Following the huge success of the original song ‘United Break Guitars’ which has amassed over 5 million views to date, the second song of the promised trilogy has been released.
It was reported in the the Times that within four days of the original song going online, the gathering thunderclouds of bad PR caused United Airlines’ stock price to suffer a mid-flight stall, and it plunged by 10 per cent, costing shareholders $180 million.
It is doubtful that the second song will have such an impact, but it will certainly be interesting to see if the story continues to have a following.
Google Adwords is a very effective method of driving traffic to your website, but many business owners using it for the first time set generic keywords and if they use the upper daily spending limits, can get hundreds of misguided visitors a week, costing thousands of pounds and reducing their PPC (Pay Per Click) Google score with very little extra business. When someone searches online using a broad keyword, say, ‘compact digital cameras’, then they are browsing or researching the market, they are not looking to buy. If the keyword is more precise, say ‘Sony T77 compact camera’, then the searcher is looking for a specific product and is more likely to have intentions of buying.
Save money on Pay Per Click
Some businesses or industries may also benefit from including their geographical location with their keywords, ‘homes for rent’ isn’t going to get you as many conversions as ‘homes for rent in Cardiff’ but this depends on your business, if you can trade internationally then you may be loosing out on business by including your location. When it comes to keywords, the one with the highest search volume isn’t necessarily going to be the one that lands you top spot in Google or gets you the highest conversions and it might be worth targeting a handful of keywords with a lower search volume but are more likely to be converted into sales.
Before we look at the keyword options within Adwords it is important we understand how PPC works, so below is the formula and a quick example.
Google operates a quality assessed system so there are more factors to how well your ad performs beyond the amount bid on a word.
Google says that;
Your Cost Per Click (CPC) * Relevance Score = Google Score
However it is easier if we replace Relevance Score with Click Through Ratio (CTR) as this substitutes a variable we can asses and monitor, so now our formula is;
Your Cost Per Click (CPC) * Your Click Through Ratio (CTR) = Google Score
The reason for this substitute is simple, if we have a high click through ratio then we must be writing good Ad copy and it must be relevant to the searching user. Let’s look at how this can affect two adverts using an example.
If Advert 1 has a 10% CTR * 50pence CPC = its Google Score will be 500
If Advert 2 has a 20% CTR * 30pence CPC = its Google Score will be 600
Therefore Advert 2 will appear above Advert 1 whilst costing less per click, this allows the manager of Advert 2 two options, either they operate at the same level (the same amount of clicks) as their rival on a smaller budget, or for the same budget as Advert 1 Advert 2 can receive more clicks during a monthly period.
Hopefully, now you have a better understanding of how PPC works we can look the various keyword options and why sometimes the negative keywords can be more important than the other (positive) keywords.
When selecting your Keywords, these should be the terms relevant to the ad you have written, the more broad these terms are the more impressions your Ad will receive though this does not guarantee a high click rate for your Ad. Once you have selected a list of Keywords there are four formats that your Keywords can take;
Broad Match – By default, Google AdWords sets all keywords to broad match, meaning that an ad containing the keyword ‘French food’ would be triggered by search queries containing the word French and Food regardless of their order or context. So, the ad may appear in search results for French Fries or French Food in San Francisco. Ads will also show for such expanded keyword matches as plurals and relevant variations, such as French Food and French Cuisine.
Phrase Match – By putting quotation marks around a keyword phrase (“French Food”), ads will appear on searches where the word French is directly followed by the word Food. In this case, the ad would be shown for searches such as French Food, French Food Dishes, or Cheap French Food. However, the ad would not be shown to users who search for French Fried Food or French Cuisine and Food. To clarify further, the ad will not show if the search contains any term between French and Food.
Exact Match – By adding square brackets around a keyword ([French Food]), you are specifying an exact match. This means that the ad will only show when a user searches for the exact phrase French Food without any other words before or after, and with French and Food in that exact order. This type of matching is especially recommended for single-word keywords.
Negative Match – We can also use negative matching to eliminate certain searches that may be irrelevant. To do this, we add our normal keywords (such as French Food) and then specify negatives by placing a minus sign before the irrelevant words. For example, we could add –free, -calories and –pictures. This means that the ad will not show for users who search for free French food, French food calories or French food pictures.
Often strong performing Adword accounts will either have an Ad with a long list of Exact or Phrase Match keywords or more likely, a collection of Ads with each one based around an Exact or Phrase Match keyword and both are likely to have a list of Negative Match keywords.
In many ways, though the keywords your Ad is shown for is important it might be the keywords your Ad isn’t shown for that is more important, ensuring that your Ad is shown in the correct search results will lead to your business paying for the right traffic to come to your website.
To receive a free Adwords account review, or to find out how IT Pie can help you manage your account please e-mail us your Customer ID and we will be able to view your account and provide you with feedback.
wo thirds of businesses are unaware they will be able to use their own name in place of domain extensions such as .com, .org, or .net when Internet domains are liberalized next year, according to a survey.
The change would let the likes of Nike or Microsoft control their own domain and better exploit their brands, and also counter cyber-squatters who use variations of brands on the 280 or so existing domain extensions.
“If you have ‘.nike’, for example, you can create real and specific branded Websites, like ‘running.nike’ or ‘runlondon.nike’,” Joe White, chief operating officer of domain registrar Gandi.net, told Reuters in an interview.
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), which oversees domain names, is expected to start taking applications for new top-level domains early next year, said Future Laboratory, which conducted the research.
But the move is not on the radar of a majority of companies, the survey for Gandi.net found.
“(Companies) are generally completely unaware of this change coming down the line,” said White. “This change has not yet permeated into the mainstream for businesses or consumers.”
“However, those businesses which are aware actually see the prospect as being quite exciting,” he said.
The price of $185,000 will initially limit applications to the largest corporations and organizations, said Tom Savigar, Strategy and Insight Director at The Future Laboratory.
ICANN is expecting 300-500 applications when it opens its doors in the first quarter of next year, he said.
“You’ll see the big global corporations getting there early to own more of their online space,” he said.
“(Owning their domain) could secure a higher level of credibility and recognition.”
Smaller businesses will be able to use more specific extensions to match their business sector or geography such as “.london” or “.paris,” he said.
So the question is, will you be buying your company name as a domain extension at the earliest chance or will you consider changing your domain to reflect your businesses georgaphical location?
Twitter has seen an explosion of popularity recently and so old school ‘follow back’ rules where you always follow anyone who follows you no longer apply, in fact one user who had an auto follow rule in place recenlty decided to take action as he was missing out no many useful tweets and his DM (Direct Message) inbox was full of spam.
When Robert Scoble realised that he was following over 100,000 people, most of whom he didn’t know he decided to clense his list, it isn’t possible to bulk unfollow on Twitter but rather than manually accomplish the task Scoble had a script written for him.
He writes of the experience:
On Monday I unfollowed 106,000 people on Twitter. The reaction so far has been quite interesting. More than 7,000 accounts have unfollowed me back. They did that so fast that I assume they are just bots that are looking to increase their follower numbers. I knew I’d lose them, but that’s sort of why I did it. People who are following me just to get another count on their follower numbers are just plain, well, lame.
But it’s worse than that. When I unfollowed everyone all my spam just stopped. Dead. No more spam. Not since Monday. Twitter is actually quite enjoyable. Not a single DM spam. Not a single piece of spam has come through the home page.
It seems much like in real life, twitter users are beginning to realise that it’s quality, not quantity that counts.
As a commercial tool for businesses to promote their services and to maintain continued contact with the clients who are interested, Twitter is ideal.
Twitter Icons
In a matter of 140 characters it is possible to remind customers of your company and direct them to your website or listen to your customer’s feedback and suggestions, helping you to provide a better service. But possibly the best reason for using Twitter is the Word of Mouth element, if you have something useful to offer or say then your followers will hopefully pass on your message (re-tweet) and who knows how many twitter users it will ultimately reach.
An additional bonus of Twitter is the way in which it now connects to varying applications, we believe it has become a useful tool and an excellent way of generating inbound links, though your website may not benefit from the authority of the link it is another way to attract visitors to your website and generate a following. Through blogging a business can create in bound links using Twitter (without even logging into Twitter) which will help to further promote their website and generate more traffic, alternatively your Twitter account can be used to maintain your Facebook fan page keeping your fans up to date with all your latest tweets.
So aside from the above, how can Twitter help your business?
It is a resource to connect to people within your industry ensuring that you are kept up to date with all the latest news, stories, trends and issues. Think of it as your industries news headline feed. Using such directories as Twellow and Wefollow you can find people within your industry to follow as well as people in other industries who may be of interest to you.
It can be used as a research tool, if you have a question you can ask the Twitter community and often will receive an answer within minutes.
Think of it as a networking opportunity, if you meet people who are using Twitter you can follow each other and maintain regular contact without having to directly interact, instead of waiting for the next business breakfast in a months time to speak to that person you have been aware of what they are doing and can instantly DM(Direct Message) them on Twitter. Better still, you may meet someone on Twitter whose services you would benefit from or who would benefit from your services.
It is a free PR/Marketing channel, though Twitter is about two way communication with the Twitter community it is also an opportunity to instantly make your followers aware of any promotions you are currently running or any success the business has had, i.e. we’ve just landed a huge contract and are excited to be working with… or as a large coffee shop chain recently tweeted – ‘free pastry with every coffee to all who quote code xxx until 10am this morning’ only those using Twitter were aware of this promotion.
If you do decide to use twitter feel free to follow us http://twitter.com/itpie or if you would like any help with your Social Media marketing plan, please do not hesitate to contact us.
