- adverts that interrupt my watching a movie

- leaflets that interrupt my reading a magazine (and fall out on the floor)

- banners that flash and animate, in an attempt to make me stop reading the website page

- unsolicited callers that interrupt my work or free time to sell me products I don’t want

The new way:

- product placement in a movie (you hate the idea but it beats the alternative)

- adverts related to the article or review you’re reading (if you’re reading it you’re interested in it)

- clearly identified text ads that are relevant to a web page’s content

- companies informing you of products that you’re interested in at a time that suits you

Google’s Realtime Search

With some impressive features including the ability to filter by location and look at results from different times, it’s a great tool for anyone wishing to monitor anything.

There’s never been a more important time for your business to be actively engaged in effective online marketing.

Some companies are realising they survived the recession, breathing a sigh of relief, and sitting back comfortably.

This is a big mistake, for a number of reasons.

Most economies are in a very fragile state.

Last week saw the UK’s media celebrating that the UK economy had grown more than expected: our quarterly growth of 1.1% had been revised to 1.2%. This is before the Government’s fairly drastic cost/job slashing measures are applied.

How’s that for skating on thin ice?

Additionally, while the risk of a so-called double dip recession is debatable, every day sees a roller coaster of very good and very bad economic news.

Take a look at the headlines on the BBC’s Business pages at the time of writing this post:

When you combine roller-coasters with thin ice, the results aren’t going to be pretty.

There’s never been a more important time for your business to be actively engaged in effective online marketing.

184 software companies took part in the survey, and TrialPay even break-down the demographics of the participants. It’s unfortunate that the majority are selling to consumers, and 40% are selling games. Yet the data is still interesting – well worth registering to receive the free report.

2011 Report on Software Customer Acquisition Methods

“Printed savings from Coupons.com and the Coupons.com digital network for the 12 months ending June 2010 exceeded $1 billion. This includes savings printed or loaded to a store loyalty card and represents a 100 percent increase compared to $529 million the year before.”

Easy to create, easy to publicise, nothing to lose.

The only way to avoid broad match is to play it 100% safe – perhaps by only using exact matched keywords. But 100% safe doesn’t work in advertising, marketing or Google AdWords.

There are, unfortunately, no 100% guarantees, but you can reduce the risks significantly by understanding how broad match works.

The first point is that broad match needs muzzling.

Bid on the broad matched keyword red shoes for example, and your add might be displayed to people searching for buy red shoes, leather shows, redwood, running shoes, avoiding a red face, red paint and more.

The second point is that common-sense is a good starting point, but to use broad match you need to combine the power of the search query report with a good list of negative keywords.

And let’s not forget that keeping on top of this as an ongoing task is critical.

Tame broad match and it will work with you. Allow it to run free and it will wreak havoc.

Assuming that you have a healthy number of ads in each ad group, it’s important that each and every one is unique and distinct from each other.

Changing a word here and there won’t have much of an impact, and the only way to truly see what works is to dry different approaches. Different tones, different wording, a different message, different appearances – even different lengths.

Be bold, be different, be distinct.

No matter how well you know your product, your markets and Google’s system, there is no way to accurately predict which ads will work and which will fall flat on their faces.

AdWords visitors are probably quite different from your regular visitors – different needs and behavioural patterns, so new strategies may be required.

For all of these reasons, it’s important to try a wide variety of different ad techniques.

I would recommend four ads per ad group as an absolute minimum; but the more different ads you run, the greater the chances of success.

Bonus tip: once you’ve found the ‘right’ ads, don’t make the mistake of then believing that the ad group can be left to run itself. It can’t.

A new campaign named first-cont-01 might make sense next week, but in a year’s time, the person handling your account may be baffled.

There’s a better way.

Clear names make navigation and analysis quicker and easier.

Campaign: discounts US and Canada

Ad group: 20 percent

Use the same tracking in your ads, and it’s child’s play:

http://www.yourdomain.com/index.asp?ref=adwords&campaign=discounts-us-canada&adgroup=20-percent&ad=001

No matter what you use to analyse your server logs, you’ll instantly know where that click came from.

Blogger – 2,099.
WordPress – 2,681.
Twitter – 2,969.
Google – 4,219.
Second Life – 10,866.

The three services that allow any individual or organisation to say what they like and reach most of the world have the least.

The search engine that presents other people’s information has far more.

The online game has by far the most.

Ever get the feeling that the world has gone mad?

It’s one of those beautiful “why didn’t I think of that” ideas.

Yet less than a week earlier the same writer pointed out “…despite only 2% of consumers saying they would put trust in strangers the vast majority would double-check a friend or relative’s product or service recommendation against the online opinions of, ironically, strangers.” in Family and friend recommendations no longer enough.

Recommendations from friends are obviously more interesting than those of strangers, yet this doesn’t mean that we necessarily have unshakable faith in their advice.

So can you use this idea on your own website?

If you have sections of your website with content geared towards specific user groups, then testimonials from like-minded users will carry far more weight. It’s common sense, yet often overlooked.

Speak in the language of your visitors and they’re more likely to listen.

Let’s imagine I was twenty years younger, and looking to buy a diamond. Being a twenty year old male means that I wouldn’t know the first thing about diamonds, so my first port of call to expand my mind would be to Google: “advice on buying a diamond”.

Let’s compare four of the results I see.

buyadiamond.net- little text, no information. Makes the classic mistake of describing what they’re going to explain without actually saying anything. Also quite an unattractive website – not the sort of place I would want to part with my money.

aboutbuyingdiamonds.com – appears to have a fair amount of information but leaves the novice a little unsure as to what to click on next or where to begin.

gillets.com – significantly better than the above examples. They start answering my question right from the outset, and the headline reassures me that I’m in the right place.

bluenile.co.uk – a cut above the rest. The most dominant aspect of the page is the information I need. The introductory paragraphs reassure me that I’m in the right place. Then there’s a short explanation of each characteristic, nicely illustrated, with a clear link to more information should I require it.

How you to choose to present your products or services on your website is critical to how well you sell them.

Next Wednesday I’ll be holding a 30 minute webinar that will show you 17 different ways to stop losing your website visitors.

17 different ways to increase your sales.

Register for the free webinar today.

Getting targeted visitors to your website is a little more difficult.

Getting targeted visitors to your website at an affordable cost – that takes knowledge, skill and time.

Yet no matter what you’re doing to bring in visitors, no matter how targeted they are and how little you’re paying for each one, there’s a good chance that the majority of them are going to leave your website within a few seconds.

All that work – the posts, comments, articles, insightful advice, keywords, beautifully crafted ads, well-written thought-provoking content – go out of the window if the visitors to your website don’t realise the five magic words within seconds:

You have what they need.

On Wednesday August 11th I’ll be hosting a free 30 minute webinar on the different things you can do to retain your visitors and reduce your bounce rates.

We’ll be looking at 17 ways to turn more visitors into customers. 17 ways to increase your sales. 17 ways to improve your ROI.

30 minutes of your time: 17 ways to sell more. Guaranteed results.

Wednesday August 11th at 5:00 PM (BST), 9:00 AM (PDT), 11.00 AM (CDT).

REGISTER FOR THE FREE WEBINAR TODAY.

The email looked clean, fresh and inviting.

For each of the offers they had a picture of the product, the name, price, saving and original price.

Here’s what I found interesting.

I was more interested in the original price (shown with a line through it) than the saving.

Here’s where it goes wrong.

There are three bottles of wine, with a half price stamp on them. But how much do they cost?

I’d be more interested if a £20 bottle of wine were being sold at half price than a £4 bottle.

Note that this may be deliberate. There’s enough research proving that many people are more interested in the saving than the value of the deal. But it doesn’t work for me.

The other mistake is that I can’t actually read the original prices of the cherries, pizzas or prawns.

Good deals; poor execution.

Their website’s functionality is excellent, with an obvious leaning towards practicality over beauty.

Their Prime system is sheer genius – and means that I not only spend far more money with them each year, but that they are also my first port of call when looking to buy online.

Yet two of their recent press releases have revealed some interesting trends: That the Kindle format has overtaken the hardcover format, and that the past year has seen an impressive $1 billion of Amazon products ordered through a mobile device. Presumably more than one…

“The leading mobile commerce device today is the smartphone, but we’re excited by the potential of the new category of wireless tablet computers. Over time, tablet computers could become a meaningful additional driver for our business.”

Some believe that we have become slaves to our mobile devices. Personally I consider mine liberating. Yet irrespective of your opinion, the mobile revolution is underway. Isn’t it time your businesses started to tap into it?

Terrifyingly, many were looking for the very solution that you provide. Yet they didn’t stay on your website long enough to realise it.

On Wednesday August 11th, I’ll be holding a 30 minute free webinar on practical steps that you can take to retain more visitors and convert them to customers. Subjects will include 17 different ways to optimize your website for conversions, and 10 of the most common optimization mistakes to avoid.

Join me if you can on Wednesday August 11th at 5:00 PM (BST), 9:00 AM (PDT), 11.00 AM (CDT).

Stop wasting money. Stop wasting customers.

Register for the free webinar today.

The preview certainly sounded good:

• a fresh, updated design, with more space for the main stories of the day
• better use of video and images
• clearer and more prominent labelling and signposting of key stories, whether you are on the front page or a story page
• a better indication of which are the most recent headlines
• easier ways to share stories with others, for those who wish to, on social media networks

The reality, however, is a major disappointment.

Take a look at how the top navigation appears in Chrome – note that the size has not been reduced; it really is that unclear:

Then there’s the bewildering mix of fonts, sizes and styles:

I understand that when a regularly used website is updated, users tend to initially dislike the redesign. But this is a major hop, skip and a jump backwards.

The old design allowed me to see all the major stories of the day; barely having to move my mouse.

The new design forces me to click the sidebar four times to get to the bottom of the page – and that’s at my resolution of 1680 x 1050.

The old design had a clear separation of actual news and items of interest.

The new design shows me main news stories, also in the news, sport, uk/world news, more from BBC news, democracy live, BBC world service, multimedia content, features and analysis, most popular, market data, programs and more.

Far, far too much in too little space.

Bad design. Bad usability. Bad.

Pictures of the Software Industry Conference 2010.