Apple’s relationship with Google is souring, which is the perfect opening for Microsoft when it comes to the iPhone.
It’s no secret that Apple and Microsoft have one of the stranger relationships in tech. While Microsoft has produced software such as Office for the Macintosh platform, and Apple has opened its doors to Windows with its switch to Intel, they still are highly competitive with each other. But Cupertino’s relationship with Google is souring far faster, which is the perfect opening for Microsoft when it comes to the iPhone.
Apple is apparently in discussions with Microsoft to give the Bing search engine the top spot for search on iPhone, which currently belongs to Google. These talks have been underway for several weeks, BusinessWeek reports, but nothing as of yet has been finalized.
Tuesday, 26 January 2010
Google Stock value falls
Google Inc., owner of the world's most popular Internet search engine, fell on the Nasdaq Stock Market after the company's founders filed to sell about 5 million shares each...
Search engine use explodes in December
People were doing a whole lot more online searching last month, and they were still largely using the Google engine to do it. A comScore, Inc. study released late last week showed...
Friday, 22 January 2010
Meta description and google ranking
Although Meta descriptions are no longer part of the ranking algorithm they can affect your site's positions in the personalized search results. Your Meta description is a crucial factor that determines the CTR (click-through-rate) of your site in search results. The more compelling your description is, the more searchers will click it. When they click through to your site from search results this is recorded in their Web History. Next time they search for a product or service related to your site, it may appear high up in their personalized search results.
The 7 Deadly Sins of Writing Google Ad Text and How to Resolve Them
There are a lot of folks out there doing Google Adwords that seem like they have lots of money to spend! Why do I say this? Well they write their ads so casually that there is a good chance they are getting a high percentage of clicks from people who are not really their customers. On top of this there is a good chance that they have these generic, casual ads in an ad group with too many keywords. Plus lots of them don’t take the time to direct their potential customers to the best landing page on their site.
If they could calculate over the period of a year how much they were spending on random, curiosity clicks due to these types of ads and bad ad group formation, they would definitely get a shock. What’s more is if they spring cleaned their Google Adwords account this time next year they could be heading off on an extra holiday.
So in order to write the best Google ad text the first thing to do is identify if you are committing any of the Google Ad Text 7 Deadly Sins, as listed below. Then we will discuss how not to commit these sins.
1. Are your ads broad as you feel they will capture more people? This is the first deadly sin as in reality people feel that they the need to click on these ads sometimes in case they are missing out on something good. A fair percentage of them will leave your site quickly as they will be disappointed.
Don’t commit this sin by firstly realizing that people are getting more savvy every day and what they want to see is an ad that tells them as much as possible in the small space allowed. The ad text should always include the keyword at least once and where possible include a price or a starting price.
2. Are your ads unsupported by a proper group of keywords? This is somewhat like a football player who can’t score without the support of other team members.
Avoid this sin by having smaller ad groups with a family of related keywords inside which makes it possible for the keywords to be included in the ad text. This takes more time to set up but really pays off in the end.
3. Do your ads blend in nicely with the crowd? Many ads commit this deadly sin as often the combination of the perception of it being such a small announcement and the lack of experience of working this small space gives rise to lots of sinners!
Stop sinning and start having fun with language. It is always possible to make the ad text tempting to customers and inject something different from your competitors so that it no longer blends in with the crowd but instead stands out from the crowd, in a good way.
4. Have your ad texts been written with the customer or your business in mind? If they have been written with your business in mind and not the customer you are committing the fourth deadly sin. Sadly this is a common practice as many business owners know their own business so well and forget that their potential customers don’t.
By not committing this sin you will raise your chances of sales and customer acquisitions highly. Get into the mind of your customer and if this is too difficult ask your friends or employees to help. It is what is on your customers’ minds’ that counts.
5. Have your ads gone past their sell by date? The fifth deadly sin can be seen at different times of the year when seasonal ads are well out of date. This gives a message of inefficiency to your potential customers, and it is hard for them to get excited about an ad in December 2009 which talks about the New 2009 Range.
Cleanse this sin by putting seasonal ads into their own campaign which can then be paused when the season is finished and resumed and changed for the next season. Keeping them separate like this makes them much easier to manage.
6. Do your ads have no Unique Selling Point? If your ads do not include this ask yourself would you buy from your ads? Internet customers who are checking Google Adwords ad texts most likely have no loyalty to your competitors otherwise they would not be looking at the ads. What is your unique selling point?
To avoid committing this sin is more difficult than some of the aforementioned sins. The ad text space is tight and you have to be quite skillful to get this in as well as the keywords and price when relevant. If you sell unique goods mention it, if you are cheapest mention it, find a way to include at least the flavour of your unique selling point.
7. Do your ads direct people to your homepage or some other broad page leaving potential customers to have to navigate your website? This is the serious seventh deadly sin. Less and less people are willing to spend the time having a look for the page you should have deep linked your ad to in the first place.
Don’t commit this sin, do yourself and your potential customers a big favour and deep link every single ad to the most specific page. You will save money as people will be less likely to bounce off your website.
If they could calculate over the period of a year how much they were spending on random, curiosity clicks due to these types of ads and bad ad group formation, they would definitely get a shock. What’s more is if they spring cleaned their Google Adwords account this time next year they could be heading off on an extra holiday.
So in order to write the best Google ad text the first thing to do is identify if you are committing any of the Google Ad Text 7 Deadly Sins, as listed below. Then we will discuss how not to commit these sins.
1. Are your ads broad as you feel they will capture more people? This is the first deadly sin as in reality people feel that they the need to click on these ads sometimes in case they are missing out on something good. A fair percentage of them will leave your site quickly as they will be disappointed.
Don’t commit this sin by firstly realizing that people are getting more savvy every day and what they want to see is an ad that tells them as much as possible in the small space allowed. The ad text should always include the keyword at least once and where possible include a price or a starting price.
2. Are your ads unsupported by a proper group of keywords? This is somewhat like a football player who can’t score without the support of other team members.
Avoid this sin by having smaller ad groups with a family of related keywords inside which makes it possible for the keywords to be included in the ad text. This takes more time to set up but really pays off in the end.
3. Do your ads blend in nicely with the crowd? Many ads commit this deadly sin as often the combination of the perception of it being such a small announcement and the lack of experience of working this small space gives rise to lots of sinners!
Stop sinning and start having fun with language. It is always possible to make the ad text tempting to customers and inject something different from your competitors so that it no longer blends in with the crowd but instead stands out from the crowd, in a good way.
4. Have your ad texts been written with the customer or your business in mind? If they have been written with your business in mind and not the customer you are committing the fourth deadly sin. Sadly this is a common practice as many business owners know their own business so well and forget that their potential customers don’t.
By not committing this sin you will raise your chances of sales and customer acquisitions highly. Get into the mind of your customer and if this is too difficult ask your friends or employees to help. It is what is on your customers’ minds’ that counts.
5. Have your ads gone past their sell by date? The fifth deadly sin can be seen at different times of the year when seasonal ads are well out of date. This gives a message of inefficiency to your potential customers, and it is hard for them to get excited about an ad in December 2009 which talks about the New 2009 Range.
Cleanse this sin by putting seasonal ads into their own campaign which can then be paused when the season is finished and resumed and changed for the next season. Keeping them separate like this makes them much easier to manage.
6. Do your ads have no Unique Selling Point? If your ads do not include this ask yourself would you buy from your ads? Internet customers who are checking Google Adwords ad texts most likely have no loyalty to your competitors otherwise they would not be looking at the ads. What is your unique selling point?
To avoid committing this sin is more difficult than some of the aforementioned sins. The ad text space is tight and you have to be quite skillful to get this in as well as the keywords and price when relevant. If you sell unique goods mention it, if you are cheapest mention it, find a way to include at least the flavour of your unique selling point.
7. Do your ads direct people to your homepage or some other broad page leaving potential customers to have to navigate your website? This is the serious seventh deadly sin. Less and less people are willing to spend the time having a look for the page you should have deep linked your ad to in the first place.
Don’t commit this sin, do yourself and your potential customers a big favour and deep link every single ad to the most specific page. You will save money as people will be less likely to bounce off your website.
Wednesday, 13 January 2010
Importance of links in search engine indexing ( listing position )
Please keep in mind that Google may ignore your submission request for a significant period of time. Even if it happens to crawl your site, it may not actually index it if there are no links pointing to it. However, if Google finds your site by following the links from other pages that have already been indexed and are regularly re-spidered, chances are you will be included without any submission. These chances are much higher if Google finds your site by reading a directory listing, such as DMOZ (www.dmoz.org).
So submit your site and it may help, but links are the best way to get indexed.
So submit your site and it may help, but links are the best way to get indexed.
Tuesday, 12 January 2010
Power of Long Tail Keywords in SEO
What are long tail keywords?
Long tail keywords are long and specific keyword phrases that generate little traffic and few conversions each.
Long tail keywords usually consist of several words and they have a low monthly search volume.
What did the study find out?
Google AdWords advertisers with monthly expenses ranking from $15K to $750K per month were analyzed in the study. All of these advertisers had well managed Google AdWords accounts.
Here are the key findings:
1. The importance of long tail keywords varies. For one company, the long tail keywords generated only 8% of the sales. Another company received 83% of its sales through long tail keywords.
2. It depends on the product. People search differently for different types of products. For one product group people might use more long tail keywords while they use fewer for another product group.
3. The importance of long tail keywords does not depend on the paid search budget.
4. Long tail keywords are most important for SKU-based commodity retailers.
5. For some Google AdWords advertisers, long tail keywords are critically important. One company in the test generated more than 71% of its revenue from long tail keywords.
Long tail keywords are important to all AdWords advertisers. Even the company that received only 8% of its sales through the long tail keywords made a significant amount of money with them.
Long tail keywords are long and specific keyword phrases that generate little traffic and few conversions each.
Long tail keywords usually consist of several words and they have a low monthly search volume.
What did the study find out?
Google AdWords advertisers with monthly expenses ranking from $15K to $750K per month were analyzed in the study. All of these advertisers had well managed Google AdWords accounts.
Here are the key findings:
1. The importance of long tail keywords varies. For one company, the long tail keywords generated only 8% of the sales. Another company received 83% of its sales through long tail keywords.
2. It depends on the product. People search differently for different types of products. For one product group people might use more long tail keywords while they use fewer for another product group.
3. The importance of long tail keywords does not depend on the paid search budget.
4. Long tail keywords are most important for SKU-based commodity retailers.
5. For some Google AdWords advertisers, long tail keywords are critically important. One company in the test generated more than 71% of its revenue from long tail keywords.
Long tail keywords are important to all AdWords advertisers. Even the company that received only 8% of its sales through the long tail keywords made a significant amount of money with them.
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