Regular website maintenance is non-negotiable and should be an ongoing affair. Over and above adding new pages, your website maintenance should also link to the performance of your website; it’s imperative that you continuously maintain your site to ensure it’s performing at its optimum.

The infographic below was created by Smartbear, a company that specialises in software testing. The infographic shows how small things like enhancing the page load speed can improve the revenue you can generate from your website.

1. Site loading speed is paramount
Do you know how long your site takes to load? You may have initially factored in loading times when your website was first designed, but through your regular website maintenance you could have changed something that adversely affects your loading speed, a huge factor in loss of visitors.

Factors that influence the speed of your site include: your server, content on your site and widgets used on your site that are hosted by a third party. A massive 57% of people will leave a site within the first three seconds if the site is perceived to be too slow. Shockingly, most major retail sites take ten or more seconds to load – a whole seven seconds too long.

2. One second is a long time

Let’s look at what a mere one second added to your loading time will do:

• 11% fewer page views
• 16% decrease in customer satisfaction
• 7% loss in conversion

  In monetary terms, if you use Amazon as an example, a one second decrease would result in the loss of $1.6 billion annually. If you want to make sure you aren’t losing revenue due to slow page loading time, regular website maintenance based on page speed optimisation cannot be ignored.

  3. More money is moving online
  The research company Forrester recently predicted that by 2016, 9% off all global retail sales will be conducted online. Retailers spend a huge amount of money optimising the flow of their stores in malls, increasingly though if you want to secure business through your online engagement with customers, regular website maintenance is the first step in making their user experience as enjoyable as possible.

  4. Don’t ignore your conversion forms
  Most people are familiar with the generic HTML contact form employed on numerous websites. These forms fulfil the important task of letting your audience make contact, enquire about your product or services or request a quote. While these forms are useful, they’re often also a source of irritation and therefore loss of revenue. These are the most common things that’ll put people off using your HTML contact form.

  Too many fields: Make filling in the form as quick and easy as possible by minimising the number of required fields.

  Form validation is too strict: Don’t make people jump through hoops in order to make contact. Again, simplicity and ease of use is key.

  The much hated re-typing of some obscure word or phrase: Find another way to ward off spam – this is probably one of the most annoying things encountered on the web today.

  Making someone re-type information: Don’t put people off by making this a laborious task. If they’ve already entered certain information such as their address or shirt size, have a system in place that’ll automatically repeat it when necessary.

  Regularly analysing and maintaining all of the forms on your site will keep your user’s experience pleasant. This goes a long way towards converting them into clients. Remember that these forms are the lifeline of your online business. The cost of not maintaining your online forms is potentially massive – even more so than your loading speed.

  Website maintenance impacts your communication
  A large portion of your communication will entail the building of landing pages for specific campaigns, competitions or a destination they’re directed to upon replying to one of your emails. If you don’t have a marketing automation system or an easy-to-use content management system (CMS) to do this for you, you’ll have to go through the costly exercise of hiring a designer and programmer every single time you need a new page.

  An automated marketing system will not only allow you to easily to maintain your website but should also do things such as automatically personalising each email you send, or personalising a website based on an individual’s preference
  By Gareth Slaven
  
  

As a marketer, you carefully craft pieces of content for the web. You research your target audience, include what’s trending, topical keywords and a distribution plan across your social networks and web properties. You’ve even found the optimal time of day to post for each.

But when you click “Publish”…nothing happens.

Native advertising, otherwise known as paid media in the format of news content nestled among other similar stories, has risen as one of the more effective ways to reach consumers in 2014. Though not new, certain questions arise: are consumers really clicking on native advertising vs. traditional advertisements or organic posts on the web? Do they actually trust these ads and are they worth your money? The answer may surprise you.

According to a study done by David Franklyn, law professor at the University of San Francisco, when it comes to what people recognize about labels, people often just skip over them. Respondents to his study “didn’t remember seeing ‘sponsored by’ posts when asked to read a web page and the majority (over 50 percent) also didn’t know what the word ‘sponsored’ actually meant.”

These results augment more preliminary findings from the study which stated that sometimes people don’t understand what the word ”ad” means, and even with disclosure, as much as 35 percent of people when asked to identify the type of content they were viewing, said that it was not an ad.

What this study sheds light on is that we do not have a homogenous group of consumers in terms of knowledge and expectations. People struggle with differentiating paid from unpaid ads. The bottom line? Context matters more than labels.

Furthermore, in terms of wanting to know whether a piece of content was paid media or not, out of the 10,000 surveyed, only 40 percent of consumers wanted more clear and conspicuous differentiation between paid and unpaid content. Sixty percent stated that they don’t care. Said Franklyn, “a growing number of consumers don’t care, and enjoy it. They enjoy the hyper-stimulation that marketers do the work to do – they just want to sift through and enjoy it like People Magazine.”

Other than consumers just plain not caring, why do native ads work so well? According to Jamie Cole, creative director at Red Barn Media Group, in research covering audience reception to native advertising, the material that appeared the least commercial was rated as most credible by readers, and attitude toward the brand and purchase intent increased towards content that mirrored and appeared as news content.

But don’t confuse the word “mirror” with “trick.” According to Dan Greenberg, the CEO of Sharethrough, ”it’s not about tricking people, it’s about delivering content that has value. We believe in the power of meaningful content.” (Besides, tricking people couldland you in hot water.)

Preliminary data from a study his company conducted showed that the language used to disclose native ads has an impact on whether or not a consumer perceives a story as being paid for by a brand. “Disclosure language impacts perception. The words ‘sponsored’ vs. ‘featured’ vs. ‘promoted’ vs. ‘advertisement’ vs. ‘placed by’ vs. ‘in partnership’ vs. ‘suggested’ vs. ‘around the web’ all have different perceptions. Context has a major impact on perception.”

Do you trust native advertising or other paid media content? Why or why not?

BY STACEY MILLER

 

Want to build trust and brand with native ads? Register for our free on-demand webinar with Steve Rubel now!

Information adapted from the FTC’s Workshop on Native Advertising.

Image: Pardot (Creative Commons)

Day 2 of New Media Expo 2014 from the Rio got underway with morning keynote speaker Scott Stratten, president of UnMarketing, discussing the topic of QR codes and marketing strategies in general during his presentation “QR Codes Kill Kittens: How to Alienate Customers, Dishearten Employees and Drive Your Business into the Ground.”

Certainly the title of the presentation, which doubles as the title for Stratten’s new book, catches your attention right away, just like the man himself. Stratten, who claims to know absolutely nothing about SEO, invented the ‘No’ Button website, where visitors click an animated button to hear a bellowed “Nooooooo!” for eight seconds. That’s the entire site. Sound a little strange? Try it, I bet you’ll return to the site soon enough. Overall, it’s received 20 million views, and as Stratten notes, he ranks first on Google for every version of “no” except for the two-letter version itself!

The Life and Death of QR Codes
But seriously, why do QR codes kill kittens? Because every time a QR code is used improperly or excessively, a kitten dies, Stratten says. He’s joking (right?), but his point is a good one. They can be effective, but they’re being forced on a consumer base that’s not willing or ready for them just yet. At least not that ready.

“I’ve seen QR codes on airline magazines, for instance,” Stratten says. “Problem is, the only time people read airline magazines is during takeoff and landing, because they’re not allowed to use their phones!”

Perhaps Stratten’s most telling example is a poster of missing pets, which has a QR code directing users to a reporting website. The idea itself makes sense, but when you begin to break it down, you start to see a number of holes in the strategy.

For instance, Stratten notes a total of 3.6 percent of smartphone users are capable and willing to scan a QR code on their smartphone. The willing part is important, because if a user tries once and it doesn’t work effectively, they’re far les likely to try again. As Stratten explains, there has to be a better way for individuals to contact an owner if they find a missing pet. That better way? How about, I don’t know, a phone number? While less than 4 percent of people will be scanning the QR code, 99 percent of cell phone users have the capability of calling a telephone number. It’s easier, and more effective. Don’t just use QR codes for the heck of it, especially when there’s a much simpler way to accomplish your objective, Stratten explains.

More than QR Codes
For Stratten though, the overall point isn’t just about QR codes. It’s about doing too much, and not focusing on what matters. As I noted in my presentation yesterday, you shouldn’t just “use Facebook for the sake of using Facebook.” You need to focus on the important things, particularly the content you’re producing. You can Tweet, Facebook and Instagram the heck out of something, but if the content itself isn’t quality, it’s really not going to have much reach.

“You want word of mouth? Do things worth talking about,” Stratten says. “You can’t manufacture viral, you can’t make people talk.”

The pressure on marketers is to hop on the next big thing, just so you don’t miss out. But that can be a dangerous game. As QR codes show, there’s probably some value in each of these mediums, but they need to be used correctly – and not overused – so that this value isn’t obscured. Ultimately, it’s not even about the tool itself, it’s what you do with it.

“You get ROI from listening and being awesome, and sometimes that can happen on Twitter, Stratten argues. “You can all have Twitter accounts, but you gotta use them right.”

At the end of the day, there’s so much being thrown at marketers, it can be tough to sift through the mess to come up with an effective strategy for your brand. But what Stratten wants to convey – in between showing us hilarious tweets from Taco Bell and police departments – is that regardless of the branding avenue you choose, make sure the message is a good one. That’s what’s really going to attract the Likes, ReTweets and +1s.

Blue

By and large, marketers have mastered acquiring high-quality leads, but they strike out when it comes to nurturing them.

Despite having the ability to contact 92 percent of leads, Forbes’ research shows that brands touch base with only a quarter of them.

When they do reach out, often it’s too slowly. Forbes reports that 71 percent of generated leads spoil because companies don’t react soon enough.

Fight the urge to point a finger at the sales department. Pinterest’s Head of Partner Marketing Steve Patrizi says a majority of the sales funnel belongs to marketers.

From top of the funnel to the bottom, here are a handful of lead nurturing stats and what they mean to marketers:

1. Automation drives leads

Need more leads? Businesses that use marketing automation to nurture prospects see a 451 percent increase in the number of qualified leads.

What it means: Automation is a must. Not only does automation deliver the right content at the right time, it’s a foolproof way to ensure that every prospect gets nurtured.

Want to get more leads? Download Vocus’ free Do Marketing Automation Better guide now!

2. Leads not prepared to buy

In 2010, Gleanster reported that between 30 and 50 percent of the leads that enter a pipeline are better for future opportunities than current ones.

Relating to that, MarketingSherpa reports that 61 percent of B2B marketers send all leads directly to sales.

What it means: In general, sales departments perform best in the short game. The stats above indicate that marketers don’t deliver the leads sales are best at closing. Lend them a helping hand.

Score your leads and send the closest to conversion to sales. For the rest, nurture them to the point where they need a salesperson. Establishing your business as a trusted resource and maintaining an open dialogue is the best way to do this.

3. Sales cycles lengthening

For 43 percent of B2Bs, the time it takes to go from attraction to conversion has increased. (A SiriusDecisions study reportedly shows that the sales cycle has increased 22 percent.)

What it means: Shrinking budgets and more decision-makers from more departments are at least partially responsible for the numbers above.

Though the former may be something for the sales team to tackle, overcoming the latter requires understanding the needs of each person in the decision-making process and providing content that answers those needs.

Customers rarely move along a path to purchase that marketers dictate. Tracking customers and finding where they abandon that path shows which content works, which falls short and how to adjust accordingly.

4. Different content for different stages

Roughly three of every four of your customers want different pieces of content as they move through the sales cycle.

What it means: Meet the demand by diversifying your content. Identify the types of information your customers need at each point in the marketing funnel. Then determine the best platform for addressing your customers’ needs, whether it’s a blog post, webinar, white paper, newsletter or video.

Bonus stat: Email is a go-to tool for providing information. Targeted emails drive 18 times more revenue than non-targeted ones. 

Customizing content to a prospect’s position in the sales cycle helps nurture them. (Via Salesforce)

5. Jumpstart stalled prospects

Often, it’s easier for prospects to do nothing instead of making a purchase. In fact, nearly three in five sales opportunities end with buyers doing nothing.

What it means: Customers may not realize they have an issue or how serious it really is. Identify your prospects pain points, show how your product provides great ROI and differentiate yourself from the competition.

Conclusion

The happy ending? Despite requiring more time and effort, nurtured leads deliver big rewards.

Companies that nurture leads well generate 50 percent more sales at a 33 percent lower cost.

BY BRIAN CONLIN

Image: DellCloudApplications (Creative Commons)

Brands are expected to spend more on paid ads in the coming years, as eMarketer predicted digital media investments will climb from $36.8 billion annually to $62.83 billion by 2017. The “Digital Ad Spending by Industry 2013: Forecasts and Key Trends” report explained this total is split across mobile and desktop, but also varies across verticals. Brands don’t need to increase their ad budgets to be successful, but they will find it’s critical they build search engine marketingstrategies that reflect their long-term goals. 

The eMarketer report broke industries into two categories – companies looking to improve branding and others hoping to increase direct responses, such as leads and sales. 

Companies in the travel sector skewed the heaviest toward bottom-of-the-funnel goals and it’s predicted they will spend 73 percent of their paid ad budgets to drive results. Other verticals expected to spend heavily to improve direct response include: 

• Retail (64 percent)
•  Financial services (62 percent)
•  Media (60 percent)
•  Telecom (55 percent)
•  Healthcare & pharmaceuticals (54 percent)

On the other end of the spectrum, entertainment brands and consumer package goods (CPG) marketers plan to spend more on top-of-funnel goals like brand awareness (63.5 percent and 63 percent, respectively). 

This breakdown is similar to another report Brafton recently covered from Webmarketing 123, which found both B2B and B2Cs list bottom-line goals as their top priorities in 2014. It’s important for marketers to produce tangible ROI when running any campaign, but they may lose leads and conversion opportunities if they don’t balance their efforts across the sales spectrum. By putting emphasis on branding and engagements, marketers create a pipeline of prospects that can eventually contribute to hard sales.

It’s equally as important to strike a balance with organic content marketing. Content should be created for prospects throughout the sales funnel, as well as those who have yet to enter, and current customers. It might be easier for marketers to cater to a wider audience with a focus on organic brand content, rather than paid ads, because these pieces live longer online and can be repurposed across channels for greater value.

by Brafton Editorial

When running a pay per click campaign, using negative keywords is an absolute must. As more of us are forced into bidding on only the most popular keywords, use of broad match types is often necessary but to get the best results, you’ll need to specify negative keywords too.

What Are Matching Types?

By using different matching options with your keywords, you’ll have better control over what searches trigger your advert to be shown. Google AdWords offers 4 main different matching types:

• Exact match
• Phrase match
• Broad match
• Negative match

Find more information about match types here.

A broad match key phrase might be “ladies clothing”. This means that whenever anyone enters a search which includes the words “ladies” and “clothing” your ad will be triggered. However, if you are an equestrian supplier, if someone types in “ladies fashion clothing”, using broad match, your ad would be triggered. Now clearly, someone looking for fashion clothing isn’t looking for specialist equestrian clothing and so the chances of a click through are very low and if you do achieve a click through, the chances of that person making a purchase is even lower because your products aren’t relevant to them.

By using negative keywords, you can essentially filter out more irrelevant searches and stop your ad from being triggered, avoiding the need to pay for a potential click through that will not convert. In this instance you could use a number of negative keywords which might include “fashion” “football” “sports” and so on.

Benefits of using Negative Keywords

• Better click through rate  (CTR)
• Improved conversion rate
• Higher quality score

Much of the time Google won’t allow you to bid on niche keywords because it predicts a ‘low volume’ of searches. Now, low volume can actually be a pretty good thing. If your keywords are very specific and highly relevant, the quality of the traffic you receive is likely to be much higher, leading to a lower bounce rate and ultimately better conversions. However, Google doesn’t want you to benefit from these types of keywords as it doesn’t make as much money from them; instead, it forces you to use more popular keywords and more popular of course means, more competition, which in turn forces you to place higher bids.

When it comes to setting up your campaigns, i’d suggest creating one main negative keyword list and applying it to all related AdGroups. To help you get started, below you will find some lists of negative keywords that you might want to use to modify your P.P.C. campaign.

Negative keyword list Ideas

Comparison shoppers

alternative
compare
comparison
compared
estimate
prices

Price shoppers & bargain hunters

bargain
cheap
clearance
closing down sale
discount code
discount
discounted
end of line
free
low cost
offer
overstock
price drop
price
pricing
sale
sample
special offer
value
voucher code

Researchers

advice
book
case studies
download
eBook
guide
how to
journal
news
reference
research
reviews
statistics
tutorial
training
white papers

Industrial & economic

building
builders
building
consultant
design
diagnosis
diagram
exports
exporter
fabrication
guidelines
guide lines
health and safety
making
mechanics
method
methodology
measurement
model
regulations
rental
repair
specialist
services
tooling

Authored by: Shell Robshaw-Bryan

The post Using Negative Keywords For Better PPC Results appeared first on Marketing & Social Media Blog | Marketing insights, tips and advice.

I want you to think long and hard about the time you last made a commercial decision. It could be a big decision, like the time you made an offer on your first house, or it could be a small decision, like last week, when you were deciding what brand of beer to buy at the bar.  

Chances are that whatever decision you made, you weighed up the pro’s and con’s, considered the financial implications, and acted accordingly, safe in the knowledge that you’d made the right, rational choice.

Except... you probably didn’t...

You see, you’re not nearly as rational as you think you are. That’s not an insult. Neither am I.  

In fact, humanity as a whole is pretty lousy at making considered choices.  So much so that there’s a whole academic discipline, known as Behavioural Economics, dedicated to the subject (for those looking to get a decent grounding I can’t recommend highly enough Prof Dan Ariely’s book, Predictably Irrational).  

Riding roughshod over homo-economicus of the nineteenth century, Behavioural Economics introduces the concept of judgemental heuristics; cognitive rules of thumb, that we use for all but the most simplistic of decision making processes.  

These heuristics are invaluable in day to day functioning, enabling decisions to be reached quickly within complex environments such as the stock market, speed dating nights, or driving on the M25 in rush hour, without the need for complex calculations or methodologies.  

Heuristic theory suggests that the rational, considered economic decision maker that underpins traditional economic studies is a myth, replaced by humanity as a more emotive beast; responding to mental shortcuts, guesses, and semantic influence.

Most marketers understand heuristics, if not academically, then at least on an instinctive level.

We use TripAdvisor ratings to trigger social proof heuristics (why make up your own mind when others can do it for you?), create advertising campaigns with stars in white lab coats to trip the authority heuristic, and give away free shampoo samples to activate the reciprocity heuristic (which, incidentally, is why you should never accept flowers from Hare Krishnas in airports).  

But how do heuristics translate into ecommerce?  Surely you can’t use a heuristic to persuade your customers to spend more online?

Turns out you can.

This July I was lucky enough to be able to run an experiment testing the power of the anchoring heuristic.  

The heuristic, originally identified by Professors Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky in their 1974 paper, Judgment under uncertainty: Heuristics and biases, subconsciously steers human decisions towards a numeric anchor in times of uncertainty, whether the anchor is relevant to their choices or not.  

You may not, for instance, be surprised to learn that exposure to a £20,000 handbag on your way into a flagship Gucci store tends to make customers more receptive to spending £200 on a T shirt once inside (the T shirt, by comparison, comes off as a veritable bargain).  

You might however be surprised to learn that even seemingly irrelevant anchors, such as telephone numbers or social security numbers can have a profound influence on customer spend.

So how does this translate online?

Bateaux London was about to launch a new premium package online.  

This new package (essentially their premium dinner package product, but with some very nice Champagne included) had a significantly higher price point than the next alternative down the price scale; providing me with the perfect opportunity to investigate online anchoring in practice.  

If the theory were to hold true, exposure to this new product (the anchor) should result in an increase in average customer spend per transaction, even once the sales of the new product had been factored out of the results.  

Interestingly, this should not just be the case for other, similar, dinner packages, but also for very different product ranges, like their tea and lunch packages.  

The experiment, kindly built by S-Digital, was run as simple A/B/C test, with web users being presented one of three views.

1. The control - participants were not exposed to the anchor. 
2. The anchor – participants were exposed to the anchor product.
3. The anchor plus – participant’s exposure to the anchor product was increased through the use of gold highlights around the anchor.  

The results were, quite frankly, astounding. Although the anchor product itself did not sell particularly well, there was a marked increase in average spend per transaction across the full product range.

Simply from exposing customers to the anchor product, Bateaux saw an average transaction value increase of 11% in dinner package sales, but even more significantly, a 26% increase in lunch and tea package sales.

Needless to say the new product has become a permanent fixture.

But this example is just the tip of the iceberg of what can be achieved through application of heuristic theory online.  

If I’ve whetted your appetite and you want to learn more about the power of heuristics, you can join me at Econsultancy's Festival of Marketing in October, where I will be speaking at Funnel and presenting my full findings, and a lot more besides, on the Engage stage. 

See you there....