Archive for June, 2007
Technical analysis video review of the stock market and individual stocks for Thursday June 28, 2007 including; Nasdaq 100 Trust Shares (NASDAQ:QQQQ), S&P 500 Index (AMEX:SPY), Semiconductor HOLDRs (AMEX:SMH), iShares Russell 2000 Index (ETF) (Public, NYSE:IWM), Trend analysis for daytraders and swingtraders of stocks and options. Trading stocks involves risk; this information should not be viewed as trading recommendations.
Here is a great write up by my SEO mentor Dan Thies
In the first part of this article, we learned how to use Googles Adwords secret formula to improve web site performance, by making your most important action elements more prominent.
By doing so, we increased the click-through rate on the links and form buttons that generated the most sales. This improves the web sites conversion rate and profits, just as Googles formula for ranking sponsored listings increases their profits.
This time, Im going to give you a couple techniques you can use to drive your sales even higher.
Just as Googles advertisers can test several ad variations to maximize their click-through rate (increasing Googles profits in the process), every web site owner can test different variations of their action elements, to optimize their sites performance.
There are a couple ways to do this. The first technique is split testing. The second is multivariate testing - a little more complicated, but a lot more powerful, and not that hard to master with the right tools.
Ill start with split testing, and a simple example. If youre selling something, you must have a link or a form button that says something like buy now, add to cart, etc.
What you may not realize is that the different ways you phrase this call to action can have a dramatic impact on the actions of your visitors, just as subtle variations in an ad headline on Adwords can make a big difference in the click-through rate.
In a split test, we simply rotate different variations of the text, and use our analytics software (such as Google Analytics) to determine which version is delivering the best results. Since Google Analytics is free, Ill explain how to do it there.
With Google Analytics, you can rotate the different versions and track visitor behavior simply by adding a little Javascript code on the page. The script wraps around the text or image you want to test, randomly selects one variation, and tags the visitor to a segment as described by Google:
http://www.google.com/support/analytics/bin/answer.py?answer=27219
If youre split testing the text for a mortgage quote form submission, you could tag visitors with segment names like sendquotenow, sendinstantquote, clickforinstantsavings, etc. based on the text that was displayed, or use generic names like label1, label2, etc.
Once youve set the test up, you sit back and let it run until you have a clear winner. You can monitor the results in your Google Analytics reports under Marketing Optimization / Visitor Segment Performance / User-Defined. You can analyze the data based on conversion (for lead generation) or revenue (for e-commerce sites). Use a statistical analysis tool like Splittester.com to decide when the test is over.
Stompernet members can watch my Google Analytics Quick & Dirty video in the library, for detailed instructions and downloadable Javascript code. Non-members with a little knowledge of Javascript should be able to work out a solution on their own.
Youre probably wondering just how much of a difference split testing can make, right? One of my students recently boosted his shopping cart conversions by over 50% simply by testing different versions of the add to cart and checkout buttons.
Thats a huge payoff for a few hours work. These results are not at all unusual in my experience. If you arent testing on your web site right now, its probably safe to say that you are falling behind the competition.
Unfortunately, moving action elements around and split testing will only get you so far. Eventually, youll reach a plateau, and thats when youll want to graduate to multivariate testing, using tools like Google Website Optimizer, Kaizen Track, Offermatica, Verster, or Kefta.
These tools allow you to test multiple variations in different places on the page. Instead of split testing a headline, you test several headlines in conjunction with several calls to action, several price points, etc. to find the best possible combination.
While it is definitely more difficult to set up, the results can be outstanding. In one recent test, a student was able to identify the best combination of text sizes for all the different elements on her product pages, leading to a 9.76% gain in conversions. For a site that we had already optimized with split testing, this was a fantastic improvement.
These improvements in conversion arent just a one-time windfall. Every time your testing reveals another winner, it will keep delivering better results for a long time. The game is rigged in your favor - as long as you keep testing, you never really lose.
In the third and final article in this series, Ill give you some more thoughts on how to boost your website conversion, including a trick you can use on your site that would be cheating if you tried it on Adwords.
Relevancy is the key to contextual advertising, and online contextual advertising is big business. That’s a no-brainer, as all web and software heavyweights are vying to make the most of contextual advertising.
How is relevancy measured? And how is that used to shoot the most relevant of ads based on what you do online?
Microsoft, Google and Yahoo have been at the forefront of implementing technologies for targeted ads. Here’s a count down on what drives relevancy for online-targeted ads.
- Keywords are compared with the content of landing pages and then measured with the coherence with the user’s query.
- Measure of the quality of content on the landing page vis-à -vis the user’s query.
- Removal of duplicated data so that search results and ads are diverse and user experience is much more satisfactory.
- Measuring the user’s intent as compared to the content of the page and the Ad placed. ‘Intent’ is such a small relative word, but under the hood it means lot of analysis of user session data to figure out exactly what the user was searching for. And that means factoring out on the duration of the session, the revisions made on the queries, apply word-spelling correction and these are only the real-time scenarios. While testing out the features prototyping of user’s thought process is done and the eye-movement mapping done. More on these in Bill Slawski’s write-up @ SearchEngineLand.
- Then there’s measuring the quality of the audience that visits a site to arrive at ad pricing models. More quality means more discounts. Thus an incentive for good user experience. Quality factors include the source of the traffic and the conversion rates (how many ads did the customer click)
- Statistical measurements of the success rate of queries with the keywords. Like Google’s query performance report for firms to match the queries to the clicks made over ads so that they can better map keywords to ads. In fact, another tool that Google intends to introduce will try to track down on the problems of lesser click-throughs for the queries. More on this at the article at InternetNews.com
And to top it all off, here’s a quote from what Udi Manber, currently a vice president with Google said while he was still heading the development of A9.com at Amazon, “It’s not about speed or size anymore. It’s all about quality. It’s about delivering the tools that allow relevancy. It’s good to make searching faster and faster because that part is well understood. The quality part is not understood and that’s the challenge we face today.â€
That was in 2004 and I must say, it pretty much holds for the present as well.
Frequently, there are people posting messages at the Google AdSense Help group saying their account had been suspended. The usual reason is invalid clicks (what clicks are invalid it totally up to AdSense to judge but this is how AdSense Help define invalid clicks: “Invalid clicks are clicks generated through prohibited methods. These prohibited methods include but are not limited to: repeated manual clicks, or the use of robots, automated clicking tools, or other deceptive software.” For invalid clicks, account holders are often given no warning before their account is suspended.
Accounts can be suspended because of other reasons, such as invalid impressions by participating in autosurf programs (traffic exchange programs like BlogExplosion are in a gray area, and AdSense is rather vague about it, but I have stopped using BlogExplosion for sites that contain AdSense products), for violating the Program Policy, etc., but before suspension, account holders often get warning emails and have a chance at rectifying the problem.
If your account has been suspended, you can apply for reinstatement. It is very hard but not impossible as some people have applied for reinstatement and got their account plus earnings back. However, if you are planning to apply for reinstatement, do some homework first, prepare your appeal letter carefully and give as much information as you can to support your appeal. Your first appeal may be your best chance at getting reinstated. Subsequent appeals will be much harder.
The best thing to do is to do some research and read about the experience and get tips from people who got suspended from the AdSense program, appealed and got reinstated. Below are some links to site that you should read before you apply for reinstatement.
Here is one person who got suspended, but got his account back: “How to Bring Google AdSense Down” Or “You are Guilty but We will not Tell You Why” and “How to Resurrect Your Google AdSense Account”. It is a first hand account of someone who had his account suspended, and how he had to appeal twice to get it back.
You too can get banned from AdSense with no money down (Enquire Within) This is an account of someone who got banned, and not only got back into the program plus got back his earnings.
What to Do if Google Wrongly Bans You from AdSense, By Paul Middleton This is a personal account of how Paul Middleton got banned and how he got his account back.
Geek Talk This is Geek Talk, a forum. There is a thread with a message from a poster Larwee where he detailed what why the situation is as it is and what a publisher should try to do to get his account back.
How to ensure your AdSense account will not be cancelled
It is a list of the top 10 list of what to do (and not to do!) to ensure your AdSense account remains in good standing.
15 Common Mistakes by Google AdSense Publishers that Violates Terms of Service A good list of thing an AdSense account holder should avoid or what to do in order to stay in good standing with Google AdSense.
AdSense Bowling An account of how an enemy can get you banned from AdSense. If you are an AdSense publisher, try not to make enemies. This is how a person who have differences with you can do to try to get you into trouble with AdSense. He can go to your site, click View > Page Source in the menu bar and open up the source code file of your site. Included in the source code will be the AdSense script from which he can get your AdSense ID. With that ID, he can set up sites that violates AdSense TOS, etc with AdSense products with your AdSense ID. Sometimes, it is not even necessary to go to that length. All he has to do is to go to one of your sites and click on the ads repetitively. Moral of the story: DON’T MAKE ENEMIES.
Contact Form for appealing for reinstatement of AdSense account
If your account was disabled for invalid clicks, here is the contact form for you to appeal for reinstatement: Appeal
Contact Form for reporting AdSense invalid clicks
This is for those whose account have not been suspended but have accidentally clicked on their own ads or have reasons to suspect that there are invalid clicks being generated. In such cases, it is always better for you to let AdSense know first rather than for them to find out about it later. Here is the contact form for reporting invalid clicks:
Reporting AdSense Invalid Clicks (close new window to get back to this page).
Good luck!