Blue Tent Marketing

In July 2009, search headlines revealed a deal between Microsoft and Yahoo whereby Microsoft would power Yahoo search.  Yesterday the two search engines announced that they have received clearance from the U.S. Department of Justice and the European Commission for their search agreement.  A few important details to consider:

• Both Yahoo and Microsoft search will continue to have differentiated search experiences with Microsoft (Bing) managing the technology behind the search algorithm for both.
• The Microsoft adCenter will be the platform for search campaigns on both Bing and Yahoo.
• The agreement is meant to help you reach more customers, save time and effort in managing your campaigns, and more readily experience new features through greater innovation.

These changes will not immediately affect your accounts with Bing and Yahoo as the two companies are committed to a smooth transition.  The transition is expected to occur before the holiday season of 2010.  Several things to start to think about:

• Start (or continue) monitoring your Bing and Yahoo organic search results, paying more attention to Bing as this algorithm will ultimately command more market share by the end of 2010.
• If you aren’t running a Yahoo or Microsoft paid search campaign, consider starting one as you’ll be able to reach customers on both Yahoo and Bing.
• Stay up to date about the transition – Yahoo Transition Center.

- Lindsay Reither
Director of SEM & Web Analytics

Ever wonder how the search volume for one of your top keywords varies over time?  Curious as to why your site saw a decrease in organic search traffic despite a month of improved search engine rankings?  Trying to determine when you should ramp up your paid search campaign?  Look no further.  Google Insights for Search is a powerful tool that allows you to compare search volume patterns across search terms, location and time ranges.  The tool is helpful for many aspects of your search engine marketing efforts including:

Seasonality: Budget and plan your internet marketing efforts (and your business) according to the seasonality of your top keywords.  For example, if you run a snow plowing business, determine when people are searching for relevant keywords in your geographic area and ramp up your paid search campaign accordingly.  Consider increasing your budget proportionally to the search volume.

Geographic Distribution: Where do you customers live?  Compare search volume across countries, regions and cities.  For example, if you are responsible for marketing for a vacation rental company in Colorado, you may need to know when people in different geographic regions start planning their ski vacations.  From the data below, you can compare different geographies and target these markets accordingly.  With paid search, you can create unique campaigns for individual cities and states and can increase and decrease their budgets according to the search trends.

Predicting the Future: Will the search volume for your top keywords increase, decrease or remain steady over time?  Do you need to ramp up your search marketing efforts to capture a larger share of search traffic in 2010 compared to 2009?  Using extrapolation of data, Google helps to predict the future of search for specific keywords.  Use their forecast tool, to help plan your search strategy for 2010.

Lindsay Reither
Director of Search Engine Marketing & Web Analytics

Πάντα ῥεῖ καὶ οὐδὲν μένει

"Nothing endures but change." – Heraclitus, Greek Philosoper (535 BC – 475 BC)

This is one of my favorite aphorisms of all time. We easily observe and experience the truth of this statement in our daily lives – it’s as easy as looking out the window. We detect changes in the weather, in the position of the sun, and the movement of the clouds in the sky. As humans we’ve evolved to become keen observers of change – ultimately so that our perceptions may positively influence our actions.

Web analytics guru, Avinash Kaushik, has a great old post titled "Making Web Analytics Actionable: Focus On What’s Changed." In it, he lets out the "dirty little secret" of web analytics that in most cases, it’s doubful that the "top 25" of anything (referrers, keywords, etc.) changes much at all. The point is that there are changes in traffic, in engagement, in referral sources occuring within your web analtyics data. Which raises the following questions:

Are you able to detect these changes?

What actions do you take as a result of these insights?

Most likely, the answer to the first question is no. Lucky for you, the team over at Juice Analytics has released an updated version of their Firefox Google Analytics Plugin that allows GA users to easily access some key change metrics within their standard GA reporting dashboard. Specifically, the plugin allows analysts to regularly access change report metrics in the Keyword and Referring Site Reports. This is a very meaningful report that gives you insight into how your internet marketing efforts are actively affecting your overall performance. You’ll quickly be able to see new referring sites within the past three days, as well as keywords with greater than 50% increase in referral traffic. This is data that once was buried and difficult to access, and is now literally at your fingertips, for free, with the click of your mouse! Thanks Juice Analytics!

Of course, the question remains: Now that you have visibility into this data, what will you do with it? How will these insights into these constant change metrics influence your ad spend, your PPC budget, your marketing strategy? As always, we’re here to help …

– Josh Lewis
VP Marketing

Today, all it takes is an angry person with thumbs and a Twitter account to start trashing your business online. Recently, a lead came into us that clearly displayed this newfound phenomenon and the persuasive power of the social web:

Please Describe Your Needs: Please help with a few negative comments about our business consisting of 14,000 patients and over 30,000 implants placed to date. Less than 5 negative google comments are destroying 8 years of a business I have spent everyday building 16 hours a day.

Ouch! Less than 5 negative comments posted on Google are destroying 8 years put into building a successful business. The weight of that statement is astounding! This prospect (from the dental industry) is prepared to spend upwards of $10,000 per month to address these negative comments that were posted on the “social web” and are adversely affecting his business in a very severe way.

There are good and bad effects of this evolution of the web into the social sphere. On the good side, consumers have more control, more information, and more voice to affect purchasing decisions. On the bad side, the reputation of a great business, established over many years of hard work, can now be tarnished almost instantly by a few dissatisfied customers.

Which raises the question: How is your business leveraging the power of positive feedback online?

This is perhaps one of the most important questions for a business of any size to be mindful of when evaluating the importantance of social media to their business. The answer is obvious: It’s critically important. It simply doesn’t matter what type of business you’re running. Whether you’re in lodging and vacation rentals, dentistry, dermatology, the ski rental or restaurant business, the end result is the same – it matters what people say about your business online.

I recently returned from a trip to the Victoria House in Ambergris Caye, Belize (it was amazing, albeit a bit pricey, but don’t take my word, see what others have to say). As I was checking out I noticed a beautiful guest book (pictured at right), full of glowing reviews from past guests. The only problem was that these glowing guest comments weren’t reaching the right audience. That’s where we come in.

We create programs that reach out to your most satisfied customers, and turn them into your most enthusiastic online brand advocates – thus leveraging the power of the positive.

Anyone that’s ever read the letters to the editor in their local newspaper realizes that many of the letters are people complaining about something. The social web has made it even easier for people to make their complaints heard. The trick is combat and overwhelm those negative experiences with positive ones. However, expecting these positive reviews to appear on their own is a dubious approach indeed.

This is where the strategic approach to social media comes into play. You’ve got to find ways to first identify who your most satisfied clients are, and then make it easy for them to share their experiences online with the right audience – whether it be on Google, TripAdvisor, Yelp or elsewhere. Think of this type of expense as reputation maintenance. And we all know that it’s easier and less expensive to maintain your vehicle on a regular basis than it is to neglect it and be faced with expensive and inconvenient repairs when they inevitably occur.

Click here for more information about how we can help your company or organization leverage and maintain its positive reputation online.

– Josh Lewis
VP Marketing
@Blue_Tent

Many sites have internal site search functionality which allows visitors to search for content, products and more.  Google Analytics can track these site search terms.  Analyzing this data can be beneficial for your search engine marketing campaigns.

To set up site search for a Google Analytics profile, log in and select “Edit” website profile.  Select the “Do Track Site Search” button and then enter your query parameter in the provided field.  You can determine your query parameter by going to your website and performing an internal site search.  For example in http://www.domain.com/search/?q=site%20search%20query the query parameter is “q”.  For more information on setting up Google Analytics site search check out the GA help center.  Depending on the volume of your site, give Google Analytics a few days to collect data and then analyze the data.

Access the report in the content section of Google Analytics.  Identify high volume search terms and compare these to the content currently on your site.  If you don’t already have content dedicated to these topics, consider adding new content.  This will help improve visitor retention.  Strategize on how to generate more search engine traffic from these terms.  Is paid or organic search more appropriate?  In this example, we might add a new page dedicated to area hiking including safety tips and recommended trails for all levels of hikers.  In time we would expect to start ranking in the search engines for keywords relating to [Aspen hiking] and thus we would begin to drive search engine traffic for this keyword.

Check back next week for another Google Analytics’ reporting tip.

Lindsay Reither
Director of Search Engine Marketing & Web Analytics

Blue Tent search account managers use Google Analytics everyday to help manage clients’ campaigns and to maximize ROI.  Here is one of our favorite reports for paid search.  Check back next week for another Google Analytics’ reporting tip.

Determine the Best Time of Day to Run your Paid Search Account

Most paid search campaigns operate on a budget and all seek to maximize their ROI.  One way you can spread your budget more effectively is to use ad scheduling which lets you specify when you would like your ads to run by hour and day of the week.  The Google AdWords scheduler includes an advanced setting which allows you to adjust your bids during certain periods of the day.  When should you run your paid search campaigns?  Should you increase your bids at certain times of the day to increase your click through rate?  Rather than guess and test, turn to the following Google Analytics’ report and see immediate results.

You can apply this custom report to an advanced segment such as your search engine traffic or to your paid search traffic if your campaigns have already been running for a while.  Analyze the data to determine those times of the day where visitors perform the best. Look for goal conversions, e commerce transactions, a low bounce rate, high pages/visit and high average time on site.  Be sure to consider sample size before drawing concussions.  Once you have determined the hours of the day that perform best, set the ad scheduler in your paid search campaign appropriately.  Also, you can create a similar report for day of the week to determine if your paid search campaign should be turn off some days of the week.

Stay tuned for next week’s Google Analytics tip relating to site search data.

-Lindsay Reither
Director of Search Engine Marketing & Web Analytics

It is only fitting that we cap off our renaissance summer here at Blue Tent by rolling out a major overhaul of the Solar Energy International (SEI) website. Located just down the road from world headquarters in Carbondale, Colorado, SEI was founded in 1991 as a non-profit organization whose mission is to help others use renewable energy resources and natural building technologies through education and technical assistance. They have advanced this mission by working with grassroots and development organizations around the world to promote sustainability and improve quality of life, while offering a variety of classes and workshops for 18 years.

Having a web presence since 1998, SEI realized the power of the web as a medium to educate and communicate globally.  SEI approached us this spring knowing that, in order to retain their position as the leading force in the non-profit solar industry, their site was in need of a major redesign and redevelopment.

Goals
At the outset of the project, SEI set forth the following goals:

• Build a new site with a compelling design to act as a forum to facilitate SEI’s primary goal of educating people about renewable energy and sustainable building technologies, and be the “go to” online resource to satisfy any level of interest.
• Strengthen SEI’s brand by underscoring its unique history and wide array of products and services offered.
• Create the functionality needed for students to sign up for, and participate in, classes online and in person.
• Provide complete membership sign-up and administration functionality.
• Integrate a comprehensive e-commerce module to sell merchandise, books and DVDs online.

Process
We began by building SEI’s new site on our Drupal based CMS. This platform allows us the flexibility and scalability to add the features and functionality to accomplish the goals SEI set forth. We built the forms, forums, blogs, RSS feed, calendar and video applications necessary to create a trusted online resource for those seeking information about the latest developments in solar energy and sustainable building technologies.

To help facilitate SEI’s educational mission online, we created the custom integrations with Blackboard, so students could access curriculum, the shopping cart for purchasing textbooks, and the next phase of the project will integrate all of this member information seamlessly into their CRM database – creating a comprehensive web application for managing and growing their organization online.

We also created a member’s only area where interested parties can sign up for updates, access additional information and tools or view SEI’s alumni network, and update their member profiles within the CRM database. Down the road, we’ll be looking to enhance their email marketing and communication programs as well.

Conclusion

SEI has been a model client – embracing our holistic approach to internet marketing. Not only did they have the vision and commitment to make an investment in an industry leading web application; they also incorporated search, email marketing, and Google Analytics into their online marketing strategy.  We’re excited to measure the impact this rebirth of the SEI web presence has on their organization. We’re thrilled to have the opportunity to work with such an awesome organization and look forward to helping drive the success of their online marketing initiatives into the future. A big thank-you goes out to everyone that worked on this project!

As I made the trek into Denver for the advanced Google AdWords Seminar for Success I began to think back on the world of search. It struck me that Google the King of Search at this moment in time is just over 10 years old. Lets put that into perspective. At Ten years old you were probably in the 5th grade, 10 years ago you were getting ready for Y2K while jamming out to Prince’s Party like its 1999. To say the least Google is young, and Google’s AdWords is even younger. To think about the many strides that have been made in Pay Per Click Advertising is quite astounding especially in the time that it has been around. In Less than 10 years AdWords has become the backbone of Google’s Business and has evolved into a tool that companies of all sizes use to advertise. Companies as big as Exxon and as small as your local dry cleaner use AdWords to target those who search for keyword specific terms that relate to their business.

While Google has been ever changing, the rest of the world has had to be as well and so has Blue Tent Marketing. Specifically staying ahead of the curve, especially with all the advances that have been made in Search Engine Marketing. Blue Tent has found value in the fact that education is key to the success of a company. The SEM Account Managers at Blue Tent have been fortunate enough to attend the Seminar for Success classes that Google offers. The great thing about attending these classes is that it keeps all our clients well ahead of the curve and their competition. We always strive to offer cutting edge services to our clients and in order to do so we have to live by the adage “never stop learning.”

This week I have been fortunate enough to attend the Advanced Adwords Training. The amount of knowledge I have obtained from one day of training is off the charts. Here’s a glimpse at some of the top takeaways and cool tools that I look forward to using on an everyday basis. I encourage you to dive in and see how the tips and tools listed below can help your internet marketing efforts.

• When you create Ad Copy be sure your ad answers the question that is being called to action.
• Landing Pages are a huge help to those who click on your add, they can help your quaility score by 30-40%.
• When you ad negative keywords know that Google never matches misspelled words.
• Rarely have an AdWords Ad URL land on the homepage. Find a Page on your site that relates to the ad.
• Use your “Thank You” pages to continue your business, NOT end a session with your customer. Give them an option to visit another page on your site.
• Download the Adwords Editor, Its free and is a great tool to help you learn more about your keywords.
• Site Overlay is a powerful tool. It allows one to see which pages are leading to conversions
• When testing an ad copy test if for a minimum of a week.
• Write several unique ads and see how they perform.
• My number one favorite quote from the AdWords Seminar is: “Advertising isn’t advertising when its information!”

And be sure to check out the following tools to enhance your paid search planning and execution:

• AdWords Editor – Use the adwords editor with out having to log into AdWords. An easy place to manage your Campaigns.
• Google Sets – Use Google Sets to find related keyword terms.
• Google Trends – Use Trends to see what the search volume of a particular keyword term is.
• Google Insights for Search – With Google Insights for Search, you can compare search volume patterns across specific regions, categories, time frames and properties.
• Microsoft AdLab – New tool to refine your ads and make them more specific for each individual.
• Google AdPlanner – Take a look at the demographics of a websites traffic.
• The Wonder Wheel – To Find the Wonder Wheel. Do a search, once you have the results click on the “+Show Options.” Once that has loaded you will see on the left side towards the bottom an option for the Wonder Wheel. Cool tool…. My fav! Gives you word options for a search.

A big shout out to Brian Geddes at bg Theory for putting on an excellent seminar. If you have any specific questions please feel free to contact me directly. We are here to help you better your company!

– Tim Hampton
SEM Account Manager
tim @ bluetent.com