| LED Digest 2247: Getting Traffic |
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Gregory Marquess: During the month Google AdWords was turned off
sales decreased by less than 2%. Ditching Google six months ago has had literally no impact on my sales. About 25% (max) of the money I paid to Google was because of click fraud. ================================================== The LED Digest Moderated Discussion List "Effective Online Advertising, Since 1997" Data > Information > Knowledge > Wisdom pair Networks: The LED's Web Host Hosting and Domain Registration from a Trusted Leader pair.com for Hosting | pairNIC.com for Domains ================================================== List Moderator: Published by: Adam Audette LED Digest adam, led-digest.com http://www.led-digest.com ............................................. September 15, 2006 Issue no. 2247 ............................................. .....IN THIS DIGEST..... ==== CONTINUING ================= --== Dropping PPC ==-- ~ Gregory Marquess "During the month Google was turned off sales decreased by less than 2%..." --== Taguchi Multivariate Testing ==-- ~ Valerie Walk "...is there any difference between 'Taguchi testing' and 'multivariate testing'?" --== AdSense Infractions & Search Penalties? ==-- ~ Mo Douglas "I did take your advice to heart and have rewritten the intro..." --== Getting Traffic ==-- ~ Donald Nelson "This technique is known as article marketing..." ~ Kym McLaughlin "...the highest ROII is organic search engine listings." ~ Michael Linehan "Figure out the plan to build the business you want." --== The Evolution of Email ==-- ~ Tom Aman "It appears that RSS is not yet making much headway with the average surfer." ======== CONTINUING =============================== From: Gregory Marquess Subject: Goodbye Google > Finally about two months ago I decided to wing it... drop > the PPC advertising altogether. And you know what? Nothing > terrible happened... In fact I think my activity has improved > somewhat, my sales are up and my orders average bigger > than they did when I paid for it. - Robert Bass, LED 2246 For the past several years I have seen my advertising skyrocket mostly because of increased PPC, and competitior ads on Google. I mainly adverised (past tense) on Google and Overture. For a month, I dropped all advertising on Google (which I had capped at $500.00 per day). The following month I turned off Overture which I have always placed myself in the top 3 and allowed uninterrupted clicks which averages about $190.00 per day. My average CPC on Google was $4.12 per click, it was less than half on Overture. The result? I saw a 32% decline in sales when I had Overture completely turned off. During the month Google was turned off sales decreased by less than 2%, yes that was under 2%. I do think that about 25% (max) of the money I paid to Google was because of click fraud. Still, ditching Google six months ago has had literally no impact on my sales. This test was 6-7 months ago. I have abandoned Google and have not looked back. My biggest mistake was not doing it long before. I am no cheerleader for Overture, I am only informing anyone who reads this of the simple fact of what my advertising did with both Google and Overture, and without either one for a period of a month. Google may very well work much better for you. The best thing Google ever did for me is help me realize very few of my customers were looking to Google to buy my products. Fortunately, I have a huge repeat customer base and am happy with Overture. Google may actually be a very good outlet for some business models. I however can and will live without them. Saving a massive amount of ad money doesn't hurt either. Gregory Marquess www.skintrigue.com -------- new post - new topic -------- From: Valerie Walk Subject: Improving Conversion Rates w/ Taguchi In response to Nick Usborne and Sumantra Roy, issue 2245 - Thanks for your replies - they were very helpful. I am slightly confused about 1 point - is there any difference between "Taguchi testing" and "multivariate testing"? Or, do they refer to the same thing? Valerie Walk -------- new post - new topic -------- From: Mo Mo Douglas Subject: AdSense penalty > ... I would use "Thailand Stories" in a descriptive phrase beside > your logo, remove the AdSense under the Introduction... - Reg Charie, LED 2244 Thanks for your comments, Reg. While I agree that the words 'Thailand' and 'stories' appear a lot of times on the page, it will be difficult to reduce this much as, well, our site contains loads of 'stories' about or centered around 'Thailand'. Most of the references to 'Thailand' are from the summaries of the stories, and in many of the cases I think they are relevant and cannot just be removed. I did take your advice to heart though and have rewritten the intro slightly, removing some of the Thailand references. I've also reduced the number of stories displayed on the front page from 12 to 10. Not sure what to do about the adblock though, as it seems to work fairly well there. Suggestions? AdSense, yes, we are in compliance now, but weren't for a while as we had their ads on pages which Google considered 'inappropriate'. Mo Douglas www.thailandstories.com -------- new post - new topic -------- From: Donald Nelson Subject: Getting traffic Dear All, R. Deisler wrote in LED 2246 on the perennial question of getting traffic. One thing I noticed from the email is that he / she has the knack of writing content. If this is the case, then this same writing skill can be used to write articles that could be published on other sites, blogs and in other ezines with a link back to his / her site. This technique is known as article marketing, and for some websites it works wonders. And speaking of a link back to the site in question: she / he could have put a link in the original LED post or in any other forum post. Every bit of traffic helps. Sincerely, Donald Nelson www.a1-optimization.com -------- new post - same topic -------- From: Kym McLaughlin Subject: Getting traffic Have you optimized the content of your site to correlate with your targeted keywords? Also, have you implemented metatags on your site and manually submitted your site to the major search engines? I have been in the "SEO Biz" for about 10 years and found that the highest ROII is organic search engine listings. If you are a "do it" yourself type of person there is a ton information out there. You can email me and I will send several links to get you started. By now I am sure you are swamped with offers to take on this project for you. Be very careful if you choose to hire a SEO firm. Check references, check references and then check references. Good luck to you. Kindest regards, Kym McLaughlin, Search Engine Optimization Specialist Advanced Internet Marketing www.top20promote.com -------- new post - same topic -------- From: Michael Linehan Subject: Getting traffic > This is going to sound pretty amateurish, I'm > sure, but how do I start getting traffic?! - R. Deisler, LED 2246 Hello R, Your situation is similar to many people I encounter, some of whom have had websites for years! Over and over, I meet people at business events and I hear, "Oh, you're in web marketing; can I ask you a question?" And the two questions are ALWAYS, "I don't get many visitors: do you have any idea why?" and "How can I make more sales?" The reason for the inadequate return on investment is usually an almost complete focus on designing and building the site. Little time or money is given to an enormously important component - planning. An enormous increase in effectiveness can be had, by most business owners, by taking a step back and starting with a plan. Where are you going and why? Who are you talking to? What do they want? How can you reach them? What's the best route to get to your goal? What is the best "vehicle" (i.e. business) to deliver what you want? In other words, I'm talking about laying out a thorough and truly strategic marketing program. One caveat: strategy is an often misused word. Frequently, it is used to mean a "really big" tactic, or the "latest, sexy" tactic, or just a large collection of tactics. But strategy is something else. It's kind of strange, because in most fields of human endeavor, most people would not dream of starting without a long-range, detailed, carefully considered plan. Think of climbing Everest. Lack of a thorough plan will get you to an early burial. Or consider becoming a surgeon, architect, ballet dancer, national-level athlete, or concert violinist. But the business world is bizarrely different. The majority of most companies' marketing is tactical and opportunistic. Each marketing tactic is essentially separate, each week's marketing not particularly connected to the last or the next. This is how about 99% of companies market (April 2003 study of over 3,000 companies of income from $0 to $600,000,000 / annum). I have done the tactical in my own business, and I've done the strategic. I can personally attest to the difference. I also make my living every day rescuing people from under-performing websites --- and the core of the solution is almost always the shift to a strategic foundation. So rather than thinking about adding or prioritizing tactics in your already excellent list, I'd take that step back. Figure out the plan to build the business you want. That plan will contain tactics, but in a coherent, sequentially implemented scheme where each will build on the last. It's like the difference between a bunch of flashlights and a laser. The laser may not have any more watts, but its power is ENORMOUSLY increased because the light is coherent, i.e all acting together. This is what a strategic plan can do for you -- produce such an increase in power and focus that your marketing results will undergo a leap in effectiveness - give you a laser-focussed business building force that will take you to another level. My hunch is that you'll get some good specific ideas from other people. My contribution will be to say that strategy is probably the most overlooked factor in business success --- and that becoming strategic is, therefore, the single biggest change you can make to move towards your goals. That's the core that will make EVERYTHING more powerful, including all those valid tactics you already listed. Michael Linehan, Marketing Alchemy www.marketing-alchemy.com -------- new post - new topic -------- From: Tom Aman Subject: Email publishing > There was talk of RSS replacing e-Mail. At the time > I thought 'how silly' -- but I now have a Google home > page that gives my RSS feeds from around the world. - John Smart, LED 2246 RSS may be "the best thing since sliced bread". But then again, maybe not (at least not yet)! It appears that RSS is not yet making much headway with the average surfer. A quote from eMarketer: "Research by Media Buyer Planner and Workplace Print Media shows that merely 2% of US employees subscribe to RSS feeds, and only 9% know what such feeds are." The complete article can be read at http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?1004127 On the other hand, I got brave and decided to give the new IE a test - that is Version 7.0, RC1. I have had no problems with it so am staying with it. In addition to giving tabbed browsing that so many people like, it does include provision for RSS, including an icon that changes color when a page includes an RSS feed, thereby making subscribing to that feed as easy as clicking with a mouse and it eliminates the need for a special RSS reader. Maybe, as use of this browser becomes more common, RSS will become a significant mode of communication, but that remains to be seen. (For those who might be interested in the new IE, try http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/downloads/default.mspx for info on availability for your system in you choice of language.) Tom Aman
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