Scientific Split–Testing on Google Adwords gets a 30 day time–limit.

Writing about web page http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2171802/How-to-Handle-the-AdWords-Ad-Rotation-Changes

Many student projects at WMG have used Google Adwords as a methodology to scientifically split-test marketing ideas
Projects have used Adwords to:

• Verify that people are looking for keyword terms.
  This can predict demand based on natural or seasonal changes.
• Test different offers and sales copy.
• Test market new brands and online domain names.
  This saved a local company thousands on rebranding.
• Split test titles for books and multimedia releases.
• Verify interest in products and services before spending your
  development budget.
  A project confirmed the demand for high temperature paints was used to get funding for the development of safer paint formulations.

The split-testing of domains has been more difficult for some years but we found a way around it.

The example, above right, shows a split test using ‘optimised bidding’ where the failing Ad is already being shown less frequently. This is using automatic keyword insertion and proves that some Greek keywords could do better split in their own Ad groups.

Google has just announced now that the ‘Rotate Ads Evenly’, pure scientific rotation option will revert to optimise after 30 days.
This has just made life more difficult especially for low-volume or niche markets.

One alternative is to set up Adwords Experiments as these can be set to run for 90 days. For more on experiments and other ways to respond follow this link to the Search Engine Watch site.

Robert McGonigle : 08 May 2012 13:48 |  Tags: Google Ad Rotation Scientific-Split-Testing |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Managing Duplicate or very similar Content using Canonical Links

Writing about web page http://james-hutton-pressings.com/

I blogged about the limits of canonical links over on Rob’s Search Blog.

I’m still waiting to see if the search engines ‘take the hint’ on my inter-domain trial but I have confirmed that this has worked well over on the James Hutton Pressings group of sites.

The Group’s diverse range of products led them to set up 5 mini-sites within their main domain covering:

• Metal Pressings
• EPS Mouldings
• Stage Lighting
• Hinged Metal Boxes
• Janitorial Tools

Some of the pages, the home pages and about us were different for all 5 mini sites but their pro-forma trust pages such as Privacy and Terms were all the same.
This CCM post on the impact of Ethos pages back in ‘09 was actually about these very pages.

This year I did a tidy up of their sites and nominated the one Canonical version of these common pages for the 5 mini-sites. I just confirmed that both Google & Bing/Yahoo has removed the duplicates from their indexes.

Robert McGonigle : 01 May 2012 17:06 |  Tags: Canonical Canonical Pages |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Update on WMCCM

Writing about web page http://www.wmccm.co.uk

The WMCCM system has been in operation for about 7 years now. There are over 11,000 company members, over 17,000 individual members and we are still getting applications at a rate of about 20 per week to join. All without any advertising or promotion.
We calculated last year that WMCCM companies won tenders worth over £8bn and that the SMEs won over £4bn. An interesting observation was that of the 100+ start-up companies assisted four years ago, 85% are still operating. Justifies the World Bank using WMCCM as a best practice example of a Virtual Business Incubator.

Recently we have been working out how the Cloud concepts and Smarter city concepts can align with WMCCM. See the resulting slideshow at slideshare.com

Jay Bal : 27 Mar 2012 09:32 |  Tags: Cities Cloud Companies Sales Smart Success Users |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Leacy Classic Car Parts site grows using Content Management System

Writing about web page http://www.leacyclassics.com/parts/mg/midget.html

I have struggled to help several companies after they had selected off-the-shelf e-commerce packages.
The problems I have encountered include:

1. Very slow page loading times.
2. Hidden or non-existent page titles.
3. Charges to add Google Analytics and even then prevented conversion tracking.
4. Database generated URLs with duplication.

I have been working on the new Leacy Classics website with the guys at STAAK in Leamington. Even these serious web-developers needed to use an e-commerce builder package from Magento but they have been able to implement all of my SEO suggestions swiftly.

When a customer suggested that the MG Midget Parts should be separated out, I was impressed when a Leacy employee at Perry Barr was able to easily add this as a Category, with 14 sub-categories, and populate this with compatible parts. When I found that these pages were well titled and picked up by the sitemap I knew that at last I found a decent e-commerce, CMS package.

Robert McGonigle : 19 Oct 2011 20:15 |  Tags: Classic Car Parts Cms Content Management Systems Mg Midget Midget Parts |  Comments (1) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Online Posting for Corporation Tax; Self–Help or use an Accountant?

Writing about web page http://www.getaccountant.co.uk/tax-accountants

Last year I was able to avoid the new iXBRL online filing to HM Revenue & Customs by using the old paper form for my Limited Company tax returns.

This year I will have to find a tool or service to generate my accounts in the correct tagged in-line XBRL format.

Many tools are leaving up to a third of the required Tags out thus requiring manual intervention.
I use the open source GNUCash accounts package with full double entry books but this does not, yet, support iXBRL.

So I have been browsing the online tools and services available. These can pick up reports generated by Sage, spreadsheets or even Word but not GnuCash directly. So I must first export my tax filing data to a spreadsheet.
Some of these services do provide some manual checking that the required Tags are inserted.

This is like my own business you want to use a service that uses these tools on a daily basis. One of my clients has set up a national Accountants Directory site, www.getaccountant.co.uk that covers your local Tax Accountants so I am starting to think that it could be time to explore local accountants. Many of these offer fixed price online tax filing packages. If they see any opportunities to up-sell their services I should expect them see more savings that their charges or they are not being accountants.

One accountant in the directory uses the slogan:

It is not what you earn, it is what you keep.

Robert McGonigle : 10 May 2011 11:40 |  Tags: Get Accountant Hmrc Tax Filing Ixbrl Online Tax Filing Tax Accountants |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

The 4 best Teams make the FIFA World Cup Semis & Shankly on Teamwork.

All the pundits agreed. The four best teams are in the top four positions in the 2010 FIFA World Cup because they played as Teams not individuals!

When they then looked at our national team, England, they then all used; pampered millionaires, overpaid, no passion, no patriotism, no pride in the shirt and many other cliches that have nothing about playing as a team.

My favourite Bill Shankly quote on teamwork is:

Teamwork is playing to each others strengths
and compensating for each others weaknesses.

I like this qoute because this works for any sport and any team, at work, wherever.

Examine the management of the England team in recent years.
Were these teams set up to play to the squad’s strengths, to cover for each other?

When these same pundits discuss Real Madrid’s Galacticos they all agree you cannot build a team out of stars. Turn to England and “world class players should be able to play together” and “he can play over there”.

John Terry was a popular fall guy. In South Africa he trained and played alongside 4 other centre halves and 2 keepers. With the choice between the 5th & 6th choice centre back partners; Upson was chosen and so Terry had to play out of position, on the right. Yet if Carragher was chosen Terry would have played on the left with his club teammate Cole & Carra alongside club fullback Johnson. They know what each other will do and are well aware of each others weaknesses.

Spain tonight will have more high-paid players than England. No-one will be daft enough to play the patriotic card with over half the team Catalans! No, they will build on their experience of playing together as a highly technical team to try to overcome another great team who can get the best out of the likes of Dirk Kuyt, the Netherlands.

Robert McGonigle : 11 Jul 2010 17:46 |  Tags: Bill Shankly England World Cup Teamwork |  Comments (1) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

How Small Order led to Big Deal; Hand Pallet Trucks to Forklift Service Contract

Writing about web page http://www.bendigomitchell.com/

A small order for a single hand pallet truck
helped build a relationship with a new customer
that produced a valuable service contract
despite the highly competitive, low margin, pallet truck business.

I visited Brian Nealon of Bendigo Mitchell, a forklift specialist company in Kenilworth. He was very pleased with the improvements of their web presence but I was surprised when Brian went on to say.

My greatest satisfaction has been in the rapid increase in hand pallet truck enquiries/orders since Rob has got involved with us.

After years helping small businesses to attract their perfect, high value, customers I was surprised that Brian was so pleased with orders in a notoriously low-margin market!
He told me two stories to explain why.

The first was a one-off specialist hand pallet truck order from a new customer based in Oxfordshire. Brian drove down to deliver the truck only to find they’d ordered the wrong pallet truck. He agreed to take this special purchase into stock and arranged to ship the correct model. Days later they called again with a requirement for another department that actually wanted the first truck!

During this time he built up a real relationship and was delighted when they came back to ask him to discuss a service contract for their two fork lift trucks that BML now provide.

He was also quoting for another contract for a multinational for 300 hand pallet trucks per year on a rotating basis!

Robert McGonigle : 26 Apr 2010 22:17 |  Tags: Forklift Service Forklifts Hand Pallet Trucks |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Knowledge Transfer by Outsourcing & Hiring Expert Skills

Writing about web page http://ppcPromotion.co.uk

Knowledge Transfer by Outsourcing & Hiring Expert Skills

The IDL's Leigh Blount met up recently with Rob McGonigle of PPC Promotion Ltd. Rob's company was one of the first spin-outs from the International Digital Lab. Rob described the development of his business that was built using two of our main Digital Lab tools, networking and knowledge transfer.

Networking, Partnerships & a random Cluster near Kenilworth

Rob's client base was built up from networking & referrals. ABC Desks recommended their forklift supplier Bendigo Mitchell and E-Warehousing, their fulfilment partner, to use Rob for his AdWords campaigns and SEO. A security specialist led to a cluster of companies and partnerships in IT, health insurance, theatre tickets & wine cellars! This cluster, based in a barn conversion, required IT & strong internet pipes to launch their e-businesses. All of these companies are based within 3 miles of Kenilworth.

Knowledge Transfer in QA

Rob has seen his more traditional engineering clients respond to regional initiatives such as SC21 to serve the aerospace industry. These have been achieving the AS9100 aerospace quality accreditation. One did this by bringing back an ex-employee who had achieved this with a company in the south. Mostly SME's hire in Quality Consultants with a proven record of setting up compliant systems. They cannot justify hiring their own QA Expert at over £50k per annum instead hiring the top skills for a few days per month.

Rob saw this as a real example of KT. The expert helps set up systems and trains the companies workforce so that they can take on the day to day implementation. The consultant can reduce their days per month and may eventually only be hired for practice audits and annual process reviews.

This approach is flexible and cost-effective but has risks. They have to pick the right expert. Again referrals and reference customers are often used with help from professional bodies & neutral experts such as WMG's MBE team or MAS-WM.

KT for Digital Marketing?

Rob sees only parts of digital marketing as suitable for outsourcing. Building relationships with existing clients and getting back in touch with old customers with email newsletters and regular communication should always be kept in-house. Small companies may need external help to set up emailer campaigns as well as to make changes to their website. Rob's own business PPC Promotion Ltd provides AdWords Management Services and helps monitor the results using Google Analytics. Rob optimises for the conversion rate and cost per conversion and not the Click-Through-Rate within Google's AdWords reports. Better CTRs increase Google's bottom line, whereas sales, leads and sign-ups will all help his clients to thrive.

The problem with many of these website and other digital services is picking the right partner. PPC Promotion offere a low risk approach. A free report with at least 3 tips that anyone, who wants to experiment with pay-per-click marketing, can try. Their proposals have no long-term tie-ins and like Google Adwords can be paused and revived. Rob has seen many companies who cannot easily make changes to their website, sometimes losing control completely. The next change 2 or 3 years later is often for the worse. Rob's research study of over 50 companies for his Open University Masters dissertation found that 50% broke their websites second time around. All of the websites that still worked had access to internal skills or independent advice from the likes of WMCCM, the NB2BC or the Digital Lab.

The first impression of a webpage can be fixed for good or bad within 50 milliseconds. Good creative skills are needed to get the correct 'look'. Rob has found that virtual teaming with the client and their developers can be very productive. The search marketing input brings in a stream of visitors. The website is where these are converted to customers. Even this balancing of two experts can be difficult for engineers who are experts in their own products and their applications. Taster sessions at the Digital Lab can help.

A different type of Knowledge Transfer

Other clients have already been self-taught in search engine marketing but want to go to the next level. These can find books, seminars or hire a specialist service such as PPC Promotion to take them to the next level with a view to taking over themselves. Two clients have already moved on to do SEM themselves. They need to keep in touch, networking and watching the changes in Google's algorithms.

This is where Rob sees a different type of KT. Lessons learned with one client can be deployed for the others, a full time Google watcher can spot the new trends faster.
Rob has learned from his clients. Digital Direct Aerials had real expertise in local listings using Yell.com. Together they exploited this approach on Google's Local Business Listings.

Google are treating more and more searches as being 'local' providing a map and some local businesses on the first page. So Rob has taken this knowledge to take many local listings to No. 1 on Google Search, above.

To get started networking with potential partners and customers or to explore knowledge transfer by outsourcing or more traditional research based KT get in touch with the Knowledge Transfer team at the Digital Lab.

For more information about PPC Promotion please follow this link

To get started networking with potential partners and customers or to explore knowledge transfer by outsourcing or more traditional research based KT get in touch with the Knowledge Transfer team at the Digital Lab.

Robert McGonigle : 22 Apr 2010 11:46 |  Tags: Birmingham Local Aerials Knowledge Transfer Kt Laser Cutting Networking Sc21 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Don't exclude Customers who speak other languages from your AdWords.

Writing about web page http://www.e-warehousing.co.uk/eWarehousing.aspx?id=12

When you publish a web page in English or bid on a keyword term like pick pack and dispatch you expect the search visitors will have used English words.

Yet the visitors to the CCM site, this first month of 2010 have used 66 languages. Looking at the keywords logs confirms that everyone did search using English as you would expect with a site written in English.

Here the language is being picked up from the visitor’s language settings.
Google AdWords notes the language set in Google’s search preferences, the interface language for the search button and links.

Even if Polish employees sets their preferences to Polish they will still work and search in English in the UK. Google is starting to highlight the limitation of most AdWords campaigns that only target English.

I set up a campaign around Cambridge and AdWords suggested targeting more languages, see below:

I had been setting the target languages to ALL for many years on AdWords until they removed this option and forced me to tick all 41 language options. Still it is good to see official confirmation of my old tactic. Now, can Google AdWords give me back the All Languages button please?

Why did I use E-Warehousing as my keyword example? Because they are going one better at their Spring Fair International stand by having a Chinese language speaker available. They have got a volunteer from WMG to help them link up Chinese exporters with their local, Kenilworth based, fulfilment service. Find E_Warehousing in NEC Hall 9, Stand H 32, from the 7th to the 11th Feb.

Robert McGonigle : 28 Jan 2010 15:12 |  Tags: Adwords Interface Language Adwords Target Language Google Interface Language Interface Language Pick Pack Despatch Spring Fair International |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

C&K Precision Engineers are latest CCM hosted website to migrate to MS Live.

Writing about web page http://ck-precision-engineers.co.uk/

I have posted before about CCM’s collaborative clusters and how these have been prototypes for Microsofts Live collaborative websites and spaces. WMCCM started with collaborative clusters and developed these into showcases, essentially collaborative webspaces. Microsoft’s Office Live sites started as business and school sites then offered private collaboration spaces.

CCM have reviewed and can recommend both these MS Live sites and the sites.google alternatives. We offered Matt Kelsall of C&K Precision Engineers up in Stoke on Trent these options but he chose the MS option because of the familiarity of the interface and modular approach.

Matt was able to create a website easily and found the images slideshow worked well. Hosting was straightforward by changing the DNS servers but he did have some problems with getting the new site onto Google. The SEO triple pack can be added to these sites but this is a bit of a bodge so he engaged PPC Promotion.

It was good to catch up with Matt and C&K Precision. They continue to thrive serving the rail, medical and engineering sectors with their 2 shift, responsive workshops providing precision machined components using CNC machining, fabrication and finishing that includes the polishing and marking of perspex.

Robert McGonigle : 14 Dec 2009 16:41 |  Tags: C&K Precision C&K Precision Engineers Ms-Olsb Ms Live Precision Machined Components |  Comments (1) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Sitemaps can help save the Planet but only if you use lastmod Tags

Writing about web page http://www.bendigomitchell.com/hire.htm

I have been working with Bendigo Mitchell of Kenilworth to re-focus their website onto their casual forklift hire and longer term leasing and contract hire services. Working with their web-developers, eStirling, the changes were delivered to a trial area for review and approval.

Here I checked their XML sitemap to find that whilst ot did include the lastmod field these were all set to 2006, when the site was first published. One quick call and they updated it using an excellent tool with a good stylesheet making it very easy to verify.

The lastmod tag is important as it is this that saves the processor cycles at Google, Yahoo, Bing & Ask’s data centres. If you just re-submit the sitemap you force the spiders to check every page not just the changed content. Use wisely and the search engines return more often.

Sometimes the built-in tool sets all the dates to the run time. There are two solutions to this. Run an external generator if your web-server accurately provides the changed dated. If all else fails you can just change the date manually. I can generate sitemaps easily for the www.james-hutton-pressings.com group of sites but when a couple of page changes inc. their James Hutton Mouldings about page, EPS Mouldings , it was quicker to do it by hand.

Robert McGonigle : 19 Nov 2009 16:00 |  Tags: Eps Mouldings Forklift Hire Google Sitemaps Lastmod XML Sitemaps |  Comments (1) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Decorative Concrete and the fading Art of Article Spinning

Writing about web page http://www.dekorbeton.com/

One of our first CCM website reports was delivered too late! A small plastics business in Hednesford had handed their website over, with £100 per month, to get to page 1 on Google.
Their website was PageRanked 4/10, the same as Bentley Motors, because they were in the Open Directory Project’s DMOZ directory. By the time our report was sent the website had been removed from Google’s index because of the illegal techniques used by their so-called ‘SEO experts’. The same techniques also took bmw.de off the air, for days.

So CCM was always careful to recommend giving Google what they wanted, relevant content and links from pages about related topics. This is also what we want, the best results for our queries. The tactics moved on through link-swapping, link-farms etc and people continued to try to game Google and sell these services.
More recently many of my clients are asking about article publication services they’ve been pitched and I’ve heard a top UK ‘Internet Marketing Expert’ promote ‘article spinning’. So I decided to gather some real data.

One of my clients, decorative concrete specialists, Dekorbeton, supply textured concrete stamping & overlay products. Based in Istanbul they hired English experts to keep their English language site content accurate with the correct navigation and tags etc. Their web experts also offered to create and publish featured links and specialist articles as an additional service. This lined up with a number of the carefully crafted services that I had seen offered.

The ‘internet marketing expert’, above, recommended a few good high quality links and loads of poor ones, the more the merrier.

When I investigated the in-links to www.dekorbeton.com I found this pattern, see the Market Samurai report summary, right. I drilled down to find their article content in sites such as EzineArticles and Articles3000. I followed 8 such sites providing 170 links, all from the 0/10 column. Now Google don’t provide comprehensive in-link data so I use Yahoo’s excellent SiteExplorer. Market Samurai’s tool does too then merging Google’s Pagerank data. So not every PR 0 link is in the Google index. I sampled 52 of the 170 article links to find that only 17 were indexed by Google! So 2/3 of these articles were a complete waste of time. (Based on 82% of Dekorbeton traffic coming from Google. Google’s search engine share was over 93%.)

Some of the articles were very relevent on patios etc. and of good quality. Most used keywords in the link text such as ‘brick wall overlay but often these were down in the author’s details. Many were on vaguely related topics such as soft furnishings and hydroponics. I am grateful to the director at Dekorbeton giving permission to use their data. I also confirmed that her own efforts in adding comments and answers on blogs, forums and other Web2.0 sites had a far greater impact. This also was a good excuse to add some images from their site to break up this long post.

I cannot make the case against article-spinning based on just one example so I checked out the links to the site of the ‘internet marketing expert’. Position 1 for very competitive keywords, he was doing many things right. The pattern of links was as he recommended and similar to the pattern in the panel above. His articles, too, were rarely in the Google index. I have found clear evidence that article-spinning did work in the past but, like many other SEO tactics, its day has gone.

Robert McGonigle : 15 Oct 2009 14:13 |  Tags: Article Spinning Back Links Decorative Concerte Google Pagerank Inlinks Paid Links |  Comments (2) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Local Companies provide excellent Project Opportunities for Students

Writing about web page http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/sci/wmg/about/people/profiles/robmcgonigle/

The CCM legacy of providing WMG’s Masters research projects with a real practical contribution and collaboration with innovative local companies has continued with my two posted projects for 2009-2010.

The first is with Kenilworth logistics specialists, E-Warehousing with a new e-fulfilment service storage, pick & pack etc.

The second is with LickWorX Original Music who are bring research-based custom music generation to the market.

For more details see Rob’s WMG staff page.

Robert McGonigle : 13 Oct 2009 15:21 |  Tags: E-Fulfilment Original Music Production Wmg Projects |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Google Sitelinks – A Guide to your Website

Writing about web page http://www.laserprocess.co.uk/contact.asp

I was posting a new sitemap after some website changes that my client has made to Google’s Webmaster Tools. I spotted that Laser Process had been given a Sitelinks Panel.

These panels, above, can help visitors to go straight to the part of the site they want to use. These also highlight the navigation panel words. If visitors cannot see the home page will they know what the pages are about? If not add better or more words.
So would these be better for Services and About Us?
Laser Cutting Services
Laser Cutting Capability

Robert McGonigle : 15 Aug 2009 15:22 |  Tags: Google Sitelinks Menu Links Sitelinks Website Navigation |  Comments (1) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Nominet selling .UK by the Pound & all Trust is lost!

Writing about web page http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8178959.stm

For years the CCM team has recommended that businesses should consider the .co.uk top level domain because of the trust these domain names implied. So it was with anger that I read the BBC business report, above, that these .co.uk domains were used by Chinese based scam merchants to sell fake goods. Using fake ‘UK’ identities they could pick up easily for a fiver!

Back in 2002 Nominet’s executive chairman was quoted in this Guardian piece;

It is safer, and usually cheaper, to use a UK domain name such as .co.uk. The single UK registrar, Nominet, provides a certificate of ownership. Furthermore, it provides ways of maintaining or transferring your domain if you have problems with the third-party name manager.

Dr Willy Black, executive chairman of Nominet, says a UK name suggests a local link. “UK consumers feel more comfortable with a .co.uk,” he says, quoting internal research. The .co.uk, .org.uk and .me.uk domains can be bought by anyone, although they are designed for UK commercial concerns, organisations and individuals respectively.

Since then I have proven, by split testing adwords in the UK market, that .co.uk could deliver 2.5 times the clicks as .com.

Nominet have blown it. Selling .UK by the pound to misquote Genesis.

Google Adwords Quality Scores have been giving the clue about how to build this elusive trust factor by rewarding the boring Privacy, Terms and Contact pages . Now even the location, with a real address and an invitation to ‘drop by’, and phone numbers, with a real geographic 0121 numbers in addition to 0800 numbers can give reassuring messages that visitors can pick up and check in their un-conscious minds.

We are all going to have to try harder to keep the trust of visitors thanks to Nominet’s proudly ‘open market’. What chance you could go out and buy a .fr or .de domain?

Robert McGonigle : 04 Aug 2009 20:44 |  Tags: Dot Co Dot Uk Trust Dot Co Dot Uk Websites Nominet Nominet Sell Out Nominet Sell To Scam Merchants |  Comments (2) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

The Three Essential 'Search Engine Friendly' Components for Every Website

Writing about web page http://www.lickworx.tv/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&id=42&Itemid=97

Recently I have found myself repeatedly making the same three requests of website developers on behalf of clients.

1. Add verification files or Metatags for Google, Yahoo and MS Live’s webmaster tools accounts.
2. Add Google Analytics code to every page.
3. Add a means of adding or generating an XML sitemap to the Sitemaps.org standards.

The first allows you to see your site as the search engines see them, Analytics allows you to view your visitor’s behaviour and the sitemap saves the search engines power bill as well as getting your new pages onto the indexes sooner.

I believe that this set of search engine friendly components should be embedded into the dna of every website template empowering the website owners to understand how their sites are working. Often web developers add in other statistics packages but most just get stale. Some bad examples caused me to blog about how Analytics improves while we sleep so developers only have to add this stats package once.

Robert McGonigle : 26 Mar 2009 09:51 |  Tags: Google Analytics Search Engine Friendly Webmaster Verification XML Sitemap |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

The problem with American Visitors. Why do they bounce so much?

Writing about web page http://ppcpromotion.co.uk

I was checking out the Analytics trends for my new website and found that the bounce rate for UK visitors was a lot lower than the average and that the reverse was true for US visitors. Since the strap-line of my site is PPC Marketing with the UK English voice this was actually good news!

This triggered me to do a quick Analytics survey of a dozen good websites and found most showed a minimum 25% increased bounce rate by US visitors. See one example below. The other English speaking markets, Canada, Austrailia, etc did not show this problem.

The lowest increase measured was for www.wmccm.co.uk with a 13% increase. Though designed as a regional portal this has long attracted many international visitors.

I have also seen a website that converts better in the US than elsewhere but it had a US English landing page, a 1-800 number and prices in US dollars. For Americans, $US prices can multiply conversion rates by 10 times. Americans are used to everything being laid on a plate for them and having more than enough choice from national suppliers. Even the widest range of, US specific, Japanese cars.

Robert McGonigle : 11 Mar 2009 16:31 |  Tags: Analytics Bounce Rates Google Analytics Uk-English Uk English Us-English Us English |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

The Why Not? Test. Why Google rates those boring terms & privacy pages

Writing about web page http://www.wmccm.co.uk/WMCCM/StaticContent/AboutWMCCM.aspx

Over five years ago, back at the launch of the CCM site, I was frustrated at the time taken to create the Terms & Privacy words.
Over the years, as we turned the portal into an automatic conversions pipeline generating over 200 sign-ups per month I became thankful of our well drafted terms and how this helped the team deal with some strange requests and comments.

Recently I have come to see that Google too ranks these boring but necessary pieces of legal text. I ran Adwords on a series of simple websites for different markets for a real entrepreneur. These were actually only single, simple, landing page sites but with pro-forma terms, privacy, disclaimer & site map pages. These other pages did not even have titles but the landing pages all ranked 9/10, Adwords Quality Score, for keywords on the landing page.

Working with other more complex e-commerce sites I have been performing Why Not? tests. Checking for all the reasons, the doubts, questions in a visitor’s mind that could prevent them going on down the conversion pipeline. Google has been observing conversion behaviour too and found that most customers checked out one or two other pages the first time they bought from a site. I always look at returns policy, where they are and who their delivery partners are. So Google’s Quality Scores are based on the landing page and the pages within a click or two of it on your site.

So I have been creating privacy pages etc. on my site. But I have taken another lesson from our CCM experience. The Ethos section of CCM’s unique competency profiles, when written well accurately describing what the company is like to deal with, actually helps to convert to customers. If the client has a similar ethos finds this confirmed then trust is built in the rest of these independent profiles.
These profiles have peen proven to be excellent referrals and to have led to over £5 million of sales.

So I have tried to capture our ethos in these required pages and to educate and explain as well as pass the legal test. Actually I have not had these reviewed by the family lawyer so they may yet get more boring!

Robert McGonigle : 10 Feb 2009 12:39 |  Tags: Converting Customers Google Quality Score |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

The 5 Pin Sealed Relay & Launching a New Business in 2009?

Writing about web page http://www.keen4parts.co.uk

This week I met with David Keene, MD of the RDM Group. David has interacted with WMG, CCM and now the IDL on a variety of technology initiatives so I was eager to catch up with his news.

Our conversation naturally turned to the downturn and its impact on his core marketplace, automotive. This market will be challenging for some time yet RDM Automotive were helping customers producing more wiring harnesses after the sudden failure of another supplier.

David wanted to show me their new venture, Keen4Parts an online parts store for cars, vans & four by four vehicles. I liked it and gave some tips to improve the conversion rate.

David pointed out one of the least expensive items, the five pin, 12 volt, sealed relay . “These are used all over the automotive industry by Landrover etc., but the car enthusiasts cannot buy them anywhere! When assembled using the connectors & wiring diagram provided, and connected these are ready for the off-road test track and the splash test.”

So is this a good time to be launching a new venture? Well the only area that continued to grow at the end of 2008 was the online market at the expense of the high street. Many niche products have also continued to thrive through the downturn serving people’s passions.

Other automotive parts manufacturers that I have met have also revealed that they were doing well because of their good aftermarket share. Bad news for the car OEMs is good news for spare parts businesses as owners keep their vehicles longer.

Robert McGonigle : 17 Jan 2009 11:28 |  Tags: Automotive Parts Sealed Relay Startup |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Startup Support Target Completed

Writing about web page http://www.startup-support.co.uk

CCM has helped 93 start-up businesses realise their full e-business potential, Free of Charge. Operated by the University of Warwick, WMCCM has assisted over 400 local SME’s resulting in generating new sales worth over £5 million. The last but one came out of the CCM team.

Rob McGonigle our search engine and Google Adwords specialist has launched PPC Promotion . Now a Google Adwords Qualified Individual he supports a wide range of companies from medical tourism, electronics, plating services, security consultancy, neuromarketing conference, wooden toys, gifts, CNC machining, Masters Degrees and the Start-Up Support site.

Robert McGonigle : 08 Dec 2008 23:42 |  Tags: Adwords Start-Ups Startup Support Startups |  Comments (1) |  Close comments |  Report a problem