the this was completed they looked for the same buyers in Australia, from there North America and finally the UK.
We have a Google Adwords optimisation client who has done something very similar, all be it on a much smaller scale. Like our $10 million friends they started in Auckland, then moved to Wellington and wrapped up their New Zealand journey with Christchurch before crossing the ditch into Australia via Adelaide to Melbourne and finally Sydney. The core principles we applied together to make Auckland work and have so far successfully been translated as we move around the globe together.
And finally – to wrap up our learning’s from this conversation, don’t think that just because you spent $100,000 with Google last year that you deserve any special treatment. I asked them what they received for Christmas from the search giant (expecting something nice for such a relationship). It was nothing special.
In fact, if you were a customer who came along to our office warming party last year then you left with a gift that cost more. And rest assured we don’t have any online marketing clients spending $10 million per annum with Permission.
Not yet anyway 🙂
Check out Permission Website Marketing’s June Newsletter Update.
For more website marketing information, take a look at our online marketing services, or give us a call on 0800 893 477.
Most businesses market online to grab attention solely to influence the first website visit of those at the start of their buying decision. With changes brought about by Google and Facebook we will soon be able to not only match our advertising to the different buying stages prospects have, but to also present these messages on our own site and on other sites that the prospects visit.
This is a subtle but powerful change that I predict will create a substantial boost to the effectiveness of the online channel.
But first up, let’s recap the way most online marketers spend their money now. For the vast majority it’s all about raising awareness for those at the first stage of the customer journey as they start their search for what you offer.
Google is the destination here, so the focus is on being found and then being clicked. Rankings, ad clicks, visits and visitors – these are all where it’s at. The greater the better across any or all of these metrics.
It’s all about eyeballs to start with followed by conversions. All going well, between 2% and let’s say 10% of those who visit a site as a result of this awareness strategy will convert and enter the sales funnel of whatever shape and size suits what is being sold.
This assumes that the remaining 90% + do what… Nothing? Stop looking? Decide that they don’t want what they were searching for anymore? Well of course none of these are correct. Just because they didn’t become your lead or buy from you doesn’t mean they are not going to do the same for one for your competitors.
A small amount will return. Perhaps your paid advertising ads will be used to re-cycle them back to your website. And all going well – some will buy this time. We frequently see this behaviour in the Conversion Attribution reports of our clients within Google Analytics. Returning visitors arriving back through AdWords clicks even though they have been to the site before.
“Why didn’t they bookmark the website” clients yell at the screen as they see their Google Ad spend inflate for no net new visitor growth. (When was the last time you bookmarked a website?)
Nevertheless there’s still a sizable amount of first time visitors who head off to review their options on the broader internet space. Never to return. This is part of the new opportunity, marketing to the 90% plus who came and didn’t purchase, and for whom you can present some enticing messages to out on the Internet to entice them back.
You have a few metrics to work with to craft your messages – the amount of times they visited, the places they visited and the time they spent looking. This all provides enough information to build a campaign that presents different messages to those with differing interest levels for different products at different stages of the buying process.
Here’s an example of how this could come together. Let’s say you are an accommodation provider in the Sydney area that offers a range of both short term and long term accommodation options for rooms of an executive style level.
The existing way of online marketing could include the following tactics:
Now the editions to this list would include:
Segmenting your website visitors into three focus segments based on their behaviour – corporate customers, retail prospects who haven’t purchased before and corporate customers who are looking for a long term accommodation option.
For each segment to then produce a marketing campaign to be run on both the core website as well as other high traffic websites these people will visit. These campaigns are to change based on the length of time people have been in each segment. For example, we present different messages to those retail prospects in the first month (when they are most likely to buy) compared to the third (where their propensity to purchase is lower).
Include the necessary analytics to track the effectiveness of these strategies by segment.
Sound a bit too farfetched?
Google launched their re-marketing module back in September 2012 . This feature provides part of the solution. This article from the May edition of Vanity Fair edition explains how Facebook is working with advertisers to help them market in a very similar way.
Part of the technology puzzle is already there from these two marketing giants. We feel there’s enough to become dangerous in most markets. Sound interesting? Give us a call today to learn more.
My experience in online marketing started with email marketing. I saw my first HTML email message in late 1999 thinking it was a thing of beauty that could transform direct communications. I was not alone.
Back then, all of the marketing managers I presented to in my previous role had the same opinion and the company’s client list grew at speed. Email marketing was a very popular subject area at the time. The company I worked for did a good job at captilizing on this with a very effective (think pushy) PR company shoving me in front of reporters at every opportunity.
Moving forward 14 years and a few things have changed. Email marketing is now seen as an “old school” form of online marketing – being at the opposite scale of it’s “uber cool” social media cousin. Nevertheless from the results that I see our clients achieve with this channel, there are still some amazing results available for those willing to invest the time.
With email there’s no hype, no complex buzz words, no promise of large societal change – just straightforward campaign tactics that make sense. These are campaigns that every business should have running as they apply to problems that most businesses need to solve. Thirteen years of experience supports its use. So what are you waiting for?
Here are four of these problems that suit email so well:
The humble email newsletter. This was the first strategy people began with back in 1999 and to this day it is probably the one that applies to most businesses today. For those who want to know – it makes sense to keep in touch and let them know what has changed.
So if you sell capital equipment across New Zealand and Australia, your purchasers may not be the right audience for a message each month – they may not need to buy again for another 10 years. However the dealers who represent you are ideal. What tips and tricks can you provide to help them sell more or know more about your product?
Sending an email newsletter is a strategy that should fit in every business or else there’s a bigger problem that needs work. If you can’t think of anyone who would value what you will say, or you have nothing to say, then things are quite dire.
In this month’s customer conference call we talked about delivering online marketing to help close sales that take time. In these situations the lead may arrive in mid February but the purchase order isn’t confirmed until say the end of July. Many businesses have either some or all of their products / services fitting within this category.
What you say and how you say it between these extended periods can make all the difference to the likelihood of success. Generally a mix of communication styles – face to face, phone, direct mail and even email are required to all work seamlessly together to move things along.
The smart marketers – those who want to manage the sales process as much as they can – employ each and every one, and within this some good old email marketing can work wonders.
It could be a simple monthly email message that introduces new features of the product that the prospect is not aware of. Perhaps one note that lists out some recent case studies that apply to their particular needs. Small, simple messages that ideally are run on auto pilot to help build some rolling momentum of sales activity.
It could be another batch of office supplies, or maybe replacing their Revlon foundation using you instead of a local pharmacy. Whatever it is, usually you are trying to influence a decision that is made frequently and for which there are a few alternative buying options.
All of this is an ideal place for a humble piece of email marketing to fit. By sending on a frequency that makes sense to those that receive it and including a few relevant tempting offers, these types of messages make great commercial sense. That’s why the bond between e-commerce and email marketing is so strong. Working together they are a winning team.
How much they achieve is something that ideally you will be able to track inside your website analytics application with the traffic driven from your newsletter correctly tagged as its own individual stream.
Customers make many decisions that frequently go unacknowledged by those who benefit from them. Here are a few that initially come to mind from my own experience – leaving a hotel after staying three days over a long weekend, subscribing to an email newsletter, ordering my umpteenth piece of computer gear for the office from a supplier we have used for at least 5 years now, and agreeing to an appointment with someone from Telecom to talk about upgrading to the super fast Fibre Internet connection that is now available in Grey Lynn (they didn’t turn up :0).
All of these could have done with a short email of thanks that would have been greatly received and possibly even automatically generated. Not surprisingly, messages that are triggered by a customer’s behaviour are naturally better received than those which are triggered by a marketers desire to make money. It just makes sense.
So there you are. Four very basic problems each with a very basic form of online marketing that is ready and able to solve it. I would be very surprised to find a business that does not experience at least one of these four problems.
Next month why not think about how you can look at email marketing in another light with a specific focus on any of these four areas. And of course, do give us a call if you would like a chat about how we could help you out along the way.
Living in a household with teenage girls, as I do, means that my Sunday and Monday evenings have been recently hijacked into becoming an X Factor viewing experience. Yes it can be cringe worthy TV, but there are a few nuggets in there. You just have to look for them.
We have seen the auditions, the judge’s retreat and now the top 12 – or whatever number we are up to now. Annabel has her favourite, as does Maddy and it seems Fletcher, the most audibly challenged of them all, is there just for one thing… His looks. How shallow those teenage girls are.
Not wanting to be left out I have snuck a space on the sofa and been annoyingly critical as all fathers should be at times like these. There’s some talent in here that I hope manages to go on to good things once the razzmatazz has died down. And as hard as it may seem – when I look back on what will make the winner stand out from the rest, there are some lessons in here for you and your online marketing.
Here’s four that immediately come to mind:
First up – for the contestants left, having a good voice is not going to be enough to succeed. There are a lot of good singers in the last dozen. But what the judges have mentioned again and again is the “marketability” of the person and the way they sing.
Your “voice” online is the content you present and the messages you impart. There are plenty of websites that do both of these well but still fail convert their visitors into leads. It’s not how they say their message that’s lacking, it’s the message itself.
So for instance, there are dozens of websites for electricians in Auckland that all say the same thing – great service, reliable technicians and a desire to clean up after they have done the job. Think of them all “singing” the same way and achieving average results online due to it.
However, the sites that stand out are the ones that say different things that appeal to those looking for their service. And it’s that last point that is the hardest to achieve. Knowing what to say that sets you apart from the crowd AND has appeal to your customers – it’s another way of providing what the judges refer to as “marketability”.
Part of the X Factor experience is the ability for the viewers to get involved after each Sunday nights performance by voting for their favourite singer. The two with the lowest public votes then perform and the judges then decide who should leave.
Things are a bit harsher online. Instead of once a week, everyday your visitors “vote” on the effectiveness of your website with the attention they give it. Statistics like your website’s bounce rate reveal how well you fare. A site’s bounce rate is represented as a percentage and relates to the proportion of visits that look at just one page and then leave the site. The lower this number the better.
This month we conducted a number of online marketing reviews for prospects and over half of them had problems in this space. Their bounce rates were way too high – I’m talking 60% and above. This was news to them.
Other stats like “time on site” and “pages per visit” are similar pointers of visitor engagement. Track and measure all three and you will see the public “voting” on your website each and every day they arrive.
It’s quite interesting to see the change in contestants as the show progresses. In the audition they come across as mild, meek mannered but obviously gifted souls who are overawed by the whole TV experience. Then as the weeks pass their confidence starts to grow and with it their voice and stage presence.
As viewers we see snippets of this on the Sunday recap when contestants are shown practicing their moves and flexing their vocal muscles. I suppose they all work hard – but it’s the ones that work on the right things who end up making the most change.
When it comes to online marketing there’s a lot to practice every week. Of the three areas we focus on – Analytics, Growing Traffic and Growing Conversions – each one includes a dozen or so points that could be worked on. The magic comes by focusing on those that will provide the greatest return on the time invested.
The online marketing review stage we take people through partly solves this problem. One outcome of this is a list of points that need fixing and a relative priority for each. After completing dozens of these reviews there is always one area that is high up on the list of priority fixes – website analytics. It is always either wrong or failing to work as well as it should.
Harking back to the last lesson – think of it as being blindly unaware of a poor voting result each and every day the results come through
Fortunately the contestants are not left on their own to navigate their way through the final stages of the live shows. Each judge is allocated a group to mentor to help them along.
So during the re-cap part on the Sunday program you see the mentoring from the week prior with the pair training towards the live performance. I imagine that some of these relationships work better than others. Nevertheless, each of the judges has previously achieved success and they are ready and able to pass on any advice they can to enable their candidate to win.
The same theory transfers nicely to online marketing. As a business owner you can try to transform your website into the selling machine all by yourself – or you could engage a mentor to speed up the process.
We obviously work in this space. But if I was helping others choose a company to help in this regard I would offer one tip – advice is predominately autobiographical. People will tell you to do what they have done / experienced before themselves.
So ideally you need to match your problems with mentors who have solved similar issues before. It sounds very basic but it’s easy to get wrong. This is especially the case when a prospective mentor of dubious ethics can do a very good job of convincing you that your most processing “problem” just happens to be the one that they have strong experience in solving. For instance SEO services being sold when the core problem is not the traffic a website is receiving but its inability to convert it into leads or sales.
The sofa beckons for this Sunday’s session. I have no idea who will win this year’s competition, but I do know that these four points will somehow be part of their success. This month why not take my translation into their relevance for online marketing and see if they can ensure your website produces a winning performance?
Every month we hold a customer conference call that all of our customers are invited to join. At the beginning of these conference calls we have a section on what is new in the online marketing world that we believe is worthy of your attention. This is a video of the introduction of May’s conference call 2013.
This month we talk about decoding not provided traffic that appears in Google Analytics, new hyper localised Google Maps, the new local business listing rating system and a great new resource to check out from Google!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95RRRvggq24
Check out Permission Website Marketing’s May Newsletter Update.
For more website marketing information, take a look at our online marketing services, or give us a call on 0800 893 477.
My first car was a cream Morris 1300. It had a shiny teak dash, twin carburettors that hissed when the gas was on, leather seats and an MG insignia on the grill. Boy did I think I was special. Naturally this all came to a quick and final halt when I took it to have its annual MOT.
Back in England this was the alternative of what we now experience as the WOF here in NZ. I imagine very similar things were being checked over as I sat in the waiting room. And it wasn’t long before a person gave me the terminal news. Things were not good.
We had just come through a bitter winter patch and the salting of the roads had been the final rather soggy and cold straw. Little did I know that the whole subframe of the vehicle was rusted through and it wasn’t even safe enough for me to drive home. The shock must have bit hard and long as my next car was a very sturdy Morris Marina.
Anyway, cars are relatively complex beasts to check over and having a check list that can derive a simple “go” or “no go” is a great example of the power of focus. Naturally, those WOF engineers don’t check everything, just the things that have the most effect on a drivers safety.
So let’s apply this theory to your website. What needs checking to ensure it is ready for the wide open roads of the Internet? Keen to find out how your site fares? Just wheel your site into our virtual garage and let me and my team put it up on the ramps and expect all the dark recesses that have previously lay hidden.
First Stop – Steering and Suspension.
Here we have the direction the website is heading and its ability to manage any bumps and knocks along the way. So before I actually look at any part of your site, I’ll ask for a copy of the plan for the journey ahead. Now this could be included in a section of your marketing plan, or even a separate document that talks just about your website.
It doesn’t need to be a “War and Peace” sized document of mammoth proportions. Just enough to explain a direction and a plan on how to get there. Remember those horrible clichés about how not knowing where you are going ensures you arrive exactly where you thought – nowhere? Same applies with your website.
Answers to questions like these should be somewhere in a document like this. Who do we want to attract to our website? What do we want them to do when they are there? How many do we need to arrive to make this all a success? How will we know when to celebrate that this has occurred? What type of content should the site contain? And finally, what conversion choices you will offer those who visit? Those last two will help you to make some reasonably chunky decisions that are tough to answers if you haven’t produced a plan.
Next Up – Speedometer and Brakes.
How fast are you going and can you stop things when you need to? Somehow you need a way to measure your progress. Website Analytics is the solution here. When I look at the total amount of content that we produce each month (videos, coaching calls, blog posts, newsletters etc), more than 70% of it would focus on this topic. It’s that important.
You will find “speed” in a broad selection of metrics. For instance the amount of visitors arriving and the pages they look over. You can apply your “brakes” when you find traffic sources that produce a lot of traffic but conversely very few conversions.
Fuel – are there leaks along the way.
Google is the fuel of the internet. Yep, it is here that the vast majority of local and international traffic begins its journey. So the amount of “fuel” that your site is receiving is dependent on how it appears within Google.
Now you may choose to take the short path and pay for placement or head down the windy road of content creation for a good organic listing. Or even both. Nevertheless without some concerted effort in this space your fuel will run low and everything will come to a spluttering halt. That, unfortunately, is the power of Google.
Spare Tyres – can it be found – will it work?
And finally we are left with your spare tyre – that being the ability to solve any problems along the way and get back on the road. With this I’m going to add in your trusty AA Card or similar roadside support services (realising that this last point is not checked by your friendly WOF technician).
Anyway, somehow you need someone to help you fix up what’s broken and keep you moving forward. That could be your web developer or if it’s marketing related then a company like ours. These people must quickly find the problem and then work with you to implement a fix whether it’s a lack of ranking within Google, your Analytics software not reporting properly or some suggestions on pages that are receiving a mass of traffic but producing very few conversions. Somehow you need someone to turn to when things need fixing up. Trying to do it all yourself will keep you on the sidelines for too long and leave you missing out on the action that your competitors are receiving.
These four very simple WOF check points can help make your website – Internet Ready. It should take you less than 30 minutes to see how your site rates on each. Go on – roll up your sleeves and see how you rate. You may be surprised what you find lurking in the shadows.
Online marketing is frequently referred to as a strategy of speed. It could be creating an email newsletter in a mere matter of minutes from simply loading the content to “send” button pressing.
Or perhaps the quick and simple Google AdWords experience. Just pick a keyword, settle on the right region and write your ad. Then what’s left is to just load up a credit card, pick a daily budget and within minutes you are advertising on the inter web.
Some would argue that fast paced tactics like these are not the most thought out. And they could well be right. But still – even with some planning before, during and perhaps a review of results after – we are still talking days, not weeks, from idea to action.
So is this speed symptomatic of every tactic available to you as an online marketer? Well thankfully, in the interests of variety, it’s not. I see two very basic groups of tactic delivery “speed” – those like the two mentioned before that can be done at speed – and those that meander along at a more pedestrian pace.
Both have the ability to produce great results once used correctly. But it’s the smart online marketer who realises that by mixing both “speeds” into their tactical plans that they will achieve the best results. So let’s look at the two groups in a bit more detail. First up the tactics ideal for those in a hurry.
Fast Tactic #1 – Google AdWords Paid Advertising. As I mentioned before, there are probably less than a dozen or so decisions you need to make before setting up your first Google AdWords campaign. For those driving the tool themselves, Google reduces this list down even further to make it easier still.
This allows the germ of the paid advertising idea to start early Monday AM and by midday people could be clicking on your ad. Note, that slight rushing sound you can hear in the background is Google’s finance department sucking sips of money from your credit card each time people click your ads.
Fast Tactic #2 – Campaign Based Email Marketing. This tactic is a natural fit for those who already own a permission based opt in list (I know building this takes time but for simplicities sake I’m leaving this tactic in here with the assumption that you have this already).
Done properly this tactic can be the fastest of the fast. Subscribers are usually more likely to be engaged with what you are offering than those arriving to your website for the first time. Just create the right offer, present it in a form ideal for email screens and then correctly send it so that a) there’s a good chance it will arrive and b) when it does you will be able to track what occurs next.
Fast Tactic #3 – Search Engine Optimisation. This is a tactic that lives in both the Fast and Slow lanes. It’s speedy part is the alteration of the site’s Meta Title and Meta Description content. These small pieces of text content can have a disproportionately large affect on a site’s ability to rank.
For me these three are the trifecta of speed. You have probably heard of them all, and may have even delivered a few for your website. Immediate gratification is such a driving need that many online marketers focus on just these, thinking that’s all there is.
This is of course a shame for them, but good news for you as it lets you work through the “slow” list of tactics that reveal the true opportunity online. Let’s now work through a few of these.
Slow Tactic #1 – Website Analytics. This can be the king of slow. First you need place a piece of scary techno code on every page of your site and then wait for your data to build into something sizeable to derive insight from. Work a bit than wait. It’s a common theme for the other slow tactics ahead.
But don’t let this put you off. Sometimes great things do take time. After a few weeks of the code living on a reasonably busy website you will be able to see information where there was once previously blank screens and you be able to answer questions like these:
What type of job does my website do at converting the traffic it receives? How much traffic does Google send to my website? How much do I make for every $1 I spend with Google advertising?
These are not small – nice to know – questions. Answered accurately, they can help you curtail any loss making advertising and reveal gaps in your Search Engine Optimisation efforts.
Slow Tactic #2 – Search Engine Optimisation. OK so here’s one of the many dirty little secrets of this tactic. Good work here = ongoing content creation. I have talked before of how 18 months ago this may not have been the case. Nevertheless for now, and based on what Google suggests the future will provide, you can expect to be creating content for your site, each month ahead for a very long time. If not forever.
This is slow, laborious and hard work. I know. And this will be exactly what your competitors will be thinking too. Some will shirk away and scuttle off to the appeal of paid advertising, forever happy to pay their “Google Tax” for traffic.
Whereas others, not afraid of some hard work, will dive into the task with vigour and stick with it. These marketers will be rewarded with good rankings. Forget about achieving organic rankings for free. Creating good content costs but the payoff is there if you see it as an investment that returns organic visits that arrive on your site with no incremental costs.
Slow Tactic #3 – Website Optimisation through Split Testing. If Analytics is the king of slow then this must be the queen. So say that during your “report peering” time you see that your converts at 1.5% when the industry standard is 4%.
You also find a page on the typical pathway of the conversion process that is responsible for part of the problem. The next step is to create some alternative content and then run a simple A/B split test to see how it performs compared to the original.
Again, it’s time to do the work and then sit and wait. Depending on the amount of traffic your test page “sees” this could be a week, a month or even a quarter. Anyway, once there’s enough data to draw a statistically valid conclusion then you can pick the winner and move on. Slowly, slowly you will push the conversion rate upwards as each winner, wins a bit better than the last. Brick by brick you will be creating a high converting website. Something that once achieved, could dramatically change your future online.
I’m running out of space here so I’ll have to pass on two other slow but effective strategies – one in paid advertising, the other in email marketing. Like the others, they are winners too that can create long lasting positive effects.
It would be very simplistic to think that “fast” tactics bring immediate results while the “slow” produce lasting insight. Nevertheless, the allure of speed is such that the majority spend more time implementing “fast” than they do “slow”.
If this is you, then why not decide this month to head over to the “slow” lane and apply one of the tactics that I have covered here. Contact the team today to learn how we can help.
It would seem that fishing has now gone all hi-tech. The other day, while wandering along a stretch of Coromandel beach with my ageing and mad Spaniel, I noticed a couple on their quad bike carrying what look like to be a orange torpedo down to the water’s edge. Mello, my Spaniel, was as interested as I and did her best to get in the way as they bent down and fussed away to get the thing started.
Within a few minutes a power of froth was coming from the propeller. While he slowly guided it into the surf she walked back holding a line that joined it to their bike. In a few moments the orange flash was tunnelling out through the surf towing a fishing line of 25 baited hooks behind it. Minutes later all you could see was the golden flash of the light as it buzzed through the surf far, far off in the distance.
I sauntered up to learn more. Apparently the “thing” would cover 1Km in 10 minutes and only needed to be out there for 45 minutes at the right time of day. So all you needed to do was invest an hour each day (and the $2750 for the torpedo thingy”) and there was a good chance you would be hauling your fancy gear back with some additional weight of fresh fish. Great for those short on both time and something for tea.
Not such a good plan if you like to fish the way I do.
Needless to say, the fish are safe when I turn up on the beach. My surfcaster is ageing, the reel is even older and you can smell my tackle box before you see it. The ideal evening fishing for me involves lots of casting, lots of still, and very little chance of taking anything back home. A perfect way to spend 3 hours alone on the beach.
I don’t think I’m too dissimilar to others I see lined up next to me. For us it’s more about the time of peace and quiet with the occasional flurry of excitement thrown in occasionally. The appeal of pulling out 25 snapper in 45 minutes is mildly appealing, that is until I think through the logistics of gutting all that flesh and then finding something else to do instead of heading back too early.
The world of online marketing is a space filled with a mass of technology and services all claiming to do more things in less time, just like our friendly orange torpedo example. Very rarely does it all turn out exactly as sold. (Just as an aside while we were at the beach I spotted a notice in the local store posted by someone who was looking for help as their fishing torpedo had come off its line and hopefully was going to wash up on the beach rather than reach landfall in Argentina.)
This month our newsletter talks to the point of mixing up your online marketing tactics to make good use of those delivered in both a “slow” and “fast” way. The theory being that the best long term competitive advantage comes from applying tactics that take the most time to deliver.
The same can apply when influencing the speed at which people purchase online. A small proportion of your purchasers will dive into their wallets immediately on arriving on your site. Others will need time to ruminate about their decision. Most online marketers spend time influencing those that buy quickly when there’s a larger group who need time to make a decision.
Email marketing comes to mind as a key strategy to achieve success here. By now everyone should be familiar with its use, but rarely is its effectiveness measured in the right way. While most track who opened the message and what links were clicked within it, very few look back and see if by receiving these messages customers were more or less likely to buy again or for the first time. These are the real outcomes which the tactic needs to be measured against.
Paid advertising can be a star here too. Here you can set up campaigns to re-market to those that bought from your website before to entice them back as they trawl the Internet. Likewise, if they came but didn’t purchase then your re-marketing could convince them to come back and make that first purchase.
Direct mail, and dare I say telemarketing, are other strategies that can be deployed successfully here too. Just because you created the lead online doesn’t mean you have to always use the same channel to market to them in the same way. Mix up any of these tactics with to help you achieve the most influence where you can.
And that’s the true illusion here. Whilst technology can present the appeal of achieving more in less time, when it comes to making buying decisions the majority still need time to think things through. That will never change.
So this month think about those who have contacted you and are still thinking about the services or products you offer. What can you send to these who have expressed an interest but haven’t purchased yet? And how about those that have bought before but haven’t for a while? What can you do to entice them back?
Every month we hold a customer conference call that all of our customers are invited to join. At the beginning of these conference calls we have a section on what is new in the online marketing world that we believe is worthy of your attention. This is a video of the introduction of March’s conference call 2013.
This month we talk about Google Analytics Advanced Segments; The Lean Analytics Cycle: Metrics > Hypothesis > Experiment > Act; Trackback Reports in Google Analytics; Author Rank; and Google Plus and its SEO Power
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idlOl_lmMak
Take a look at April’s Website Marketing Update
Hands up those keen to kick off a project to develop some payroll software for the education sector?
Yep, thought so.
Based on recent events this looks like to be a sizable task with unending opportunities for things to go awry. So naturally you wouldn’t expect the creation of a humble website to cause anything like the stress and anguish of a project like this could.
And you would be right… In most instances!
As you probably know, we don’t build websites. We market those built by others. This work brings us right up close to the development stage as client’s update existing sites or new clients join with the need to launch something new. We have worked alongside web developers made up of the humble one person band to sizeable teams deployed across similarly sizeable projects.
Thankfully after 10 years of operation we have yet to see one go completely careering off the tracks into financial oblivion. A few have wobbled and caused consternation for everyone involved, but fortunately have then self corrected and gone live, much everyone’s relief.
Nevertheless any website project of reasonable size has the opportunity to head down both roads. So here’s my reasonably educated view as bystander of the attributes of those that make it through – from concept to go live – with relationships and budgets intact.
Attribute #1 An understanding that there is ample ability for it all to go “Pear” shaped
Paranoia can be a wonderful thing when it comes to software development.
Those experienced in this category already have their own horror stories of being involved in projects that took twice as long, cost three times as much and still didn’t go live. Nobody wants to experience this scenario.
Attribute #2 Apply customisation only when it’s really, really necessaryThe old “once bitten, twice shy” analogy applies nicely here. A website build is a software development project. A relatively small one I admit but still there is software and it needs to be developed so hence the risks are there. Realising that there is an opportunity for complete disaster ahead suddenly makes all I’m going to talk about next seem quite logical rather than totally unnecessary.
The more your project calls upon software / features that have been used before then the greater your chances of success. It’s so much safer to try to keep within the well worn paths of what others have used before.
This can drive the choice of who you pick as your web development partner. So if your list of wants is new for your proposed partner but seems well used by another and the sites they have built then it may be good to consider the merits of switch. Sometimes though the customisation is driven by what has always gone before. For instance, I heard on the radio that there were over 10,000 different ways of paying teachers and each needed customisation by the payroll software struggling with the task. Ten thousand! That’s a lot of customisation – surely with some changes back at base this could have been whittled down to half that amount?
Attribute #3 Written Documentation
Documentation is one of those things that has more value when it’s not there.
“If only we had it writing?”
People will leave. It’s as simple as that. Memory is a fickle beast at best during the project period, let alone when the site needs to be maintained later on. The more you can write down at the start of the project the greater your chances of experiencing it at the end. The inaccurate interpretation of your needs is frequently caused by poor documentation.
So you may have told the sales person over coffee how you wanted the shopping cart to work with some scribbles on a paper napkin – which they promptly lost. So they told the team manager what they thought you said who told the developer tasked with the actual work – Chinese Whispers here we come. The result being you get something back that may look great but is not what you wanted.
Attribute #4 Shop where the rest shop
I own an iPhone, as does my wife Claire. If there’s a problem with either I just head over to Google and type a description of it in and in nearly all cases a solution comes up. These are global products that thankfully share their problems around the globe which makes finding a solution a lot easier.
Likewise if you develop your website on some well known platforms, there are a number of these, then when your web supplier goes bust (don’t think I’m adding too much paranoia here as I have seen half a dozen follow the same path in the last 6 years), then finding a person to pick up the pieces and provide you with ongoing support is going to be relatively easy.
Relative to that is whether the website was built on a custom created content management system written in a little know development language that has since been left behind as the bright young developers have moved onto something else.
Add in a few months worth of custom development they did for you at the start and you have a site that no one can understand, let alone support, and the $35K you spent two years back is now needed again to get a replacement up and running asap. Sweaty palms yet?
Attribute #5 Move quickly to achieve small gains
Good projects move ahead at a fair clip. They jump from task to task slowly building upon themselves as they go. Signs of the pace slowing are signs of trouble. Customisation that was thought to be easy by the sales person proving to be the exact opposite by the development team is the classic situation. Weeks without anything occurring of note is a sure sign things are heading off into the “badlands”.
Developing website solutions with minimal customisation on well proven platforms by experienced teams should not be difficult. It should move fast.
Final Attribute #6 Testing shouldn’t be testing
All going well – and if the previous 5 attributes have been applied – then the testing phase of your development should be a time to pick over the occasional niggle not any major blunders. Ideally this is where you compare the documentation you wrote at the start with what’s in front of you on your screen. And as your project used very limited customisation the core functions of the site have been well picked over by others before you.
Well there you go. Six attributes that by including in your next website build will help you keep things on track and ensure what you end up with is a close representation of what you wanted from the start.
As I mentioned earlier, we don’t develop sites but are very active to ensure those that are do so in a way that they will support rather than hinder their future marketing. Just drop us a line at sales@permission.co.nz if you would like to talk to use further or would like help with your online marketing for an existing or newly built website.
You want your website to improve – more leads or sales – it doesn’t really matter which is your case – things just need to get bigger. You also know that you don’t have the faintest idea what needs to happen next to move things ahead.
So what do you do now?
This short article will take you through the three main options ahead of you with a few Pro’s and Con’s of each. For most business owners in NZ it doesn’t start with them walking through the doors of a glitzy digital agency, cheque book in hand and a glint of hope in their eye. Nope, for the majority it begins with a browser with multiple windows open and searching on Google for terms like “SEO Advice Free” or “SEO Tips” with a voice in your head saying things like, “Look it can’t be too hard, why not try to learn it myself and see what comes up.”
So let’s begin here with Option 1 – Doing it all yourself
For some this is the only viable solution. They have the time but not the money so they devour all Google can provide them. And I must say, Google does a great job of helping with some great information available (we even covered the highlights from one of their recent documents during last month’s coaching call). Most people can find something of relevance and then start making changes to their site with the belief that this will get them back on track.
The point of concern with this option is that there is very little time diagnosing exactly what the problem is that needs fixing. Most dive in assuming that traffic – or the lack of – is the issue. In about 50% of the time this is the case. However, for the remaining 50% the problems will relate to website conversion, analytics or even ineffective paid advertising.
Pros – Google does a good job of delivering some good information to help you learn.
Cons – Time spent diagnosing the problem is given a miss as people frequently rush in to solve every website conversion problem with the same solution – more traffic.
Option 2 – Paying someone to do it all for you – and leaving them to it
For those with more money than time this is on first glance the ideal solution. This leaves them with the busy job of running the Hotel, Building Company, Accountancy Practice and so forth, while someone else is responsible to “fix all things web”. Each month a bill arrives with some reports that plot some progress and they are just left to get on and “do stuff”. Doesn’t it sound so ideal?
Google is not surprisingly still the first step for most with the rather competitive search terms “SEO” or ” SEO consultants”. And yep, the bias to finding more traffic carries forth in this example too. How these consultants go about achieving this is something left to them. A few pages added to your website here and there with a fair sized dollop of promise to add a chunky bundle of inbound links.
So how can this seemingly ideal solution come with any issues? Well it would be fair to say that a year ago this strategy would have worked well. Since Google changed its search algorithm many, many times since over the past year (and expect more changes in the following 12 months too) this type of plan will struggle and could in fact work against you.
Now having a bunch of low quality links to your site will count against rather than for you – yep, you thought right – search optimisation purchased in this way could optimise your website DOWNWARDS through the rankings! And growing the amount of RELEVANT content on your site is now more important than it ever was.
Pros – a very time efficient solution. As a business owner you will do as little as possible while your contractors do all the work ahead.
Cons – The “hands off” strategy for content creation and link building clashes with how Google wants you to apply improvements
Which leaves us with the final option.
Option 3 – Paying someone to do it for you – and working with them to help solve the problem
This is a mix of the last two options. Here you need to get involved AND you need to pay someone to help you. Yes it sounds like the least attractive of them all but at this stage of online marketing it is the most effective.
So this is how it could all pan out specifically with regards to Search Engine Optimisation. If your website pages are failing to rank for keywords you feel they should then there’s a strong chance this is because there are pages bereft of content for these terms.
And if you are not ranking for a whole host of keywords then your site needs a whole host of extra content. This is content that both Google and your website visitors need to see. It’s not content that is hidden off in some dark side of your website where only Google manages to see. Ranking in the search results is one thing, attracting a click is another and then ensuring the arriving visitor moves forward to completing a sale is the final step.
So it’s not all about adding content with the keywords splattered across each and every sentence in the hope of making the pages look super Google friendly. These are well written pieces that do a good job for Google, your visitors and your website as a whole.
Improving a Website’s conversion is another space where the owner of the business needs to be actively involved in the solution with the consultant. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realise that if a website is receiving the right type of traffic but doing a poor job of converting this into leads or sales then it’s the content that is lacking. And who understands the needs of their prospect the most to help make the best changes here? That’s right, it’s the business owner themselves.
For instance, one question I ask customers as we work through our initial website optimisation review stage is to describe to me the bits that make them very different from their competitors. In nearly all cases I am told of a few clear and noticeable reasons why people should deal with them compared to their competitors. The catch is that I ask this question only AFTER I have reviewed their website. Most of the time this point of difference is nowhere to be seen across the website and they are delivering a very similar message to their competitors.
So to wrap up this up, option 1 of doing it all yourself comes with a lot of work which could well be in the wrong areas to fix the problem. Option 2 has the illusion of producing the least amount of work for the busy business owner and therefore producing the best return on time invested. However this comes with the risk of negatively affecting your site’s future optimisation. Which leaves Option 3 – on the face of it the least attractive of them all but provides the best long term way forward. Who said it was going to be easy?
This month our group customer conference call was all about website marketing for your growing Mobile Audience. This is a chunky subject area to take on, so I told the group to think of it as an introduction piece with more to follow soon.
Well now it’s been delivered I can see that “soon” should have been “very soon”. There seems to be a pace of change to this area that is unlike anything else I have experienced before. In comparison the use of Social Media grew like Topsy, but was driven predominately by sites like Facebook, Twitter and dare I say it Bebo. Mobile web use seems to be driven by a whole host of interconnecting forces that are all motivated to push its use ahead at an increasing pace.
Handsets are one of these driving forces. The range now on offer makes them ideal for all types of users. Last month I presented in Taupo at a conference of builders. These are people used to phones that need to survive the rough and tough life of dust, water and general handset hardship. I asked those without a Smartphone to raise their hands – about 10% did. I then asked those who had one to tell me if they had checked their email today – this was at midday – everyone had.
Samsung is due to release its highly regarded S4 handset this month. No doubt Apple will have another beautiful offering arriving sometime this year – just in time for Christmas. Blackberry – remember them – everyone seemed to have written them off as a handset maker destined to the scrap yard. Well they are back to profitability with their new Z10 handset that surprise, surprise is without mini buttons and with nice shiny screens. And guess who makes one of the top selling phones for geek minded people in NZ… yep… SONY with its Xperia Z product which even works underwater. They all have one thing in common; bright, clear and very sizeable screens that make web browsing even easier than it was before.
Fortunately the mobile network providers tell us they are ready and waiting for these new devices. From the billboards near the office I see that 4G is live with Vodafone in Auckland and coming soon across the main centres. Telecom will no doubt be not far behind. I have no idea how much faster the extra G is going to be but expect browsing to take on a whole different experience when we can pop from screen to screen with the same speed – or possibly better – than your office network.
Google is sharpening its mobile game too. The AdWords Enhanced Campaign release comes with a raft of new features and a sizeable amount are focused on improving your mobile advertising. Now you can modify your bids to target those using their super smart phone searching for what you offer when they are a) nearby your office and b) searching during your office hours.
So what does this all mean? I went through a range of tactics during our coaching call but here’s a few that need special mention.
#1 Dive into Google Analytics to find out exactly what this all means to you.
Head into your Google Analytics account and see a) how much traffic your website is currently receiving from mobile devices and b) how those are faring as they move from page to page on their mini screens. With regards to visitor volume, generally we see a relatively slow build in 2011, things start to perk up in mid 2012 and then a definite curve starts from there. How steep your curve upwards is all depends on your audience and how likely they are to look for what you offer while they are out and about.
Your normal desktop styled content will either just cope or struggle. We have yet to see a mobile audience that “consumes” desktop content better than their desktop friends.
#2 Check your mobile “face”.
So your analytics will show you the stats but how do this pages exactly look like through an iPhone or Smartphone screen? During our conference call I picked out a few sites to visit to answer this question, Google’s own http://www.howtogomo.com is one that I mentioned and is a good starting point. Otherwise you can run through your reports to see which devices are the most common, put an email out around the office on the hunt for some samples, then click away to experience it all for yourself.
Already own a mobile site? If it’s been up for a while it may pay to check it over again with some fresh new devices with their latest browsers running. Last week I tested a mobile site that had been up for a year for a local technology company of reasonable size and found it wanting.
If things look dire through your dinky screens then it’s best to get a simple mobile site up and running as a quick fix. Fortunately being mobile there’s not much of a need for massive amounts of content. Just present what you have for desktop people in a reduced form and within a format that suits thumb based navigation.
#3 Consider hunting for those mobile searchers
As I mentioned before the AdWords Enhanced Campaign release from Google now makes it easier than ever to target mobile prospects with your search advertising. Your marketing messages for this group will be slightly different that their desktop searching cousins. So the usual steps of split testing your content will need to apply to figure out which content appeals the most.
So there you are. These three simple tactics should help you prepare for the growing wave of mobile use. These are the critical parts of all this when it comes to Mobile website marketing – moving forward.
We will be keeping a close watch on how this type of traffic builds over the year. My pick is that it will have all the lead generation promise that Social Media had – but with a fraction of the marketing noise. Be prepared.