Turning Cold Traffic into Hot Leads: 10 Strategies That Work

 

In the ever-evolving landscape of digital marketing, one of the most critical challenges businesses face is converting cold traffic into hot leads. While attracting visitors to the website is essential, the real magic happens when you can turn those anonymous visitors into engaged prospects who are eager to hear from you. Let’s explore effective strategies to transform cold traffic into hot leads that can fuel your business growth.

Understanding the Cold Traffic 

Cold traffic refers to visitors who are unfamiliar with your brand, products, or services. They may have found their way to your website through various channels like search engines, social media, or online advertisements. These individuals are often at the top of your sales funnel and need some nurturing to become valuable leads.

The journey from cold traffic to hot leads is not a straightforward one, but with the right strategies, you can make it happen. Here are some proven techniques to help you convert those cold visitors into warm and eager prospects.

 

1. Create Captivating Landing Pages

Your website's landing pages play a pivotal role in converting cold traffic. When a visitor arrives on your page, they should immediately understand what you offer and why it matters to them. Make sure your landing pages are visually appealing, mobile-friendly and include a clear call-to-action (CTA) that encourages visitors to take the next step.

2. Offer Value Through Content Marketing

Content is king in the digital marketing world. Create high-quality, informative, and relevant content that addresses the pain points and interests of your target audience. Blog posts, videos, ebooks, and webinars are all excellent ways to provide value to your visitors and entice them to learn more about your offerings.

3. Implement Lead Magnets

Lead magnets are valuable resources or offers that you provide to visitors in exchange for their contact information. This could be a free ebook, a downloadable template, a webinar, or a newsletter subscription. By offering something valuable, you can entice visitors to share their email addresses and move them one step closer to becoming hot leads.

4. Optimize for Search Engines (SEO)

To attract and convert cold traffic effectively, your website needs to be discoverable. Invest in SEO strategies to ensure your content ranks well on search engines for relevant keywords. When people find your site while searching for answers to their questions, they are more likely to engage with your content and consider your offerings.

5. Engage Through Email Marketing

Once you have captured a visitor's email address, use email marketing to nurture the relationship. Send personalized and relevant content, offers, and updates to keep your audience engaged. Automation tools can help you segment your email list and deliver tailored messages to different segments of your audience.

6. Retargeting Ad Campaigns

Don't let cold traffic slip away after one visit. Implement retargeting ad campaigns to bring them back to your website. By showing targeted ads to people who have previously visited your site, you can remind them of your offerings and encourage them to take action.

7. A/B Testing and Optimization

Continuously test and optimize your landing pages, CTAs, and content to improve conversion rates. A/B testing allows you to compare different variations and identify what works best for your audience. Small tweaks can lead to significant improvements in conversion rates over time.

8. Social Proof and Trust Signals

Build trust with your cold traffic by showcasing social proof, such as customer reviews, testimonials, and case studies. Trust signals like secure payment options and privacy policies can also reassure visitors that their information is safe with you.

9. Personalization

Tailor your content and offers to match the specific interests and behaviours of your cold traffic. Personalization can significantly increase engagement and conversion rates by making visitors feel like you understand their unique needs.

10. Analytics and Data Analysis

Regularly monitor the website traffic, user behaviour, and conversion rates using analytics tools. Analyzing the data will help you identify what's working and where you need to make improvements in your cold traffic conversion strategy.

Converting cold traffic into hot leads is an ongoing process that requires a combination of compelling content, effective lead generation tactics, and constant optimization. By implementing these strategies, one can nurture the audience and turn them into valuable leads that contribute to the increase in sales. Remember that building relationships with your audience takes time, but the results are well worth the effort in the long run.

Visitor Management for a PPC Campaign

I tried putting down the various steps and action items when we run the Adwords or a PPC campaign. What one needs to do at every stage and rectify the campaigns in case the desired results are not acheived. (Click the image to enlarge it).

I have also posted one more post related to visitor mangement for an eCommerce Website which can be viewed here - Customer Management Check List

Google Adwords Vs Facebook Ads Vs LinkedIn Ads

I have been a big fan of Google Adwords and have been using it for a long time not only for my own business but, for my clients as well. And, it really worked well. It all depends on what type of products and/or services you are trying to promote on these platforms. The audience on these three platforms is slightly different and come on to Facebook or Google or LinkedIn with a different purpose. So, for one business Adwords works better and for some Facebook or for companies who are trying to find talent LinkedIn works as LinkedIn is a platform for professionals.

I have used all the three platforms and thought why not pen down my experiences.

Google Adwords

It is very easy and quick to set-up a campaign. Unlike Facebook Ads and LinkedIn Ads, it requires skill and experience to get the correct set of keywords and phrases that match your ads and business. You need to monitor the cost-per-click of each phrase and set it up as broad match or phrase match or exact match. In case you have experience in using the keywords tool then you can start. But, it takes time to optimize the campaign to get the desired ROI and to get better results.  

Keywords competition is high and you need to focus on the Quality Score to reduce the cost to attract the clicks. Optimizing the ads is the key here. This can be learnt only through experience.  

Another advantage of Adwords is people who click your ad are the people who are searching for your product or service. They searched for a certain term and were looking for it and they have landed on you webpage. Where as in Facebook and LinkedIn, the intention of the person was something else and they click the ad to come to your webpage. Thus, the conversion time to convert the visitor to a customer is longer on these platforms as compared to Adwords. 

You can target the ads as per the geographical area and set the time and schedule the display of ads. You also have the display ads where in the ads can be displayed across the Google network of ads. Thus, you reach a wider audience. 

The biggest advantage of Adwords is the analytics which Google provides. Google gives lot of data to analyze and fine-tune the campaigns and rectify the mistakes.

Facebook Ads 

It is very easy to setup and maintain. You can target the ads to specific demographic profile as Facebook has all the data with them - age, gender, profession, city, country, marital status...etc. So, you can really target your ads to the niche audience and not just geo specific. This helps in getting quality impressions and clicks.  

As stated above, the intent of the person to come on Facebook is different as compared to Google - thus, the CTR is low for the ads but, you get decent impressions. The clicks will increase the fan base thus, ready for direct future promotions on your Facebook page which is at no cost. The time to convert these visitors and/or likes into customers is longer and you need to build a strategy to keep them engaged and thus, converting them to customers. Facebook is a place of fun and leisure unlike Google and LinkedIn. Thus, the ads need to be designed in such a way that you are not just pushing the product or service for them to buy, but trying to engage them and increasing the fan base. Thus, it is difficult to measure the ROI here. The sales cycle is long and effort is required to engage and interact with the prospect.

Facebook ads can be used for more of brand recognition. A click is not necessary for this. As Facebook ads provide more impressions, people see the ad and can register the brand name. 

LinkedIn 

LinkedIn ads is frequented by professionals and in case you are looking at attracting right talent then this is the right place. Also, B2B ads are effective as compared to B2C.  

To setup and start the campaign will take some time, as the ads needs to be approved first by the LinkedIn staff. Here as well you can target the ads to the niche audience based on the demographic profile. LinkedIn charges as per impressions and clicks as well. Impression mode will burn out the budget faster we will hardly know if the ad was seen by the person or not. Thus, these are not that effective and economical. The CPC model will not be that effective as stated earlier it all depends on what you are trying to promote. You need to remember the intent of the visitor to LinkedIn and the type of audience that come here. 

Reporting tool is also not there. We can download a csv file and we need to do the sorting and filtering ourselves. 

To conclude, Adwords is better, if you know how it works and how to steer the campaign. In case you do not have that experience it will cost you. The conversion cycle is quick and you get warm leads. While Facebook, attracts more likes and fan base for you to keep them engage and interact. LinkedIn Ads can be more suitable to reach for senior executives. Lastly, it all depends on what product or service you are trying to promote.

The 12 Important Things for a Landing Page to be Successful

As you all are aware that a visitor or a prospect reaching your website will spend at an average less than 8 to 7 seconds before he / she exits or clicks something. We really invest lot of resources, energy, time and money to get prospects to our website. We know and we can calculate which campaigns and which sites direct prospects to the website. But, are we providing or delivering the message which the visitors need in those 7 seconds? Here is a simple checklist which will help if you website and the online business are delivering what you want.

1. Try to specify in one sentence, what is the key message a visitors takes from the home page and check is that the campaign or website objective. 
2. What are the three things that tell the visitor on which page or which stage of the shopping cart are they – bread crumbs or shopping cart steps or… This can increase the conversions or reduce the bounce rates.
3. Provide the content in bullet points and in short paragraphs. It is easier to read with the short span.
4. Take care that the key action you want the visitor to take is conveyed properly on the page and is clearly above the fold of the page? The visitor may not scroll down the page in those few seconds available.
5. Have the registration form as short as possible and as easy to fill in as possible. Filling unnecessary information or long forms irritates the prospect.
6. Be aware of the type and demographics of the audience and set the campaigns accordingly.
7. Is there any unique available on the web page or landing page which is not available else where? And is it free? People do not give there contact details just like that.
8. Does your landing page or web page talks the same as what is being conveyed through the text ad, banner, email or any other campaign? If not, it may hamper the conversions.
9. Can the visitor on the landing page is able to perform any other task apart from what you want him / her to do? If you provide too many links and options then the visitor may get distracted or confused. Always try to stick to one objective one campaign.
10. If it is a PPC like Adwords let the ads be displayed when you expect more conversions. Schedule your ads / emails accordingly.
11. Provide your contact numbers (toll free preferably) and email clearly. The prospect may want to call you right away – to track such leads give a specific email and number.
12. Provide you social media links like Facebook and Twitter. The visitor may find it interesting but, would like to be just associated with you as of now.

These are just the simple tips and can really help in increasing the ROI of your camapigns and thus the cost of conversions.

Related posts:
13 Easy Tips to Make Landing Pages More Effective
6 Basic Tips for a Perfect PPC Campaign
5 Easy Tips to Improve the CTR for Google Adwords

 

9 Tips to Know When You Should be Using Facebook / LinkedIn Direct Ads

After efficiently using Adwords, I just thought how could Facebook and LinkedIn direct ads be different or how could these be more effective. Like Adwords, I did not get any free ad money to experiment my campaigns. I usually get free credit for Adwords but, I have to prepare myself to spend on Facebook and LinkedIn.

1. As matter of fact, Facebook and LinkedIn use almost the same algorithm of relevance and CTR to show the ads. The daily budget mechanism or setting of time to show your ads or the frequency is same. One major advantage of these networking sites is that you can target the exact age group, industry type, job function, title…based on the demographic profile you want to target. Google uses the ‘search’ mechanism while Facebook and LinkedIn use the ‘profile’ of the user to show the ads.
2. Unlike Google or Adwords, Facebook and LinkedIn target the profiles that are on Facebook and LinkedIn respectively. If your target audience are not on Facebook or LinkedIn then it is of no use of using these channels for your campaigns.
3. In Facebook you have to upload only a banner of standard size 110 x 80 pixels. Where as LinkedIn has 50 x 50 pixel image with the title and text. These banner sizes are pretty small and they are pretty strict with the image approval process for the banners. I really do not find major advantage of having such small images associated with the ad as the advertiser can hardly convey anything through these images.
4. Unlike Adwords, here you have an option to pay either as per CPC or CPM. And they really have a reason to have the CPM model as well. These sites are particularly for sharing knowledge or connect with your friends. Hardly, folks come here to see the banners and click them or in search of something as people do in Google. So, to start with you better go with CPC model as you pay only for clicks and do shell out money for unnecessary impressions.
5. If you are really looking at building a brand in particular country or segment or age group then you can do it on Facebook and LinkedIn and use the CPC model as it will really cost you very less. If you are not getting the required impressions then you can switch to CPM. Facebook has crossed Google in terms of traffic and you can really build lot of impressions in a short time.
6. Though Facebook and LinkedIn target as per the profiles, these sites also provide very limited amount of keywords to use to target. In Facebook this is called as tag filtering. But, one cannot estimate the amount of traffic these keywords can generate and the cost it will incur. Adwords clearly provides you with the estimates and it really helps in setting the daily budget. Still you can try using the filtering tags in Facebook for your audience hobbies, interests and tastes.
7. I found out that these sites really give you a poor CTR. Thus, you can use it for directing traffic to your blog or fan page or other social networking account. It is always better to use CPC model as it will not burn your budget unnecessarily. If you ads are not generating the required CTR, then expand the demographic scope slowly and find the optimum level that is really converting for you. Start with very specific target audience and slowly increase the scope depending on the required CTR and conversions.
8. The reporting system of clicks and costs is not as great as Adwords. The direct ads system is still new and in nascent stage and we may see improvements in the reporting and tracking mechanisms.
    
9. We can use content targeting for Adwords where we can show our ads on other sites which are in Google’s content network. While in Facebook and LinkedIn it is limited to the sites.

Bottom-line is there is nothing like Adwords. Facebook and LinkedIn do provide specific audience to your landing page, but it is difficult to get those clicks and to convert them. Unlike Adwords, visitors are looking / searching for the required info and it is easy to convert them. Adwords identifies the users’ instant needs and has the mechanism to show the relevant ads to them.

I would like to suggest that you need to decide where your target audience is and act accordingly. You may have your target audience on Facebook and it may help you in tapping the missing traffic from these channels. For example if you have a dating or matrimonial website, then social networking sites may work well for you as you can target as per the gender, age, marital status and interest. To add more if you have gaming sites similar to Farmville or the Mafia then Facebook can be the better choice as compared to Adwords not only in targeting the right interest group but you may get economical CPC as well.

Do let me know your experiences as well and would like to read your comments.

New Windows Live using Google Adwords

This has really surprised me. MSN using Google Adwords to promote New Windows Live. That's business.... The above ad appeared on my blog.

13 Easy Tips to Make Landing Pages More Effective

Landing page is the crucial first step for any conversion to happen. Be it a download, a registration or a sale, the prospect will spend an average of 8 seconds on landing page. So, you have approximately 8 seconds to make the visitor, what you want him/her to do. In these 8 seconds, the visitor may close the page or will do what you wanted.


Thus, the landing page should be so effective such that those 8 seconds should be more than enough for the visitor to deliver your message and action. So, how do you increase the effectiveness of the landing pages, say for a banner or any PPC campaign?

1. If the visitor is coming to the landing page, through PPC campaign then the keywords which prompted the visitor to click should also be promptly displayed on the landing page or should be used in the body content. So, in the title and header tag try to use the keywords. Have separate landing pages for separate keywords groups in your PPC campaigns specific to the set of keywords they are targeted at.
2. Do not use long paragraphs and sentences. Remember, you have less than 8 seconds. Have short sentences preferably, bullet points. Usually, it is easy to read and understand the bullet points. So, try to deliver the message you want to convey in short and crispy manner.
3. Have your main and important lines on the above fold of the page. Do not expect the visitors to scroll down to read the lines. Just remember, they spend very less time on the page and scrolling down or side-wards will take a couple of seconds away.
4. Have the product image or the screenshot or a nice attractive image to compliment the text you have on the landing page. Images do speak louder than words and can also attract the attention of the visitor.
5. Forms? I hate when I see forms. Moreover, if the forms are too long I hate them more. And, if the form does not trust me as a human and makes me type what I see in the image, I get pissed off again. So, try to make these forms as simple as possible. Ask only the info which you require. Do not try to ask more info. What you may need at the first place is the prospect’s email address, so grab it first. You can use dropdown or radio buttons for other form fields which are much easier to select as the visitor need not type the whole stuff.
6. The call-to-action link or the button should be promptly displayed on the landing page. The visitor should really know what he/she is supposed to do and that also is your objective. So, make these buttons a bit attractive and use a nice call-to-action line like “Get FREE Whitepaper”, “Add to Cart – Use Coupon Code XXXX before Check-out”, “Download it NOW”. Words like Register or Submit will not be that much useful on the landing pages. You need to attract the attention on the prospect for the click.
7. And where can I have this call-to-action button/s? It should be visible in the above fold of the page. Do not expect the visitor to scroll the page up and down or side-wards and click on the button.
8. Test the landing pages for all the popular browsers. Differences in browser rendering can cause pages to display improperly, leaving an unprofessional experience and making the prospect to bounce out. Browsershots.org offers a free service that provides a snapshot of your webpage in most of the popular web browsers.
9. Do not forget to test the landing pages for different resolutions as well. A change in resolution may push the call-to-action button below the fold. Do test the complete process on all resolutions. The best you can do is to know the resolution (size) most of your visitors are using. You can get this info from Google Analytics or any other website stats tool and optimize the page for that and try to adjust the images, buttons etc for other resolution as well.
10. Try to reduce and optimize the download time of the landing pages. If the landing page does not show up in 3-4 seconds, then the prospect may exit from your website or will move away to a different window or page. Avoid using heavy images and flash elements on the landing pages. This post proivdes links to few good tools to optimize download time for the web pages.
11. Try to gain trust from the first time visitors to your website / landing page. If your site is authenticated by VeriSign or you accept payments through PayPal then display the logo somewhere at the bottom or near the “Buy” button.
12. If you have a strong customer testimonial or a perfect feedback, show it on the landing page. You can also display any recognition or award received on the page.
13. The last step is doing numerous tests on the different types of landing pages. You have A/B testing; you have Google Analytics… which can provide the bounce rate and conversions the landing page is providing. Google Website Optimizer allows you to test multiple variables at a time and determines the best combination of them. CrazyEgg will show you where exactly the visitors are clicking. The advantage of this tool is, it will also show the visitors’ clicks even when the element is not hyperlinked. So, depending on that you can have that text / image linked appropriately.

The bottom line which you have to definitely remember when designing the landing pages is - you need to be in the visitor’s shoes and do what he / she will do in first 8 seconds. You landing page only has 8 seconds to lose or make a customer.

Related posts:
5 Easy Tips to Improve the CTR for Google Adwords
6 Basic Tips for a Perfect PPC Campaign

Landing Page Optimization For Dummies

Some Great Books on Google Adwords and Analytics - All 5 / 5 Start Ratings from me.

Ultimate Guide to Google Ad Words, 2nd Edition: How To Access 100 Million People in 10 Minutes

Ultimate Guide to Pay Per Click Advertising: Advanced Strategies to Help You Beat 97% of the Competition 

Advanced Google AdWords

Web Analytics 2.0: The Art of Online Accountability and Science of Customer Centricity

6 Basic Tips for a Perfect PPC Campaign

I did come across a couple of online marketers who define their PPC campaign success to no. of clicks on the ad, click-through-rate (CTR) and cost-per-click (CPC). I definitely agree these are required to measure the performance of the PPC campaign but, do not judge the success of a PPC campaign by taking only these two factors. Many advertisers generate a large amount of clicks for their ads, but at the end you also need to note how many of these clicks have been converted to leads or sales.


So, ensure you have the following when you run the PPC campaigns -

1. Look at cost-per-acquisition (CPA). This will let you know average cost of each lead or download or sales that has happen. Accordingly you can compare or plan to invest in other online / offline campaigns.
2. Doing an analysis on the CPA number you get, try to predict the CPA at various spend levels. This helps you to reach optimal CPA.
3. Make the campaigns as keyword rich as possible using long-tail keywords pertaining to your business or products segregated as different groups. You can use the keyword tools provided by Adwords or WordTracker or KeywordSpy.
4. Each group or the set of keywords has the respective and related landing page. This will help to get a better quality score and will reduce the CPC. Not only CPC, but will also help in better conversions.
5. Use the geo-targeting, day-parting methods to reduce the unwanted clicks.
6. Try to use a back-end database or system which can track the CPC of each click and measures the ROI of each keyword.

There are many more tips and strategies that need to understand. PPC campaigns are easy to setup, but much more difficult to manage and optimize. Doing this takes time and effort. But, if you have the dedication to make the campaign a success then cheers.

Related posts:
5 Easy Tips to Improve the CTR for Google Adwords
13 Easy Tips to Make Landing Pages More Effective

Top Paying Google Adsense Keywords

Google Adsense is a popular affiliate program to earn revenue from your website or blog. It usually allows you to paste their script and that will show ads on your website, with the relevant keywords which you have in your content. And any clicks on these ads will earn you a share of the CPC.

There are various ways to increase this revenue and Google Adsense will also provide you the details. Here is one simple way to increase the dollars. Below is the list of few of the TOP keywords which generate high CPC, means your share will also be at the higher side. So, the easier way is to have the content on the web page or blog around these high paying keywords. This will show the relevant ads and will help you to earn more.

This list of keywords is prepared only through my experience and the CPC may vary from time to time. This list is not complete and completely accurate. You need to frame related phrases around these main keywords and also check for the CPC before preparing the content for the web page.

Mortgage
Mortgage rates
Low cost loan
Fast loans
Loan payment calculator
Student loan
Credit cards
Second mortgage loan
Mortgage quote
Company insurance
Car insurance
Health insurance
Life insurance
Auto insurance
Refinancing cash out
Refinance mortgage
Loans after bankruptcy
Bankruptcy lawyers
Bad credit consolidation
Credit card processing
Credit cards rewards
Balance transfer credit card
Debt negotiation
Out of debt
Domain name registration
Cheap domain registration
Free domain name registration
Domain name renewal
Email hosting
Virtual hosting servers
Windows 2000 hosting
Linux hosting
Dedicated servers
Hosting reseller
DSL service
Internet modems
Conferencing internet
High speed internet
Broadband company
Computer rent
Computer hire
Notebook rentals
Car hire
Online college
Online degree
Online education
Laser hair removal
Hair removal laser surgery

A more detailed and almost complete list is available here.

5 Easy Tips to Improve the CTR for Google Adwords

It really helps a lot in conversions and better ROI if you try to improve the CTR for your ads in Google Adwords. The better the CTR, the better the ad position with the lower CPC, which leads to quality clicks. And finally this leads to better conversions and better ROI.

Here are few easy tips which can help you to increase the CTR. Couple of them are the same old tips, but rest of them are new ones and are working well for my ads. You can test them out and let me know if it worked for you as well.

1. Spend money on keywords that work: Use exact match or phrase match for the keywords (use of square brackets or quotes like [keywords] or “keywords”). This helps in avoiding unwanted clicks. You will get the clicks which your ad is supposed to be clicked for. This way you get only potential customers to click the ad. Even the use of negative keywords will filter the unwanted clicks. Check for more details on Google Adwords.
2. Double Advantage: Have variable title for the ads like – {Keyword: Default Title} where you need to replace the default title with suitable text. Visitors tend to click if they find the keyword they are searching for in the ad. In addition to that, Google bolds the keyword which is being searched. So, you will have a double advantage to use the keywords in the title.
3. Create Urgency: Try to use good call-to-action lines in the ad copy. Let it create the sense of urgency to make the visitor click. Keep in mind that your ad is being shown among your competitors and you need to attract that click. Try testing these which suits the ad – Click now, Get it now, Download free trial, Try our trial today, Special Offer, only for today…
4. Specific Action: Direct the visitor in the ad the action he/she has to make after clicking. This will help them to make a quick decision to click or not. For example: Register now, Buy at a discount, Download the white paper, Read brochure…
5. Numberings: Numbers really help in attracting quality clicks. Try putting the prices in the copy. The visitor will decide prior to clicking the ad if he/she finds the price attractive. You can also put toll free numbers in the ad as it will avoid that click and the visitor will directly call you and will not click. Just give a unique phone number so that you can track the calls and calculate the conversions and ROI.

I would like to hear your experiences too in this regard.

Related posts:

13 Easy Tips to Make Landing Pages More Effective
6 Basic Tips for a Perfect PPC Campaign

Grow Your Business with Google AdWords: 7 Quick and Easy Secrets for Reaching More Customers with the World's #1 Search Engine

What More I Want In Google Adwords During This Recession?

I do agree Google Adwords is a powerful tool to get target audience to your website and generate business. But, if you see the present economy and recession, most of the advertisers will like to spend as much less as possible and even if they have to spend on advertising they will be very keen to have the best ROI they ever had. So, the better bet they can see is Adwords or other PPC ads. Content targeting does offers to target the age group and gender but, advertisers need more specific audience.

What does Adwords offer them – targeted audience to a specific location, targeting by placement and targeting by language in addition to the specific keywords they bid on. What I want Adwords to offer much more targeted ads to a more niche segment, which many advertisers may be interested in these times of recession. Apart from the geo specific, I would like to target my ads to a particular profile, title, designation, interests…etc. This way, if I want to target my ads to senior management of banking industry, then I can select this group when configuring my ads. In turn Google can show my ads to that particular audience in particular so that the advertisers get more ROI. They will also not lose on clicks and can write and design landing pages to that specific audience they are targeting for. Thus, helping them with a good CTR, quality score, low CPC and better returns.

In turn, Google will be providing quality ads/searches to that specific audience for which they are looking for.

Google Signs Up on Twitter

YES! This is no spam account and Google has very much officially signed up to Twitter – http://twitter.com/Google. I guess Google will use account to post the announcements similar to the Google Official Blog and may be relatively more frequent and quicker than their blog. Matt Cutts of Google himself confirmed that this Google Twitter is real Googler.

The first post was bit confusing and in fact was a binary message.

Later I was able to know that it is – I’m Feeling Lucky.

It more or less signifies that Google agrees Twitter as a form of mass communication in the same way that Google was interested in Blogger. Prior to the launch of Google Official Blog, Google relied on Google Groups and various webmaster forums to communicate with its users, webmasters, publishers and other target audiences for regular updates and issues. And now, Google has a blog for everything. The Official Google Webmaster Central Blog, Official GMail Blog, Google LatLong, Google Analytics Blog, Official Google Enterprise Blog, Offcial Google Mobile Blog and may be more. May be later, they will have Twitter accounts for everything for instant communication and updates.

Here are few Googlers who are already on Twitter - Matt Cutts, John Mueller, Adam Lasnik, Brian White, YouTube, Sarah, Adwords Helper.

Other pertinent Twitters you will love to follow are – Rand Fishkin, Barry Schwartz, Danny Sullivan, Greg Sterling, Matt Mcgee, Vanessa Fox, Elisabeth Osmeloski.

Let me know the missed ones...

Update: Danny from SearchEngineLand provides a exausthistive list of SE/Google/Yahoo/MSN folks on Twitter.

Tools To Analyze Competitors’ Website Traffic

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Here is a list of websites/tools to analyze other websites' traffic and traffic sources. Few of them also provide additional details like traffic trend over a period of time, link popularity... A couple of them provide you details of keywords used in Adwords by your competitors. So, go ahead and use them for SEO and PPC and kill the competitors if you can :). If you don't beat the competition using PPC or SEO then you are giving business to your competitors. So, better know the competitor website's performance and then analyze your online marketing strategy to over shadow them. More over these tools are still free to use.

Alexa.com - Compare traffic and trends of websites up to three websites. Provides Alexa rank, reach and page views of the websites. But, I guess it takes data only from the visitors who have the Alexa toolbar.

Google Trends – use commas to compare unique visitors to multiple sites.

Quantcast – Will be helpful if at all the competitors are “quantified”. Also, you need to register to get the complete report.

Spyfu – One can know the keywords the competitor is bidding on Adwords.

Compete.com – They claim as - Competitive metrics for every site on the web powered by the largest pool of online consumer behavior data in the industry. Here again the competitors need to have considerable traffic for Compete to track it down. Basic numbers are free, but to get more traffic details you need to purchase monthly subscription ranging from $199 to $499 depending on the data you want.

comScore - Is definitely not cheaper and not completely accurate either. I think they use an aggregate data, based on what is available to them.

Hitwise - Hitwise reports offer a concise analysis of market trends in any one of Hitwise's 160+ industry categories or on thousands of categorized websites. Again it is not a free tool. You can contact them with your specific needs and numbers you are looking for and they can very well make a customized report for you. One can try for it in case you have the budget.

Popuri.us - A tool to check at-a-glance the link popularity of any site based on its ranking (Google PageRank, Alexa Rank, Technorati etc.), social bookmarks (del.icio.us, etc), subscribers (Bloglines, etc) and more. This tool may not provide updated results.

MarketLeap – Is a leading provider of integrated digital marketing solutions. They have three different tools to check the link popularity trends, search engine saturation and keyword verification. Of course this can be had manually using Google, but using these tools you can see the trend and compare websites.

Website Grader by HubSpot - Website Grader is a free seo tool that measures the marketing effectiveness of a website. It provides a score that incorporates things like website traffic, SEO, social popularity and other technical factors. It also provides some basic advice on how the website can be improved from a marketing perspective. This can be used as a reference to know how websites have performed over a period of time.

dataopedia.com - Gathering together data from more than 50 sources, dataopedia.com is an aggregation web service that lets its users find out all the valuable facts about any website, such as traffic, online buzz, contact information, popularity in social bookmarking services…in short, all the essential facts about every website you can come across on the internet. dataopedia.com has been conceived as the one-stop-resource for finding website facts.

It's always better to use a composite of all the sites above, to give you a general sense. None of them are completely accurate. dataopedia.com summarizes most of the stats and trends from various sources (compete.com, Alexa..) at one place and it is very easy to see the performance of various sites on one screen/browser.

Let me know if I have missed any good websites here. If so, I will add them as soon as possible so and it will help all of here in the online marketing world.

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SearchWiki Making Its Way To AdWords?

Yesterday, I saw the Google Adwords ads with a cross (x) mark. So, one can remove the ad if you do not want to see it.

Not sure, if one closes the ad once, then it will not be shown again it is from the same website or advertiser.

Pretty tough...Yet to hear from Google about the update or news.

Conversion Rate Optimization Part 1, Google Takes the Leading Role

Within the e-commerce sphere, the "mind games" between site owners and search engine designers have focused on search engine optimization (SEO). After all, you can't make a sale if visitors aren't reaching your site. However, as the web marketplace grows exponentially more competitive, attention among webmasters and site owners has turned to conversion optimization — converting site visitors to buyers.

Conversion optimization has nothing to do with SEO. SEO is designed for spiders and bots. Conversion optimization is based on two factors only: the needs and motivations of human site visitors and persuasive site content and design to encourage humans to make a purchase or perform some other action. Any other considerations are sub-sets of these two factors in conversion optimization strategies.

Measuring Human Motivations and Site Effectiveness

SEO is based on the development of numbers (metrics) that are immutable. Numbers are numbers, there's no debating that. The interpretation of site metrics, on the other hand, is a true combination of art, science and testing.

Assessing conversion rate optimization must apply a completely different approach to data gathering and the accurate, actionable assessment of the cold hard facts (percentages and such) that are the basis of SEO.

Measuring Human Motivations and Site Effectiveness

SEO is based on the development of numbers (metrics) that are immutable. Numbers are numbers, there's no debating that. The interpretation of site metrics, on the other hand, is a true combination of art, science and testing.

Assessing conversion rate optimization must apply a completely different approach to data gathering and the accurate, actionable assessment of the cold hard facts (percentages and such) that are the basis of SEO.

The Google Website Optimizer (GWO)

Google owns SEO (sorry Yahoo). It is now moving into eyeball optimization (EBO) to help site owners improve conversion rates. It's got lots of features, it's totally flexible in designing useful tests for human reactions and it provides data using simple to read and understand charts showing what's working and what would work even better.

One key point here: after indexing billions and billions of web pages, who is going to know better what works and doesn't work for solid EBO? After all, all the Google gurus have to do is evaluate their top performing sites to develop measurement criteria and tools to improve conversion optimization. Google is going to know what works.

One other point worth mentioning — it's frëe. A flexible, user-designed test engine developed by Google and available frëe. It's a must have for any site owner, site designer, webmaster or SEO.

What Can Google Website Optimizer Do For Me & How Can It Do It If I Don't Know the Difference Between a Statistical Mean and a Statistical Average?

Multi-Variable Testing

Got to have it. When quantifying human motivations and the effectiveness of a site page, you must have data to compare - data based on site variables such as a different home page image or revised site text. There are hundreds of variables within any website. Color selections, type font, type color, navigation tools, product images and descriptions — literally an endless líst of variables.

Google's Website Optimizer allows you to design tests to compare variables to see which ones work best. Often called A/B split tests, these simply compare a change or two to see which performs best. For example, you might have a picture of your product on test site A and a photo of the product in use by a human on test site B. Simply by comparing visitors' reactions to pages A and B, you can make refinements to your site.

Another useful A/B split test to chëck the success of your Adwords placements is to create two identical ads with two different destination URLs. You'll quickly discover which placements pay for themselves and which should be dropped.

Easy Analytics

The information gathered by Google during testing is delivered in an easy-to-understand format. You'll see, in graphic förm, where visitors go and where they don't go when on site. Taking a good hard look at your bounce rates and possible paths-thru-site are essential parts of your ongoing conversion optimization diet.

Usability Testing

Real humans navigating your site. Get as many people as you can to site down and clíck around - from your computer-whiz 12-year-old to mom and dad who still use dial-up. These tests provide the reasons why visitors take specific actions — over and over again.

Eyeball Optimization

GWO shows you what attracts eyeballs but doesn't generate a clíck. It also shows what visitors miss entirely because it's misplaced or mislabeled. Every page should undergo an "EBO" to improve conversion rates.

Follow the Leaders

You can't copyright an idea so use the same features and techniques employed by higher ranking competitor sites. Then, conduct A/B split tests to see which changes show improvement in conversion optimization.

People Are Still the Same

There's nothing new about direct response advertising, which is what successful sites use. Infomercials, newspaper ads, TV 30-second spots — these are all examples of direct response advertising and the same motivators that work in other media will also work on your website. Once again, you can't copyright an idea and the principles of direct response marketing haven't changed one iota.

Determine and identify the buyer's needs; provide the solution to meet those needs. It's worked for the past few millennia and it'll work for you today.

Small Steps or One Giant Leap

Do you make incremental improvements or try to fix everything all at once. It depends on where you are right now. If you've optimized your site (or paid to have it optimized) a small step here and there can make a huge difference, and a major revamping of your site may actually set you back in the optimization race.

On the other hand, if you're just launching, run a couple of A/B splits and other analytics to see which site pages are hot and which are not. Adjust accordingly. The point here? The more optimized the site, the less optimization is needed so if you've been at it for a while, take small steps and assess improvements. If you're just starting out, launch, track and adjust as needed — whether it be small steps or the proverbial giant leap.

Create a Diagram of Your Marketing Funnel

Start with placed adverts (Adwords, paid links, etc.) Add your home page, each product page, the checkout, automated order conformation, customer care and order fulfillment. Each one of these is a component of a sale and, from the líst and with the help of GWO, you'll be able to more clearly identify holes in your marketing funnel — those areas most in need of improvement, i.e., optimization.

Now, this is just the beginning. Conversion optimization is an on-going process and there are additional steps you can take based on test results delivered by Google's Web Optimizer - steps that we'll look at more closely in part 2 of this series.

Author - Frederick Townes, CEO of W3 EDGE