- How to respond to business reviews on your Place page
- Templates for creating YouTube videos
- Tips for employees use of Gmail
- New Google Apps including:
- - Insightly CRM
- - Team Braintrust – team ‘conversation’ sharing
- - Ganteer Project – a web based project management tool
- - Aviary – Image design tool suite
- - Dito Directory – Share contacts Manager
Author: Pete
Member Since: 2010-04-10 07:01:37Posts by Pete:
Google’s Small business Blog
August 11th, 2010 by PeteDo you see what your clients see?
July 12th, 2010 by PeteYou might assume that everyone sees the same thing on the internet, but we don’t. Your clients might see different search results than you, and your website may even look very different to them.
Make sure you don’t loose sales from these situations:
Personalised searches
In Dec 09 Google introduced personalised search which examines your search history and ‘adjusts’ your search results accordingly. Read more here: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/12/personalized-search-for-everyone.html
Are you really ranking that well ?
While the concept of personalised search sounds great, there are a couple of pitfalls you should be aware of.
To explain lets say you’ve been monitoring your website ranking by occasionally searching for it. Google’s personalised search will kick in and display your site with a higher rank, but just for you. Meanwhile everyone else including your prospective clients will see (or may not see) the site in its real ranking position which may be way down the list and out of sight :(
In your personalised search induced naivety you’ll believe your site is doing real well, but actually it might be doing really, really bad!
A suggested solution
If you do monitor your site’s ranking, (and I commend you for doing this!) then use your browsers ‘stealth mode’ to check rankings and see what the rest of the internet sees.
Most browsers have a stealth mode but it can be a bit hard to find so here’s some clues:
- Internet Explorer 8 calls it ‘In private Filtering’ Ctrl Shift F
- FireFox calls it ‘Private Browsing’ Ctrl Shift P
- Chrome calls it ‘Incognito’ Ctrl Shift N
- Safari calls it ‘Private Browsing’
How much does Google know about you?
The other way that your search results might differ from what your clients see, is when you are signed into your Google ID.
Google may skew results based on info stored in your Google ID.
The solution here is to log out of your Google ID, or again use your browser’s stealth mode.
Invisible Flash
Apple iPhones and iPads are becoming increasingly popular internet devices. Sites I monitor have up to 6% of visitors arriving on their iPhones and I suspect iPad usage will explode soon to take this total number much higher.
Flash is used to provide visual interest in websites, and is important for emotional based sales i.e. selling products and services that make us feel good. Flash is also good at attracting attention.
As any iDevice devotee will tell you, iPhones & iPads don’t display Adobe Flash.
Any Flash in your website looks like a gapping black hole to these visitors. There’s no emotional sales value, it looks ugly; even defiled and predictably undermines your website’s ability to engage iDevice visitors .
Read what Apple has to say about Flash and why they are unlikely to ever support it. http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughts-on-flash/
What does this mean for your business website?
David Radzikiewicz from A7 Designs suggests, split your web presence over two sites; your traditional site and then a mobile visitor site. Visitors are automatically sent to the best site for their internet device by coding in the site.
If your target market is likely to visit using an iDevice then take action soon.
Display Standards
The last and ongoing display anomaly relates to web design standards. The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has a set of technical standards for websites to ensure they all display OK, but many sites don’t comply.
Display compatibility is complex as your website must be displayed faithfully in the plethora of browsers each with multiple software versions. As context; in the last 30 days, 52 different browsers/browser versions visited just one clients’ site.
This is has been further exacerbated by browsers that didn’t comply with the W3C standards (Microsoft being one of the worst offenders), and as a result W3C has lost relevance for some frustrated Web Developers.
Who cares about standards, I just want sales!
Fortunately there are typically few display issues for non-compliant websites, but occasionally the outcomes can be catastrophic sales-wise:
- Menus don’t work properly, so the visitor can’t access product information or sales pages.
- Product information is displayed completely off the screen and unable to be read.
- Search engine spiders are unable to navigate the site, so products don’t feature in search results.
- Text and/or images are displayed over the top of other content making it impossible to read
These are all excellent sales preventers and something I’m sure you dont want in your site.
Is my site W3C compliant ?
Fortunately W3C has an easy to use validation tool that you can check each page in your website for compliance. http://validator.w3.org/
I suggest you discuss any W3C errors your find with your Web Dev as some are trivial and might cost you a lot to achieve very little.
http://www.browsershots.org/ is also an excellent free resource to see how your site looks in a wide range of other browsers. It also interesting just see see how many there are out there…
Where to from here
- Monitor the traffic in your site
I strongly recommend Google Analytics. Its free and world class. - Use Analytics to check your website’s visitor clickstreams to see if they are doing what you want them to do. If not, take action.
- Use Analytics to identify then check correct display for the more popular browsers used to access your site.
- Check the main pages in your site for W3C compliance
Summary
Dont assume that everyone sees the same as you online. Your Clients may have a very difference experience, and its their reality that determines your online sales success.
This blog is based on the Succinct Update newsletter from July 2010.
You can subscribe directly to our newsletter here
Google Places | Quality control introduced
June 14th, 2010 by PeteI notice that Google Maps LBC (or Google Places as it is now branded) has introduced quality control systems and is rejecting entries that don’t met the quality guidelines.
It will be interesting to see what happens
Reflective Advertising in AdWords | Listening to your clients
June 4th, 2010 by PeteReflection is a listening technique where the listener echos key aspects of the conversation back to the speaker; it is a confirmation of understanding; a signal that the listener is engaged and paying attention to the speaker. It is a powerful strategy to engage a speaker.
Not surprisingly, a similar technique also applies to online advertising, and is also equally effective in engaging the searcher.
In my experience a ‘reflective ad’ will typically outperform even the most creative text ad.
Building a reflective ad
To build a reflective AdWords ad we are going to use Google AdWord’s Keyword Insertion capability to reflect the searchers term back at them.
Keyword insertion is a special ad statement {Keyword} that substitutes a searched term into the ad text. This can be added into your ad copy, the display URL or even the destination URL
When the ad is operating, the searcher sees their own search term where ever {keyword} appears in your ad eg assume the searched term was premium widgets
Practical reflective ads
All good so far, but ad text lengths still apply, so if your searcher enters a long term, your ad could be too long, so keyword insertion provides an alternative value should this occur.
So in this example, a long search term would end up looking like this:
Proper case
A final refinement with the Keyword Insert is it ability to change the case of the original search query. This subtle but important presentation refinement is set by the capitalisation used in the keyword command word itself viz:
| Your ad’s title | How the ad title appears to users | What part of the keyword is capitalised? |
| Buy {keyword:Puppies} | Buy golden retrievers | No part |
| Buy {Keyword:Puppies} | Buy Golden retrievers | The first letter of the first word only (sentence capitalisation) |
| Buy {KeyWord:Puppies} | Buy Golden Retrievers | The first letter of each word (initial capitalisation) |
| Buy {KEYWord:Puppies} | Buy GOLDEN Retrievers | The entire first word and the first letter of each additional word |
| Buy {KeyWORD:Puppies} | Buy Golden RETRIEVERS | The first letter of the first word and the entirety of each additional word |
| Buy {KEYWORD:Puppies} | Buy Golden Retrievers | The first letter of each word (initial capitalisation) |
Note that AdWords Capitalisation rules also apply which dictate there should be no excessive capitalisation
More information on Keyword Insertion is available here: http://adwords.google.com/support/aw/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=74996
So, set up a reflect ad in your campaigns, and test my theory that they will outperform your other ads.
Ill be interested to hear your results
Cheers
Pete
The Analytics data access & ownership dilemma
May 14th, 2010 by PeteA dilemma that I am encountering more frequently arises when good meaning web developers create and deploy Analytics sub-accounts (Analytics calls them a ‘profile’) for their clients.
The ‘issue’ only arises after the clients engage an internet marketer, who will want to access the site’s Analytics information to better understand the website’s history and traffic characteristics.
Analytics enthusiasts like myself will refine the Analytics settings for improved reporting, specific investigations etc which requires Admin access, and this is where the problem emerges.
Granting Analytics Admin to enable these refinements, also provides access to all profiles;
ie the web dev’s others client’s in that Analytics account.
This is not desirable from either the web dev or the internet marketer’s perspective, and as a result admin rights are not typically granted. This in turn impedes the internet marketer’s ability to deliver services.
Google AdWords | Conversion based bidding
May 4th, 2010 by PeteToday Google announced an enhancement to the AdWords Conversion Optimizer to allow Target Cost Per Aquisition (CPA) Bidding. This enables advertisers to set the average amount they’d like to pay for a conversion rather than simply a maximum click bid.
The Conversion Optimizer is one of a series of excellent tools built into AdWords that it seems many people dont realize exist.
Google says
Analysis indicates that, on average, those of you who use Conversion Optimizer experience a 21% increase in conversions along with a 14% decrease in CPA.*
This analysis compares the performance of Conversion Optimizer campaigns over the course of a year with a control set of campaigns and represents the average impact of Conversion Optimizer. The actual impact will vary from campaign to campaign.
Not bad for a free tool! Read more
Google Maps LBC now Google Places ?
May 3rd, 2010 by PeteI notice that the Google Maps Local Business Centre now refers to itself as Google Places…
Rich SERPs (Rich Snippets actually) are here!
April 30th, 2010 by PeteGoogle is pressing forward in its ongoing objective to cram more information into search results by now announcing the global launch of ’Rich Snippets’.
Just in case you might be thinking that the “non-rich Snippets” are somhow economically disadvantaged or low fat versions of a snippet, think again. A Snippet is a portion of the Search Engine Result (SERP) This is the bit about your site that Google displays in search results - read SERP background here
Here’s an example of rich snippets from the WebMasters Blog article. Rich Snippets contain “value added information” in the SERP such as an image, company name, location, even survey results etc
Info for the politically paranoid
April 28th, 2010 by PeteI stumbled over this interesting info for the politically paranoid recently.
Google publishes a map at http://www.google.com/governmentrequests/ that shows the number of Government requests that they received received between July 1, 2009 and December 31, 2009 to remove content.
Make of it what you will…
Google Keyword Tool updated
April 26th, 2010 by PeteGoogle has quietly slipped a redesigned UI and some new features into it Keyword Tool.
Matthew Carter has written this nice review of these features over at the Affilorama blog




