What is Google Adwords Conversion Optimizer?
The Conversion Optimizer is an AdWords feature that uses your AdWords Conversion Tracking data to get you more conversions at a lower cost. It optimizes your placement in each ad auction to avoid unprofitable clicks and gets you as many profitable clicks as possible.
How does it work?
With the Conversion Optimizer, you bid using a maximum CPA, which is the most you're willing to pay for each conversion (such as a purchase or signup). Using historical information about your campaign, the Conversion Optimizer automatically finds the optimal equivalent cost-per-click (CPC) bid for your ad each time it's eligible to appear. You still pay per click, but you no longer need to adjust your bids manually to reach your CPA goals and can benefit from improved ROI.
To calculate the optimal equivalent CPC bid, the Conversion Optimizer first calculates a predicted conversion rate for each auction. The Conversion Optimizer takes many factors into account, including your ad's conversion history, the keyword's broad match query, the user's location, and the conversion rates of Google's search and content partner sites. The feature then generates an ad rank by combining your CPA bid, quality score and predicted conversion rate.
If your planning for a successful adwords campaign that converts, you need to do the following:
1) Add the action code on your goal page in the right location or
2) If you're linking your adwords account with your Google analytics account, you can import your Google analytics account and use them.
3) If your targeted keywords are expensive, you need to start with CPM - preferably with display ads. Choose the right and relevant placements, add relevant keywords and start monitoring.
4) Keep tweaking your campaign to make sure that you you're using the sites/placements that is bringing you more conversion but at the same time not costing you much.
5) Once you reach 300 conversions, you can use CPA bidding model (Cost Per Action). Put your maximum bid and see how your conversions will boost.
Note: You might not be able to switch directly from CPM to CPA, so you need to switch first to CPC and then select CPA.
Good luck with your google adwords campaign.
Friday, July 17, 2009
Saturday, July 11, 2009
SEO Things to Keep in Mind When Revamping a Site
If you are planning to revamp/change the design of your site, please take the following into consideration before you start:
1. Keep the same files naming structure so to make it easier for spiders to re-crawl the new site, and to avoid sending people’s bookmarks to 404 error pages.
2. 301 Redirect all old or changed URLs to the new corresponding page.
- Try always to send users to relevant pages (Mapping).
- Check Google Webmaster tools and look for pages with external links to make sure that you won’t loose any link juice coming from external pages into your old pages.
3. Create 404 error pages so that when errors occur, visitors get a nice message with the site’s look and feel.
It can be also used with pages that cannot be mapped.
- You need to keep monitoring your 404 pages on Google analytics and webmaster tools after launch.
4. Look for broken links that may have come up as the site architecture changes a bit.
5. Create a site map for your visitors so if they feel lost, they have a listing of all the pages on the site.
6. Create an XML site map to submit to Google, Yahoo and MSN to make them aware of all new URLs.
7. Keep the content the same as much as possible to keep any rankings. This ties into #1 as a file name change can also effect rankings.
8. Keep the title tags the same as much as possible to keep any rankings.
9. If changing domains or page names, consider updating links in directories or on other sites if possible. You don’t want to lose those links you previously had. Worst case scenario, 301 redirect them.
10. Tell your SEO before you make the new site live so they can help prevent any issues.
11. If you have feeds in Google News, contact them to change the feed.
12. Keep monitoring your site links.
13. Use Google alerts to keep monitoring your site.
14. Keep an eye on your top keywords in Google Analytics and your rankings in the search engine.
15. Keep monitoring the number of indexed pages in Google index.
16. Keep watching the PR of the site.
17. If you have changed the domain name of the site, keep an eye on the de-indixation of old urls and indixation of new urls.
18. Keep an eye on your backlinks.
19. Did the frequency of update on the new homepage changed?
20. Contact the directories/sites linking to you with old links to change their links to the new one (if changed).
21. Keep working on getting new backlinks.
22. Double check your internal linking structure to push your most important pages.
23. Check Webmaster tools to check if your site is still verified (the Meta tag or html file should still be there).
Notes:
- If changes were made to domain name, the site will take a long time to recover (up to 30 days).
1. Keep the same files naming structure so to make it easier for spiders to re-crawl the new site, and to avoid sending people’s bookmarks to 404 error pages.
2. 301 Redirect all old or changed URLs to the new corresponding page.
- Try always to send users to relevant pages (Mapping).
- Check Google Webmaster tools and look for pages with external links to make sure that you won’t loose any link juice coming from external pages into your old pages.
3. Create 404 error pages so that when errors occur, visitors get a nice message with the site’s look and feel.
It can be also used with pages that cannot be mapped.
- You need to keep monitoring your 404 pages on Google analytics and webmaster tools after launch.
4. Look for broken links that may have come up as the site architecture changes a bit.
5. Create a site map for your visitors so if they feel lost, they have a listing of all the pages on the site.
6. Create an XML site map to submit to Google, Yahoo and MSN to make them aware of all new URLs.
7. Keep the content the same as much as possible to keep any rankings. This ties into #1 as a file name change can also effect rankings.
8. Keep the title tags the same as much as possible to keep any rankings.
9. If changing domains or page names, consider updating links in directories or on other sites if possible. You don’t want to lose those links you previously had. Worst case scenario, 301 redirect them.
10. Tell your SEO before you make the new site live so they can help prevent any issues.
11. If you have feeds in Google News, contact them to change the feed.
12. Keep monitoring your site links.
13. Use Google alerts to keep monitoring your site.
14. Keep an eye on your top keywords in Google Analytics and your rankings in the search engine.
15. Keep monitoring the number of indexed pages in Google index.
16. Keep watching the PR of the site.
17. If you have changed the domain name of the site, keep an eye on the de-indixation of old urls and indixation of new urls.
18. Keep an eye on your backlinks.
19. Did the frequency of update on the new homepage changed?
20. Contact the directories/sites linking to you with old links to change their links to the new one (if changed).
21. Keep working on getting new backlinks.
22. Double check your internal linking structure to push your most important pages.
23. Check Webmaster tools to check if your site is still verified (the Meta tag or html file should still be there).
Notes:
- If changes were made to domain name, the site will take a long time to recover (up to 30 days).
Friday, July 10, 2009
Google Website Optimizer - Auto-Disabling Feature
Congratulations to all GWO (Google Website Optimization) tool. Now you have the auto-disabling feature where poor performing variations will be automatically stopped.
Keep in mind that in order to get this feature work, you need to have more than 2 variations (A/B/C Testing).
Good Luck!
To read more, click on the following link: http://websiteoptimizer.blogspot.com/2009/07/auto-disabling-experimentation-auto.html
Keep in mind that in order to get this feature work, you need to have more than 2 variations (A/B/C Testing).
Good Luck!
To read more, click on the following link: http://websiteoptimizer.blogspot.com/2009/07/auto-disabling-experimentation-auto.html
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Sunny 105.1 Radio Station
Sunny Radio Station is a local Jordanian Radio Station with what they call
"Feel Good Music".
Despite the fact that the music is really nice and that it's my favorite
radio station, but the website makes me feel sad :(
Click here to visit the website: http://www.sunny.jo/
The page is a flash page, and when viewing the text cache a completely white
page shows up. Sunny doesn't even show the important contact us information.
Click here to check the cache of the page: http://209.85.229.132/search?q=cache:http://www.sunny.jo/&hl=en&rlz=1T4TSEA_en-GBJO326&strip=1
The title of the page only says: sunny 105.1 and will only show up to those
who really know the station.
Of course, no description tag is used in the page as well.
The contact information are inside the flash with yellow small font that is
very hard to be read.
The 2 lines of text that are somehow clear are:
P.O. Box 840616 Amman 11184
info@sunny.jo Mihiar Center, Shmeisani
Sunny people, you are doing a great job when it has to broadcasting, but
a horrible one when it comes to search engine optimization and search visitors.
If you want more people to find you online, you have to do some changes.
"Feel Good Music".
Despite the fact that the music is really nice and that it's my favorite
radio station, but the website makes me feel sad :(
Click here to visit the website: http://www.sunny.jo/
The page is a flash page, and when viewing the text cache a completely white
page shows up. Sunny doesn't even show the important contact us information.
Click here to check the cache of the page: http://209.85.229.132/search?q=cache:http://www.sunny.jo/&hl=en&rlz=1T4TSEA_en-GBJO326&strip=1
The title of the page only says: sunny 105.1 and will only show up to those
who really know the station.
Of course, no description tag is used in the page as well.
The contact information are inside the flash with yellow small font that is
very hard to be read.
The 2 lines of text that are somehow clear are:
P.O. Box 840616 Amman 11184
info@sunny.jo Mihiar Center, Shmeisani
Sunny people, you are doing a great job when it has to broadcasting, but
a horrible one when it comes to search engine optimization and search visitors.
If you want more people to find you online, you have to do some changes.
Saturday, July 4, 2009
SEO Basics - Part 2
I- What is SEO?
SEO: Search Engine Optimization.
· Making modifications to your site, and links sending to your site, in
order to get good rankings on SERPs for certain targeted keywords.
· It only affects organic traffic, not paid traffic.
· Google currently has about 200 factors in their algorithms that
determine how sites will rank.
II- Keywords Research:
- Define your audience
- Define your market/categories
- Define your goals
- Main steps for keywords research:
1. Brainstorm all possible words and phrases that users would use to find
what you have. Remember to put yourself in the mindset of the
potential user.
2. Research:
a) Check what your competitors are using.
b) Check your top and new keywords in Google Analytics (Users
are already using those to find you).
c) Check what are the top searched terms users are typing in your
site search box (You can check this either using Google Analytics
or using logs).
3. You can also use Google insights for search and Google trends to check
the trend.
4. Use Google Adwords tool to filter the list you came up with, and to
check the search volume and competitiveness, in addition to other
suggested phrases by Google.
5. Break down the update list into segments into 3 groups of keywords:
a) General:
· Shorter phrases and single words
· General
· Lots of traffic
· Lower conversions (not much targeted)
b) Focused:
· Slightly shorter phrases
· High traffic numbers
· Phrases are still focused on what you offer (more
targeted than broad)
c) Laser Focused (Long Tail):
· Longer and more targeted phrases
· Traffic numbers are smaller
· More qualified users and conversion rates are higher
Examples:
• General (Generic and competitive keywords):
1 Plates
2 Blue plates (Maybe user is looking for photos)
3 Dinner plate
• Focused: Less generic, and less competitive:
1 Buy dinner plates
2 Set of dinner plates
3 Cost of dinner plates
· Laser Focused: Long tail phrases: (Less traffic but more targeted)
1 Buy dinner place settings
2 Replacement dinner plates for sale
SEO: Search Engine Optimization.
· Making modifications to your site, and links sending to your site, in
order to get good rankings on SERPs for certain targeted keywords.
· It only affects organic traffic, not paid traffic.
· Google currently has about 200 factors in their algorithms that
determine how sites will rank.
II- Keywords Research:
- Define your audience
- Define your market/categories
- Define your goals
- Main steps for keywords research:
1. Brainstorm all possible words and phrases that users would use to find
what you have. Remember to put yourself in the mindset of the
potential user.
2. Research:
a) Check what your competitors are using.
b) Check your top and new keywords in Google Analytics (Users
are already using those to find you).
c) Check what are the top searched terms users are typing in your
site search box (You can check this either using Google Analytics
or using logs).
3. You can also use Google insights for search and Google trends to check
the trend.
4. Use Google Adwords tool to filter the list you came up with, and to
check the search volume and competitiveness, in addition to other
suggested phrases by Google.
5. Break down the update list into segments into 3 groups of keywords:
a) General:
· Shorter phrases and single words
· General
· Lots of traffic
· Lower conversions (not much targeted)
b) Focused:
· Slightly shorter phrases
· High traffic numbers
· Phrases are still focused on what you offer (more
targeted than broad)
c) Laser Focused (Long Tail):
· Longer and more targeted phrases
· Traffic numbers are smaller
· More qualified users and conversion rates are higher
Examples:
• General (Generic and competitive keywords):
1 Plates
2 Blue plates (Maybe user is looking for photos)
3 Dinner plate
• Focused: Less generic, and less competitive:
1 Buy dinner plates
2 Set of dinner plates
3 Cost of dinner plates
· Laser Focused: Long tail phrases: (Less traffic but more targeted)
1 Buy dinner place settings
2 Replacement dinner plates for sale
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