Bloom Search Marketing - Blog - Latest Comments

Re: Bloom Logo In an Exhibit in Malone, NY

affordable inexpensive logo — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 06:54:22 -0000

Nice logo designs. They are unique and creative. Thanks for sharing.

Re: Bloom Logo In an Exhibit in Malone, NY

karensiff — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 23:46:13 -0000

Great post. Nice designs.

Re: Twitter IS Good for Business – How You Use it Makes All the Difference!

Xurxo Vidal — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 16:19:17 -0000

Re: Twitter IS Good for Business – How You Use it Makes All the Difference!

Xurxo Vidal — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 16:19:17 -0000

Tanveer,

My pleasure, thanks for dropping by and commenting.

I totally agree that examples like these should not cause people to ignore other lead generation or marketing venues but rather like you said, learn how to integrate them to gain incremental opportunities.

Re: Twitter IS Good for Business – How You Use it Makes All the Difference!

Tanveer Naseer — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 12:11:04 -0000

Hi Xurxo,

First off, thanks for the hat tip. Always glad to help offer tips to others on how to more effectively manage content streams. :)

I agree that there's tremendous potential for businesses in using social media platforms, if they recognize that the goal here is not chasing hot leads, but developing meaningful relationships. As you pointed out in your example, Xurxo, by lending help to Justin, you not only gained exposure to him as a potential resource for taking a business issue off his plate - the management of his AdWords campaign - but your interaction impressed him enough that he's now broadcasting information about your company to his tribe.

Of course, that doesn't mean that traditional approaches to marketing have to be tossed out in favour of these new platforms. Instead, all that is need is a better integration and consistent message being spread across both.

Great story, Xurxo. Thanks for sharing and demonstrating an example of the potential behind plaforms like Twitter.

Re: Twitter IS Good for Business – How You Use it Makes All the Difference!

Xurxo Vidal — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 10:14:38 -0000

Mike,

Social media and the possibilities it offers is definitely like a buffet. With so much choice (and buzz) being offered, the trick is to be able to cut through the noise and find the signal.

Tools like Socialoomph are great to do just that. Thanks for pointing it out!

Re: Twitter IS Good for Business – How You Use it Makes All the Difference!

Michael Hartzell — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 22:34:07 -0000

It's good to keep this mindset alive. It will be easy for some to give up should there not be examples of success. thank you for this.

Each business has its own Twitter strategy (no right or wrong) but the common theme you pointed out is:
-Active Engagement
-- Being Accessible to customers and potential customers,
----Creating the means for quick response.
------Offering VIP Service to those conected. (Private Feed Accounts)

Twitter offers more than just 140 characters. and is not simply a sign on the internet wall. Good to hear your positive experience. Keep them coming!

Mike

PS... If a program similar to socialoomph is used (free), a person can have daily message to the inbox for chosen keywords. So many options.. its like a buffet. :)

Re: How Your Quality Score Impacts Your Ad Positions on Google AdWords

Xurxo Vidal — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 10:27:54 -0000

Justin, glad you found it helpful. Thanks for stopping by!

Re: Twitter IS Good for Business – How You Use it Makes All the Difference!

Xurxo Vidal — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 10:26:34 -0000

Etienne,

That's a good point - twitter can also be a great resource for finding information quickly from your network. It seems like common sense, but it's so easy to overlook these opportunities.

Re: Twitter IS Good for Business – How You Use it Makes All the Difference!

Xurxo Vidal — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 10:25:46 -0000

Hi Brett,

Thanks for sharing your blog post - interesting and thought provoking. I left a comment. Clearly twitter and its cousins like facebook and LinkedIn are here to stay so companies would do well to learn to embrace and harness them.

Easier said than done, but well worth the effort!

Re: Get More Conversions by Giving Fewer Choices

Xurxo Vidal — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 10:23:38 -0000

Mary,

I would recommend using dedicated landing pages that focus on each type of item one by one and avoid cross promoting products on these pages until the potential customer has made a choice and added to cart, then during the checkout process you can experiment similar to what Amazon.com does – “people who bought the item you selected also purchased X,Y,Z (list a few more related products here). I know that it’s more work, but doing this usually increases sales since your conversion rates tend to go up as you are giving people exactly what they want without bombarding them with too many options. You can start with the items the either provide you with the highest profit margins or largest sales volumes to test and then expand down from there.

If you’re talking about your home page, I would organize the items by the categories that make the most sense for your customers – Ie. how are your customers searching? Is it by item type, application or room? And then direct traffic to the above mentioned category or item specific landing pages.

It’s difficult to visualize without seeing other examples so I recommend checking out other similar sites (competitors) as well as sites from other industries for inspiration. I also recommend having a look at Steve Krug’s book – Don’t Make Me Think. Steve give a lot of great examples and shares insights on what works and doesn’t on websites and landing pages.

Also take a look at Jakob Neilsen’s books on web usability, they’re full of great visual examples of both good and bad websites and elements.

And last but not least, don’t forget to keep an eye on your web analytics to monitor the effects that these changes have and so that you can see what works and what doesn’t and make adjustments.

Keep me posted on how things go, I’d love to hear your experience with giving fewer choices to get more action.

Re: Twitter IS Good for Business – How You Use it Makes All the Difference!

Brett Mifsud — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 03:33:32 -0000

Xurxo, you have made some valid points. I also agree that the value depends on the context in which it is used. I recently wrote an article on the four major approaches that organisations may use Twitter to benefit business; Direct, Indirect, Internal and Inbound Signalling. Feel free to read and comment. http://brettmifsud.com/twitter...

Re: Twitter IS Good for Business – How You Use it Makes All the Difference!

Etienne Garbugli — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 16:25:37 -0000

Companies that are proactive on Twitter can get a lot of business. I no longer search for apps or tools, I just ask questions on Twitter and receive great recommendations 95% of the time.

Once you know what your clients are looking for or asking about, you can use search to find leads.

Re: How Your Quality Score Impacts Your Ad Positions on Google AdWords

justin locke — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 14:00:53 -0000

for a first time adwords user this was extremely helpful and de-mystifying.

Re: Get More Conversions by Giving Fewer Choices

maryfreeland — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 15:18:01 -0000

I would be interested in how you would suggest applying this to home decor where you have several types of items (ie. wall decor, furniture, lamps, etc). Would I focus on one category of items and rotate the category that is displayed weekly?

Re: Get More Conversions by Giving Fewer Choices

Guest — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 11:51:37 -0000

This is true and it's so easy to forget too.

Here's a product I built two different landing pages for. One a typical *ugly* - I mean reeally ugly - sales letter and the other is the same text only this time I used a beautiful wordpress template.

(should I share the urls?? what the heck...) <-- me thinkin to myself

Here's the ugly one:
http://tamingthegreenbug.com/

Here's the cute one:
http://tamingthegreenbug.com/B...

Which one do you think converts better? Reply to this comment and tell me what you think converts better and why...

(There are two main reasons why one converts better. I'll give candy to whoever gets them right or maybe ice cream... :)

Re: Supersize Your CTR and Quality Score on Brand New PPC Campaigns

Xurxo Vidal — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 10:25:46 -0000

Hi Alan,

No worries, playing devil's advocate is a great exercise because it forces all of us to think and go over interesting and useful strategies. Sometimes it's downright necessary because things are not always black or white - often it depends. For instance, in some very niche industries, you might introduce broad match a lot sooner because of the lack of search volume and data. So broad match keywords can help you discover what people are searching for related to your product or service.

I double checked what Google says about quality score as I had not heard that QS was only calculated on an exact match search of the keywords in a campaign. Here's what Google says on their site: "A Quality Score is calculated every time your keyword matches a search query -- that is, every time your keyword has the potential to trigger an ad." So even the performance of irrelevant queries triggered by broad match (and phrase) get included in the QS calculation.

I was able to find that for first page bid estimates however, "the estimate approximates the cost-per-click (CPC) bid needed for your ad to reach the first page of Google search results when a search query exactly matches your keyword. The estimate is based on the Quality Score and current advertiser competition for that keyword."

So it appears that for first page bid estimates, Google only takes into account the quality score of the exact match of the keywords in a campaign. Good to know.

Re: Supersize Your CTR and Quality Score on Brand New PPC Campaigns

Alan Mitchell — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 03:04:04 -0000

Hi Xurxo, I was under the impression that Quality Score is calculated for exact-matched searches only...so searches that are broad-matched to one of your keywords would do nothing to pull down Quality Score of that keyword, even if those broad-matched searches lower your CTR.

I'm just playing devil's advocate and tend to agree you both: that it's better to start very focused and have all match types bidding at the same level until data is collected to prove otherwise. I think there are many possible routes and methods to achieve paid search success, and as long as they are valid and logical, I respect all of them.

Re: Get More Conversions by Giving Fewer Choices

Xurxo Vidal — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 20:59:09 -0000

Debbie,

Thanks for sharing your experience - no one can argue with hard factual data!

It's especially good to have when faced with those that like to "go with their gut".

Re: Get More Conversions by Giving Fewer Choices

Xurxo Vidal — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 20:57:22 -0000

Tell me about it, today the most simple of buying decisions have become challenging because of the vast amounts of choice.

Sometime you almost have to close your eyes and pick something without looking back to keep your sanity. :)

Re: Get More Conversions by Giving Fewer Choices

Xurxo Vidal — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 20:57:11 -0000

Tanveer,

You raise an interesting point where advertisers should better segment their audience before inundating them with all the possible options in hope that they'll be interested in one of them.

Takes a bit of initial effort, but the value of this strategy will pay off. I'm with you, the lobster trap approach makes so much more sense!

Re: Supersize Your CTR and Quality Score on Brand New PPC Campaigns

Xurxo Vidal — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 20:45:35 -0000

Hi Alan,

The one main reason why you'll want to avoid bidding lower on broad match initially is because of quality score. Since the floodgates are usually open on broad match keywords, it's likely you'll get more impressions. So if your ad is in a lower position because of a lower bid, your CTR is more likely to suffer and you may see your QS fall quickly.

I know that Google claims to normalize the CTR by ad position so in theory ads in a lower position are not penalized as much for having a lower CTR, but I prefer not to take chances by leaving this in the hands of Google.

Also you'll want to find out sooner rather than later if certain broad match keywords are worth keeping or not. This is more difficult to do if you lower bids to reduce the amount of clicks. You'll have a harder time telling why CTR is lower on broad match vs the other match types. Is it because there are a lot of irrelevant queries that Google is showing your ads for or is it simply because you've chosen to reduce your bids and your ads might be in too low a position?

Re: Get More Conversions by Giving Fewer Choices

SEO and PPC Web Consultant — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 15:35:49 -0000

This is 100% true though it is not always easy to convince the marketing department that this is the case. In order to prove that this works I just ran various A/B tests and always the version with fewer choices collected more conversions. No-one can argue with statistics :-)

Re: Supersize Your CTR and Quality Score on Brand New PPC Campaigns

Alan Mitchell — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 22:50:37 -0000

Thanks for the replies Christian and Xurxo.

I would tend to start all match types on the same bids, like Xurxo, but my point is that if you know broad match will generally perform worse that exact and phrase, why not use this experience and start their bids a bit lower? If it's common knowledge that broad match opens the floodgates and throws all sorts of traffic at you, why risk starting broad match at the same bids as exact and phrase?

I agree that some broad match keywords will perform very well, and agree that testing is key, but isn't it better to start low then increase bids on those keywords that are working well, rather than starting high and reducing bids on those that aren't?

Of course, data by match type might be skewed, but surely a more cautious approach with broad match is better than ignoring broad match completely at the start?

Re: Supersize Your CTR and Quality Score on Brand New PPC Campaigns

Xurxo Vidal — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 10:04:15 -0000

Hi Alan,

I have to agree with Christian that bid tactics are better made based on ROI rather than match type because there is no guarantee that an exact or phrase match keyword will outperform a broad match or vise versa without testing.

Bid stacking might skew the data and lead to the wrong conclusions based on match types. For this reason I recommend setting the bid at the same level initially and then adjusting based on actual performance.