If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to our RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

Landing Page – An active webpage where customers will ‘land’ when they click your ad. The web address for this page is often called a ‘destination URL’ or ‘clickthrough URL.’

Below is a list of 7 deadly sins for landing page designs. The list was taken from a webinar from Tim Ash, a consultant from Google.

Have you committed one of the “7 deadly sins of landing page design?”

1. Unclear Call to Action
   Ensure that traffic is sent to a page where the desired action is clearly defined. If you wish for them to book a room night, have a large visible button that allows the customer to book a room night.
2. Too Many Visual Distractions
   A page filled with too many visual distractions, whether its photos of products or flashing banners or AdSense ads, will likely not convert as well. Keep the page simple, clean, and to the point.
3. Too Much Text
   A landing page should not be text heavy. Keep sentences short and simple, and convey your message using bullet points.
4. Not Keeping Promises
   Your AdCopy says: Buy 2 get 1 free, but if this same offer cannot be found on the landing page, you are not keeping that promise. If you have an attractive offer in your AdCopy, make sure that it is easily found on the landing page.
5. Long Forms
   Keep forms as short and concise as possible. Only include fields where it’s absolutely essential for the existing transaction.
6. Invisible Risk Reducers
   If your business is accredited by the BBB, or if your website is hacker safe and tested on a daily basis, be sure to include these logos above the fold.
7. Trust Indicators
   If your business is highly rated or raved about by another company of trust, place that logo above the fold as well. For example, if Conde Nast named your hotel as one of the “Top 500 Hotels in the World”, adding this trust indicator will surely help increase trust, and hopefully conversion.

We are Google Adword Professionals and we can help you implement a successful search engine marketing campaign. Contact us through the blog or on our website, SalesOverNight.com. If you’re company is in the medical industry check out of dedicated medical marketing website, LEVELTWO | Medical.

 Retweet This Post

Understanding the value of keywords in online marketing and taking the relevant actions is the key to making significant profits in the industry. Understanding the power of keywords means picking the right keywords, leveraging them effectively and continuously reviewing their conversion rates.

Google is not an automatic money making machine on its own. The power of Google is in the keywords, not on Google itself. The reason that keywords are so important is simple. Keywords represent a custom built service for the Internet searcher. They ask the search engine for information on specific words and the information is returned to them. Hence the reason why the premium is attached to keywords.

The success of the online marketer is therefore linked to how well she leverages her keywords. She needs to plan them very carefully and do a lot of research. Picking effective keywords takes skill and patience. Acquiring the skill helps the online marketer remain calm under pressure.

To pick the right keywords, the online marketer must constantly watch for traffic and searches for the relevant words. If she is pursuing a cost per click advertising strategy, she must also ensure she is not paying over the odds to the point where the keywords are not delivering sufficient value to her business. To gain an indication of the value of the keywords, seek competitor information on what they are spending on the keywords.

It is also very important to note that loyalty to keywords based on an online marketer’s hunch is suicidal to her business. Over 90% of keywords lose money in cost per click advertising; therefore it is very important that the online marketer has management information on conversion rates for her keywords. She should quickly identify the ones that her making her money and ditch the rest as quickly as possible. This should be an ongoing review process as keywords do run their course. The online marketer should aim to spend the bulk of her advertising budget on around the best 5% of her keywords. This is how she can consistently make money.

Keywords and not Google is the key to making money in an online marketing business. Understanding the power of keyword leverage, being consistent and unsentimental in the use of keywords and picking the right ones are the keys to success in the industry.

Continue Reading »

 Retweet This Post

As a search marketing professional, misspelled search terms are not surprising to us, but our readers may find it comical that a large percentage of searches performed are misspelled. For example take a look at Yahoo’s list of some of the more common misspelled searches.

Recent Misspelled Yahoo Searches

• Swan Flu (for Swine Flu)
• Susan Boil (for “Britain’s Got Talent” contender Susan Boyle)
• Brack Obama (for U.S. President Barack Obama)
• Sonia Sotomeyer (for Supreme Court justice nominee Sonia Sotomayor)
• Rachel Ray (for Food Network host Rachael Ray)
• Paperview boxing (for cable programming pay-per-view boxing)
• Amtrack (for train system Amtrak)
• Wallmart (for retailer Wal-Mart)
• Farrah Faucet (for actress Farrah Fawcett)
• Rod Steward (for singer Rod Stewart)
• Arlene Specter (for Senator Arlen Specter)
• “Dancing With the Starts” (for ABC reality competition Dancing With the Stars)
• Bea Author” (for the late comedian Bea Arthur)
• Brittany Spears (for singer Britney Spears)
• Chris Allen (for “American Idol” winner Kris Allen)
• Configure worm (for computer virus Conficker worm)
• Mysapce (for MySpace)

While it is entertaining to think that people are searching for “paperview boxing”, targeting commonly misspelled keywords in your search campaign is key to successful search engine marketing. The majority of your clicks will be from the correct spelling, but for the few people that misspell a keyword you, as an advertiser, will be able to show them a relevant ad while the other competitors’ ads will not show because they are only advertising on the correct spelling.

 Retweet This Post

Just this week hulu announced their new desktop viewing software. It features a sleek new look that’s optimized for use with standard Windows Media Center or Apple remote controls, allowing you to navigate Hulu’s entire library with just six buttons. While some video distribution sites might be worried about their place in the market, we are excited to see yet another step closer to the internet becoming integrated with our operating systems.

With all of the online applications now available it is not too far in the future that the internet will become the platform for all of our personal computing tasks. Maybe we’re already there! Webmail, online calendars, invoicing, faxing, making phone calls, and of course the huge popularity of iPhone apps that integrate an online cloud computing system with the mobile software.

You can do it all on the internet. If the future of personal computing is online, that’s where businesses need to focus their marketing efforts. Facebook is replacing your address book and Twitter is replacing texting. As the social networking industry works its way into our daily lives, businesses can’t afford to not be apart of the shifting technology. The search market is integrating with the social market, search is universal!

Subscribe to our RSS feed via email.

 Retweet This Post

The Internet has brought many unique benefits to marketing, including overall cost reduction for the distribution of information and media to a much broader, even global audience. This benefit alone has given online marketing a huge marketplace advantage.

Additionally, the interactive nature of online marketing, both in terms of providing instant response and eliciting responses, has also proved imperative in modern day marketing strategy. Below we take a look at four of the most powerful methods of online lead generation.

Search Engine Optimization

Configuring or optimizing your website with targeted keywords or phrases, also known as SEO, not only offers the most cost-effective method of promoting your business online, but with approximately 80% to 90% of all website traffic originating from search engines like Google, Yahoo!, and MSN, it is crucial to be at the top of the list. A first page position on Google can generate thousands of unique visitors to your website, generating the leads we want, affecting your bottom line.

Would you like your website to rank well in the organic results on Google, Yahoo and MSN? Would you like to see a steady increase in the amount of visitors to your website? If you answered yes to either of these questions, LEVELTWO can show you how to achieve effective and efficient search engine optimization results.

Pay-Per-Click

If your practice is new to the web and you would like to generate business from your website immediately, Pay-Per-Click advertising could be the solution you are looking for. PPC advertising offers direct advertising to millions of people per day and is targeted by specific keyword searches so you can reach your practices’ audience. Pay-Per-Click advertising is an auction-based bidding system where you compete with your peers to achieve prominent positions in the Paid Search Results.

Media Purchasing

Sometimes just getting your name out there is enough to convert a prospective patient into a real patient, but to really get the most return on your marketing investment you need strategic media purchasing.

At LEVELTWO, our specialty truly is strategy. From innovative research tools to highly targeted demographic placement, we don’t just purchase media, we generate leads with every buy. So whatever your current circumstances are we can provide direction through creative, innovative and effective marketing solutions.

Social Marketing

As the Internet continues to fuel our economy and our society, it is more important than ever to participate in social marketing. Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace are just some of the social marketing networks that can do most of the work for you.

By interacting with your followers, you can not only generate leads, but you can form unique relationships with them. And we can show you how use these relationships as effective marketing tools that directly increase your bottom line.

Interested in adding one or more of these tools to your online strategy? Contact us or give us a call at 469-619-0573

 Retweet This Post

Finding a search marketing company is easy. Just do a quick search and you’ll find tons of companies demanding that they are the best. So you’ve find ‘em, the hard part is choosing which marketing agency to use for your search marketing campaign.

We’ve put together 10 questions to ask your search marketing company before you sign that contract. You’ve let the salesmen do the talking, now it’s time for you to ask some questions of your own.

1. Does the contract include ongoing maintenance? The search marketing world is always changing and if you stand still you’ll get left behind.
2. Are they certified search engine marketing professionals for the major search engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN)?
3. Each campaign should be custom tailored for each client. Ask them if they use any template campaigns.
4. Ask if they use any blackhat tricks. Blackhat are methods that are not honest and could result in getting your website banned.
5. An honest search marketing agency will never guarantee conversions, only a specific range of traffic increase can be guaranteed. A well planned campaign will yield a return on investment, but there’s no way to predict the level of activity.
6. Ask to see example campaign landing pages or websites. What’s your first impression? Would you buy it?
7. Do they offer on-demand campaign reporting or do they email you a spreadsheet once a month?
8. Do they make use of multiple search engines? A strong SEM campaign will be diverse.
9. Be wary if they say “yes” to everything. A successful search campaign requires a minimum level of investment. If they say that $200 a month will get your website ranked first in Google you might want to get a second opinion.
10. Do they track everything about your campaign? This includes the number of people who see your ads, the number of clicks, what they do once they reach your landing page, and how many of those visitors fill out a form or call your phone number. Call tracking is key to search engine marketing.

Honesty is the best policy. We know there are a lot of other marketing agencies out there, but no matter who you choice it’s important that you are informed about what you’re getting.

 Retweet This Post

Pay-per-click – A great method to drive lots of visitors to your website that are interested in your products or services.

After the click – Understanding what those visitors are doing once they reach your website, specfically if they are not calling you or filling out a form.

5 reasons to track after the click:

1. The tracking cookie is saved on the visitor’s computer for 30 days after the visit so you can know if they click now and return to your website later.
2. Return on Investment (ROI) is the most important metric. Your cost per click or click through rate might be great, but unless you know how much you are making for every dollar you invest, the other metrics are useless.
3. You can expand on keywords that provide the most ROI and generate even more profit.
4. Keywords that contain a brand or company name may provide a lot of traffic, but when you track the ROI of these keywords you might find that they provide little to no profit.
5. After you know the visitors that are taking some kind of action on your website, you can then determine where your most active markets are located geographically and develop a campaign specifically targeting those buyers.

In order to track after the click activity (using Google Adwords) you will need to make use of the Conversion Tracking feature (pictured below).

The set up is really simple. The first step is to name your conversion action.

TIP: If your forms all send the same formated message and there is no way for you to tell where each specific form came from, it’s important be very specific when naming your conversion. In the example we named our conversion “Landing Page B Contact Form” because we have 4 different landing pages for this client and we want to know which page is getting more leads.

The rest of the setup is really straight forward so we’ll skip to the next page after you save the action and get your conversion code.

On this page you are presented with the code to place on your “thank you” page.

Read related blog posts about Search Engine Marketing

• Effective Landing Pages, 7 Tips
• What is Search Engine Marketing?
• How to do Keyword Research for Search Marketing
• What is Dynamic Keyword Insertion?
• What is Clickthrough Rate and Cost Per Click?
• How to make your Website more Trustworthy
• 4 Reasons why Traffic Quality is Important

Ask us a question on Twitter @LEVELTWO

 Retweet This Post

Great tips on how to use Google Analytics to get the most out of Google Adwords.

Google Analytics in 60 Seconds: Find the Best Keywords
Google Analytics in 60 Seconds: Location Targeting
Google Analytics in 60 Seconds: Find Poor Performing Campaigns and Keywords
Google Analytics in 60 Seconds: Placement Targeting
Google Analytics in 60 Seconds: Identifying High Spenders
Google Analytics in 60 Seconds: Conversion Funnels
Google Analytics in 60 Seconds: Tracking Ecommerce with Google Analytics

via Adwords blog

 Retweet This Post

Shortly after posting our explanation on Cost Per Click and Clickthrough Rate, Google posted a video of their chief economist, Hal Varian, explaining the AdWords Ad Auction and how your max CPC bid and quality score determine how much you pay for a click on Google.com.

Hal Varian makes some very interesting points about the basics of the AdWords advertising, but one little pie chart spoke volumes!

Take a good look at that pie chart. CTR is well over half the calculation in determining your ad quality (which directly effects how much you pay). Hal goes on to say that when a user clicks on an ad they are contributing feedback on the quality of the ads. Users vote by using their clicks. Making up the rest of the pie chart is relevancy, which is followed by the landing page.

So there you have it straight from Google themselves. Your clickthrough rate is extremely important to your campaign. And take note, your clickthrough rate is directly related to your keyword competitors, no advertisers’ CTR outside of your industry are going to effect your quality score. So don’t worry if you hear other industries boasting about high clickthrough rates. It has nothing to do with your ads.

Watch the video on YouTube

 Retweet This Post

Do you know the search marketing language?

Previous posts:
What is Search Engine Marketing?
What is Social Media Marketing?

CTR, CPC, PPC, ROI, DKI… It’s all pretty confusing when those crazy internet guys start talking in their foreign language. Let’s define (in plain English) two common terms in search marketing, Clickthrough Rate and Cost Per Click.

Clickthrough Rate (CTR) is obtained taking the number of people who clicked on an ad and dividing it by the number of times the ad was delivered (impressions). For example, if your ad had 2,500 impressions in one month and it received 194 clicks, it would have a CTR of 7.8% for that month.

It is important to know that different industries will have varying levels of successful CTR. What may be a high clickthrough rate in one industry may be considered low in another. So, it’s difficult to determine an average CTR for everyone. For large volume industries that get millions of nationwide searches a day, you may find that 2% is a great CTR. However some campaigns may find a CTR of 14% to be their benchmark.

The reason it’s important to strive for the best clickthrough rate is because the more people that find your ad to be relevant, the lower your cost per click will be (specifically citing Google Adwords ranking formula).

Cost Per Click (CPC) is the amount of money an advertiser pays search engines or other Internet publishers for a single click on its ad that brings one visitor to its website. This term is much easier to understand since it’s so straight forward. No formulas needed. Well… Let’s do one, just for fun.

Pretty simple, right? Cost per click is just how much you pay per visitor that comes to your site through an ad that you place on a search engine. You want this number to be as low as possible so you won’t be spending a fortune on your search engine marketing.

Still confused? Yell at us by leaving a comment below. We’ll answer your toughest questions or delete the comment.

 Retweet This Post