February 23,
2005
In
This Issue:
1. A Lot of "Littles" Add Up
2. In the News - Google's Toolbar Trouble
3. More News Headlines
4. This Week's Q&A - Tracking Ad Campaign Response
5. Wrapping It Up
_________________
A Lot of "Littles" Add Up
Some time ago, I was reviewing search engine rankings with a
client who was unhappy with their visibility in the SERPs. I went
back and found the list of key words and phrases we had targeted
when the site was built; there were only about 8, as I recall.
So I took those terms and went to the big three SEs to see how
they ranked, not expecting very much because 1) the client was
unhappy, and 2) the web site itself had been sitting pretty much
untouched since it launched 18 months earlier.
I was surprised to see the site was ranking quite well for most
of the terms we had targeted. There were two terms where the
client was completely off the radar in all three search engines.
One term
was just too generic -- it was a term that was applicable to
many businesses both inside and outside this client's industry.
The
other term wasn't too generic, but was too competitive to rank
well on with such a stale web site.
Here's the catch: When I presented the good news about how well
the site had managed to rank on 75% of the targeted terms, the
client dismissed those and said the other two were the only ones
they really care about. The six terms where they had good visibility
just didn't bring enough traffic to matter.
Fair enough, but I mention this situation to offer a reminder
-- a lot of "littles" add up. Don't discount ANY source
of traffic to your web site. The 80/20 rule just doesn't apply
in search marketing. You can devote all your time and resources
to targeting that term that might bring 1000 visitors a day, and
never succeed. Or, you can devote less time and energy to ranking
well on the "littles" -- terms that maybe bring only
50 visitors. it only takes 20 such terms to equal those elusive
1000 visitors you couldn't get before. A single term like this
might be the equivalent of a dripping faucet, but put a lot of
dripping faucets together and pretty soon you've got a nice stream
of water.
_________________
In The News
Google's Toolbar Trouble
Google introduced a new version of its toolbar for Internet Explorer,
and quickly came under fire for one of the new features it offers.
Autolinking is a new gizmo in the toolbar that will take various
elements of a web page and turn them into links, i.e. -- a U.S.
address on a web page becomes a link to Google Maps; a book's ISBN
number becomes a link to Amazon.com. On its surface, it sounds
kinda cool ... maybe.
But there are big problems. For example, if you have the toolbar
installed and you're shopping on Barnes and Noble's web site,
the ISBN in the book description suddenly becomes a link to Amazon!
Think Barnes and Noble is happy about that? I'm surprised the
lawsuit
hasn't been filed yet. Webmasters are crying foul because the
toolbar essentially gives Google the ability to modify content
on their
web pages, and as a webmaster ... yeah, I'll get in line with
that. Leave the web pages I make alone! Who gave Google the power
to
decide what should be a link and what shouldn't?
Good article on ZDNET which recaps the debate:
Google under fire over autolinking
_________________
More News Headlines
Here are a few news headlines worth your time to read.
These are just some of the headlines we've posted
to OWTweb.com in recent
days.
Pay-per-call: A new avenue for search marketers
February 22, 2005 - Search Engine Watch
Incoming links aren't hard to come by with the right content
February 21, 2005 - Search Engine Guide
Since one-way links appear to be more valuable in a search engine's
eyes, that makes them more valuable to your search marketing
effort.
Information Architecture as an Extension of Web Design
February 17, 2005 - Digital Web
More headlines: http://www.owtweb.com/news/
_________________
This Week's Q&A
Hi Matt,
We're launching an ad campaign next month and we're going to
feature our web site address prominently in each channel of advertising
we use. But we have a dilemma: We want people seeing the ads
to visit our home page first, but we also want to be able to
track how much response we get to the ad campaign. If the people
responding to our ads go to the home page, they'll be counted
the same as any other person visiting the home page (who hasn't
seen the ads). Is there a solution to get around this?
Albert
Hi Albert --
You might want to check with your web host and with whomever
provides you the software you use to measure web traffic.
One thing you
can do is put a URL in your ads such as <www.domain.com/?REF=time>,
which might be an indicator that the person was referred (REF)
by an ad in TIME magazine, for example. Whether or not that kind
of URL will work with your web site and your web stats software,
I don't know. But it might. Problem is that URL will be tougher
to include in radio advertising, and harder for people to remember
if they see it on TV or in the paper. Simple, shorter URLs are
always best.
Another option you have, and many marketers would recommend
this, is to get past the desire to want them to start at your
home
page. Rather, create unique "landing pages" for people who
come to your site after seeing the ads. You can do a single landing
page with a unique URL and place it in all the ads, or you can
get really hands-on and create different landing pages for each
channel you advertise in, such as <www.domain.com/tv/> for
your TV ads, or <www.domain.com/print/> for your newspaper
ads, etc. This would allow you to customize the landing page to
continue to pitch that began with your advertisement. And, it gives
you unique URLs that you can measure in your web traffic software.
(Have a question? Email questions@owtweb.com)
_________________
Wrapping it Up
Busy week here, so back to work for me. See you next week!
Thanks for reading,
Matt McGee
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