Broad Match Modifier

By xwang on November 5, 2011

Google’s Panda update brought many new elements, including a change of Broad Match in PPC.

Common complaints about broad match as being “too broad” used to lead PPC’ers to using primarily Exact and Phrase matches.

In response to this, Google has added broad match modifiers. Google also claims that if you primarily use broad match, then be wary of broad match modifiers because they have been shown to lower PPC performance. Here is the new fields on the left of the Adwords Keyword Tool.

 

 

And…

 

Basically, the Include + modifier allows you to input terms that will narrow down your broad match of your search term. I’m interested to see the viability of this new filter.

I’ll be keeping an eye out on its usefulness and ROI in the future.

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The Misspellings in Search Queries Dilemma: To spell like a first grader or to sacrifice traffic?

By xwang on October 16, 2011

Did you mean: bologna sandwich?

We’ve all been there, a slip of the typing finger and you’ve misspelled your Google search query. Yet, have you ever stopped to consider how many people are misspelling your keywords? Should you attempt to optimize for these misspellings? Or should you just ignore them?

Trends and Statistics

1. I decided to conduct a little bit of research on the rough volume of words misspelled in search queries. Below are some results from five simple queries:

Weather: 
Queries misspelled: 0.66%

Dumbbell
Queries misspelled: 35.3%

Foreign
Queries misspelled: 5.6%

Equipment
Queries misspelled: 5.6%

Jewelry
Queries misspelled: 7.9%

 

Average queries misspelled in this sample: 11%

2. Even large eCommerce sites can mess up when it comes to dealing with misspelled search queries. A study conducted by 37signals on 25 well-known eCommerce sites yielded the following results regarding misspellings:

1

72% of the sites had trouble handling misspelled search queries!

3. Misspellings can often times lead to readers ignoring the rest of the text once they encountered the first one or two misspelled words. On the Internet, credibility is trading at a premium. Misspelled words can lead to a immediate crash in web credibility. A study by John Walker conducted on Slashdot messages found that:

“A total of 34 words were read before the respective messages struck out, from a total of 444 words in the original postings (not counting headers or identification information). Striking out the messages thus eliminated more than 90% of the text you’d otherwise have read in these messages.”2

Striking out as Walker defines it simply means encountering a spelling or grammar error.

Is it worth it?

Pros:

  • Less search competition
  •  Generate more traffic

Cons:

  • Can damage your brand
  • Low quality traffic
  • Can destroy conversions (see how tightsplease.co.uk literally doubled their conversions after correcting misspellings on their website)

 

What you can do if you still want to optimize for misspelled keywords

1. Use PPC

Customers may be more forgiving if there’s a misspelling in a pay-per-click text ad instead of on your actual website. This method may not be too great though. CTR for text ads are often times in the low single digit percentages, and since misspelled search queries are already a fraction of correctly spelled search queries, you may not be get lots of traffic.

2. Creatively incorporate misspellings into your text

Think of creative ways of incorporating misspelled words into your text. For example, you can write “The word ‘misspelled’ is often incorrectly written as ‘mispelled’ or ‘misspeled’”.

3. Misspell the words, but don’t be too conspicuous

You can just bite the bullet and misspell the words. Maybe your users won’t notice, or they might forgive you. At any rate, be fully aware the possible damage to your brand, credibility, and ultimately conversion rate, that this practice can cause. If you have to target misspelled keywords, try to be discreet about it.

4. Consider optimizing for high-conversion or late buying cycle keywords only

When a user is already actively ready to convert, they may be more forgiving of misspellings. On the other hand, the credibility hit you take may cause your customers to go to a competitor to buy. It is a risk you have to be willing to take. Testing different options can give you a clearer idea of what works for your keywords.

5. Optimize for a site that is not connected with your person/brand

If you just want a way to monetize misspelled keywords, you can try creating microsites that specifically target those keywords. Put significant distance from yourself/your brand if you don’t want to risk any damage to your reputation.

1: http://www.37signals.com/37searchreport.pdf

2: http://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/strikeout/

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Why text is important in video marketing

By xwang on October 10, 2011

Video marketing is on the rise. There’s no denying that. According to recent figures, 82.5% of the U.S. Internet audience viewed a video online!1

The new ease of use and visual appeal of video opens up a great marketing channel for us marketers to pursue. However, in your zeal uploading YouTube videos of funny cats, don’t forget the text! Here is a couple of reasons why text is as important as ever in Internet marketing:

1. Even though video search technology is getting better day by day, the main way search engine spiders understands your content is still through crawling your HTML text. Text is literal food for these spiders, so feed them well with the nutritious food (your targeted keywords). Remember, search engines can only process and rank your content if it is crawl-able. Here’s an example of what a human sees and what a spider sees:

Before pic — Website: Human view

HumanViewWebsite

 

After pic — Website: Spider view

WebsiteSpiderView

 

 

Not having enough crawl-able text is a particular danger with Flash and Ajax based sites. Make sure to include enough HTML plain text if you choose to build sites on these platforms or get a knowledgeable SEO web developer.

2. Text is also faster for the time-pressed reader to digest. Videos, although having their own merits, lack in this aspect; skipping around boring, nonessential parts of a video is annoying and can lead to missing critical scenes. You want your audience to get the meat of your message. And you want them to be able to get it quickly through scanning text if they so choose. In fact, according to Nielsen Norman Group’s research, 79% of users always scanned any new page vs. 16% who read the page word-for-word.2

3. Incorporating text in your video marketing allows you to explain more in depth on the topic you covered in your video. Even though the average length of video is on the rise, most viewers click away from the video within the two minutes:

VideoViewershipDropOverTime3

Although people are impatient with long videos (often choosing to not watch them at all), they are more forgiving with long texts. This means text gives you more space to rivet your audience’s attention and speak to them.

Video advertising will definitely provide the you with a great medium for getting out your message, but remember to give equal importance to the surrounding text you use if you want to fully take advantage of video marketing!

 

1 http://www.comscore.com/Press_Events/Press_Releases/2011/3/comScore_Releases_February_2011_U.S._Online_Video_Rankings

2 http://www.useit.com/alertbox/9710a.html

3 http://www.bizreport.com/2010/10/online-video-viewers-abandoning-clips-after-just-10-secs.html

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