marți, 8 octombrie 2013

When and how to refresh your web content

When and how to refresh your web content

Link to White Noise

When and how to refresh your web content

Posted: 25 Sep 2013 06:35 AM PDT

We're going through the process of rebuilding our website just now, with the launch scheduled soon. My part in this process has been to completely rewrite our copy, which is an exercise I've been through with several clients recently as well. I wrote the current SEOptimise website copy back in 2011. Two years ago doesn't seem very long, but it's abundantly clear from reading the existing copy that we've come a long way since it was written, and that I've come a long way as a copywriter since then too – my writing has matured significantly as I've worked on so many different clients and picked up new copywriting tricks. I'm proud of the new copy – which you'll see when the site launches – and feel it reflects the fact that SEOptimise has properly grown up.

So how is this relevant to you? Well, I've learnt a lot in the process of rewriting the copy – not least the importance of regularly reviewing and refreshing your content and not simply putting it online and forgetting about it. In this post, I'd like to share some insights and tips to help you make sure your on-site content continues to be fresh, relevant and effective at achieving your goals.

I'm going to cover the following:

  • How do you know when your content needs refreshing?
  • What to consider when you rewrite your copy
  • How to write effective web copy
  • Refreshing your meta data

How do you know when your content needs refreshing?

If websites didn’t refresh their content once in a while, Twitter would still look like this:

Hard to believe when you look at it now, isn’t it?

But when is it time to change? It’s time to ask yourself some questions.

Does your website generate conversions? Do people share it and interact with it? Do you get a steady stream of traffic to all your content, or does it all go to the homepage or blog? If your content isn't performing well, it's probably time for a refresh.

Have an objective read of the copy on your website and answer the following questions:

  • How long ago was it written?
  • Does it still reflect where your brand is today?
  • Is it still relevant, or has the marketplace changed?
  • Does it conform to web writing best practice – using short, skimmable paragraphs, headings and bullet points where appropriate?
  • Is there too much copy – or too little?
  • Is it consistent throughout the site – does it read as though it was written by one person or many?
  • Does it encourage users to take the actions you want them to take?

Your honest answers to these questions should help you identify copy that could do with being rewritten.

You should also look at the other kinds of content on your site:

  • How are the images on your site looking? Are there enough of them? Are there opportunities for adding images to support the copy? You know what they say – a picture speaks a thousand words.
  • What other content types do you have? Is there much variety? Have you thought about adding some videos, podcasts or reviews to introduce new content types to your site?
  • Do you have any content that could be presented in a more engaging format? For instance, a long page of copy that could be better presented as a video, or a dry report full of statistics that would be easier to digest in a visual format, as an infographic?

What to consider when you rewrite your copy

So how do you go about refreshing the content you already have? Here are some things to think about to get you started.

Site architecture
If your site structure is changing along with the refresh, you'll need to plan out what copy you need for each page, and where each page sits within the hierarchy. This will help you when it comes to cross-referencing and crosslinking between pages, as well as planning your workload or writing briefs for your copywriter. Even if you're not planning a major overhaul of your site architecture, it's still worth considering whether you need any extra pages creating, or existing pages combining, in order to structure your content logically and deliver your message effectively and in a user-friendly manner.

Language and tone
What tone are you aiming for, and what language will you use to create it? Write a list of words and phrases that reflect your brand – how you describe your services, USPs, values, and so on. Decide whether you're going to use first person or third person. First person ("we are a digital marketing agency") is friendlier and more direct, while third person (for instance, "SEOptimise is a digital marketing agency") is arguably more distant, and coldly business-like. Which you go for may depend to an extent on the nature of your business and who your target audience is, as well as the need to differentiate from competitors – so have a think about who your readers will be and ensure that your copy is appropriate to them.

Length
How much copy do you need for each page? SEO best practice dictates a minimum of 300 words, but conveying your message effectively is still the single most important consideration. Too much copy will put readers off, but not enough and you risk not being valued by Google as well as providing insufficient information for readers, so you need to strike a balance.

Many websites have virtually no copy on their homepages, for instance, which is terrible for SEO. Plenty of clients over the years, on having this pointed out to them, have declined to add more copy on design grounds. But adding copy to a homepage doesn't have to impact the design; it's perfectly possible to add subtle copy further down the page, with a couple of lines visible and an 'expand' or 'read more' button that then shows a longer paragraph. This is a good compromise, and you can see it in action in the screenshot below, which comes from towards the bottom of the Notonthehighstreet homepage.

Structure and calls to action
Think about how you'll structure the copy on each page. To start with, jot down your site plan and make a note of what each page is trying to achieve. What will a conversion be from this page? Websites are there to fulfil a purpose, and whether you're an e-commerce site or not, you'll still need to define conversions in order to assess how well your website is performing.

Examples of conversions include:

  • Download a brochure
  • Buy a product
  • Remain on a page for a particular length of time
  • Watch a video
  • Send an enquiry
  • Register for an event
  • Sign up to a mailing list

Does your web content guide users to take these actions? If not, you should encourage readers to do what you want them to do by adding calls to action into your copy.

Internal links
I mentioned internal links in the section above on site architecture. It's good to include these contextually in the copy, as this gives users immediate access to other relevant information at the point at which they may want to see it. Other examples of good ways of including internal links – which also help strengthen your site architecture – are to have lists of 'related posts' at the end of a blog post, or a 'you may also be interested in' section for related products on a product page.

Tip: ask the team
Your website should reflect your company values. One way of ensuring that it does is to seek the opinions of your colleagues. When I first started thinking about the new SEOptimise copy I asked every member of the SEOptimise team to email me three words they would use to describe SEOptimise. I put all the words people sent me into a spreadsheet, and ordered them by the number of times people used each word. Then I worked those words into our copy. The result? Website copy that actually reflects who we are as both a company and individuals.

How to write effective web copy

When you're writing for the web, remember that most readers scan through web pages rather than reading them in detail. This means that it should be easy for them to get the gist of your message (for example, the benefits of a product) without having to read it properly. Here's how to achieve this.

  • Paragraphs: keep paragraphs short. No walls of text!
  • Structure: use the 'inverted pyramid' structure of a press release. Start with the most important information first and then include progressively less important details.
  • Headings: use a single H1 for the title, including a keyword if it reads naturally to do so, and use H2 tags for subheadings throughout the copy to help break up the text.
  • Bullet points: where appropriate, information can be presented in bullet point format (as I'm doing here). Bullet points break up text and make some kinds of information easier to read.
  • Bold: you can highlight important words or phrases in bold to make them stand out.
  • Hyperlinks: as mentioned above, include links to relevant pages, both internal and external, where appropriate. Have internal links open in the same window and external links in a new window.
  • Images and other media: photos, drawings, videos, infographics, graphs, maps – all these and more can be used to support the copy on a page, and will add variety and visually enhance the page, improving its readability.

Don't forget your meta data

When you rewrite your website copy, don't forget to revisit your meta data (your title tags and meta descriptions) as well. Your meta data is a part of your copy and it's just as important to ensure that it remains up-to-date, in keeping with the copy on your website in terms of language and message, and using the most relevant keywords. Strong brands present a uniform message across all areas. The top keywords can change, so it's always a good idea to monitor these on a regular basis – say, once a quarter – to make sure you're still targeting the best ones.

Here are a few tips:

  • Conduct some keyword research for your top keywords and make sure you're not missing any opportunities.
  • Ensure that the keywords in the meta data for each page are relevant to that page and not leading readers to expect something different.
  • Ensure that the language and message in your meta data reflects what's on the page.
  • Ensure that all title tags and meta descriptions are within the character limit (70 and 160 characters respectively) to ensure they don't get cut off in the search results.
  • Ensure that calls to action and USPs are included to entice users onto the page.

You'll find further advice on copywriting for meta data in my post, Copywriting tricks to turbocharge your meta data for conversions.

Do you need help refreshing your website content? We can help! Drop me a line at rachel@seoptimise.com or on Twitter @RachelsWritings.

The post When and how to refresh your web content appeared first on White Noise.

Top 5 low hanging fruits

Posted: 04 Sep 2013 07:16 AM PDT

Low Hanging Fruit

Creating and implementing a full SEO strategy can be a lengthy process. It often starts out with a detailed website health check and background research, which (when done properly) can take up a lot of time. This can seem counter-productive, as it delays carrying out changes and fixes that can actually start making a difference to your overall site performance.

However, it doesn’t have to be this way, as there are often a number of 'low-hanging fruits' that can potentially help your website to benefit from some quick wins with minimal effort.

We have put a list together of the top 5 low-hanging fruits – hopefully there's something in there for everyone. Be sure to let us know of any easy wins that you think deserve to be in the list!

To begin with, for anyone who's new to SEO, the very first thing you should do is to make sure that you have set up a Google Analytics and Webmaster Tools account and use them! These will provide you with valuable data, recommendations, and help you to identify issues with your website.

1. Always choose your preferred domain

This low-hanging fruit could really boost your link juice! The outside world may be linking to your site using both www. and non www. versions of your URLs, but in the eyes of the search engines, these are effectively different pages, so the value from these links could be diluted

I’m assuming that you have a Google Webmaster Tools account, but if you don't then this is in fact the number 1 low-hanging fruit! For details on how to get started and what you can get out of it, we have a great post on how to set up a webmaster tools account as well as a wealth of Webmaster Tools resources to get you started.

www. vs non-www.

First, decide how you would prefer your domain to appear in the search results (for example, http://www.example.com or http:// example.com). Then open your Webmaster Tools account, click on the 'Settings' gear icon on the right-hand side, then select 'Site Settings'. Now, in the 'Preferred domain' section, choose how you want your URL to be displayed.

setting preferred domain in Google Webmaster Tools

This will force all inbound links to redirect to your preferred domain, allowing all of your link juice to flow to the right page.

It is also recommended that you use a 301 redirect to forward any traffic heading to your non-preferred domain to the correct version, thus ensuring that your visitors (and search engines) will only ever see your preferred domain.

2. Clear crawl errors in Google Webmaster tools

Google is less likely to rank a website highly if a large number of the pages that appear in its results simply direct visitors to error pages. These error pages also leak value, as they are usually caused by URLs that have not been redirected properly. As such, any value that they may have been built up in the past – through content and links – is lost, rather than redirected to an equivalent, or similar page on the website.

To find out if your website has any errors, open your Webmaster Tools account, then select 'Crawl', then 'Crawl Errors'. Use the drop-down on the right to view up to 500 errors at a time, and then navigate through the pages if there are more.

There may be several different types of errors, including 'Server errors' and 'Soft 404s', in which case you will need to click the relevant boxes above the graph in order to see them.

Fixing the crawl errors

Fixing these errors can be as simple as setting up 301 redirects to point the old broken URLs to the new pages on your website. The list can be downloaded as a CSV (handy if there are lots of them), by clicking the download button at the top of the list.

Once fixed, you can remove the errors from the list, either by clicking on each link and selecting 'Mark as fixed'; or by selecting several at a time, by ticking one or more boxes beside the errors (or all by ticking the box at the top), then clicking the red 'MARK AS FIXED' button.

3. A little effort can go a long way

This one requires a bit of knowledge in Google Analytics, so once again, if you don't have an account set up then get one, as this is another place to get some extremely useful stats, figures and information about the performance of your website.

You may be just missing out on some highly-searched terms, with your website appearing on page 2 of Google without you even being aware of it, due to a very small trickle of traffic coming in from them.

However, with a bit of research you can quickly uncover some of these missed opportunities. By generating a list of these keywords, you can quickly start to look at giving them a little push, by optimising the landing pages making them more relevant.

In Analytics, open your website and navigate to Traffic Sources > Search Engine Optimization > Queries. Now click the 'advanced' link (next to the search box) and add the following filters:
Include Average Position Greater than 10
Include Average Position Less than 19

You may only be interested in non-brand keywords, in which case you can add another filter to exclude queries containing your brand name.

Google Analytics Advanced Filters

This will retrieve all keywords that your website appears against on page 2 of Google (between position 11 and 20).

Now filter the results by impressions to get an idea of how popular each of these keywords are, and put together a list that you think you can benefit the most from. You should also check the positions in Google (make sure your search results are not personalised) along with the landing pages.

Now you know which keywords to optimise around and the pages that Google associates them to on your site, you can get to work!

4. Link reclamation

Throughout the life of a website, things change, from the look and feel, to page URLs or even the domain name itself. Link reclamation is the process of reclaiming links that were added to third party websites in the past, that now link to dead pages on your website, due to URLs not being redirected to their new locations. By identifying these broken links, you can set up redirects from the old pages to the new, and therefore pass on the value from the linking source that would otherwise have been lost.

For a step-by-step guide on how to salvage valuable link juice, check out our detailed post on link reclamation.

5. Long-tail keyword optimisation

Keyword research is an important process for any online marketing strategy, but nowadays there is a great deal of competition in most online industries, so aiming for the most competitive keywords can seem like an impossible task.

However, not everybody chooses the most obvious search terms when performing a search, so this is where the long-tail keywords can help. According to Moz, around 70% of all searches are long tail, which leaves a huge amount of often low competition keywords to optimise for.

Long tail searches are generally more specific, and tend to be used by people who are further along in the buying process. This means that you can be more specific with the page that you serve to users, helping them to find exactly what they are looking for, which will allow you to generate high quality converting traffic.

There are a range of tools that can be used to spot these 'diamonds in the rough', from the Google AdWords Keyword Planner (formally the Google AdWords Keyword Tool), which is very useful for finding keyword ideas, while also showing how competitive they are and how much estimated traffic they may provide, as well as SEMrush, Google Webmaster Tools (under search traffic > search queries) and Analytics, to name a just a handful.

Hopefully that gives you all something to take away and get your teeth into; helping you or your client benefit from a few quick wins while your deeper online marketing strategy takes shape.

If you know of any other 'low-hanging fruits' that you think deserve a mention, please feel free to add your comment or find me on Twitter @SamGooch – who knows, I may even feature them in Part 2!”

Flickr Image courtesy of Ian Carroll 

The post Top 5 low hanging fruits appeared first on White Noise.

6 Google Analytics Filters I Couldn’t Live Without!

Posted: 28 Aug 2013 03:54 AM PDT

I have been using Google Analytics for a long time now, and every week it continues to change and improve, which is great. During that time, I have constantly kept and updated a library of filters, advanced segments and dashboards that I can call upon when the time is right to allow me to do what is required. Recently it occurred to me that it might just be me who does this (I hope not!), so I wanted to provide you with a list of filters that I use on a regular basis. This may turn into a series depending on the success of this post, but let’s start with those filters.

IP Exclusion

This is a filter that I rarely see used when I dig into a pre-existing Analytics account, yet it’s one that could skew your data the most.

Generally, the majority of your workforce will visit your website whilst in the office, and if some people are working on it all day, they definitely need to be removed from the profile.

How do you filter out your IP Address in Google Analytics? Well, Google has created a handy online tool to help make the process really easy.

First you need the start of the IP range, which could look like this:  63.212.171.1. You also need to have the end of the range, for instance 63.212.171.254. Now you want to exclude any visits to your website from an IP address within the range shown above. Now you have that data, go over to Google’s handy IP Address Range Tool and generate the RegEx that you need. It should look something like this:

^63.212.171.([1-9]|[1-9][0-9]|1([0-9][0-9])|2([0-4][0-9]|5[0-4]))$

The next step is to create a filter within Google Analytics:

Custom Filter
Exclude
Filter Field > IP Address
Filter Patter > Add your RegEx
Case Sensitive > No

Hit save, apply it to the relevant profiles, and you will have removed all visits from those IPs. If you haven’t already done this, then I would highly recommend that you go and implement it.

Handling Webmail

If you have been looking through your GA account, you might have seen that some of your referral traffic is coming from Webmail. Ideally, you want all your email traffic to be consolidated as an email referrer.

We can do this using a 2-step filter process. The first step is to consolidate all the webmail providers to a campaign source using the filter below.

Custom Filter
Advanced
Field A -> Extract A > Campaign Source > mail.*.(.+)..{2,4}|mail-|inbox.
Field B -> Extract B > Campagin Medium > ^(referral)$
Output To -> Constructor > Campaign Source > webmail
Field A Required > Yes
Field B Required > No
Override Output Field > Yes
Case Sensitive > No

Now that we have consolidated all the webmail to a specific output (webmail), we take that and add it to the email Medium using the filter below.

Custom Filter
Advanced
Field A -> Extract A > Campaign Source > ^(webmail)$
Field B -> Extract B > Campagin Medium > ^(referral)$
Output To -> Constructor > Campaign Medium > email
Field A Required > Yes
Field B Required > No
Override Output Field > Yes
Case Sensitive > No

Using these filters together will attribute all email traffic received to a single email medium, making it easier to analyse your data traffic.

Sub-Folder Profiles

Most of us like to look at certain sections of a website in more detail, especially if that is your area of interest within the business.

Using a sub-folder filter, this can be done easily and for as many folders as you feel are necessary.

Custom Filter
Include
Filter Field > Request URL
Filter Pattern > ^/folder/$|^/folder
Case Sensitive > No

Regional Domain Profiles

I have used this recently, where we have been using a single GA code across multiple international websites. With this implementation, it was imperative that we had separate profiles for specific regions to ensure granular reporting. To do this, each profile had to have a filter applied that only tracked traffic from a specific hostname.

Custom Filter
Include
Filter Field > Hostname
Filter Pattern > ^domain.at|.domain.at
Case Sensitive > No

Add a trailing slash

This filter might not be used in all cases, and I am sure could be modified to your needs, but I have used it recently and thought it would be a good one to provide you with.

On some websites, you are able to access a page from multiple versions of the same URL /example or /example/ or even /example/index.html. All of these URLs are showing the same content and GA code. Ideally these would be resolved to show a single URL, which would help from a user perspective, but also from an SEO perspective. Sometimes this is not possible, so we need to be able to consolidate these URLs to provide amalgamated data. This can be done using the following filter:

Custom Filter
Advance
Field A -> Extract A > Request URL > ^(/[a-z0-9/_-]*[^/])$
Field B -> Extract B > -
Output To -> Constructor > Request URL > /$A1/
Field A Required > Yes
Field B Required > No
Override Output Field > Yes
Case Sensitive > No

Force Lowercase

Similar to the previous filter, this may not be required in all instances, but is another way of combining data from multiple URLs for the same page. This filter will amalgamate all data from those URLs that have both upper and lowercase variations into a single lowercase version. This allows ease of reporting as well as consistent data.

Custom Filter
Lowercase
Filter Field > Request URL

Do you use any of the filters that I have mentioned above? What filters do you use on a regular basis? Any that I have missed out that you feel would be a good addition? Do you have a go-to list of Google Analytics filters you use? I’d be interested in hearing your thoughts in the comments below or on Twitter @danielbianchini.

The post 6 Google Analytics Filters I Couldn’t Live Without! appeared first on White Noise.

Everything you need to know to create a successful news section

Posted: 21 Aug 2013 01:38 AM PDT

Along with blogging, a well-run news section is a great way of ensuring that a steady stream of new content is added to your website, bringing additional traffic to your site and giving the search engines plenty to crawl. It also shows you to be a source of relevant knowledge, demonstrating your expertise and interest in the area, making it a great way to enhance your brand. The principle is similar to retailers who produce their own free magazines (such as Sainsbury's, Tesco and Boots) – it's adding value to their customers, while subtly promoting them as a business.

To clarify, what I'm talking about is a section of your site dedicated to reporting on news stories that are relevant to your industry, as distinct from a section for storing your company press releases (though obviously it's still good to have a separate page for these, to give journalists a helping hand).

For example, a travel site could have a "Travel News" section that would keep readers informed of things like forthcoming strike action and other things that might affect their travel plans, recent research on travel topics, changes in travel regulations, and so on. It could also report on things that may help encourage bookings, such as the Northern Lights being particularly strong this December.

Some examples of good news sections

In my last post I talked about Skyscanner's Travel News and Features section as a great example of an engaging news section, with an entertaining mix of travel advice and topical news stories, with the example below being one of their recent stories.

Looking at other sectors, here are some other good examples of the kind of content I'm talking about:

Blog, news section or both?

A news section is a bit different from a blog, so if you wanted, you could have both without having any overlap of content. While a blog allows a greater degree of informality and a far wider variety of topics and formats, a news section should be more formal and impartial, with no room for the personal opinion of the writer.

Like a blog, adding a news section to your site provides fresh new content on a regular basis, and can be used to report on recent news for your industry, thereby capitalising on traffic for relevant ‘hot topics’. You might even be able to get your news stories featured in Google News, giving you an extra source of traffic.

Sources for news stories

To start with, where are good places to look for breaking news and other hot topics? Here are some suggestions.

  • Watch the news! Or listen to it on the radio. You never know when something relevant to your business will crop up.
  • Bookmark news sources and check them regularly for new stories; for instance, if you're a travel site, simply bookmark pages such as the Telegraph, Guardian and Times Travel sections.
  • Set up Google Alerts for topics relevant to your industry.
  • Conduct your own survey or research and publish the results.
  • Include a form on your news page that allows readers to submit news stories for consideration.
  • Monitor press releases of companies and organisations relevant to your industry for any new and interesting stories and research results.

If you have any you think should be on this list, let me know and I'll update this post.

Here's a summary of what you should and shouldn't do with your news section.

DO

  • Cite your sources.
  • Only use sources you know you can trust, and ideally have a back-up source as well.
  • If you can, include a quotation from someone involved in the story, such as a witness. This could even be just a tweet from someone. This helps bring your news story to life.
  • Proofread and, if necessary, sub-edit your news stories to ensure a uniform style across your stories and high standards of English.
  • Get your story up on your website as quickly as possible – this will increase your likelihood of being linked to.
  • Promote each news story on Facebook and Twitter with a compelling headline and a link to the story on your site.
  • Optimise your headlines and title tags using likely search terms.
  • Make it easy for people to share by adding social sharing buttons at the top of each article.
  • Submit your news section to Google News – more on this below.

DON'T

  • Post anything you can't verify as having actually happened.
  • Post anything defamatory.
  • Use stock photos – these may make readers less trusting of what you say.
  • Copy other people's content – make the effort to tell a story in your own words.

Submitting your site to Google News

If you do your news section well, you may be eligible to be featured in Google's News results. It goes without saying that you can't just submit any old site to Google News – Google wouldn't be Google if it didn't make things tricky for us, after all! Google offers some guidelines on the standards it expects from sites, with regard to quality and also the technical aspects that make your news stories easier for Google's algorithm to crawl successfully. These guidelines are summarised below for ease of reference:

General

  • You should offer "timely reporting on matters that are important or interesting to our audience". Content such as how-to articles, advice columns or things like weather forecasts and stock market data are generally discounted.
  • You should adhere to journalistic values – your content should be original and honest.
  • Aggregated content should be separated using robots.txt, as only your own original work can be included.
  • You should demonstrate authority and expertise.
  • You should include information about yourself, which should be clearly accessible, including things like author bio, email address and phone number.
  • You should ensure good user experience with high standards of English and minimal adverts and auto-playing videos.

Technical

  • You should use unique, permanent URLs with at least three digits
  • When linking to other pages, you should use "at least a few words" in your anchor text. Note that Google won't be able to see links if they're in JavaScript, graphic or in a frame.
  • Your articles should be formatted in HTML, not PDF or any other format.
  • Make sure you're not blocking your news section with Robots.txt or metatags.
  • Google can't index audio files or multimedia content, but they can crawl "supplementary text" and some YouTube videos. That means that if you're going to include an audio clip in your article, you'll need to include a transcript along with it.
  • You should ideally submit a Google News sitemap via Webmaster Tools.

Quality

  • Your content should comply with Google's usual webmaster quality guidelines – that means not trying to manipulate Google in any way.
  • You should only write about actual news, so your content can't be commercial. That also means no paid advertorials. If you do have this sort of content, separate it from your main news section.
  • Your site should be user friendly, with rapid page load speed, minimal redirects and so on.
  • You should ensure that if you do use Google's own meta tags, such as the news_keywords metatag, you should not abuse them by including irrelevant terms to try and rank for those terms.

As you can see from the guidelines above, the Google News section isn't suitable for all sites. The guidelines are also a reminder to maintain journalistic integrity and not to use your news section as a further promotional opportunity for your own products or services.

This is the link you need when you're ready to submit your site.

What to do when a story evolves

One final tip:  if you're covering a story that's rapidly evolving, keep updating the story on the same URL, rather than creating a new URL/story for each update to the situation. That way, you'll gain SEO benefit from incoming links to a single strong page, rather than spreading links across several stories.

Hopefully these tips will have inspired you to create an interesting news section on your own site. If you need any further help or advice, do drop me a line.

The post Everything you need to know to create a successful news section appeared first on White Noise.

10 Resources to Pass the Google AdWords Exam

Posted: 14 Aug 2013 03:46 AM PDT

It's been almost five years since we wrote about this topic and we thought it was probably time for an update. The key question is, of course, "Have things really changed in the last five years"? From an AdWords features perspective, a lot indeed has. However, in terms of resources, all you really need to pass the exam is still just the AdWords Learning Centre. However, if you want to be an AdWords Exam 'ninja', then these additional resources may prove useful:

1. The Official Resource

OK, I'll start with the official resource. The AdWords Learning Centre is Google's own training tool for AdWords; as such, it's easily the best resource for obtaining information on all of Google's ad policies in a clear and concise way. The Learning Centre breaks its course down into short sections, so it is easy to just do a bit at a time. There are also handy links prompting you to try out the lesson in your AdWords account, along with tips and links to related topics on each subsection. The exams and the Learning Centre modules have been updated this year, so they cover enhanced campaigns as well as the current interface.

2. More from the Horse's Mouth

If you really want to stay up-to-date with Google's feature upgrades, then it's imperative you have a browse through the official AdWords blog to see what's new. Whenever there's a product update, the announcement is made via the AdWords blog. It's also worth noting that exams aren't updated frequently so they may not cover the most recent changes, making it even more important to follow the Adwords blog.

3. Books

Advanced Google AdWords by Brad Geddes is a solid resource for getting a deep understanding of managing AdWords accounts, as is David Szetela's Pay Per Click Marketing an Hour a Day. If you want an easy but in-depth introduction to AdWords, I'd also recommend Google AdWords for Dummies by Kristie McDonald.  However, due to the nature of books, there are likely to be a lot of changes to AdWords and recent updates that won't be covered. However, these books are very good at instilling a firm foundation on PPC basics. If you're an advanced PPC professional, these books can help provide you with a refresher on some basics and workflow.

4. Learning by Doing

There really is no substitute to hands-on experience. No amount of reading will actually give you the necessary skills to be a half decent AdWords practitioner. It's in the doing that you really get a grasp of the AdWords concepts. So, if you have had a decent amount of time working on an AdWords account, I'd suggest only focusing on areas you're not too familiar with when doing your revision. For example, billing, video advertising etc. In other words, areas in the AdWords account that you don't deal with on a day-to-day basis.

5. WordStream

Lately, I've been spending a lot of time checking out the WordStream blog and tools. They've also got a couple of useful guides on taking AdWords and other PPC exams:

A Dead-Simple Google AdWords Certification Guide: Costs, Tips & Tricks for Google Certification

5 Tips for Passing PPC Certification Exams

6. PPC Podcasts

If you're fed up of reading, there are other resources you can use. I'd recommend checking out webmasterradio.fm's PPC-Rockstars, which has short podcasts on a variety of PPC issues.

7. A Heroic Resource

PPC Hero has got some fantastic resources such as the 'PPC Hero Guides', 'blog series', and a great range of helpful whitepapers.

8. Paid Resources

Certified Knowledge has a good suite of resources, tools and community support for members. However, prices seem to be a tad bit pricey for my liking. I must admit, I've never subscribed to their membership, so perhaps I shouldn't comment. However, judging by their course content, it does look well worth some research.

PPC Hero also has a subscription service to their pro memberships. This will give you access to all their tools and resources.

9. Quality Scores

Quality scores are one of the cornerstones of PPC account management. If you're looking for in-depth information on them, then these resources will give you a thorough understanding of why they are important and what you can do to improve them:

10. #ppcchat

Lastly, I'd highly recommend following the #ppcchat hashtag to engage with like-minded PPC professionals. This weekly Twitter chat attracts industry specialists who discuss, debate and share their thoughts on a wide variety of PPC topics. Hat tip goes to Matthew Umbro for founding and hosting these highly informative weekly chats.

Well, I hope this list has been useful for you! However, it's quite possible that I've missed out a fair few other resources that I'm probably unaware of. I'd be really grateful if you could share any good resources you  know of  with us in the comments section.

The post 10 Resources to Pass the Google AdWords Exam appeared first on White Noise.

50 Great Content Ideas + Examples – part 2

Posted: 24 Jul 2013 05:19 AM PDT

Part one of my gigantic list of content ideas seemed to go down well, so here's the second half – 25 more! If you missed the first part, you can find it here.

26. Lists

Who doesn’t love a good list? The beauty of them is that they're easy to read, remember and refer to, and they almost can't help but conform to web writing best practice. This post is a good example. ;-)

27. News

When I say news, I don’t mean boring, bog-standard press releases. Adding a news section to your site provides fresh new content on a regular basis, and can be used to report on recent news for your industry, thereby capitalising on traffic for ‘hot topics’. Skyscanner's Travel News and Features section is a good example, with an entertaining mix of travel advice and topical news stories, such as this one on a flight attendant accused of smuggling pet rats in her underwear…

rats in pants

28. Product reviews

Build up a reputation for providing honest reviews of products or services in your area, and you'll gain repeat visitors as well as long-tail search traffic from people searching for specific products. The best reviews are balanced, and come from experts – so try to stick to what you know. Your reviews could meet the needs of a particular group of people; Mumsnet, for example, does product reviews that fit with its 'by parents for parents' mission, with reviews written by parents and angled towards others with children. Here's a product review I wrote about BuzzStream.

29. Trend analysis

Trends are frequently analysed in our industry – for example this post from Econsultancy on top search trends in 2012. But trend analysis makes for interesting content in any industry, and it's a great way of showing your expertise in a particular area while providing valuable insights and statistics that journalists love quoting. You can make use of your own data, looking at things like changes in buying patterns or what products are most popular in different regions, or you could provide your own insight and analysis into data provided by an industry body, such as ABTA, or the Government, such as the data available on data.gov.uk. Here's what TravelSupermarket did – the Travel Trends Tracker.

30. How To Guide

Type "how to" into the Google AdWords Keyword Tool and the estimated volume (phrase match) is 414,000,000 global monthly searches. That's pretty revealing about the world's search habits, and also indicates massive potential for tapping into searches beginning with "how to". Here's a recent example from CNET's How To series, How to connect an iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch to your TV.

how to connect an iphone

31. Twitter users to follow in your industry

Essentially a specific form of ego-bait, creating a 'who to follow' resource should help earn social mentions from the people on the list as well as those who found it a helpful bit of content. Here's a cleverly titled example from PCMag of 140 characters to follow on Twitter.

32. Survey/poll

Conducting a survey or poll into an interesting topic in your area of expertise, and then publishing the results, is a fairly easy way to create original content,

Here's a massive one – the Which? Car Survey – and another great example we're probably all familiar with, the BrightonSEO UK SEO salary survey.

brightonseo salary survey

33. Regular features

Creating a regularly recurring feature on your site, such as a column or weekly video, gives people something to look forward to, and is a great way of ensuring a steady stream of new content. Make sure you stick to it though – if you promise a regular feature, for example on a certain day of each week, you'll look unreliable if you don't keep to your word! Delia's Menu of the Month is a nice example. You could even borrow from the world of newspapers and make your regular feature an 'agony aunt' column, just like TalkTalk – it doesn't have to be about relationships, just any problem a reader might have.

34. Animation

Got a complex concept that you’re struggling to simplify and convey, or just want to explain or sell something in a different way to stand out? How about creating an animation! Here's one about how food is recycled.

35. Podcast

Not many commercial sites offer podcasts as a content type, so this could be a good way for you to stand out from the crowd, demonstrate your expertise and give your readers something interesting to listen to on their morning commute. Here's a nice example from STA Travel.

36. Anti how to guides

As the wealth of TV programmes along the lines of “Holidays from Hell” and “When Vacations Attack” shows, people love hearing about what happens when things go wrong. The desire not to get things wrong (and thereby avoid embarrassment) is arguably a more powerful motivator than the desire to get things right, so provide your readers with a handy reference guide to things they should avoid, or how not to do something, in your industry. This format, which I'm calling an 'anti how to guide', works across the full spectrum of humour to seriousness:  from the Times Higher Education on how not to write a PhD thesis, to the Huffington Post on things you should never do after a break-up, to the Oatmeal's infographic on how to NOT sell something to my generation.

oatmeal how not to sell

37. Debunk a myth 

I’m not talking about Roswell or the Moon landings… I'm talking about tackling common misperceptions in your industry. I'm sure there are a few! Here's one on ABC about six myths of airline travel.

38. Explain how to use/get more out of handy tools

There are so many online tools these days that it can be a bit overwhelming. When we're all pushed for time, taking the time to learn how to use a new tool, or learning how to make more of the tools we already use, can get shoved to the bottom of the To Do list. So make someone's life easier by writing a handy guide to how to get started with (and make the most of) a useful tool that's relevant to your industry. Here's a good one on Lifehacker.com – 'I've been using Evernote all wrong. Here's why it's actually amazing'.

39. Court controversy

Potentially a risky strategy, but one that can draw in the crowds. Just make sure it's for the right reasons – don't take it too far! You may find that this tactic works best when you pick a topic that's at the forefront of everyone's minds, when anybody who goes against the grain will stand out and get noticed. There are plenty of controversial topics on Debate.org if you're in need of inspiration, but be prepared for a mixed response.

40. Presentation

As an industry, we're used to seeing conference speakers sharing their slides after an event. But this is a content type that you can also use on your site to showcase your expertise on a particular topic, and to provide advice or resources in a format that's nice and easy for readers to digest – and to use themselves. Here's a nice example from JESS3 – ten things CEOs need to know about design.

10 things CEOs need to know presentation

41. Email newsletter

Old-fashioned perhaps, but people do still read email newsletters if they feel they get value from them, and they can be a good way of highlighting and driving traffic to new content as and when it's added to your website. Here's a nice example I received last week from National Geographic, encouraging readers to visit the website to share their travel photos. They've even brought the email newsletter format right up to date by signing off with a hashtag – #letsexplore.

national geographic email newsletter

42. Ask the experts

One form of ego-bait is to ask experts for their opinions, thereby creating useful content as well as widening your reach, as in this Econsultancy post on content marketing in 2013. Other ego-bait methods are discussed below. Here's another example – our very own Matthew Taylor talking about SEO over on the Copify blog.

43. Guest editor

Do you feel you need to inject a breath of fresh air into your blog or magazine site? A guest editor could be just the thing you’re looking for. The papers do it, and so do the Today Programme on Radio 4 and The Radio 2 Arts Show. So why not let an interesting person from your profession – or your company – take over your blog or social media account for a day? With plenty of prior promotion and social media to create a buzz around it, of course. As for the format, it's up to you. For some inspiration, here's the news that Snoop Dogg (sorry – Snoop Lion) was to guest edit on the Wall Street Journal’s Speakeasy blog…

44. Digital Christmas card

It’s the season of giving and sharing, so what better time to put out a great bit of content than the run-up to Christmas? With many companies now more conscious of their impact on the planet’s resources, it’s becoming increasingly popular to do online versions of Christmas cards rather than wasting trees. I'm not talking about those naff e-cards that there was a craze for about a decade ago. A great example is the Torchbox Christmas Choir, which featured each member of the team singing a different note, and allowed users to make up their own tune by clicking on each person, or to play pre-recorded ones. The Knightrider theme was one, prompting a tweet from none other than Mr. Hasselhoff himself. Also on the festive theme, perhaps you could try an advent calendar, revealing exclusive offers, entertaining images or mind-blowing facts behind each door.

torchbox christmas choir

45. Dummies’ guides

The enduring popularity of the 'For Dummies' books surely indicates that there's a big market for content that simplifies – so why not exploit this and produce a 'dummy's guide' to something in your industry? It'll be a useful resource that could serve as a blog post, static content, a downloadable PDF or even an infographic, and if you pick your topic carefully, it could prove very popular. You don't need to use the 'dummy' word if you don't want to – it's the concept, of providing a simple, easy-to-digest introduction to a topic, that matters. For something a bit more sophisticated, for example, you could try something like 'for the uninitiated' or even just 'beginner's guide'. Here's one the NHS did on running tips for beginners.

for dummies guides

46. Experiment/research

Conducting your own experiments into things relevant to your industry, and then publishing and promoting the results, is a great way to get noticed at the same time as pushing the boundaries of research and helping others to learn. This is more applicable to some industries than others, but it's certainly a format that works well in the world of SEO, in which nobody really knows exactly what affects rankings and by how much. Experiments we've conducted and written about on our blog have proved some of our most popular posts, such as this one by Marcus Taylor on what happens when you build 10,000 dodgy links to a new domain in 24 hours.

47. Troubleshooting

Solving common problems is a good way of bringing in long-tail traffic from people who are trying to find out why something isn't working for them. As an example, this advice from Total Jobs is one of the results for a search for 'why can't I find a job'.

48. Hub of top resources/links

No, I don't mean a spammy directory! I mean a useful resource aimed at a particular niche, such as this example from The Next Web – 20 incredibly useful tools and resources for web designers.

49. Online versions of offline content

Don't let your offline publications go to waste; they too can be helping drive traffic online. So if you have company brochures, magazines or guides lying about in the office, get them online as downloadable PDFs, HTML pages or iPhone/iPad/mobile/tablet versions. Thomas Cook does this with its extensive range of brochures, which are available in Thomas Cook shops or viewable online. You could go a step further and create an exclusively digital version of a popular offline format, just as Net-a-Porter does with The Edit Magazine.

50. Crowdsourcing/UGC

The great thing about user generated content is that you get your readers to do the work for you; all you need to do is collate and publish it. It's the same principle as the 'letters to the editor' section you find in magazines and newspapers, only the internet makes it even easier to source other people's opinions and make it into content of your own. In fact, it's as easy as finding a Twitter hashtag on something relevant to your industry, picking out a few interesting ones, and cobbling them together under a heading such as 'what Twitter is saying about the royal baby' – just like Fox News did. (Yeah I may have written this last week but I just had to edit it to get in a mention of the topic on everyone's lips…!)

And on that bombshell, my list of 50 content ideas has reached its conclusion. If you have any ideas you think should be on the list, I'd love to hear them – leave a comment below or let me know on Twitter, @RachelsWritings.

The post 50 Great Content Ideas + Examples – part 2 appeared first on White Noise.

50 Great Content Ideas + Examples – part 1

Posted: 17 Jul 2013 01:10 AM PDT

In the first half of a two-part series, today I'm going to be looking at some content ideas that you may want to include in your content strategy. I know there are a fair few posts already out there that offer content ideas, so my version will also offer some concrete examples of each content type done well. Here's part one, in no particular order apart from the first one – part two to follow next week with another 25 ideas (so don't worry if you think there are any major ideas missing!)…
Update – part two now available here.

1. Refresh your existing content

This is my first suggestion because it makes sense to ensure your existing content is up to scratch before you bother starting to create new stuff. Conduct a content audit or get us to do one for you! This will identify content that’s working well for you already, as well as content that could do with improving. You may well find that with a bit of work, you can get your existing content working much harder for you by refreshing the copy, revamping the layout or presenting the same information in a new and more exciting way.

Deloitte did this with the annual Football Money League report on the wealthiest football clubs. Previously presented only as a lengthy report each year, it had great success with reaching a bigger audience when the key facts and figures from the report were presented as an infographic. More on infographics below…

2. Start a blog

If your site doesn’t already have a blog, it should do. I've already explained why in my post on how to create a successful business blog, and it's certainly proved very successful in growing our business. It helps you rank better in search engines, too – it ensures a steady stream of fresh new content on a variety of relevant topics and naturally optimises your site for a whole load of long-tail keywords. Here's a nice example from Trafalgar:

trafalagar screenshot

3. Go image crazy

Let’s face it, people browsing the web are often pushed for time, and may not want to commit to reading an in-depth post. Make life easy for them by giving them something image-based. This sort of content is highly shareable, easily digestible and easy to put together. There's no better example of it than Buzzfeed, a recent post on 33 Things Brits Do Better Than Everyone Else being just one of many brilliant image-based bits of content.

4. Infographics

Done well, infographics are still a great way of presenting information in an engaging format, and we've found great success with getting them widely published (both online and offline). They're great for building brand awareness, driving traffic and gaining links and social mentions. Here's a snippet from a nice example from EasyJet:

easy jet image

5. Checklists

The checklist is a piece of content you can create as a useful resource that people can download/print and tick things off. An example would be a holiday checklist, that a travel site might provide to holidaymakers, such as this one from TheHolidayLet.com:

holiday checklist

6. Interviews

If you ask the right questions, interviews can be interesting and engaging. You get the added benefit of the fact that the subject of the interview will probably promote the content to their own following, widening its reach and hopefully raising your brand awareness. Luckily yours don't have to be quite as high profile as this week's Guardian piece in which Daniel Craig interviewed Thom Yorke; here's one Copify did with Reviews.co.uk's Callum McKeefery on user generated content.

7. Quizzes

As any pub quiz enthusiast or TV quiz show addict will tell you, quizzes are lots of fun. And you can use them to your advantage by creating one that highlights an issue in your area. Knowthenet.org.uk does this to good effect with quizzes designed to educate and raise awareness of internet issues, such as inadvertently breaking the law online. The best quizzes have a competitive element that makes people want to show off their score (for example, how many countries can you name in 5 minutes), or an amusing result that makes people want to share for a laugh (such as Oatmeal's how many Justin Biebers could you take in a fight). Perhaps the best ever example of this kind of content, though, is FreeRice.com, a site from the United Nations World Food Programme that allows users to test their general vocabulary while donating grains of rice to the third world (paid for by ads) for every correct answer. Genius.

8. White papers

These are lengthier articles designed to convey knowledge and expertise, as well as being a useful resource that people can share online. These are generally quite specialist and will have a smaller audience than, say, your average infographic. Here's one we did on business blogging:

blogging image

9. Video

Videos are a great way of adding multimedia content to your site and should ideally include a transcript so that Google can understand the content of the video (this also means that your video content can double up as a blog post or static page). Airbnb uses video as part of its content strategy, as highlighted by this excellent post on The Bureau.

video image

10. Timeline

Not quite the Facebook variety. As most of us probably found in history classes at school, timelines are a great way of presenting the progression of something through time. You can use this to create an interesting bit of content on something related to your industry, just like Thomson did with this history of aviation timeline, used to help publicise its addition of the new Boeing 787 Dreamliner to its fleet.

11. Widget

The word probably conjures up the wrong sort of image in the minds of seasoned SEOs, who’ll know about the ways in which black hats have exploited the widget to create thousands of easily manipulated links. But done legitimately, widgets can be a great content idea, raising brand awareness and helping drive specific goals. In no sector is the widget more valuable than for charities, which can use widgets to add 'donate' badges to supporters' sites, allowing readers to make charitable donations directly from external sites. Here's an example from War Child –the actual thing has a series of images, with the final one containing a 'donate now' call to action.

war child

12. Industry event round-up

Great as a recap for people who were there, or as a way for people who couldn’t make it to catch up on what they missed, industry event round-ups get lots of shares and links in the days following the event. As a business, they also show visitors to your site that you're actively involved in your industry, developing your knowledge and expertise by learning from others. Here's an example from our blog, with takeaways from SMX London 2013.

13. Ego-bait

We all love it when people say nice things about us, endorse our work, or present us as expert. And a lot of people will share content in which they're presented in a favourable light. So why not create a bit of content that massages the ego of some prominent people in your industry? They’ll probably share it with their own following, meaning you get extra exposure. It's the same principle as the way you see brands retweeting nice things people have said about them online. Here's an example of how it works on Twitter, but a blog post would be even better:

tweet image

14. Answer people's questions

Whether you source the questions via social media first, or just tackle some frequently asked questions on a topic you're knowledgeable about, Q&As are great because they deal with what people want to know, and can help your site rank better for long-tail searches in which people ask specific questions. The BBC does this sort of content to good effect when explaining complex current affairs to people who want to gain an introduction to the subject, such as this helpful Q&A on Egypt in turmoil.

bbc image

15. Run a Competition

A great way of gathering user details to aid your marketing campaigns, competitions can also be used to create valuable content and of course to raise brand awareness. The Guardian's travel photography competition is a good example, giving them some gorgeous (free!) photo galleries of readers' photos that are sure to get links and shares.

16. Create an annotated map

They're more relevant to some companies/industries than others, but these can be a really useful resource for users. You could plot global or national trends, highlight areas of interest or present information in an interesting and original way. For instance, a travel site could have a map showing the best places to see certain kinds of wildlife, rather than presenting this information in long-winded written form, such as this map of Costa Rica showing where you can see whales and dolphins:

dolphones image

17. Run a badge campaign

This is a form of ego-bait, involving selecting the websites you want links from and acknowledging them as among the best in their industry. You link out to them, they get a badge recognising their achievement that they can put on their blog; so they get kudos, you get a link, and everybody wins. EasyJet did this with their Ultimate Rome Blogger list, providing those listed with a “Local Expert” badge that endorses the blog with the recognisable EasyJet brand, as well as linking back to EasyJet.

badge image

18. Learning from topical events

This sort of content capitalises on hot topics and can be great if the link between the event and what you're writing about isn't too tenuous (to give a made-up example that's strongly based on the sort of things you see, '10 things Nelson Mandela taught me about SEO'). Here's a better example – a post about 10 things we can learn from Hurricane Sandy.

19. Best posts of the week

With so many great blogs around, not everyone has time to keep up with all the latest posts published, so doing a round-up of the best of the web is valuable because it gives people a single place to find the things they should be reading. Once you become trusted, you’ll find your readership grows. And to take maximum advantage of this, let sites know when you’ve featured them – they’ll help promote your round-up, raising brand awareness and building natural links and social mentions. Search Engine Land's SearchCap is a great example.

20. Write an ebook

More and more people are reading things in digital formats these days, and producing an ebook eliminates a lot of the expense involved in traditional publishing. Our friend and former colleague Marcus Taylor wrote an ebook called Get Noticed and did a great job of promoting it with its own website, which included loads of related content such as this video and tips on how to start a conversation.

21. Case study

Case studies are typically used to showcase how a company's product or service has transformed life or business of someone who has bought them, and as such, they're a great way of convincing others to buy. They're good content to have on your website, and we've found them to be valuable offline as well. Even Microsoft does case studies.

22. Day in the life

It's always interesting to read what other people get up to in their day-to-day lives, so 'day in the life' features have natural human interest. Admittedly some professions (such as this day in the life of an airline pilot) have more scope for an interesting feature than others, but with some thought, you're sure to find someone in your business or industry who people will be interested in reading about. You could give it a careers slant, showing people who want to work in a particular job what it's like; as in this example from the job site Bayt International on a day in the life of a management consultant, which has had over 55,000 views.

23. Host a Twitter chat session

Twitter chat sessions work by getting people answering questions and contributing to debates using a Twitter hashtag. As well as being a good way of getting discussion going via social media, you can create on-site content from these discussions by summarising these chats and people's tweets in a blog post afterwards, just like Dan Barker and James Gurd do over on ecomchat.org.

dan barker image

24. Comparing products

Comparison sites are done to death, but the opinions of real people still count for a lot, with an increasing number of web users reading online reviews before purchasing. How about comparing a few different products that do the same thing and deciding on the best? Just like they do on the Gadget Show.

25. Seasonal advice

As a nation absolutely obsessed by the weather, content based around seasonal advice is sure to go down a storm in the UK, while posts themed around major annual events such as Christmas are almost guaranteed an audience of interested readers. The BBC knows this – every year we see news articles every time it snows, because people are interested in things that directly affect them. At the moment we're enjoying an unusual heatwave, and lo and behold the BBC has just published advice for coping with the soaring temperatures – Eight low-tech ways to keep cool in a heatwave. MORE TH>N went for the same idea with a Winter Driving Guide.

So there's the first 25 content ideas – now continue to part two! Drop me a line on Twitter @RachelsWritings or leave a comment below if you'd like to share an idea of your own.

The post 50 Great Content Ideas + Examples – part 1 appeared first on White Noise.

Mobile Bid Adjustments Part 3 – Location, Location, Location

Posted: 12 Jul 2013 01:19 AM PDT

Previously I've discussed ways to calculate your mobile bid adjustment, and how to use weighted averages to change keyword level bids to ad group level adjustments. Today it's time to check how adding location bid adjustments will change things.

Firstly, a disclaimer: a 10% change to a bid is not the same as a 10% change to a CPC. CPC depends on competitors’ bids rather than your own; changing the bid changes what auctions you enter. If you're restricted by budget, then the proportion of spend on each device might change. But this is a rough check, to make sure the layers of adjustments aren't creating unexpected exponentials.

The first step, as ever, is to download your data. Go to the Dimensions tab, then to the User Locations report. Make sure you have the right level of detail: if you're only going to add adjustments for countries then you can have just the Country/Territory; if you're using UK countries or US states then have the Region column.

Download the User Location report with the Device.

Add a second worksheet, rename it ‘Location’, and list your location bid adjustments. These are campaign level only.

Then add a third worksheet, rename it ‘Mobile’, and list your mobile bid adjustments. These could be campaign or ad group level: here I’ve got mine at ad group level.

We want these adjustments in the first worksheet, so go back to that one and add ‘Location Adjustment’ and ‘Mobile Adjustment’ columns. ‘Location Adjustment’ is:
=SUMIFS(Location!C:C,Location!A:A,D3,Location!B:B,C3)

‘Mobile Adjustment’ is:
=SUMIFS(Mobile!C:C,Mobile!A:A,D3,Mobile!B:B,E3)

If you had campaigns targeting multiple devices then the mobile bid used would not be the same as the bid you actually entered, as Google automatically adjusts it by an unknown amount. That means you can’t work with your actual mobile CPCs, because they don’t come from the right bid. So instead use the Desktop CPC, which will be multiplied by the mobile bid adjustment. Add a ‘Desktop CPC’ column.
=SUMIFS(I:I,A:A,"Computers",B:B,B3,C:C,C3,D:D,D3,E:E,E3)

Then we get the adjusted CPC by multiplying it by our modifiers.
=IF(A3="Mobile devices with full browsers",O3+1,1)*(N3+1)*P3

This uses the mobile adjustment if the row is for mobiles, and always uses the location adjustment.

Multiply the Adjusted CPC by the number of clicks to get the Adjusted Cost:
=Q3*F3
This is assuming that the bid changes won’t affect your number of clicks – which is wrong, as changing bids leads to changing position which leads to changing CTR. Again, this is just a sanity check that your bids are in the right area: we can’t calculate the precise difference they will make, as you don’t know the position or CTR you’ll end up with.

Now we’ve assembled everything, it’s time to put it into a Pivot Table. Select the data, go to Insert on the menu ribbon and click Pivot Table:

A dialogue box will appear – click ‘Okay’.

You’ll get a pivot table in a new worksheet. Select fields to appear in it – I suggest Campaign, Ad Group, Cost and Adjusted Cost to start with.

Then add calculated fields: click ‘Option’ under PivotTable Tools in the ribbon, then ‘Fields, Items, & Sets’, then ‘Calculated Field…’:

Create one called Adj CPC, for the adjusted CPC:

Also add ‘CPC’, which is:
=Cost/Clicks

CPA:
=Cost /'Conv. (1-per-click)'

and Adj CPA:
='Adjusted Cost' /'Conv. (1-per-click)'

You can then see how your bid adjustments should roughly affect the Cost, CPC and CPA.

You can change the Row Labels to see how bids are affected when viewed by Region or Device. You can also add an ‘Effective Adjustment’ calculated field (=CPC /'Adj CPC' -1) to see what percentage the difference is between current performance and expected performance. You can also change your adjustments in the Location and Mobile tabs, then hit ‘Refresh’ in the PivotTable Tools Options to see the effects.

You might want to have ad scheduling as well. Unfortunately you can't segment the User Location report by time of day, but you can segment by Device and Day of the Week. If you want ad scheduling but no location adjustments, you could download the Hour of Day report segmented by Time of Day and Device. You'll then need an extra worksheet with your time-based adjustments, and an extra column to add them to the main data, but you can calculate the 'Adjusted' columns and pivot in the same way.

If you’d like to see the example spreadsheet then download it here.

That’s it! Our three-part discussion of bid adjustments is over (for now). Do you have any thoughts on how to calculate them, or predict their effects when there are so many unknowns in play? Let us know in the comments.

The post Mobile Bid Adjustments Part 3 – Location, Location, Location appeared first on White Noise.

Mobile Bid Adjustments Part 2 – Going from Keyword Bids to Ad Group Adjustments

Posted: 11 Jul 2013 01:15 AM PDT

In yesterday’s post I talked about the different ways to find your mobile bid adjustments, and said that if you have keyword level adjustments you’ll need to change them into ad group level adjustments. Today I’ll show how to do this with weighted averages.

Calculating Weighted Averages

Firstly you’ll need to get your keywords into Excel, so go to AdWords and to the Keywords tab.

Be careful to set the date range: you don’t want to have a range that will include anything that’s out of date, but you need enough data to make decisions.

The next steps depend on whether you have separate mobile campaigns or not.

If do you have separate mobile campaigns, you just need to download a Keyword report. Then replace 'Campaign' with 'Campaign Root' and add a 'Device' column. The Campaign Root should be the same for all campaigns that are the same except for device. Device should be the device the campaign is targeted at: 'mobile' or 'computers'. If you've named your campaigns sensibly then you should be able to fill these by copying the Campaign column, then using find and replace.

Then add a filter so you can just look at the mobile campaigns' keywords.

Add columns "Desktop bid" and "Mobile bid". To find the Desktop Bid for the keyword, use:

=SUMIFS(G:G,B:B,B3,C:C,C3,E:E,E3,D:D,"Computers")

This will find the Max CPC of the row with the same keyword, campaign root and ad group, where the device is ‘computers’.

To find the Mobile Bid, just copy column G, as you’re already only looking at mobile keywords.

If you don’t have campaigns split by device, but you have worked out what your mobile bids should be at keyword level, you’ll want to download the Keyword report segmented by Device. This means you already have a Device column, and can use the Campaign column without needing to add a Campaign Root column. Filter by Device so that you’re only looking at Mobile traffic. Then instead of messing with sumifs you can just copy the Max. CPC column to make the “Desktop Bid” column, and copy your mobile bids into the “Mobile Bid” column.

Whichever method you're using, your spreadsheet should end up looking something like this:

Add a column for ‘Mobile/Desktop’, for the keyword level percentage. Fill it with:

=IFERROR(O3/N3,0)

(The IFERROR is in case there is no desktop bid, which would otherwise lead to dividing by zero. If you need to find keywords that are in your mobile campaigns but not your desktop ones, you can filter for where Desktop Bid is 0.)

Then add a column for ‘Weight’. This is the keyword level percentage multiplied by the cost of the keyword:

=P3*L3

Then comes the bit you’re actually after. Put in a column for ‘Bid Adjustment’ and fill it with:

=SUMIFS(Q:Q,C:C,C3,D:D,D3,E:E,E3)/SUMIFS(L:L,C:C,C3,D:D,D3,E:E,E3,Q:Q,">0")-1

This sums up the weights (where the campaign, ad group and device are the same) and divides by the cost of mobile traffic to the ad group (ignoring where the weight is 0, as that would mean the keyword isn’t in the desktop campaign). The -1 is because mobile bid adjustments are the difference between the percentage multiplier and 100%.

If you’d like to see this in Excel, download the example spreadsheet here.

Review

You should then review your adjustments, to make sure they look sensible.

You may have the problem that a mobile ad group hasn’t had any clicks: its cost is 0, all its weights are 0 and the suggested bid adjustment is #DIV/0!. As you haven’t had any costs to show how you should weight the average, you could use an unweighted average:

=AVERAGEIFS(P:P,C:C,C3,D:D,D9,E:E,E3,P:P,">0")-1

Also, your final adjustments need to be between -90% and +300%. Rather than just use Excel to force those adjustments, I’d review the ad groups that are outside the limits. If the best modifier is over 300%, is the traffic valuable enough that it’s worth increasing desktop bids? If the bid modifier is under 90%, is it worth having mobile traffic at all?

Another thing you can do is add a column with the difference between the bid adjustment and the keyword’s preferred adjustment:

=IF(P3>0,P3-1-R3,"-")

Then filter to see the biggest differences, or filter by this and by cost to see where there would be the biggest difference in spend. Judge whether there are any keywords that would be better off in a separate ad group with its own adjustment.

The post Mobile Bid Adjustments Part 2 – Going from Keyword Bids to Ad Group Adjustments appeared first on White Noise.

How to Calculate Your Mobile Bid Adjustment

Posted: 10 Jul 2013 01:12 AM PDT

The Enhanced Campaign migration deadline is twelve days away. Even if you're leaving 'upgrading' until the last minute, you need to be prepared now.

The biggest change will be how traffic from different devices is treated. Previously, you had control over what devices a campaign would show on – now Search campaigns* are always on desktop and tablet, and can be on mobiles with a bid adjustment. So if you had separate device campaigns, you now have to merge them, and work out what bid adjustment you should be using to best emulate what bids you want.

But don't think you only have to worry about bid adjustments if you're merging separate campaigns! Previously, if you targeted multiple devices in one campaign, bids on mobiles would be automatically lowered. This won't be the case when you're enhanced: having no adjustment means you will be using the same bid on desktop and mobile, and that means you'll pay more for your mobile clicks.

Everyone needs to set mobile bid adjustments. So how can you work out what yours should be?

In today’s post I’ll look at what different methods you can use to calculate your adjustments. Then tomorrow and Friday I’ll go through how to implement some of these methods in Excel.

(*Display campaigns still have the option to target based on OS, device model and operator. You could theoretically have a tablet-only or mobile-only campaign if you selected the right device models, but you'd have to keep it up to date to avoid missing traffic on new models.)

1. Set the mobile bid adjustment to -100%

Pros: Quick and easy
Cons: You will be missing out on traffic

You may not be missing out on good traffic, of course. Maybe your site just doesn't work on mobiles; maybe your business doesn’t want mobile traffic (you are advertising PC software or Flash games, for example); maybe you've just found mobile traffic can't be made profitable in the past.

Incidentally, if you haven't advertised on mobiles before, this is probably not a good time to try: pretty much everyone will be making bid changes, so auction prices are bound to fluctuate worse than normal.

2. Just use the suggestion from Google

Pros: Quick and easy in the Upgrade Centre
Cons: Very probably not right for you

When you upgrade, Google will give a suggested mobile bid adjustment, but this is based on 'similar advertisers' rather than taking the campaign's actual performance into account. Adobe claim that "Google's MBA recommendations tend to be too high and mobile bids should be lowered further". So this method isn’t recommended.

3. If you have separate campaigns: look at your existing mobile bids

Pros: You've already done the hard work
Cons: Previously you've had keyword level bids, but bid adjustments are ad group level only.

They've work for you in the past, right?

If you have separate mobile campaigns then you have separate mobile bids, and you can work out what percentage they are of your desktop and tablet bids.

The problem is that mobile bids may not all be the same percentage at keyword level, and you have to set mobile adjustments at ad group level.

If there's a really significant difference you could split up the ad group. However this makes management more difficult: while you want small ad groups for better ad relevancy and more precise bid adjustments, in some cases ad groups don't have enough traffic to be worth the extra managerial effort.

So in most cases you probably want to use weighted averages – combine the keyword level adjustments together, but giving more weight to the adjustments from the keywords that do most of the spending. Tomorrow I’ll go through how to work this out in Excel!

4. If you don't have separate campaigns: look at your mobile CPCs

Pros: Fairly straightforward
Cons: May not reflect mobile traffic’s actual value. CPCs are not the same as bids.

But what if you haven't split out your campaigns?

In legacy campaigns, Google automatically uses a lower bid on mobile searches, so your historic CPC on mobile should be lower than desktop and tablet. So if you just want the status quo to continue, you can calculate

(Mobile CPC / desktop and tablet CPC) - 1

Again, there may be variance at keyword level. Again, you’ll want weighted averages, which I’ll talk more about tomorrow.

This method is fairly easy – it just needs some Excel work – and you can see your current mobile performance to give you an idea of how it will perform. But it doesn’t take into account conversions: you’ll carry on as before rather than getting any improvement.

Also,  it raises the problem that CPCs are not bids: lowering a bid by 20% could reduce the CPC by more, or drop you off the first page. It depends on your competition.

5. If you don't have separate campaigns: look at the value of a mobile click

Pros: The way you calculate your desktop bid is probably the best way to calculate any bid
Cons: It's effort. Average position is more important on mobile. Again, you can only adjust at ad group level.

Google's suggested method is

(Value of a mobile click / value of a desktop and tablet click) - 1

'Value of a click' could mean revenue per click or conversion rate, depending on whether you have revenue tracking in place.

This assumes your bids are set up according to value per click. You might instead be bidding for position, for branding purposes. Or you might be bidding less than your value per click so that you can get the most conversions from your limited budget.

There is also the complication that mobile SERPs have fewer ad slots: higher position is more important and you might want to bid a bit higher to actually be visible.

But basically the idea is: work out what the mobile bid should be, as if you were just targeting mobiles on their own, the same way you would for your desktop bid. Then find this bid as a percentage of the desktop bid. You could do this at ad group level, or work it out at keyword level and change that into an ad group level adjustment the same way as in method 3.

I realise putting "it's effort" as a con sounds lazy, but if your process for finding the best bid is manual and you've got too many keywords then there's only so much you can do before the 22nd. You might only have time to work out the right bids for the most important campaigns, and use adjustments based on historic CPC for lower volume campaigns until you have time to work things out properly.

6. Look at a user location report segmented by device

Pros: You can fine-tune bids more finely
Cons: Can't predict the effects precisely.

But wait! What about location bid adjustments? They will layer with the mobile bids – if you're using both you should probably check you're not throttling or exploding bids more than you want to in any particular location/device combination.

Example: the people of Townsville have low conversion rates and high cost per conversion, so you drop bids there by 20%. And mobiles aren't doing well either, so you also drop them by 20%. What if it turns out that the reason Townsville isn't doing well is that it's full of mobile users? You'll effectively be dropping bids by 36% there, because the adjustments multiply – you'll be bidding less than what you actually want.

It's unlikely that traffic somewhere is 100% mobile, but the proportion will vary by location. While you can't get a precise prediction of your adjustments' effects, you can make educated guesses – you can use a User Location report, segmented by Device, to see what the proportions are and what sort of overall adjustment will be made. This is another job for Excel – I’ll go through this on Friday.

And Remember To Check Performance

However you calculate your mobile bid adjustment, remember to monitor it! With all the changes of enhanced campaigns, the prices are bound to fluctuate when other advertisers try out their own bid adjustments.

The post How to Calculate Your Mobile Bid Adjustment appeared first on White Noise.
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Seth's Blog : The easiest way to disagree with someone

 

The easiest way to disagree with someone

...is to assume that they are uninformed, and that once they know what you know, they will change their mind. (A marketing problem!)

The second easiest way to disagree is to assume that the other person is a dolt, a loon, a misguided zealot who refuses to see the truth. Their selfish desire to win interferes with their understanding of reality. (A political problem!)

The third easiest way to disagree with someone is to not actually hear what they are saying. (A filtering problem!)

The hardest way to disagree with someone is to come to understand that they see the world differently than we do, to acknowledge that they have a different worldview, something baked in long before they ever encountered this situation. (Another marketing problem, the biggest one).

There actually are countless uninformed people. There are certainly craven zealots. And yes, in fact, we usually hear what we want to hear, or hear what the TV tells us, or hear what we expect, instead of hearing what was said, and the intent behind it. Odds are, though, that we will make the change we seek by embracing the hard work of telling stories that resonate, as opposed to dismissing the other who appears not to get it.

       

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luni, 7 octombrie 2013

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Mainstream Media Finally Catches on to Disabity Fraud: 60 Minutes Reports on "Disability USA"

Posted: 07 Oct 2013 11:19 PM PDT

At long last, mainstream media is giving play to widespread disability fraud running rampant in the US.

Steve Kroft on 60 Minutes reports on the alarming state of the federal disability program, which has exploded in size in the last six years and could become the first federal benefits program to run out of money.



Link if video does not play: "Disability USA"

The video is about 14 minutes long. Kroft interviews senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma. Kroft also attempts to interview a couple of law firms that make the most off of putting people on disability for a fee.

One firm has a perfect track record, where every disability case was approved.

Coburn selected cases at random and found 25% of the cases were fraudulent and another 20% were "highly questionable".

The "system is being gamed pretty big right now", said Coburn. "You need look no further than disability lawyers trolling for new clients."

The 60 Minute report names the firms, and they are under investigation. None of them would talk to 60 Minutes, citing legal advice.

Earlier this year, a senior member of Coburn's staff asked where I got the data for a chart I posted. I had an easy answer: "FRED - the St. Louis Fed website".

A Senate hearing on disability is scheduled this week. Interestingly, with the government shutdown, there may be no government stenographer to record the event.

I am a fan of Senator Coburn. He is one of the few level-headed pragmatists in D.C.

Disability Fraud Recap

  1. States Have an Incentive to Promote (Not Stop) Disability Fraud; So How Much Fraud Is There?
  2. Unwilling to Work; 25% in Hale County AL Collect Disability, 14 Million Nationwide; A Simple Solution
  3. Want to Get on the Disability Gravy Train? There's an App For That!
  4. 2.2 Million Go On Disability Since Mid-2010; Fraud Explains Falling Unemployment Rate; Will Higher Disability Taxes Fix the Problem?
  5. Disability Fraud Holds Down Unemployment Rate; Jobless Disability Claims Hit Record $200B in January

I have been discussing disability fraud for at least four years. The subject has finally made prime time. Please play the video and read the first couple links. They are a real eye opener.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
Mike "Mish" Shedlock is a registered investment advisor representative for SitkaPacific Capital Management. Sitka Pacific is an asset management firm whose goal is strong performance and low volatility, regardless of market direction. Visit http://www.sitkapacific.com/account_management.html to learn more about wealth management and capital preservation strategies of Sitka Pacific.

Throw the Bums Out (Your Bums, Not Mine)

Posted: 07 Oct 2013 06:51 PM PDT

It's no secret that congressional approval ratings are at near record lows. But what do people think of their own representatives?

Please consider Congress' Job Approval Falls to 11% Amid Gov't Shutdown
As Congress' inability to agree on compromises that would reopen the partially shut-down government and raise the looming debt ceiling continues, Americans give Congress an 11% job approval rating, down eight percentage points from last month and one point above the worst rating in Gallup history.

Question: Do you approve or disapprove the way Congress is handling its job?



The drop in Congress' approval rating is fueled in large part by Democrats' declining approval of Congress -- from 20% in September to 5% in October. Approval ratings among Republicans and independents have also fallen, but by much smaller margins. The big drop in Democrats' approval of Congress most certainly reflects Democrats' negative views of the Republican-controlled House, in which leadership has publicly demanded that the president and Democrats in Congress agree to changes in the Affordable Care Act as a condition for passing a continuing resolution or a budget. Overall, however, approval of Congress is very low across all partisan groups.

Question: Do you approve or disapprove the way the representative from your congressional district is handling his or her job?

Bums? What Bums? 

People are clearly fed up with the "bums" in Congress but they keep reelecting them anyway.

Why? Because Congress has hoodwinked voters in their own district into believing everyone "else" is to blame.

Even still, support for voter's own representatives is at a record low.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
Mike "Mish" Shedlock is a registered investment advisor representative for SitkaPacific Capital Management. Sitka Pacific is an asset management firm whose goal is strong performance and low volatility, regardless of market direction. Visit http://www.sitkapacific.com/account_management.html to learn more about wealth management and capital preservation strategies of Sitka Pacific.

French Taxi Unions Seek Minimum 15-Minute Delay Between Minicab Booking and Its Arrival

Posted: 07 Oct 2013 12:13 PM PDT

No matter how crazy or inefficient things are in France, socialists and their union sponsors always seek ways to make things worse. Thus, it's not at all surprising to discover economic lunacy has spread from bookstores to taxis.

Please consider Taxi Wars Erupt in Paris
Parisian taxi drivers get a bad press for being rude, playing loud music, almost never accepting credit cards and turning up for a booked ride with €10 already on the meter. They are also notoriously hard to find.

With just 18,000 vehicles, Paris' taxi fleet has remained virtually unchanged since the 1950s, while London's has swelled to around 23,000 black cabs and 40,000 minicabs.

Charles de Gaulle threw in the towel in 1958 after a two-day strike. Right-wing president Nicolas Sarkozy capitulated in 2008 after a drivers staged a three-day "operation escargot".

Now, however, the undisputed reign of "le taxi parisien" is under threat due to a recent change to the law liberalising so-called "tourist vehicles with chauffeurs", or VTCs - the French equivalent of minicabs.

Yan Hascoët, the 29-year old CEO of Chauffeur-Prive, started with 20 cars 18 months ago and business is booming. He now has a fleet of 320 vehicles, a client base of 15,000 and is seeing 15 per cent week on week growth.

"Our drivers are dressed in a suit and red tie, they open the door, make you feel at home in the car, doesn't blast their own music and don't talk unless talked to – just basic service which is hard to find in France," he told the Daily Telegraph.

VTCs work on reservations and cannot be hailed in the street. But the advent of smart phone applications using global positioning means cars can turn up almost at once, enraging taxi unions which accuse them of bending the rules.

To stop this, taxi unions are calling for on the government to impose a 15-minute delay between when a customer books a minicab and its arrival.

With a decision expected in the coming weeks, experts said the taxi lobby will pull out all the stops to get its way.
Also consider France Vows to "Save the Bookstores", Fixes Price of Books, Bans Free Shipping by Amazon

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com   
Mike "Mish" Shedlock is a registered investment advisor representative for SitkaPacific Capital Management. Sitka Pacific is an asset management firm whose goal is strong performance and low volatility, regardless of market direction. Visit http://www.sitkapacific.com/account_management.html to learn more about wealth management and capital preservation strategies of Sitka Pacific.

Surge in Home Equity Loans Coming?

Posted: 07 Oct 2013 10:06 AM PDT

With mortgage refinancing activity down 30% between May and September, will homeowners turn to home equity lines for cash?

That is a possibility suggested by the LPS Mortgage Monitor. Via email ...
"We have seen prepayments decline by more than 30 percent since May, when mortgage interest rates began climbing approximately 100 basis points to where we are today," LPS Senior Vice President Herb Blecher said. "As a result, the percentage of borrowers currently in loans with interest rates high enough for refinancing to make fiscal sense has decreased significantly. Over half of borrowers are now 'out of the money' with respect to refinancing. In December 2012, the population of potentially refinance-eligible borrowers stood at roughly 10 million. However, refinance activity during that time, along with rising interest rates, have shrunk that pool to just 5.7 million borrowers as of August.

"While higher interest rates may certainly have the effect of tamping down refinance activity, they may actually wind up contributing to a new appetite for home equity loans among homeowners," Blecher continued. "After bottoming out at the beginning of 2012, home prices are now at their highest levels since 2009, and borrowers who bought or refinanced within the last few years are quite likely to have accumulated additional equity in their homes. Based upon LPS' analysis of historical borrowing patterns and home value trends, it is possible that we could see an increase in second-lien borrowing among those who have locked in their first mortgages at very low rates and who wish to tap their equity without refinancing into a higher rate."

Refinancing and Home Equity Activity

Charts from the September LPS Mortgage Monitor

Prepayments Down 30%



50% Ineligible for Refinancing



Loans with Refinancible Characteristics



 Mortgages with Second Liens



 Historical Trends in HEs



Surge in HE Loans Coming?

A surge in home equity loans depends on three things

  1. Home prices continue to rise
  2. Willingness of borrowers to take out loans
  3. Willingness of lenders to offer loans at low rates

None of the above is a given.

If home prices stagnate or decline, no surge in home equity loans will follow.

Even "if" home prices continue to rise, projections as to what "may" happen if recent vintages follow the 2003 pattern are invalid because attitudes towards borrowing and lending are not the same now as in 2003.

Once attitudes on debt and housing reach a peak and reverse, it takes decades before they peak again.

If home prices continue to rise (a very big if), there will be some increase in home equity loans, but not at a pace we have seen before.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
Mike "Mish" Shedlock is a registered investment advisor representative for SitkaPacific Capital Management. Sitka Pacific is an asset management firm whose goal is strong performance and low volatility, regardless of market direction. Visit http://www.sitkapacific.com/account_management.html to learn more about wealth management and capital preservation strategies of Sitka Pacific.
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