In my role at Distilled, I am usually the first point of contact for new clients, and inevitably I am also the person who lets them know how big a dent our fantastic service will make in their wallet. This usually starts a conversion regarding realistic expectations, return on investment and assurance that we are not committing highway robbery. While most of the potential clients I speak to understand that they need search marketing, many don’t understand the amount it might cost to invest in something that is going to provide strong and sustainable results. As someone who has worked in both online and offline marketing related jobs, I thought I would write a blog post or two that shines some light on the value of online marketing and why it really is worth that little bit more for a great campaign. My first post is going to discuss the ever-important themes of ROI, targeting and value for money. I know all of these are popular topics so if you have any comments or links to add, please let me know!

Show me the ROI!

When I worked in magazine sales, one of our hardest challenges was proving the return on investment for our clients. We could show that 80% women who read our magazine also liked to go shopping for women’s clothing, but we couldn’t quickly and cheaply prove that those same women would see our client’s ad and be driven to buy that exact product right away. Research needed to be carried out, sales tracked, and assumptions made. At the end of the day, it was never an exact science. But then again I’m not sure that it should have been. Magazine and TV advertising are not about direct marketing and immediate results; they are about building up brand identity and establishing a clear place in the market—creating a culture.

In a post credit crunch diminishing sales market, however, accountability is becoming increasingly important, and all forms of marketing and advertising are trying to prove that magic selling point of ROI. Since its beginning, this is where digital has been able to run a head of the pack. You want to know who is on your site? Look at the traffic. Are they buying? Check your analytics. Do they like you? Check your feedback. The potential for monitoring, analysing and, most crucially, knowing what your visitors are doing, what they want and how they respond is one of the fantastic things about internet-based business and marketing. The key is knowing what to look for, getting it set up and demanding access to the knowledge.

Proving fantastic ROI is where strong search marketing agencies can stand out from the rest of the crowd. The very first and most important thing I focus on when beginning a new project is my potential client’s perception of strong ROI. What do they hope to get out of search marketing, and are their expectations realistic? Even though search engines are at the core of what we do, search marketing campaigns should never strive to just get to the top of Google. I find sitting down with a client to discover their long term business goals can help establish what actually needs to be done, and how search marketing can help them to achieve those goals. It may be that they get more results from building up a bespoke but targeted following though social media or that they could really benefit from some immediate PPC to help get them some exposure and increase awareness. Managing clients’ expectations and setting clear measurements for success are two of the most important steps in the very initial stages of any marketing project, especially in an industry where people can sometimes get distracted by the means to the end, rather than remaining focussed on the end itself.

When kicking off a search marketing campaign, I always ensure potential clients have a clear understanding of what they are going to get back from their agency and that they set realistic key performance indicators (KPIs). KPIs do not always need to be traffic and sales growths and are not the only ways to show strong a strong ROI. Search marketing is still an organic process, and although it is very easy to see its impact over a period of time, you have to give it a chance to work. Discuss with your agency what you expect to see in the first few months. This may be research into your marketing, a review of your website, or a summary of all the hard work they are doing to ensure that an uplift in results is just around the corner.

Less is More

When trying to establish what you want to achieve from search marketing, it’s crucial to focus on what is actually important to the overall growth of your business and make sure that your search agency has the same goals in mind. If you are selling antiques, who cares if you have 50,000 people a day on your website if none of them are interested in antiques and they got there by mistake? Online marketing is extremely adept at reaching small but valuable target markets (this is where I am obliged by the industry to mention the long tail), and it would be shame to waste a lot of money reaching out to people who have no interest in your business. We are currently doing a lot of work to increase conversion rate optimisation for our clients, and often this means ensuring that all of our marketing efforts are going to where they will be the most receptive and in turn the most profitable. That being said, there is a time and place for numbers (online newspapers, pubic services bodies and politics, for example) but for the most part it’s always nicer to have an intimate conversation than to shout at a crowd.

How Would You Like to Buy a Bridge?

When the States was still a brand new country, there was a con artist in New York called George C. Parker who would approach people right off the boat and ask them if they would like to buy the Brooklyn Bridge. Being new to the “Country of Opportunity” apparently some innocent immigrants succumbed to the hoax. Unfortunately, those new to a market are always going to be targets and there will always be people out there who are looking to make a few pounds off of someone’s lack of experience. The wild west of the online world is not immune and there are cowboys out there who try to sell very “cheap” search marketing. I get a lot of clients who have had that experience in the past and they are still smarting from getting ripped off from the last guy. It’s always sad to hear about people who have had the misfortune of working with a less than scrupulous agency, but it’s also a bit shocking to find out how little they paid to supposedly ‘get to the top of Google right away’. Like everything else in this world, in search marketing you get what you pay for. If you don’t believe online marketing services are worth much, how can you expect them to generate large business benefits? Search marketing that is done well can be very successful and could possible revolutionise your business results. But it takes time and a lot of hard work and research. A talented team will devote the care needed to understand how to grow your business and those man hours are what you should be paying for. That’s not to say you can’t find a good value out there, but just be wary, discount SEO may leave you in a worse state than you started in.

Inspired by Lucy L’s use of colourful analogies in her posts, I have created a fun little analogy to further illustrate my point (sorry if it’s a bit feminine biased):

You have dry skin and are looking for a new face lotion and you have a choice of two lotions.

One of the lotions is in available in Boots. You see it on the shelf and hear about it from friends, and they let you test it on a part of your skin to see how nice it is. The ingredients are right on the box, and you know from the brochure exactly how it works and what results you can expect. It may take a few weeks to work, but the results of regular application are consistent.

The other lotion is sold by a man who comes up to you on the street he saying he has this great new lotion. It will do everything you want and more and you will get results right away, but he can’t tell you how or what’s in the lotion because “it’s a secret formula”. He claims that all of the other pretty people are buying this lotion, and you want to make sure you don’t get left behind. You must have it and you must have it now, and he will sell it to you for a very special deal. Cheap as chips.

Now guess which lotion is the most likely to give you a rash, or spots, or do absolutely nothing at all because it’s really just watered down hand lotion.

Don’t get me wrong: there are some companies who will offer great rates, but it’s always important to read the label before you buy!

Searchenginejournal has a great post on warning signs and what to make sure you avoid when starting a new SEO campaign.

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If you answered – “When Google’s website optimiser tool says it is over (with a 99% degree of statistical certainty)” then you may need to think again.

We recently ran a test on a newsletter & subscription sign up process, where the sign up required an email confirmation to complete and receive both products. The original page explained that the user had successfully signed up for the newsletter but then went on in the body of the text to say that they needed to respond to a confirmation email to complete the subscription. The variation made it clear in the headline that this was only Step 1 and made the email confirmation call to action part of the header. The test was set running and, by highlighting that the email needed to be confirmed, the variation came romping home as a winner with 99.1% chance to beat the original and more than 63% observed improvement.

Test after 12 hours (click image for larger version)

However the important point to note was that the variation was prompting people to respond to an email immediately. As you can imagine, those people who read the original page may not have checked their email immediately without prompting but would have checked later on – leaving a lag between the times to conversion between the two pages. Below is the screenshot after 36 hours and, as you can see, the result is no longer so clear.

Test after 36 hours (click image for larger version)

Although the variation is still the better page, with a 26% observed improvement, the difference between the two has been massively reduced. In this instance the variation is still almost certain to be the better page over a longer time but you can see how in closer tests this lag in conversion times could easily produce a false result.

Patience is a vital ingredient in successful testing and, although it is tempting to jump ahead when a result is being declared, it is important to be aware of elements that could skew figures and make sure you have given the test every opportunity to return a valid result.

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I have only recently realised quite how packed my speaking schedule is over the next couple of months. I have also somehow managed not to write anything here on the Distilled blog about possibly the biggest of them all – the London PRO training seminar we are running with SEOmoz on the 19th & 20th October.

So – partly because I’m writing some of my presentations this weekend and partly because I wanted everyone to have a chance to book onto the events before it’s too late I thought I would outline 7 ways you can learn more SEO with Distilled this autumn:

1. PRO Training Seminar in London: Tips, Tricks and Tactics

Our good friends SEOmoz have been running advanced SEO training seminars in Seattle for a few years now. For the first time, we are bringing the format across the pond to London.

It is now nearly sold out, but there are still a few places remaining for the event at the Imagination Gallery in London’s West End on October 19th & 20th. Book a place before it sells out! If you want to see more about what we are going to be covering, you should check out my sneak preview of the seminar over at SEOmoz.org.

In addition to a number of the Distilled crew, Rand and Ben Hendrickson from SEOmoz, the speaker line-up includes many of the UK’s brightest search marketing minds.

Apart from the PRO seminar, here are the rest in chronological order through to the end of October:

2. Free entry to see me speak at ad:tech London

I am speaking this week on the expo floor at ad:tech in London at Olympia. I am going to be talking on Wednesday afternoon about:

• 13:50 – 14:20 Should I Be Concerned? Online Reputation Monitoring for Brands and Individuals
• 15:10 – 15:40 Advanced Google Analytics

If you’re going to be around in London this week why not register now for free.

3. Conference call: How to be an Excel Ninja and how it helps your SEO

I am running another free Distilled conference call: How to be an Excel Ninja and how it helps your SEO. Register now for free.

4. SMX East – SEO and International Issues

Duncan is going to be in NYC at SMX East at the beginning of October speaking on the subject of the best ways to structure international websites. I’m very jealous as I have never been to NY.

I know that tickets for SMX East have been selling quickly, but I believe you can still register online.

5. a4u – affiliate conference: analytics

I am going to be speaking about analytics at a4uexpo in London on 13th / 14th October. You can register online for this. It’s my first a4uexpo and I think it’s going to be a good one!

6. Gateway to investment – G2i

I present regularly at the London G2i events on the subject of SEO for startups. G2i is an investment readiness programme for London based companies seeking equity investment for rapid growth. I am presenting to the next group of investment-seeking companies in November.

7. Private training

Because I don’t have enough presentations to write, I have also started giving some private training sessions on various aspects of SEO. Please get in touch if you would like to hear more.

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First an admission. I used to be an Excel-monkey for a living. They called it ’strategy consulting’ but really (at least in the early days) I was driving Excel for hours every day. It was more fun than it sounds – possibly because I enjoyed the bits of actual consulting that went on around it. A bit like a mis-spent youth, this kind of thing gives you hidden skills. Unfortunately they’re not as much use at parties as being able to play pool one-handed behind your back. Fortunately they are more useful for SEO.

Read on for:

• A power-user Excel tip
• Some ideas on ways to use Excel to improve your search marketing
• Sign-up details for a free call to help you perfect your Excel ninja skills

During the last conference call we ran, I used Pivot Tables to demonstrate how to slice and dice data in a certain way. A number of people contacted me to ask for more details on how I did that and asking for another call to show some advanced Excel tricks and how you can use them to make yourself a better SEO.

As a result, I have scheduled our next free conference call for 4.30pm UK time on Wednesday 30th September (that’s 8.30am PST / 11.30am EST – sorry West Coasters – grab a coffee and come join me early!). This one is entitled How to be an Excel Ninja. I’m planning for it to be a little shorter than the last one – probably about 30 minutes followed by questions.

If you’d like to get dial-in details just sign up here:

We promise only to use your email address to give you dial-in details, follow up with a recording of the call and occasionally let you know about future calls.

The questions are a big part of the reason for doing this live rather than pre-recorded. As the call progresses, if there is anything unclear or where you would like further information, you can ask a question via the conference call software or twitter @willcritchlow with this call’s hashtag: #excelninja. Also if you have questions in advance or anything you’d particularly like me to cover you can leave a comment below.

How Excel can help your search marketing

You know me and Distilled through internet marketing. I want to make sure that these calls stay on topic so the plan is to use search marketing examples to demonstrate the various Excel Ninja tricks. I plan to use some examples from SEOmoz tools – particularly Linkscape.

I wanted to make sure that this write-up is useful even in advance of the call. So I’m including two things – the first is a list of ways you can use Excel (assuming you already know some of the tricks) in SEO – hopefully enough to stimulate more ideas and thoughts. The second is a preview of the kind of Excel power user tip I’m going to be sharing on the call. First the uses of Excel:

• Cross-reference analytics and inbound link data
• Find hidden opportunities from comparison of PPC and organic traffic
• Deep-dive analysis of inbound links – discover patterns in the use of image links / poor anchor text
• Comparison of competitor link profiles – advanced versions of SEOmoz’s link intersect tool
• Keyword analysis (phrase length, pattern matching etc.)
• Quick and dirty logfile analysis

A power-user tip

As your Excel formulae get more complicated, you will probably find that from time to time you create a formula that doesn’t work. Either it gives you the dreaded #NA or (sometimes worse) it just gives you the wrong answer. When this happens you’ll want to debug it. Debugging (like change control) is not something that Excel excels at, but there are some tricks you can use to make your life easier.

If you have a formula like this that isn’t returning the result you want (I have kept the formula simple to just demonstrate my point):

Then you can highlight a sub-formula (i.e. any part of this formula that could stand alone as its own formula in a separate cell):

and press F9 to replace the formula with whatever it evaluates to:

This is way quicker than copying and pasting formulae about the place just to debug them. The only thing you need to be careful of is that after doing it, you press escape rather than enter so that you don’t permanently replace the formula.

Hopefully at least some of you (a) didn’t know you could do that and (b) can see how it would be useful. If that’s you, sign up to get more of the same on the call.

I’m going to cover how to do this and more including:

• The magic of pivot tables
• How to debug and maintain complicated Excel
• Index, match, cell – advanced functions and how they help you
• How to keep really big Excel models manageable
• Useful SEO tips and tricks Excel makes easy

If you’d like to be on the call or get the recording afterwards, just sign up above.

What is Excel bad at?

The major let downs of Excel in my opinion are the lack of version control (which makes it very easy to break your own models and those of other people) and the relatively poor maintenance tools. Although I will cover some debugging and diagnosis tricks on the call, in my opinion as soon as you have multiple people using a model or you are relying on it regularly, there will be better ways of building systems to support your processes!

I read a theory somewhere that most people have an application in which they’re most comfortable – and that they end up seeing as the hammer to every task’s nail. This apparently applies not only to the emacs / vi fans whose applications really can do anything but is also the reason you see people composing documents in Powerpoint, writing presentations in Word, maintaining todo lists in Excel etc. For me, I think that’s probably Excel. I try, however, to use it only for rapid prototyping rather than relying on it in in major processes. The rapid prototyping and discovery can be incredibly rapid, however, so I hope you’ll join me on the call to see how becoming an Excel Ninja will make you a better search marketer.

Looking forward to speaking to you!

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A tongue in cheek post for Friday. Will pointed out this article from Wired talking about Placebos getting more effective and I was tickled by the striking similarities between the conclusions of the study and the best practice advice for conversion rate optimisation. The whole article is fascinating but check out these top tips from the Wired article and the corresponding CRO advice:

Design changes

Design changes and page layout can make a difference! Changing the colour and shape of your call to action can often lead to dramatic effects. Notice, however, that what works for one pill doesn’t work as well for another pill. It’s the same with websites – don’t just copy what works for your competitor, make sure you test for yourself. It’s worth noting as well the different psychological needs here and how they respond to the different colours – maybe you can recognise the need in your users and use the appropriate colour to match. I love the idea of making your call to action a little ray of sunshine.

When talking about websites, it’s important to remember that you have lots more options than you do when designing pills – you can play with the design of the whole site not just the call to action. Try adding more images, or moving from a two-column layout to a single-column layout. You really have a multitude of options. Test, test, test!

Reinforce your message

Reinforce and repeat your message. This is something we just recently had success with in a recent CRO test, by ensuring that the same message was carried through from the product page to the contact page header and form header (rather than using generic “contact us” page and title headers) we saw a significant uplift in conversion rate. Remember that web users have an attention span of an ADHD goldfish. Tell them over and over and over again why they should be buying your product. If you have a multi-step checkout process, tell them on every page why they’re buying your stuff! More is better. This can also be applied to the conversion funnel. If you’re struggling to get people to make a purchase, start by getting them in the top of the funnel with a softer call to action. Is that pill too big to swallow? Try signing up for our newsletter, it’s free!

Trust Metrics FTW

Conversion rate optimisation 101. Trust matters. This is the physical equivalent of slapping a hackersafe logo on your site or a thawte security seal. We’re all paranoid and nervous creatures – we need constant reassurance that the site they’re buying from is reputable, safe and secure. Branding is a great way of doing this. If you have a strong brand then use it! Make sure that users recognise that they’re buying from the brand they already know and love. If you don’t have a strong brand yourself, get an endorsement from an industry governing body or a well recognised player in your industry. Alongside that, add testimonials! If they could fit testimonials on pills I’m sure they’d do wonders for the placebo effect since social-proof factors like this are so strong in persuading people to buy.

Give your products a Niagara of sexy

Clever marketing can really help sell your product. The key here is to understand the psychology of your users, why are they buying what they’re buying? What need does it fill? The classic objection/counter-objection method here works very well. By understanding the biggest concerns of your users you can brand and market your products with messages which counter those objections. Even go so far as to name your products cleverly so that the products inherently overcome some of the common objections like they’ve done with the little blue pill here. Once again, give your products a Niagara of sexy!

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Over the last few months we have seen Google innovating at an unusually high rate. We are going to be in for some interesting times. Nothing ever stands still when it comes to marketing on the internet, but it is all too easy to miss the signs of fundamental upcoming changes.

I believe the signs are there in three areas:

1. local search changes
2. pay per click (PPC) changes and tests
3. fundamental changes to Google’s infrastructure (the so-called ‘Caffeine’ update)

Executive Summary

I believe that the Caffeine update is a sign that big things are afoot. There is relatively little change to be seen in the results so far and while I’m sure there are incremental internal benefits in server efficiency and code maintenance, I think there is more to it than that. I think they are seeking improvements that will enable the faster roll-out of future wide-reaching changes. The changes we have seen in local search and the AdWords display layer are indicative to me of the kind of tests that I would feed into the fundamental re-write of underlying systems apparently taking place under the Caffeine project.

There is a case to be made that this is all due to Bing’s entry into the market but it could simply be the pressures from Wall St for continued earnings growth. Either way, it’s the trends, not their causes, that are most important from an online marketing strategy perspective.

But now onto the detail of what we are seeing:

Local search changes

Local search has been a little bit broken for some time. Tom has written previously on SEOmoz about some of the issues facing legitimate businesses attempting to market themselves in Google Local. He talked about problems ranging from the prevalence of spam through language issues for international businesses to the difficulties of managing large numbers of physical locations (such as a hotel chain might face). At the time, we recommended that business owners don’t rely on bulk upload unless you absolutely have to. As Tom put it:

Given the ability of webmasters to edit local listings and given the relatively untrusted nature of the bulk upload, I urge you to try and register individually the locations/properties you want in Google Local.

Thankfully this is changing. Our friend and Portland-based local SEO specialist David Mihm recently wrote about new “whitelist” bulk upload functionality after the Local Search Summit.

This should resolve one of our biggest criticisms of the way that local listings were handled which was that unless you verified each listing manually (via the “PIN on a postcard” method), the data you provided to Google was treated as untrusted. This meant that other users could edit your information. This was a big source of spam and also a very difficult process to manage across large sets of physical locations.

Here is the direct link to verify your bulk upload.

Any trend towards giving business owners (and their agencies) more control over how their business is presented is a good thing for legitimate businesses that have been stumped, up to now, by the lack of flexibility in the system.

Pay Per Click (PPC) changes and tests

Google in particular seem to be testing things constantly around AdWords. At the display level, they recently moved the adverts closer to the search results. A small change, perhaps, but one that appears to be having an impact on user behaviour.

At a more fundamental level, they have been experimenting with possibly moving into the lead generation business (although so far they mainly seem to have hit legal issues), displaying “sitelinks” in paid search and including universal results in paid search.

I was wondering if a next step might be to allow simple forms to be included in AdWords ads – e.g. newsletter sign-up directly on the search results page?

These kinds of test fascinate me both because I am fundamentally interested in tests and testing, but also because the basic text ad has been the most effective form of online advertising for as long as we have been managing clients’ campaigns. I am intrigued by whether it’s possible to do (significantly) better.

I also wonder what the wider effects will be on how campaigns are sold and managed. Do changes like this make the field flatter or make it harder for new or small businesses to break in?

The Caffeine update

Google announced in August that they were releasing a test version of an update to their system that they are calling Caffeine.

I think that there are a number of incentives for Google to refactor their code (e.g. greater efficiency and maintainability) but that the biggest business case for what must have been a fairly major internal project will be an ability to roll out changes like those described above more quickly in the future.

The announcement says that this is mainly a rewrite of the underlying technical architecture rather than an attempt to change the results deliberately. There do, however, appear to be some results changes and I have some speculation of my own:

What follows is essentially guesswork at the moment, but I thought it would be fun to throw out some of our theories about deliberate and accidental changes as a result of the Caffeine update:

• We have occasionally noticed that the “suggest” results that appear in a drop-down below the main search box as you start typing have been fresher on Caffeine than on regular Google. We have seen, for example, references to current news stories in the Caffeine suggest box but not in the main Google one. This would support a widely-held belief that Caffeine has increased the reliance on fresh and time-sensitive data. It would also seem to indicate bigger peaks in search volume for breaking stories and bigger potential reputational issues for the individuals and companies concerned. The fact that we are struggling to reproduce this effect at the moment, however, could easily mean it was a data-centre artifact.
• I feel that there is slightly less reliance on exact-match anchor text links in Caffeine than in the current search results. One example where this can be seen is in the rankings for the word caffeine itself (compared to the same search on the new system!). The sandbox page allowing people to test the caffeine update doesn’t mention the word ‘caffeine’ anywhere on it and so the fact it ranks at all is entirely due to inbound links. The sandbox page ranks 3rd in the current live Google.com and 5th in the new version supporting my anecdotal belief that this could be true.

In other news…

We have recently begun running conference calls on which we share insights and things we have learnt about. If you’d like to hear when we’re running future ones, you can sign up below:

Please tell your friends

If you find our conference calls useful, we’d love it if you would tell people about them – you can point them at the sign up page – they will not only be told about future calls but will also get to download videos and notes from previous calls like this:

You can also download the slides (4Mb PDF).

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