Archive for October, 2007
-
Is Search Still Worth It? Let’s do the Math…
According to MarketingSherpa’s “Search Marketing Benchmark Survey,” search marketing budgets are set to increase in 2008. OK, nothing new here.
But wait, here is the gem:
According to Stefan Tornquist, MarketingSherpa’s research director, “Most of the budgets were growing because search marketers thought that keyword prices would go up”
So, in other words, marketers will spend increasing amounts — to get the same results.
WOW, that’s impressive.
*Smart* marketers, however, will optimize the online conversion rate and get more business from the traffic *already* coming to the site…
So – no need to increase the budget. Just market smarter.
-
Webinar: Get Started with Google Website Optimizer
Google will be hosting their first ever webinar about Google Website Optimizer. If you haven’t used the tool yet, what are you waiting for?
Here are the details from Google:
The first online seminar, Introduction to Website Optimizer, will be geared towards those who are unfamiliar with website content testing and optimization. Tom will discuss the importance and benefits of optimizing your website design and content, and he’ll provide a detailed introduction to Website Optimizer and review the product’s latest features.
The second online seminar, Website Optimizer: Creating & Launching Experiments, builds on the first and is designed for those who have previous
experience with Website Optimizer or other site testing tools. Tom will deliver a step-by-step demonstration of how to successfully launch multivariate and A/B Split experiments, and he’ll also answer your questions.Schedule and registration information:
Introduction to Website Optimizer (New or inexperienced users)
Tuesday, October 30th, 2007 10:00 – 11:00am PDT
Register to attend.Website Optimizer: Creating & Launching Experiments (Intermediate and advanced users)
Thursday, November 1st, 2007 10:00 – 11:00am PDT
Register to attend.Then when you want to develop a Funnel Experiment™ plan to maximize GWO’s potential
Contact one of our Google Authorized conversion rate optimization experts.
You may also want to check out our free resource downloads.
-
My Visit to the Googleplex
Now that we’ve made the ‘official’ announcement about our appointment by Google to the WOAC program, I can share a little about the training session itself.
I visited the famous Googleplex in Mountain View last week and very much enjoyed meeting the Google folks and the other pioneers in the conversion rate ‘industry’.
One of the things that has impressed me the most about the Google Website Optimizer team is how receptive they have been to our suggestions on ways to improve the product. Tom Leung and I had an in-depth discussion last week about the ways WiderFunnel is using the tool and how we think it can be improved. In fact, some of the issues I raised with Tom several weeks ago are already being addressed and will be released soon. We’re excited that WiderFunnel is already helping Google with beta testing some new features as we speak (although I can’t talk about the details just yet).
I also very much enjoyed meeting with the other WOACs. Robbin Steif of Lunametrics was forward-thinking enough to organize a sushi dinner including myself, the squirrel guys from Conversion Rate Experts and Tim and the gang from ROI Revolution. I think we all found it helpful to learn from each other about how to build the Conversion Optimization industry and specifically how to build a successful consulting business. I found it most interesting to see how each of our organizations has very different core strengths and areas of focus.
I came away feeling optimistic about the growth prospects for the industry and pleased that our unique Kaizen Method™ planning process and Website Optimizer development feedback will be able to play a key role in the industry’s development.
Thanks again for putting so much effort into organizing a successful event, Tom!
-
Breaking News: WiderFunnel Becomes First Canadian Website Optimizer Authorized Consultant
Canadian marketing firm helps turn more website visitors into customers and subscribers
VANCOUVER, BC (Oct. 18, 2007) – Vancouver, BC-based WiderFunnel Marketing is the first and, to date, the only Canadian authorized consultant for Google Website Optimizer™, a new program that simultaneously tests combinations of website content (text and images) to determine which features yield greater customer satisfaction and ultimately greater sales. It’s a tool web marketers and online retailers, even those with already high traffic volumes, have been waiting for for years.
“Whatever the product is, when you’re selling online, the only measure of success is your conversion rate,” says WiderFunnel Co-founder Raquel Hirsch, one of Canada’s most respected marketers, with over 20 years of senior marketing experience in traditional and electronic marketing. “You can have a million visitors a month, but if they’re not transacting, or clicking where you want them to, you’ve wasted your money getting them to your site.”While Google Website Optimizer is available free online, the key to maximizing its benefits lies in being able to skillfully analyze its reports and having the marketing and customer relationship management experience to know which site-content changes are worth testing so that customers will use a site the way the business wants them to. That’s where the benefits of using a Google Website Optimizer Authorized Consultant come in.
“We have stringent requirements for our authorized consultants,” said Tom Leung, Business Product Manager for Google Website Optimizer. “They have to have a strong track record in planning, executing and troubleshooting website tests. WiderFunnel is the first Canadian company to meet our admissions requirements, and they share our overall vision for the power of testing and performance marketing.”
WiderFunnel Marketing was founded by Raquel Hirsch and Chris Goward. Together, the pair share over 30 years of senior marketing experience, a Gold CMA award, and a long list of leading clients including Tourism British Columbia and some of the fastest growing high tech, eCommerce and affiliate marketing companies in North America. By giving clients the ability to simultaneously test hundreds of versions of their site, WiderFunnel increases their ROI from online advertising investments while lowering their customer acquisition and online transaction costs.
“Knowing how to change layouts, offers and copy for the better makes all the difference,” says Goward. “We get meaningful test results faster because we know what is worth testing first. As a result, clients get more conversions sooner than if they had decided to guess what’s worth testing themselves and tried to do it with their limited in house resources. We’ve seen conversion improvements ranging from 10% to 242% on a single conversion experiment!”
For more information about WiderFunnel Marketing, visit www.WiderFunnel.com.
– 30 -Contacts:
Raquel Hirsch, Co-Founder, WiderFunnel
604.512.0799, Raquel.Hirsch @ widerfunnelChris Goward, Co-Founder, WiderFunnel
604.767.1080, Chris.Goward @ widerfunnel -
New Eyetracking Heatmap: 6 Ways to Get More Webinar Sign-Ups
At Chief Marketer, Anne Holland (of MarketingSherpa, of course) reveals the results of a New Eyetracking Heatmap: 6 Ways to Get More Webinar Sign-Ups. We had previously purchased this research and interpreted the learning for our clients.
The results aren’t ground-breaking, which probably means they are worth repeating. The basic principles behind successful landing page design don’t change that much. The skill is the ability to sort the myriad principles and apply ONLY the relevant ones scientifically to each unique situation.
You need to be careful about which conclusions you draw from heatmaps, though. They’re great for revealing surprising areas of focus on your site, but the learnings can only be reliably applied to the page being tested.
The heatmap is, of course, highly influenced by the content on the page. You’ll always find hot spots where there’s an image of a person, regardless of where you place it on the page. So, don’t tell me that you’ve found a great place to put the person’s image just because everyone’s looking at it there, okay?
On a related note, WiderFunnel recently ran a Funnel Experiment™ on a webinar pre-registration page and saw a 190% conversion rate increase! I hope to write a brief case study on it when I have a spare hour.
-
RSS Feed May Not Be Driving Traffic to Your Site Anymore
For years now I have been subscribing to my RSS feeds in MyYahoo. If some headline and brief summary seemed interesting, I would of course click through to the source of the article to read the full text.
From a traffic-building perspective, this worked very well for the publishers of content that interests me: as long as the brief copy presented was relevant, I was bound to click-through to read all of it.
But no longer.
With the new MyYahoo! Portal format, I can now mouse over the RSS feeds and read what seems to me to be the complete article or post without having to click through to the website publishing the content.
This is bound to have an impact on the ability of RSS feeds to generate traffic to websites and will put more pressure on copywriting skills so that people actually want to get the full story after mousing over…
