Google Adwords Tips

Google AdWords gets its own extremely long section because it is exceptionally more complicated and feature-rich than other PPC systems, largely because Google has been more innovative than competitors, and largely because Google wants to be the worldwide advertising platform. Consider the following:

• To get a lead in video distribution Google bought YouTube for $1.65 billion in stock.


• Google will unveil audio ads before the end of 2006.


• Google has tried to sell ads in newspapers and magazines.

Google vs. Yahoo!:

Google AdWords and Yahoo! are in a battle for search distribution. One of the two PPC services is distributed on nearly every major search engine or portal.

Google Bid Prices vs. Click Costs:

With Google you pick a maximum bid price and your click cost will never exceed that. Like all other major PPC providers, their software has a bid discounter built in, so your average bid cost will be less than your bid prices.

Google bid prices are not transparent so your competitors have no way to be sure exactly what your ads are costing (due to factoring in click through rates into effective bid price – which I will explain later).

A few Things you can do with AdWords:

Google AdWords is an advertising medium like no other.

• There is only a $5 signup fee (which is converted into bid credits).


• You can have ads across Google’s network of sites with some ads appearing in less than 10 minutes.


• Google’s broad match technology allows you to receive extremely broad distribution while keeping it quick, easy, and simple to use. Yahoo! and Microsoft now do this too.


• Google’s vast distribution network makes it possible to test a business model without fully investing into creating that business.


• Google AdWords syndication allows you to reach AOL users, other searchers, and Google’s vast content network.


• Google offers Geotargeting, so you can target your ad to a country, state, metro area, zip code, or geographic radius of your choice. Google allows you to preview local ad delivery using their local ad preview tool.


• You can run multiple ads for the same words and test them against each other or send them to different pages to A/B split test your site or ad copy.


• Google allows you to use a free multivariant testing software program called Google Website Optimizer to test landing page conversion potential.

The Importance of a High Clickthrough Rate:

Google lets searchers determine the relevancy of the ads. Price for Google AdWords is a function of click cost * click through rate (and, in some cases, a couple other mystery meat variables). I believe Google uses the average click through rate from the 1,000 most recent ads in this calculation, though for some markets with low search volumes they may use other quality indicatiors, like CTR for an ad group. This means if you know how to get a high click through rate you can dominate Google AdWords by serving up ads at a far cheaper rate than what your competitors are paying.

The following table gives examples of how the Google system calculates bid prices and ad positions. Observe how some low priced ads appear above high priced ads because they are more relevant. Also observe that actual click cost sometimes varies widely when compared to max bid price.  Some clicks are at times expensive and at other times they are cheap. It is the average click cost that matters, since that is what you are paying. Max bid does not matter since sometimes it can widely depart from actual click price. For example, I have seen a $6.00 max bid which had clicks go for 77 cents.

Ad Number	Max Bid	CTR (relevancy)	Effective Bid	Ad Position	Actual Click Cost
1	0.40	5%	$2.00	4	$0.40
2	0.26	10%	$2.60	2	$0.26
3	1.00	2.53%	$2.53	3	$0.81
4	1.50	2%	$3.00	1	$1.31

 

Distribution buys further distribution. Off the start you will want to overbid slightly as you will be competing against the best ads that have developed over time in your niche.

The bid prices Google suggest are often somewhat high. I usually cut the suggested bid price by 20-50% when I first start an account. I then monitor closely and change it to try to maintain decent ad position and ROI.

 

Quality Based Minimum Bids:

In the past, Google had a five cent minimum bid price and only allowed ads to display if their Google click-through rate was above 0.5%, but in August of 2005, they shifted to quality-based minimum pricing.

This means that if your ad is deemed exceptionally relevant, you can get clicks for as low as one cent, depending on how competitors are bidding. If your ads are not exceptionally relevant, you will have to pay a higher minimum bid to make up for the lack of ad relevancy.

Google has been making their ad system more blackbox-like. They stated they may include landing page quality in their ad relevancy scores. In other words, we can’t know exactly how it works, but they will create a system that optimizes for maximum internal revenue, while delivering value to trusted advertisers, and overcharging irrelevant or noisy advertisers. If they are vague about their exact ranking criteria, it will be harder for people to game the flaws in their ad system.

Ads which are disabled from search syndication due to low relevancy and bid price, still appear in the Google contextual ad program unless their quality score is too low to appear there as well. I describe syndication later on in the chapter.

The whole point of quality-based minimum bids is to squeeze the margins out of noisy ad campaigns.

Broad Match, Phrase Match, and Exact Match:

Google AdWords and Yahoo! both have different levels of word matching. Using [search term] will only return searches ads for the query search term, which is called exact match. Yahoo!’s exact match is a bit fuzzy, matching plurals and some common misspellings. Google’s exact match is more precise, only matching the exact search.

Buying the keyword “search term” will show your ads for any search that has ‘search term’ in the query (in the same order), which is called phrase match.

Buying search term (no quotations or brackets) will show your ads on any search that has ‘search’ and ‘term’ in it. With broad matching, synonyms to search term may also display your ad. If you decide to start off with broad matching you should view the synonyms to ensure none of them are wasteful. This is especially true with acronyms or other terms with multiple well known meanings.

Google offers all three levels of ad control. Yahoo! offers exact match, and groups phrase match and broad match in a category called advanced match.

 

 

 

Examples	Match Type	Will Show Results For:	Will Not Show Results For:
[eat cheese]	Exact	eat cheese	any other search
“eat cheese”	Phrase	eat cheese; I love to eat cheese; you eat cheese	Cheese eat, or anything else which does not have both words together in the same order as the search term
eat cheese	Broad	All above options and searches such as: cheese eating; ate cheddar

Google Ad Status:

If you do not understand something or are frustrated with something in particular feel free to ask at an SEO forum or ask your ad representative. Google AdWords has a blog (which does not want direct AdWords feedback), an online support center, and you can contact Google advertising via phone at 1 (866) 2 Google.

Due to trademark issues some ad copy will be rejected by the automated review. When that happens you can request an exception and the ad will get a human review.

Google usually runs most ads before they have an editorial review, but they review them before placing them on partner sites. I have seen long review times in excess of a few days for Google site targeted AdSense ads.

Ads on Google.com have two states: active or inactive. If an ad is inactive you can make it active by bidding higher. Google also has an ad diagnostic tool which states what needs to be done to make each word active.

Google Keyword Suggestion Tool:

The Google Keyword Tool (https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal) estimates search volume, trends, and advertising competition. You can enter keywords to analyzer or they can extract relevant keywords from a given web page.

The Google Traffic Estimator Tool (https://adwords.google.com/select/TrafficEstimatorSandbox) roughly estimates the price required to rank #1 on AdWords 85% of the time and the traffic you could expect to get from Google AdWords for a given bid.

Google offers a search term suggestion tool by the name of Google Suggest which auto-completes partial search queries. It does not show search volumes, but search volume plays a heavy role in its output order. The tool is currently only available in some languages. Many Google Toolbars have this feature enabled.

Negative Keywords:

There is a negative keyword option in both Yahoo! and Google AdWords. Any word that you do not want your ad to appear for can simply be blocked by placing “-badword” beneath your keywords.

There are many words which would indicate a lack of desire to purchase anything. Words like crack, free, wallpapers, pic, and mp3 are often money losers if you do not remember to include these in your negative keyword list.

Following is an example keyword list showing a negative keyword: (should be much longer and more detailed, this is just an example)

eat cheese

buy cheese

-free

Thus, your ad would show up for many cheese queries, but for none that included the word free. Google also allows you to filter negative keywords at a campaign level.

Getting Feedback from Your Account:

When opening up a Google AdWords account many people are hesitant to spend much money. In spending a small amount the business is essentially ignoring the feedback loop Google has set up.

Is it better to lose $100 today, than to lose it over three months to finally come to the conclusion that you need to change? I would rather want to know that I need to change now. Not all industries or business models will make money from AdWords. It is not a business model that will work perfectly across the board.

If you spend on targeted keywords your site should have a chance for success. Any marketed internet based business should leverage fast feedback loops to help it improve. Off the start you want to overspend on your ads so you can see which ones are effective. After a while you can regroup your ads by prices and then slash your bid price down. The ineffective ad groups or keywords will be disabled due to quality based minimum bids and the winners will keep displaying.

Google Advertising Professional:

The Google Advertising Professional program is a program which allows marketers to be certified as a Google AdWords expert. The requirements are that you spend at least $1,000 in a 90 day period after signing up, comply with their rules, and pass an online test. After the 90 day period is up you can place a logo on your site which will perhaps make many people assume that Google endorses all of your SEO / SEM services.

This program also allows you to link together up to 500 AdWords accounts so that you can access and manage them from a single login. Google also offers many free online tutorials which can help prepare you for the test and help you learn more about AdWords even if you do not want to take the test.

Google AdWords is Responsible Advertising:

Add all the above features to the fact that Google also offers a free web based conversion tracking tool, and you can see how the AdWords system is a direct marketers dream. Everything is targetable, tangible, and measurable right down to the cent.

Google also offers a program by the name of Google JumpStart where they will help set up your account for you. Likely they will not be able to set up the best account for you, but they might be able to help you get your feet wet. The fee to join JumpStart is $299, and the fee gets converted to bid clicks.

Keep in mind their goal is to have you spend money, which may not necessarily have targeting the best ROI or best keyword buys in mind. Search engines would prefer that merchants get in bidding wars over a select small set of terms and miss out on some of the cheaper terms.

Google Adwords Tips

Customer Tracking and Bid Management

How Tracking Works

If you are paying by the click, you need to know what those clicks are doing. From the second they click until they leave or purchase.

If your server is already equipped with great tracking software it is easy to add a tracking tag on the back of your ads. Instead of your Yahoo! listing going to http://www.domain.com/salespage.html, have it go to http://www.domain.com/salespage.html?source=y+ad=6+keyword=fred.

Tracking Software

My favorite log file analyzer is ClickTracks. It displays the web page in a viewable browser highlighting the click ratio for each of the links. ClickTracks also allows you to set up custom tracking tags to view traffic through different visitor paths. While the software is expensive to some at $500, it is a steal for some larger commercial web sites. ClickTracks also offers a hosted tracking solution.

Some other popular conversion tracking software options are Keyword Max, IndexTools, and WebSideStory. If you are working with an exceptionally large account, you may also want to try Efficient Frontier or Omniture.

ConversionRuler is inexpensive, suitable software if you are primarily concerned with tracking pay-per-click results. ConversionRuler starts out around $20 a month. Yahoo! and Google also provide built-in conversion tracking software which they provide free.

There are also free tracking services such as eXTReMe Tracking and SiteMeter if you want to access referrer stats easily, but I would not recommend using them for tracking any of your pay-per-click statistics.

If you are a heavy spender on pay-per-click, you will most likely want to use bid management software.

 

Google Analytics

Google also created a free, cross-platform conversion tracking tool which comes with their AdWords product. It works for tracking e-mail ads, banner ads, and various PPC search engine ads.

On top of the free, built-in tracking feature, Google also bought Urchin and re-branded as Google Analytics. Google Analytics is free, and perhaps as full-featured as the most premium conversion tracking tool, but if you use it, you are sending your valuable market data back to your source of traffic. That may work against you if they use your best converting terms and most frequent referrals to recommend keywords to your competitors. If you were Google and you sold traffic to multiple competitors, would you recommend my best words to my competitors?

Bid Management Software

There are automated software programs which will track your bids and change them multiple times a day so that you achieve optimal efficiency with your ads. These programs can do various things such as: list your site relative to another web site, bid to a maximum lead cost, or other similar functions. However, some of the major search providers are rendering some of these features useless, either through replicating them, or by obfuscating data. For example, if a search engine does not say what the bid prices are you can’t bid jam competitors, and Google AdWords allows advertisers to schedule ad delivery time and bid to position.

The best part of bid management software is that good bid management software can allow you to dynamically change the bid price from price-per-click to other metrics such cost-per-action or ROI.

If you get big into pay-per-click search engines and are managing multiple accounts, it is worth using a bid management program to help save time and money. Currently, three market leaders in this field are BidRank (downloadable software), Keyword Max (hosted software application), and Atlas OnePoint (hosted software application).

Fraud Prevention Software

Most major pay-per-click search engines have fraud protection built into their system to protect the value of click prices. Google, for example, will allow you to see how many invalid clicks you had within the AdWords platform.

You should use your server logs to validate clicks if you are running a large campaign. Generally due to time overlaps and differences in reporting, it is considered acceptable to have an error up to 10%. If your error is much larger than that, be sure to notify the search engine.

If you have a good log file analyzer and understand how to use it, then you have no need for a fraud prevention tool, but these tools make it quick and easy to spot potential fraud.

If you believe your competitors are clicking your ads or you are investing heavily in a competitive market, you will want to take a look at additional fraud protection. Two of the current leaders in the PPC fraud prevention software market are Who’sClickingWho and Keyword Max Click Auditor. VeriClix is a similar, but free, product. Other analytics companies, such as ClickTracks, have also been getting into the click fraud monitoring market.

Even if a competitor only clicks on your ads every few days, it still adds up over time. This software allows you to accumulate the evidence you need to reverse charges and potentially file a lawsuit, but you need to have a large enough spend to justify its cost, unless you are just doing it for publicity.

Earning (and Buying) Trust

Hidden Bids

Google has never offered an entirely open ad service. Yahoo! used to be more open, but as time passed they have become more closed off. If the advertisers do not know exactly how much they need to pay or who they are bidding against, and publishers do not know exactly what they are getting paid for, it is easier for search engines to adjust how much they are charging advertisers or paying publishers for matching them and removing market friction.

Noise is Relative

When Google AdWords was new they heavily relied upon affiliates to match merchants with market opportunities. As more merchants have become accustom to using AdWords, Google has got better at filtering duplicate offers and other affiliate noise out of their ads.

In an ideal market Google would prefer to deliver leads directly to the merchants. Affiliates who largely built Google into it’s current market position may be considered little more than noise by Google in many markets today.

New Filters

As markets evolve the types of noise (affiliate, arbitrage, double dipping ads, dictionary attacks, deceptive ads, etc.) change and search engines must come up with new ways to protect the relevancy of their ads.

Google has  blocked some forms of ads using a mixture of sophisticated algorithms and editorial guidelines, but they have also began to look at ways of pricing noise out of the market by discounted ads from trusted sources and charging new advertisers, unproven advertisers, or abusive advertisers premiums to be displayed.

Buying Trust Over Time

In much the same way that old domains may be trusted more in organic search results as they age and gain links, Google may trust proven advertisers more, and give them a discount for the trust they have built up.

Just by having an AdWords account, spending money, and not being abusive your ad account gains some level of trust.

Free Market Feedback

Google keeps collecting more and more market data using a wide array of data points along the supply chain. They can see relative changes in

• Brand awareness and search volumes and trends


• News trends and content production trends


• Number of advertisers, types of advertisers, bid prices and trends


• User acceptance via conversion data and their toolbar


• General trust based on the link graph and surfing trends via their toolbar


• Keyword relationships (based on AdWords accounts and text analysis of web content)


• Conversion data (via Google Analytics, Google AdWords Conversion Tracker, and Google Website Optimizer)


• Conversion data via Google Checkout

 

Each of these tools layered on top of one another add more value to how much value Google can extract by making their ad platform more relevant and more efficient.  The tools that Google offer cost them next to nothing in regards to the value they help Google create by offering Google a clearer picture of the market.

Deception as a Filter

Google keeps collecting more and more market data using a wide array of data points.

Google calls the price offsets as something related to a quality score, but may even be offering a bit of misdirection in what they consider of high quality. They largely state that quality is based on relevancy and mention things like conversion rate and clickthrough rate, but how hard would it be for them to mix in usage data, link reputation, or other signs of trust into their quality algorithm?

If marketers are chasing the wrong data points it is going to be hard for us to manipulate Google’s market.

Hidden Message

Google is even using their quality based minimum bids on syndicated contextual ads, aiming to pull noise out of their distributed ad network.

Google’s hidden message is that they want to police the web, and they invariably are pushing to marginalize the profits of anyone who is making a good living without creating much real tangible value.

If the other PPC players are going to be able to compete with Google they are going to have to do it on margins, ad price, and relevancy. Filtering out noise and keeping their ads as relevant as possible is going to be crucial for people to keep paying attention to their ads.

Customer Tracking and Bid Management

Pay Per Click for Landing Page

Pay per click search engines can give you instant traffic and allow you to test new business models in real time. The pay per click market is competitive though. It is worth spending an extensive period of time learning how to write and target ads, tracking your competitors, and doing deep keyword research before jumping in.

Before You Start

Metrics Based Marketing:

PPC search engines provide a highly trackable marketing medium. Frequently people begin marketing without any idea as to the approximate value of a click. If you do not set up a value range and track the results you have no way to distinguish good marketing from bad marketing.

To know the value of a click, you need to decide what the goal of your marketing is. If you are just branding, then you should expect to lose money to gain mindshare or reinforce your brand, and tracking may not be that important.  If you are using pay-per-click search engines for direct product marketing, you need to know how much each click is worth.

Typical Conversion Rates:

Lead generation sites typically have a conversion rate around 10 to 12%, but can go as high as 30% + if they are properly targeted and exceptionally appealing to visitors.

Since little investment is needed to arrive at your website and many other sites are just a click away, selling stuff on the web has a conversion rate similar to direct mail advertising. High ticket items have a lower conversion rate and unique cheap items tend to have higher conversion rates. Many stores find typical conversion rates might be anywhere from .3 to 5%.

Doing the Math:

There are a ton of factors that go into click price. It is somewhat hard to measure branding, but ad distribution can help with that. Most other things are tangible.

If you know your average order size, profit per order, and estimated conversion rate you can get a good idea what clicks are worth. Some people also factor in lifetime value of a customer, but it is harder to measure and there is still enough opportunity in many markets to do your math primarily based on direct return.

Before You Start:

It is a good idea to look at the various ads which are displayed in which order over time. The top guy might be an idiot losing tons of money or a person who is paying an extreme premium for branding.

If ads from affiliate marketers or smaller sites are ranking around the same ad position over the course of a few weeks to a month then they are probably doing something right (generating profits). It is worth it to take a couple weeks to do deep keyword research and market analysis before jumping into pay per click search engine marketing.

You Will Lose Money:

Most clicks end up being failures. Even if you have a 30% conversion rate that means that 7 out of 10 clicks did nothing for you. When you dip your toes into the pay per click market there stands a good chance you will lose money before you start making money. The main reasons are:

• You need to learn how the systems work, learning:
  
  • what terms are important and what ones are not.
  
  
  • how to target the ads
  
  
  • how to write the ad copy
  
  
  • how to bid
  
  
  • where to rank
  
  
  • what terms are overpriced
  
  


• You are competing against the best accounts.
  
  • Some competing advertisers may have other intangible assets which give them an unfair advantage.
  
  
  • If you are brand new your competitors have more experience than you do.
  
  
  • Some ad campaigns have been fine tuned for months or years.
  
  
  • Search engines are building trust factors into ad accounts. Some advertisers may get quality boosts and cheaper ads just for being long-term advertisers.
  
  

Search engines try to sell the concept of pay per click marketing saying that it is so targeted that everyone makes money, but in the real world that is not how things work. Some markets are competitive and will require learning, sound strategy, and tracking to generate profits.

Why Pay Per Click is Important:

I was working to raise the rankings of one client for a few competitive phrases. It was taking a decent investment in time and money. I then started a pay per click campaign to test a ton of terms. As it turns out the conversion rate for the words we thought we needed were not great. There were a couple other terms with lower search frequency and less competition which converted exceptionally well.

Had we not done pay per click marketing we may have never properly focused our SEO efforts. In less than a month on about $300 we increased the productivity of the site ten fold.

The only way to be certain of anything in marketing is to test it. Pay per click marketing allows you to test real time with the fastest feedback loop of any marketing medium in the world.

What is Pay Per Click?

In 1998 Overture pioneered the idea of selling search ads. You could buy search results for as low as a penny or two per click. This system has quickly evolved into one of the worlds most competitive marketplaces.

Why Use Pay Per Click?

Sometime you can not afford to…or simply do not want to wait. Pay per click search engines allow you to list atop search results quickly. This will allow you to:

• Prototype ideas to track demand before you invest into a new business model or are stuck footing the bill for a new site.


• Quickly gather feedback on market conditions.


• Split test to a live audience and gather results in real time.

You can use Google AdWords to offer a free white paper about some topic from a one page website. If nobody is interested in downloading your white paper or you can not seem to get enough clickthroughs then odds are:

• the market is not yet ready for your product


• or you are marketing it from the wrong angle


• or you are marketing it to the wrong people

Who Should I Trust in Pay Per Click?

There are a few major players in the pay per click arena. Overture (as of writing this) currently has network partnerships that span Yahoo!, InfoSpace, AltaVista, AllTheWeb and many other partners. Google AdWords has a larger distribution network across Google, AOL, About, Earthlink, and many others sites…even a few of my own. Microsoft is a new player in the market, but their limited syndication network means their traffic quality is high.

For the sake of this report I am only going to cover Google AdWords, Yahoo! Search Marketing, and Microsoft AdCenter.

Amazon.com allows you to advertise contextual ads on their site via ClickRiver. There are also a few other pay per click search engines (Ask, Business.com, Miva, Kanoodle, Enhance Interactive, 7Search, Findology, Search123, Epilot) that may be well worth a look after trying Google, Yahoo! and MSN. While beginning pay-per-click advertising, I would recommend only using Google AdWords, Yahoo! Search Marketing, and Microsoft AdCenter.

Why Use Large Pay Per Click Search Engines?

 

• The results will be scaleable.


• The feedback will be quicker.


• They offer many great tracking and targeting features free.


• Larger pay-per-click search engines generally present higher quality traffic and are less susceptible to fraud.


• It is less complex managing two or three accounts versus 100 accounts.


• It’s easier to track the ROI on 2 accounts than on 100 accounts.


• Many of the extremely small search enginesnever have real traffic. You are wasting your time registering with them.


• Even some of the better second tier search engines may waste a big hunk of change. In early November 2004 I tried using LookSmart. It sent me twice the traffic as Yahoo! Search Marketing and traffic from LookSmart had a 95% bounce rate. That means that 19 of 20 site visitors from LookSmart immediately left and I paid for garbage traffic. The quality of traffic from smaller engines will vary from term to term, but its best to go with the biggest guys off the start, and then, if you have spare time, try some of the smaller engines.

Case Study: the Ignorant Bidder

If a term does not convert well for you then it may not be worth it to rank near the top for that term.

Not too long ago a person was bidding on an eBay ad for “SEO Book” at over $1 a click. Assuming I can get a 1.5% conversion rate I can afford to pay that much, but this person was just throwing away their money.

Just to test the waters I placed my ebook on eBay and it did not go for anywhere near what I usually sell them for.

I find it hard to believe the person who was bidding a dollar a click was making any money. They later lowered that bid to 21 cents. In some markets there will be dumb companies that rotate in, lose money, and then go bankrupt. By the time they go bankrupt others may soon take their money wasting market position.

Some terms are not worth buying at the price the keywords go for. And if they are valuable they may have more value at a lower position.

Landing Page Tips:

Conversion is a large part of how successful a pay per click campaign is. A few tips to improve landing pages:

• Remove navigation: unless it is necessary remove other options. Let people do what you want them to do, and don’t give them many other options.


• Make link text appealing:people tend to glance over copy instead of deeply reading every word. Since links are action points people tend to pay more attention to link text. Make sure link text is appealing since it is far more likely to get read than most of the page copy.


• Give them a clue they have found the correct page:Place the words they searched for in large text at the top of the page to show them they are in the right location. If you are a large merchant with many products maybe use something like ‘search results for: their search term’. Typically it is best to point people at a landing page instead of the home page.


• Other ideas:some of the other concepts listed throughout this ebook (such as using short paragraphs and concise subheaders) also apply to landing pages. Corey Rudl constantly retested his landing pages. You can learn a good amount by seeing how he changed his landing pages over time, by looking through how they changed in Archive.org. MarketingSherpa also has a landing page handbook for sale.

Pay Per Click for Landing Page

How to Design a Landing Page that Turns Visitors into Customers

Through an analysis of more than 350 businesses (from small startups to international corporations like Apple, Coca Cola and Nike), combined with expertise from our own endeavors, we now have isolated one primary variable that has a powerful impact on conversions.

We named this variable the “exclusive conversion trigger.” It truly is the largest error webmasters make when designing a landing page: neglecting to clearly outline the value proposition.

Defining the Exclusive Conversion Trigger

An exclusive conversion cause identifies expressing the chief message in less than 5 seconds: “What is the single value proposition that we want to transmit to our prospective clients?”

According to the Google Webmasters official blog, a fresh visitor 5 seconds on a site are the most significant.

Based on the structural design of the website, those 5 seconds will define the future behaviour of the user — whether they will left the website or explore it further. This really is one of the main reasons why Google has underscored the loading speed of a web site during the last few years. We are going to show a definite example of a landing page where the notion of an exclusive conversion cause was successfully achieved and compare it to one in which this variable failed to exemplify this point.

In the first example, we can definitely see that there is no direct alternative for buying without distractions.

Now let us compare the website above to that of its competitor in the image below.

At a glance we can see that by offering the visitor one single alternative, the Kayak website has a substantially better possibility of reaching the aim of converting the customer in less than 5 seconds, thereby minimizing the likelihood of losing the user. From this example, we can reason that keeping the landing page simple and focused is the key to successfully converting visitors into clients.

Executing an Exclusive Conversion Cause

Designing an exclusive conversion cause is simple, but there are certain guidelines which should be followed. These include:

Defining the value offering in one line of text

Describing the benefits of the service in three sentences or no more than two

Revealing why you are distinct from your own competitors

Efficiently clarifying the alternatives which you offer to your customers

Focusing on the language of the customer (on a landing page, do’t state the assignment of the firm)

Preventing superlatives like “the finest”, “the ” that is most efficient, “ the fastest”, etc.

The image below is a screenshot of a landing page for ConstantContact, which is a fantastic example of the right way to include all the points.

Next, the site is focused on the language of the client, solving each problem users face. Lastly, there isn’t any use of superlatives that are unneeded. The business simply records the features of its services in a way that is clear and organized.

Recognize Your Business from Competition

One activity that strongly increased our conversion rate was analyzing the competition with great devotion.

The user who is seeking for the service you can expect likely seen with a competitor’s web site to be able to compare and select the right one. Many Internet users have already incorporated this custom into their purchasing procedure.

Boost Your UX Skills

Every webmaster should study the competitors and transfer precisely the same advantages to their own landing page, whether it is free shipping, a product or service warranty, or refunds.

Even today our adversaries are still analyzed by us as a way to stay one step ahead. We determined to add that benefit as a worth cause that would distinguish us from the remainder to our landing page. By the time our competitors started offering free trials, most of the clients were using our applications and didn’t need to attempt a brand new one. Our pre emptive action had created a fantastic retention impediment for our firm.

Use to Other Pages, Also

The landing page shouldn’t be the only and last place where you express your differential value to the client, i.e. “Why we should be chosen by them.” The value proposition should be repeated from the moment the website is entered by the user until he/she becomes a client, in the whole procedure of your site.

Learn from Error and Trial

One single standing is always maintained by the value proposition based on your own work as an enterprise. Nevertheless, there are many options transmit and to express the message of your service to the potential customer. The responsibility is yours to find the vocabulary of prospective customers out to be able to create empathy with them.

Making adjustments that are constant to the exclusive value trigger increase sales, reduce the bounce rates, and will generate more clarity for users. Testing new landing pages, making mistakes and then learning from those mistakes is all part of the process, and with technological advances, the landing page that worked successfully for desktop computers can now be redefined for mobile phones and tablets.

Finally, always be sure you measure results of the design changes implemented on the landing page.

 

How to Design a Landing Page that Turns Visitors into Customers

Why Direct Mail Can't Assist Your Company Grow

Also for charities, direct marketing appeals started dropping since 2008 . The Internet has long become the station for starting building relationships and merchandise curiosity . That is the lesson when they eliminated print marketing a sequence of New Britain area wellness clubs, Beacon Hill Athletic Clubs, learned. “We ceased performing all of our direct email,” mentioned Lee Crabb, BHAC’s PR and marketing expert. Her business decreased the production of 15,000-25,000 items of direct mail that have been every that was broadcast season. And we actually have’t found any de crease in new members, which can be tremendous for people she noted. This success story demonstrates the requirement for improved presence that is online as an alternative to inefficient methods that are outbound.

Measure Direct Mail Can Be Measured by companies

If you notice the discussion that direct mail is still an essential component of one’s marketing strategy, request to see effects that are quantifiable. Did somebody open that envelope you sent for a promotion that is new? Did the receiver consider any action? May they give you real-time responses? These are the types of questions you won’t be able to reply through marketing that is traditional. You will need a considerably more advanced method to tackle them.

Why Direct Mail Can't Assist Your Company Grow

Making the Word of God a Part of Your Home

First of all, I want to share a story about a priest. The priest was near death, his body surrendering to a long struggle with cancer. He had spent his entire life immersed in the Word of God. He loved to tell others how he had caught his love for the Bible from his parents, who had read him favorite stories at bedtime. His love of Scripture grew through adolescence and young adulthood, nurtured by a favorite catechist and a kind pastor. After ordination the priest was invited to pursue biblical studies, a path that eventually led to a long career as a renowned Scripture scholar. Admired by the scholarly community and loved by his students, he took to heart the famous words of St. Jerome: “Ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ.” Thanks to his parents, the seed of God’s Word was sown early in his life and took deep root. In this seed, he discovered a friendship with Christ, an intimacy that deepened each passing year. Now he prayed, quietly and peacefully, “Lord, I sought your Word, and you found me. You know I’m ready. Your Word has been my light and my life. I live no longer, but you live in me.”

 

What greater desire could any parents have for their children than to form a friendship with Christ that would grow and deepen throughout a lifetime—to live and die as this holy priest, rapt in God’s love to the end, a friendship discovered early in the home through the sharing of God’s Word. This is the wish the Church has for all God’s people, young and old.

 

National Bible Week highlights the Church’s desire that the Word of God be a central focus in all aspects of Catholic life. The Church draws nourishment from the Word in numerous ways: in its liturgy and prayer, in biblical exegesis and theology, and in the lives of believers in whom God’s Word takes root.

 

Nowhere is the potential for God’s Word taking firm root greater than in the home. National Bible Week provides a unique opportunity for parents to revisit and renew their understanding of the power of the Word of God in the life of their family. As leaders of the “domestic Church,” parents are encouraged to be not only the first but the best of teachers for their children in the ways of faith. Parents help fulfill this challenge by ensuring that Scripture, the living Word of God, is given due emphasis in the life and activity of the home.

 

The more deeply the Word is rooted in the home, the more the entire family grows in relationship to Christ and to one another. Parents today rightly take time to promote family health by choosing appropriate food, drink, and exercise to build healthy bodies and by forming their children in proper study habits. A critical component of the spiritual health of any family is a well-balanced diet of God’s Word. Wise parents understand that building healthy habits requires daily attention and repetition, rather than occasional focus. The same is true of habits in the home surrounding the Word of God. It must be a daily effort. The following suggestions can help families make the Word of God part of their regular home life.

 

Focus First on Self

 

The first rule of making the Word of God a central part of the home is to first make it a priority in one’s own life. Parents cannot pass on to children what is not firmly root-ed in their own lives. Take a few moments each day to read God’s Word. Slowly pray through a Gospel or a New Testament letter, reading a few minutes each day. Be sure that your children see you spending time with the Word.

 

Invite Others

 

Begin simply within the family. Suggest reading a brief Bible verse together each day. This can be done at the conclusion of a meal, as part of a bedtime ritual, or prior to school and work as a blessing for the day. Prepare a bowl with slips of Scripture verses, and place it on the family table. Invite family members to take turns drawing a passage from the bowl, finding it in the Bible, and reading it to everyone. Discuss it briefly, and end by thanking God for the gift of his Word.

 

Dust Off That Family Bible

 

Many homes have a family Bible tucked away on a shelf. Bring it out, and make it visible. Ensure that children have age-appropriate Bibles at their bedside for prayer and for story time. Seek out Scripture stories in audio formats.

 

Show Reverence

 

Communicate in word and action that the Bible is a special book, worthy of reverence. When reading the Bible, handle it carefully, modeling to the family that it is God’s holy Word. Enthrone the Bible in a special room or in a corner set aside for family prayer. Place the Bible on a piece of cloth (use the colors of the liturgical season) on a small table with a candle or vigil light. Gather around the Bible each day for a short family prayer.

 

Link Parish and Home

 

Don’t let what happens in church stay in church. Do your best to bring the Word home each week, making connections between the liturgy and the home. Read the weekly Scriptures before or on the way to Sunday Mass. Promote active listening at weekly Mass by asking children what they heard in the homily and discussing how it applies to the family. Bring home a favorite song or a refrain to sing during family prayer.

Making the Word of God a Part of Your Home

Submitting to God's Word

James 1:18-22

 

Let’s turn in our Bible to the James 1.

One of the most familiar and helpful is in the first chapter, starting in verse 18, to verse 22. “Of his own will, he brought us forth by the word of truth that we might be a kind of first fruits of his creatures. So then, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak. Slow to wrath. That wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God. Therefore, lay aside all filthiness and overflow of wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which able to save your souls. But be doers of the Word and not hearers only deceiving yourselves.”

 

The psalmist said the familiar words “blessed are the undefiled in the way who walk in the law of the Lord.” Psalm 119. True believers do that. True believers walk in God’s law. They have the mind of Christ. Paul said to the Corinthians you have the mind of Christ. What did he mean? Wasn’t he talking about a subjective experience, he was talking about an objective revelation. If you want know the mind of Christ, it’s here. This is a direct reflection of the will and mind and God, which is synonymous with the mind of Christ.

 

We who know God, we who know Christ, we who are true believers have the mind of Christ. We rejoice in the testimonies of God revealed to us on the pages of Scripture. But that’s not the case of unbelievers. Unbelievers do not seek God’s law. Salvation says Psalm 119:155 is far from the wicked for they seek not thy statutes. Jeremiah 6:16 says, “Thus said the Lord, ‘Stand in the ways and see and ask for the old paths. Where is the good way and walk therein and you shall find rest for your souls, but they said we will not walk therein.'”

 

Sinners are obstinate and disinterested in the way of God, the word of God, the will of God. Believers like the psalmist would say, “I have chosen the way of truth. I delight in your law. Your law is my delight. I hope in your word. I seek your precepts. Oh that my ways were directed to keep your Statutes. Teach me Lord the way of thy statutes. Make me go in the path of thine commandments. Order my steps in thy word. Let me not wander from thy commandments. Incline my heart to thy testimonies. Quicken me in the way.”

The psalmist also said, “I esteem all your precepts concerning all things to be right.” And so said the psalmist, “The sum of all that, I have inclined my heart to perform thy statutes always, even onto the end.” It is characteristic of a true believer to be obedient to the Word. To say, as Psalm 119:97 says, “Oh how I love thy law.” Going to Psalm 1, and equally familiar psalm, we are reminded that Godly people, true believers, are described as those who delight in the law of the Lord, and in that law meditate how often? Day and night. The Godly can be described then in simply understanding their connection with the law of God. A person’s attitude toward the word of God is a test of their faith. If there is a submissive, joyful, delighting attitude of response to the word of God, that’s evidence of true transformation.

 

Naturally, what James is saying here – James says in verse 18 of chapter 1 that “it all started with the word of truth. It was of his own will that he brought us forth or begot us by the word of truth.” That’s what made us a kind of first fruits of his creatures. That’s what made us new creations. It was the word that did it. We heard the word and the word gave us the mind of God and the mind of Christ and God his holy, God the Holy Spirit excited faith in our hearts, and we believed the word and were begotten again or born again. It all began with the word. And that’s how it continues. And so he reminds his readers here that our response to the word of God then becomes a test of our faith. If you want to know whether you’re truly a Christian or not, here’s the test. Now this I find very appropriate for tonight since we’re reminded the 2 Corinthians13:5 to examine ourselves whether we’d be in the faith. And Paul says in 1 Corinthians, “When you come to the Lord’s Table, let a man examine himself.”

 

And the most notable thing to be concerned about in this self examination is the true condition of your heart. Are you truly God’s child?

James says, “Believers have a right response that involves three features.” We’ll look at them just briefly. Three features.

Feature No. 1 is a willingness to receive the word with submission. A willingness to receive the word with submission, or to put it another way, a willingness to receive the word without resistance, without rebellion.

So then verse 19 says, “My beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath or the wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God.”

 

Now he says you were begotten by the word of truth, you were born again by the word of truth, you know the power of the word of truth, you are aware of its regenerating capability. You have experienced the power of the word that transformed you.” Peter said essentially the same thing in 1 Peter 1:23: “Having been born again not of corruptible seed, but incorruptible threw the word of God, which lives and abides forever.” You have already experienced the power of the word that God has brought us forth by every word that comes from His mouth. The Scriptures, we’re reminded is, the Scriptures are able to make us wise unto salvation. So we already know the power of the word to regenerate. We get evidence of that real regenerating word by a continual hearing of the life-giving word with an attitude of submission. And he discusses that attitude in a number of interesting ways.

 

Look at verse 19. Let every man be swift to hear. He’s not just talking about something generic. He’s not saying, “Be good listeners when people come and tell you their problems.” He’s not saying, “Be good listeners when your wife unloads on you the things that concern her or your children want you ear.” He’s not talking in that generic sort of category. He’s talking in the context of the word of truth, which is the subject of verse 18, and also the subject of verse 21, 22 and following. The context is the word of God, and what he is saying is be eager hearers, eager listeners to the word. The idea is here that someone who is truly regenerate is going to be eager to grasp every opportunity to increase their hearing of God’s word because, in fact, they do desire to have the mind

of Christ. You do have the mind of Christ when you think like Christ thinks and that’s when you think, as the Scripture has revealed, the mind of God.

 

The idea is to be eager to pursue every privileged occasion to obtain the knowledge of God and His divine will. Literally it says, be swift to the hearing. Be swift to the sermon, if you will. Be swift to the exposition of Scripture. Be swift to the resource to bring you the truth of God.

You can go back in this chapter to verse 2 and all the way through verse 12, and it’s all about trials. Trials that are difficult, trials that demand wisdom from above, that demand that wisdom beyond this world, a wisdom which only the word of God can provide.

 

When there are trials in life, well, you wanna be swift to hear, you wanna run to the word where you find there the truth of God that meets the trial. And when there are temptations.

 

Verse 13, transitions out of the trials into the temptations. And from verse 13 down through verse 17, there’s a discussion of the matter of temptation. And the only way to deal with lust, and the only way to deal with being drawn away into temptation, drawn away, it says in verse 14, by your own desires and

enticed. Drawn away so that desire conceives and gives birth to sin. The only way to avoid that, as David knew, was to hide the word in his heart that he might not sin. When there are trials, a believer runs to the word, which provides the comfort. When there are temptations, the believer turns to the word where there is strength to resist.

 

Charles Wesley cultivate this in his own life, and he expressed that in him when he wrote, “When quiet in my room I sit, thy book be my companion still. My joy thy sayings to repeat, talk or the records of thy will. And search the oracles divine ’til every heart felt word is mine.” That’s what David meant in Psalm 119:111, when he said, “Thy testimonies have by taken as in heritage forever, for they are the rejoicing of my heart.”

 

Be quick to hear, pursue every opportunity to be exposed to the word of God and to receive it with submission. And along that line, slow to speak, that also is not just some generic command that is telling you keep your mouth shut.

Just don’t talk, don’t say anything in general. Swift to the hearing of the truth of God, slow to the speaking. What does that mean? Eagerly do you pursue hearing every word from God, but cautiously, slowly, patiently and with some reluctance would you become the speaker.

 

In James 3:1, we are reminded that it’s a very serious thing to speak the word of God. “My brethren let not many of you become teachers knowing that we shall receive a stricter judgment.” Don’t be in a big hurry to be the teacher. For responding then to the positive command to receive the word with submissiveness is the negative command as to the nature of that submission and there will be in that kind of submission a certain reluctance to speak. A holy fear that you might misrepresent the truth. A reticence that holds you back until you really grasp it. Hard to imagine in the English-speaking world that there were many who were greater preachers than

 

Such a time as you are prepared to speak accurately in right representation of divine truth. And then James says in verse 19, “Slow to wrath.” Because this does not produce the type of righteousness, which reflects God’s nature.

The world wrath here is the world basically from the Greek, which means a deep seeded resentment. It means rebellion. It means rejection. It used in Scripture of God’s rejection of sinners.

 

Romans 1:18, which we read this morning, Romans 9:22. It refers to a disposition of hostility. And the context, again, is the context of hearing the word of truth. And this implies that there are some people who get hostile against the word. They don’t like what they hear. When the truth is presented they don’t want hear it. It doesn’t produce what is right before God. It doesn’t produce a righteous life. If you are going to receive the word, you must receive it with submission.

 

That means you must listen to it, take every opportunity to hear it, expound it to you, every opportunity to hear it explained to you or to read the word of God or that which comments on the word of God.

 

You must be slow to speak until you have come to a full understanding and can rightly represent what God is saying. And you must never develop hostility toward the truth of God because it runs counter to your own desires. So those who are true believers are known by the attitude with which they received the word of God, and it is an attitude of submission.

 

I might question the salvation of someone who professes Christ, but I never question the salvation of someone who demonstrates an ongoing passion for the word of God and does so with a heart of submission.

 

Secondly, James says there was another feature to this willingness to receive the word. We are willing – those of us who are true believers – to receive the word not only with submission but with purity. Look at verse 21: “Therefore, lay aside all filthiness and overflow of wickedness, and receive with meekness the implanted word.”

 

First of all, he’s talking about putting aside, lay aside simply means to divest yourself of. In fact, the point is before the word of God can be received productively to produce the righteousness of God, it must be received submissively and it must be received with purity.

 

A putting off has to occur. A putting off of sin. Peter talks about that – 1 Peter 2:1,2. Very, very familiar portion of Scripture – “Therefore laying aside all evil, all deceit, hypocrisy, envy and all evil speaking as newborn babes desire the pure _____ of the word.” First there’s a laying aside.

 

Romans 13, I think it’s around verse 12, essentially says the same thing: “The night is far spent, the day is at hand, therefore let us cast off the works of darkness and let us put on the armor of light.”

 

There is a putting off before there is a putting on of the truth. And there is a putting off here. It’s a word used of filthy garments which soil the body. And, of course, in a metaphoric sense, it came to be used to speak of moral vice. It’s a very vivid word. It’s like taking off your immorality.

 

Get rid of any dirt that hinders your hearing. Deaf because of the accumulation of wax, deaf because of the accumulation of sin. Get rid of it. Unload it. Clean it out, all of it. Not just some of it. All filthiness. And then he adds overflow of wickedness. Literally in referring to a vast amount, an abundant amount, prevailing, prevalent amount. Of general evil – cochea- just means a general evil.

 

The evil that still lingers in our humanness. The flesh that is still there. The whole filthy mass of wicked moral vice must be confessed, repented of and dealt with. Those of us who are genuine believers understand this and we desire this. We desire to repent, we desire to be cleansed, we desire to have the wax of sin removed from our ears so we can hear the word of truth. Because our delight is in the law of God. We want to meditate it on a day and night. We love the law of God. So if one is true Christian, there will be a willingness to receive the word with submission. There will be a willingness to listen, a reticence to speak and no anger toward what God says. There will also be a willingness to receive the word with a purity. There will be a strong compelling desire to divest oneself of filthiness and an overflowing of wickedness that would hinder the production of righteousness that the word an accomplish.

 

And then lastly, James says, “There will be a willingness to receive the word with humility.” With humility. And that’s what he says there in verse 21: “Receive with meekness the implanted word.” Welcome the word meekly. That basically means to have a teachable spirit. A heart that longs to be taught by God and is a willing student. The idea here is not passive acceptance, the idea here is active acceptance. A teachable spirit, shapeable, moldable. To receive the implanted word. That’s humility really. To humble yourself beneath the word of God. Now that’s a challenging thing to do. You know, sometimes you get your theology so well established and so well wired that you become less than teacher. And one of the great challenges of someone who studies the Bible all the time – certainly it’s true in my own life – is to go to the word of God every time with a meekness and loneliness that makes you teachable.

 

All of this: submission, purity, and humility so that you can receive the implanted word. Beautiful phrase. So that God can literally plant the truth in your heart. It’s where it can take root and be productive. We should want this because it is this word – end of verse 21 – which is able to save your souls.

 

It is the word, which continually delivers you from sin. Not just in justification at the time of your being begotten by the word, but in sanctification in the process of that ongoing salvation. The word continually delivers your soul from sin, and someday present you faultless, will someday present you faultless before God. It is this word that saves you that also sanctifies you. It delivers your souls. It

rescues your souls from sin and iniquity and all that goes with it.

 

Unto us who are being saved, the word continues to be the power of God. It delivered us from sin in the first place in our justification; it continues to deliver us from sin in the second place through our sanctification.

 

We ought to be then like Mary who sat at Jesus’ feet and heard His word, and not like the crowds. Stoning Steven, you remember, who cried out with a loud voice and plugged their ears. You can tell a true believer. They want to hear the word of God. They received the word with all readiness of mind and searched the Scriptures daily.

 

And then James, for us anyway, draws our thoughts tonight to a conclusion in verse 22. It’s not only how you receive the word that marks out the genuineness of your salvation but how you react to the word. Verse 22: “Be doers of the word and not” what? “Hearers only.” Do I see in your life a great

eagerness for the word to come in and an equal eagerness for the word to be lived out?

 

Continually, the Greek says, doers. So that the characterization of your life would be as one who puts the word of God into practice by life habit. Don’t just be a hearer. That’s really not enough. There are a lot of people who are curious about the truth, who are fascinated by it. A picture is not complete, however, until you see in their life the evidence that they not only are hearing it, they are living it.

 

 

Submitting to God's Word