Article Presented by:
Copyright © 2010 Scott Bywater
I managed to get away for a night with my wife this weekend in the beautiful Southern Highlands.
Never been to Bowral before, but is that a magical place or what?
Sometimes things take you by surprise.
Anyway, the place we stayed was stunning. Like a heaven away from home...
And during the night, here's the dream I woke up to...
I was playing golf.
But whenever I went to hit the ball I couldn't find the right club.
Firstly, because I didn't have the right club.
And secondly because even the clubs I had, didn't have the right ends to them.
And then when I lost a ball, I couldn't find another ball in my bag.
Now a couple of things to remember here...
I haven't played golf since I was like a teenager
I rarely remember my dreams.
But when I woke up, I asked myself the question:
"What was the message in that dream?"
And it came to me that when I used to play golf, I didn't have that problem.
Why?
Because I went to the game prepared.
And that got me thinking about my business.
After all, you wouldn't play a game of golf without ensuring you had all your balls, tees and clubs.
You wouldn't go on a holiday without ensuring you had all your clothes, tickets, passport, etc.
And the same should apply in our business.
We should prepare before each day.
We should prepare before each week.
We should set up our office (as I am doing now) so we can access everything and it's nice and tidy, etc.
... because this preparation makes us far more effective when we get out on the course (which is our day to day business life).
For instance, last week I took some time to organise my swipe files (swipe files are sample files of ads I can draw on when I am writing copy)...
... so that next time I write copy I can find what I am looking for faster and more easily.
The same goes with daily planning.
If you know the most important things you need to achieve that day, there's a much greater chance you'll achieve it than if you don't do the preparation and just do whatever happens to be urgent at the time.
So today, take time out to prepare before you walk onto the golf course of your business.
In fact, do it every day. And do it every week. And we should really do a quick summary at least every quarter of what we have achieved and what our outcomes are for the next 3 months.
I did this years ago. And do you know what I realised.
Some of my greatest breakthroughs came from what I learnt.
The seminars I had attended. The books I had read. The audio tape programs I had listened to.
Perhaps you might find a breakthrough in taking the time to learn how to get more customers by checking out http://www.morecustomersmadeeasy.com
or learning how to create killer ads and sales letters: http://www.copywritingthatsells.com.au/cashflow
But whatever you do, make sure you listen to your dreams - they often have incredible messages in them.
And take time out to prepare on a regular basis.
About the Author:
Scott Bywater is a direct mail copywriter and the author of Cash-Flow Advertising. To get access to his highly prized complimentary copy of "7 Ways To Get More Customers" (valued at $29.95) and to join his controversial and insighful "Copywriting Selling Secrets" newsletter where you'll uncover the truth about why most ads and sales letters don't work (and how to make yours stand out from the rest) head on over to his web site at http://www.copywritingthatsells.com.au/
Read more of Scott Bywater's articles.
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Do You Want to Say Goodbye to Penny-Pinchers?
Article Presented by:
Copyright © 2010 Scott Bywater
Before I get going on today's rant, I have some good news.
After sending out my email the other day about not recording the webinar, I received an email from one of my listeners in Penrith who had recorded it.
They sent it to me. I uploaded it. And you can check it out at:
http://www.scottbywater.com/rightcustomers
Of course, you cannot ask me questions as the people on the live call did.
Anyway, let me tell you a story from my early days in business about the importance of getting the right customers.
When I first started out, I was clutching at straws.
I was broke. I was desperate. And I was trying a lot of different things to see what worked.
So since I had run a hairdressing salon I thought that was a good place to start.
I would cold call these salons... go and meet with them... present... and try and clutch the sale.
I met with a dozen salons.
I made like one sale and had generated a grand total of a couple of hundred bucks from memory.
Why?
Because the businesses I was calling on were totally unqualified.
They had a business and they were a hairdressing salon. That's about it. So they didn't like the idea (and probably didn't have the money) of paying me for my services.
Then I grabbed the phone directory. Looked for all of those companies who had quarter page advertisements.
And called them.
After meeting with three of them, I had made two sales.
And one of the sales I made from targeting the phone directory advertisers became an ongoing client who was worth more than $50,000 to me.
Similar presentation.
Same salesperson.
But I targeted the right customers. And that made all the difference.
They didn't penny-pinch because they were pre-qualified as being willing to invest funds into advertising.
The others did because they weren't qualified.
Chasing the wrong customers is the single biggest mistake people make in business.
That's why I ran my webinar last week.
And you can check it out here:
http://www.scottbywater.com/rightcustomers
Do it now because the special offer on the call expires at midnight tomorrow.
What's more, when you listen to it, you are going to learn:
The best way to stay in touch with a customer to rutn them into a customer for life
The trick to avoiding the question about giving a discount or special deals
When to give up on somebody who is never going to use your services
The best way to canvas for customers (should you use the internet, newspaper, direct mail or door knocking)
How to get the best leads
Does fax broadcasting work? And what are the drawbacks?
And much, much more
Anyway, after returning from a long weekend there is work to be done.
So let's hop to it.
About the Author:
For quick results, you'll want to get your hands on this leading direct response copywriter's ebook "7 Ways To Get More Customers" at http://www.copywritingthatsells.com.au/ Scott Bywater shows you how to get all the customers you need in just 60 days. This popular ebook has been downloaded by over 8,247 business owners over the past five years. Packed with information, this ebook will show you copywriting and marketing strategies which could have you getting new clients within just a couple of days.
Copyright © 2010 Scott Bywater
Before I get going on today's rant, I have some good news.
After sending out my email the other day about not recording the webinar, I received an email from one of my listeners in Penrith who had recorded it.
They sent it to me. I uploaded it. And you can check it out at:
http://www.scottbywater.com/rightcustomers
Of course, you cannot ask me questions as the people on the live call did.
Anyway, let me tell you a story from my early days in business about the importance of getting the right customers.
When I first started out, I was clutching at straws.
I was broke. I was desperate. And I was trying a lot of different things to see what worked.
So since I had run a hairdressing salon I thought that was a good place to start.
I would cold call these salons... go and meet with them... present... and try and clutch the sale.
I met with a dozen salons.
I made like one sale and had generated a grand total of a couple of hundred bucks from memory.
Why?
Because the businesses I was calling on were totally unqualified.
They had a business and they were a hairdressing salon. That's about it. So they didn't like the idea (and probably didn't have the money) of paying me for my services.
Then I grabbed the phone directory. Looked for all of those companies who had quarter page advertisements.
And called them.
After meeting with three of them, I had made two sales.
And one of the sales I made from targeting the phone directory advertisers became an ongoing client who was worth more than $50,000 to me.
Similar presentation.
Same salesperson.
But I targeted the right customers. And that made all the difference.
They didn't penny-pinch because they were pre-qualified as being willing to invest funds into advertising.
The others did because they weren't qualified.
Chasing the wrong customers is the single biggest mistake people make in business.
That's why I ran my webinar last week.
And you can check it out here:
http://www.scottbywater.com/rightcustomers
Do it now because the special offer on the call expires at midnight tomorrow.
What's more, when you listen to it, you are going to learn:
Anyway, after returning from a long weekend there is work to be done.
So let's hop to it.
About the Author:
For quick results, you'll want to get your hands on this leading direct response copywriter's ebook "7 Ways To Get More Customers" at http://www.copywritingthatsells.com.au/ Scott Bywater shows you how to get all the customers you need in just 60 days. This popular ebook has been downloaded by over 8,247 business owners over the past five years. Packed with information, this ebook will show you copywriting and marketing strategies which could have you getting new clients within just a couple of days.
Why Attracting Web Site Traffic is Overrated
Article Presented by:
Copyright © 2010 Scott Bywater
One of the big things which sells online is information on how to get more traffic.
And while that is obviously important, I believe it is given far more importance than it should.
I mean obviously it's easy to sell.
It's the carrot, right?
But here's the thing.
It's not actually that difficult to get traffic. All you need to be able to do is pay lots of cash in order to get more traffic.
Simple, really.
And there's plenty of places where you can do this...
google adwords
classified ads
banner ads
etc.
But here's where the problem lies.
If you cannot convert that traffic into sales, then you cannot afford to continue to advertise.
Putting traffic before conversion is, quite frankly, like putting the horse before the cart.
Think about it.
Imagine you find a way to generate 5,000 visitors a week.
That's great.
But that's going to cost you something. Let's say $2,000 a week.
Here's the bottom line. If you cannot generate at least $2,000 a week through having good sales copy on the page that traffic hits, you'll go broke before you do it well.
Listen, conversion isn't sexy.
It takes work. It takes effort.
But the bottom line is conversion is what will make all the traffic worth it. And without the ability to convert your web site visitors into cash in the bank, traffic is worthless.
About the Author:
Scott Bywater is a direct response copywriter with extensive experience in B2B and B2C writing. Mr Bywater is the author of Cash-Flow Advertising and More Customers Made Easy. You can gain access to his copywriting and marketing tips via his entertaining and eye opening "Copywriting Selling Secrets" newsletter available at http://www.copywritingthatsells.com.au/
Visit Scott Bywater's website.
Copyright © 2010 Scott Bywater
One of the big things which sells online is information on how to get more traffic.
And while that is obviously important, I believe it is given far more importance than it should.
I mean obviously it's easy to sell.
It's the carrot, right?
But here's the thing.
It's not actually that difficult to get traffic. All you need to be able to do is pay lots of cash in order to get more traffic.
Simple, really.
And there's plenty of places where you can do this...
But here's where the problem lies.
If you cannot convert that traffic into sales, then you cannot afford to continue to advertise.
Putting traffic before conversion is, quite frankly, like putting the horse before the cart.
Think about it.
Imagine you find a way to generate 5,000 visitors a week.
That's great.
But that's going to cost you something. Let's say $2,000 a week.
Here's the bottom line. If you cannot generate at least $2,000 a week through having good sales copy on the page that traffic hits, you'll go broke before you do it well.
Listen, conversion isn't sexy.
It takes work. It takes effort.
But the bottom line is conversion is what will make all the traffic worth it. And without the ability to convert your web site visitors into cash in the bank, traffic is worthless.
About the Author:
Scott Bywater is a direct response copywriter with extensive experience in B2B and B2C writing. Mr Bywater is the author of Cash-Flow Advertising and More Customers Made Easy. You can gain access to his copywriting and marketing tips via his entertaining and eye opening "Copywriting Selling Secrets" newsletter available at http://www.copywritingthatsells.com.au/
Visit Scott Bywater's website.
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Business Lessons from the Soccer World Cup
Article Presented by:
Copyright © 2010 Scott Bywater
Ok, let's talk about the World Cup.
If anyone got up early on Monday morning to watch the match between Australia and Germany, you no doubt walked away disappointed with the end result.
But full credit to the German team - they really were brilliant and obviously the deserving winners.
Today I am not here to talk about Italy and Australia - I am here to talk about something I heard in the game between Greece and Korea.
Now my wife is Greek, so even though she shows very little interest in the soccer, I thought it was my duty to also watch the last half of that game.
Unfortunately, Greece lost 2-0.
And here's what's interesting: at half-time I was listening to the commentators and they said something which I found interesting...
"Korea is playing to win whereas Greece is playing to not lose"
And that's a fine distinction, isn't it?
After all, how many of us play the game of business just to stay in business... just to survive?
It's easy to fall into the trap of thinking small rather than thinking big.
It's easy to think of break even rather than how you are going to build an empire.
It's easy to avoid risk rather than take calculated risks which allow you to take your business to the next level.
But what happens when we do that?
It's really quite simple.
Think of it like a soccer game.
If you don't take your chances... if you don't implement some agressive strategies... and if you are always thinking about defence...
Somehow the enemy manages to slip through your defence and all of a sudden you are heading for a loss which kicks you out of the tournament.
By the same token, in business you might lose a client or an ad might stop working. You might lose a staff member.
Many things can go wrong. In fact, we shouldn't be surprised when they do...
Even though we should at the same time be focusing on what we want and thinking positive.
You need to stay ahead of the game. Here's how it works...
"Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning a lion wakes up. It knows it must outrun the slowest gazelle or it will starve to death. It doesn't matter whether you are a lion or a gazelle: when the sun comes up, you'd better be running"
So take a moment right now to decide to stay ahead of the game... and play in your business with an attacking game plan.
Interestingly enough, in Keith McFarland's book, The Breakthrough Company about how everyday companies become extraordinary performers he says this is one of the most important aspects to breaking through to the next level:
Being willing to take calculated risks.
Anyway, time to start running ;-)
About the Author:
As a direct response copywriter, Scott Bywater strives to educate business owners on how to generate more leads, get more of the "right type" of customers, differentiate themselves from their competition, and convert their leads into sales via his underground and "outside of the box" strategies. You can get his copywriting and marketing tips delivered to your inbox via his eye opening "Copywriting Selling Secrets" newsletter available at http://www.copywritingthatsells.com.au/
Copyright © 2010 Scott Bywater
Ok, let's talk about the World Cup.
If anyone got up early on Monday morning to watch the match between Australia and Germany, you no doubt walked away disappointed with the end result.
But full credit to the German team - they really were brilliant and obviously the deserving winners.
Today I am not here to talk about Italy and Australia - I am here to talk about something I heard in the game between Greece and Korea.
Now my wife is Greek, so even though she shows very little interest in the soccer, I thought it was my duty to also watch the last half of that game.
Unfortunately, Greece lost 2-0.
And here's what's interesting: at half-time I was listening to the commentators and they said something which I found interesting...
"Korea is playing to win whereas Greece is playing to not lose"
And that's a fine distinction, isn't it?
After all, how many of us play the game of business just to stay in business... just to survive?
It's easy to fall into the trap of thinking small rather than thinking big.
It's easy to think of break even rather than how you are going to build an empire.
It's easy to avoid risk rather than take calculated risks which allow you to take your business to the next level.
But what happens when we do that?
It's really quite simple.
Think of it like a soccer game.
If you don't take your chances... if you don't implement some agressive strategies... and if you are always thinking about defence...
Somehow the enemy manages to slip through your defence and all of a sudden you are heading for a loss which kicks you out of the tournament.
By the same token, in business you might lose a client or an ad might stop working. You might lose a staff member.
Many things can go wrong. In fact, we shouldn't be surprised when they do...
Even though we should at the same time be focusing on what we want and thinking positive.
You need to stay ahead of the game. Here's how it works...
"Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning a lion wakes up. It knows it must outrun the slowest gazelle or it will starve to death. It doesn't matter whether you are a lion or a gazelle: when the sun comes up, you'd better be running"
So take a moment right now to decide to stay ahead of the game... and play in your business with an attacking game plan.
Interestingly enough, in Keith McFarland's book, The Breakthrough Company about how everyday companies become extraordinary performers he says this is one of the most important aspects to breaking through to the next level:
Being willing to take calculated risks.
Anyway, time to start running ;-)
About the Author:
As a direct response copywriter, Scott Bywater strives to educate business owners on how to generate more leads, get more of the "right type" of customers, differentiate themselves from their competition, and convert their leads into sales via his underground and "outside of the box" strategies. You can get his copywriting and marketing tips delivered to your inbox via his eye opening "Copywriting Selling Secrets" newsletter available at http://www.copywritingthatsells.com.au/
Sunday, June 27, 2010
Never Underestimate The Real Power Of Long-Tail Keywords
Article Presented by:
Copyright © 2010 Hunter Waterhouse
Before 2010, May Day simply referred to May 1st, a celebration of the beginning of Spring, or International Workers' Day (Labour Day), as practiced in many countries, most notably in Russia... The alternate spelling Mayday was a signal used by ships' captains and airplane pilots to announce "Come and Help me!", as derived from the French word, "m'aidez"...
Google's Mayday Update
Beginning in May 2010, Mayday became the code word for a major ranking change in Google and new attacks of "Google paranoia" by webmasters everywhere...
As webmasters, we should leave the paranoia to those who truly have a reason to be paranoid, like my ex-wife and her family. ;-)
Google has always advised that we, as webmasters, should focus on giving searchers what they are trying to give Google's search users: the most relevant, useful results possible for searchers.
As for myself, many of the new ranking factors included in the Mayday Update are things that I have expected the engineers at Google to include for a long time...
Call me strange if you will -- my ex-wife and her family do -- but I have always tried to plan my website optimization based on what I thought Google should have been doing already...
So, when Mayday finally came, I was ready...
Unlike many of my peers, I was not crying in my beer in the aftermath of Google's Mayday Update...
About The Mayday Algorithm Update
An article on Search Engine Guide (http://bit.ly/8ZQ9yL), about Google's May Day Update, suggested that Matt Cutts, of Google's Webspam Team, said at Google I/O 2010, "this is an algorithmic change in Google, looking for higher quality sites to surface for long tail queries. It went through vigorous testing and isn't going to be rolled back."
So if your website was hurt by the Mayday Update, you should pay attention to this article, because "the way things were" is gone forever...
Vanessa Fox, formerly of Google, in another article at Search Engine Land (http://selnd.com/bOqqcE) suggested that the update primarily affected e-commerce websites that rely upon a product manufacturer's product description... In other words, if a webmaster uses the default product description given by the original product manufacturer, then the product sales page will have taken a hit in Google's search listings...
Fox also said, "Before, pages that didn't have high quality signals might still rank well if they had high relevance signals. And perhaps now, those high relevance signals don't have as much weight in ranking if the page doesn't have the right quality signals."
It seems that a lot of webmasters dismissed Fox' view as just plain wrong, but I side with Dave Davis, who said, "I believe she was right on the money." (http://bit.ly/b4sGKy)
As the questions about Google's Mayday Update spiraled, Matt Cutts did a video for the Google Webmaster Central Channel at YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/user/GoogleWebmasterHelp), about the Mayday Update (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJ6CtBmaIQM). In that video, Cutts emphasized that Mayday is only one of more than 400 tweaks that Google does to its algorithms each year, and he further emphasized that Mayday has been fully tested and is a permanent change to Google's search algorithms.
What Mayday Means For Google Search
The Mayday Update was primarily focused on changing how Long-Tail Keywords were handled by Google's search engine...
To make sure that you and I are on the same page, Long-Tail Keywords are those search phrases that contain more than 3 words. For example, as I was researching this article, my search query at Google was: "Google long tail keywords mayday".
My five-word search query is a great example of Long-Tailed Keywords.
In the Matt Cutts' video shown above, Cutts defined Long Tail Search Queries in contrast to Head Search Queries, with Head Queries being the one-, two- and three-word search phrases.
I found it odd that an article at Small Business Computing (http://bit.ly/bkOXqQ) suggested that this Google algorithm update was simply a reflection of the changing habits of search engine users, who employ more long-tail keywords in their searches today, than they had in previous years...
To be honest, I find it hard to believe that long-tail search queries is a new trend... I suspect that the truth is that Google finally acknowledged the importance of long-tail search queries... And in doing so, they fixed their weakness in that area...
Long-Tail Search Queries Were The Red-Headed Stepchild of Google
Maile Ohye, senior developer programs engineer at Google, announced at the Search Engine Strategies (SES) Toronto 2010 conference, "For long-tail queries, we now just consider them as all other queries and place as much value on them as we do into shorter queries."
Myself, I am blown away by that statement...
Okay... Let's see if you and I see the same message here... Until the Mayday Update, Google had always treated long-tail queries with a different algorithm than "head of demand" queries (1-3 word queries)?
And now, Google is treating both with the same algorithm?
No wonder I was never satisfied with long-tail search queries at Google... No wonder I had been looking elsewhere for some of my search results... Google was using two algorithms, and most of my search habits were met with their other not-as-good search algorithm...
Digging Deeper Into Mayday Update
I came across the May 11th edition of the Search Engine Facts newsletter (http://bit.ly/9V4Fyv). The newsletter stated, "It seems that this is not a penalty but a change in Google's ranking algorithm. Google might now be able to index longer keyword phrases more accurately. There's a new Google patent that deals with this topic." (United States Patent #7693813: http://bit.ly/98cLlc )
So the story is becoming a bit more clear... Before Caffeine, then Mayday, Google did a poor job with long-tail keywords, because its main algorithm did a poor job with long-tail keywords...
Mayday Winners And Losers
Around April 28th-May 3rd a lot of sites (SEOmoz.org included) noticed a sudden loss of 5-15% of their normal long tail traffic (http://bit.ly/amEcjY). Some e-commerce websites reported losses as high as 90% of its global traffic.
But by the end of May 3rd, there were still ten listings on page one of Google, so for every website that lost, someone else picked up new visitors.
My websites picked up around 10% across the board... However, I was not among Maydays' biggest winners...
Earlier in this article, I mentioned Dave Davis, who is the Managing Director of http://www.RedFlyMarketing.com/
On the RedFly Marketing blog, Davis said, "We have concrete Google Analytics evidence that shows 30-60% increases in traffic to some of our and our clients sites just before and after May. It is important to note that these sites are all eCommerce and forum sites that had a steady flow of long tail traffic and now have a much greater share of this traffic. All this traffic increase is from Google search term referrals with a word length of 4 or over." (http://bit.ly/b4sGKy)
Davis suggested that a lot of AdWords advertisers, managers and experts saw these changes coming long ago...
Sadly though, a lot of webmasters are still waiting for Google to fix its' mistake... Those folks might just be the May Flies of the Internet --- here today, then gone forever...
Conclusions To Be Drawn From Mayday
Davis said, "The majority of those complaining (about Mayday) have relied too much on domain authority and internal linking... Google is now seeing individual documents as their own entities a lot more."
I agree... I have been preaching the value of Deep Links -- inbound links to pages deep within your website -- for a long time... As a result of my practicing what I preach, I am one of the Mayday winners...
Before the Mayday Update, you could build links exclusively to your domains' home page, and use internal linking to support the rankings of your internal pages... But that was yesterday's Google... That strategy will never work again...
Returning to Maile Ohye's comment, one more important distinction can be drawn...
If you have come to understand how to rank your website for Head Queries, then you already have the knowledge of how to rank your website for Long-Tail Queries... You simply have to take that knowledge you already possess, and apply it to your website, one page at a time...
About the Author:
Try the Popular Marketers Free Long-Tail Keyword Research Tool here: http://www.popularmarketers.com/long-tail-keywords.php Get your free profile page at Popular Marketers and consider one of our Premium Membership packages, designed to help marketers sell more products and services... Learn more at: http://www.PopularMarketers.com/ Written by: Hunter Waterhouse
Read more Articles written by Hunter Waterhouse.
Copyright © 2010 Hunter Waterhouse
Before 2010, May Day simply referred to May 1st, a celebration of the beginning of Spring, or International Workers' Day (Labour Day), as practiced in many countries, most notably in Russia... The alternate spelling Mayday was a signal used by ships' captains and airplane pilots to announce "Come and Help me!", as derived from the French word, "m'aidez"...
Google's Mayday Update
Beginning in May 2010, Mayday became the code word for a major ranking change in Google and new attacks of "Google paranoia" by webmasters everywhere...
As webmasters, we should leave the paranoia to those who truly have a reason to be paranoid, like my ex-wife and her family. ;-)
Google has always advised that we, as webmasters, should focus on giving searchers what they are trying to give Google's search users: the most relevant, useful results possible for searchers.
As for myself, many of the new ranking factors included in the Mayday Update are things that I have expected the engineers at Google to include for a long time...
Call me strange if you will -- my ex-wife and her family do -- but I have always tried to plan my website optimization based on what I thought Google should have been doing already...
So, when Mayday finally came, I was ready...
Unlike many of my peers, I was not crying in my beer in the aftermath of Google's Mayday Update...
About The Mayday Algorithm Update
An article on Search Engine Guide (http://bit.ly/8ZQ9yL), about Google's May Day Update, suggested that Matt Cutts, of Google's Webspam Team, said at Google I/O 2010, "this is an algorithmic change in Google, looking for higher quality sites to surface for long tail queries. It went through vigorous testing and isn't going to be rolled back."
So if your website was hurt by the Mayday Update, you should pay attention to this article, because "the way things were" is gone forever...
Vanessa Fox, formerly of Google, in another article at Search Engine Land (http://selnd.com/bOqqcE) suggested that the update primarily affected e-commerce websites that rely upon a product manufacturer's product description... In other words, if a webmaster uses the default product description given by the original product manufacturer, then the product sales page will have taken a hit in Google's search listings...
Fox also said, "Before, pages that didn't have high quality signals might still rank well if they had high relevance signals. And perhaps now, those high relevance signals don't have as much weight in ranking if the page doesn't have the right quality signals."
It seems that a lot of webmasters dismissed Fox' view as just plain wrong, but I side with Dave Davis, who said, "I believe she was right on the money." (http://bit.ly/b4sGKy)
As the questions about Google's Mayday Update spiraled, Matt Cutts did a video for the Google Webmaster Central Channel at YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/user/GoogleWebmasterHelp), about the Mayday Update (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJ6CtBmaIQM). In that video, Cutts emphasized that Mayday is only one of more than 400 tweaks that Google does to its algorithms each year, and he further emphasized that Mayday has been fully tested and is a permanent change to Google's search algorithms.
What Mayday Means For Google Search
The Mayday Update was primarily focused on changing how Long-Tail Keywords were handled by Google's search engine...
To make sure that you and I are on the same page, Long-Tail Keywords are those search phrases that contain more than 3 words. For example, as I was researching this article, my search query at Google was: "Google long tail keywords mayday".
My five-word search query is a great example of Long-Tailed Keywords.
In the Matt Cutts' video shown above, Cutts defined Long Tail Search Queries in contrast to Head Search Queries, with Head Queries being the one-, two- and three-word search phrases.
I found it odd that an article at Small Business Computing (http://bit.ly/bkOXqQ) suggested that this Google algorithm update was simply a reflection of the changing habits of search engine users, who employ more long-tail keywords in their searches today, than they had in previous years...
To be honest, I find it hard to believe that long-tail search queries is a new trend... I suspect that the truth is that Google finally acknowledged the importance of long-tail search queries... And in doing so, they fixed their weakness in that area...
Long-Tail Search Queries Were The Red-Headed Stepchild of Google
Maile Ohye, senior developer programs engineer at Google, announced at the Search Engine Strategies (SES) Toronto 2010 conference, "For long-tail queries, we now just consider them as all other queries and place as much value on them as we do into shorter queries."
Myself, I am blown away by that statement...
Okay... Let's see if you and I see the same message here... Until the Mayday Update, Google had always treated long-tail queries with a different algorithm than "head of demand" queries (1-3 word queries)?
And now, Google is treating both with the same algorithm?
No wonder I was never satisfied with long-tail search queries at Google... No wonder I had been looking elsewhere for some of my search results... Google was using two algorithms, and most of my search habits were met with their other not-as-good search algorithm...
Digging Deeper Into Mayday Update
I came across the May 11th edition of the Search Engine Facts newsletter (http://bit.ly/9V4Fyv). The newsletter stated, "It seems that this is not a penalty but a change in Google's ranking algorithm. Google might now be able to index longer keyword phrases more accurately. There's a new Google patent that deals with this topic." (United States Patent #7693813: http://bit.ly/98cLlc )
So the story is becoming a bit more clear... Before Caffeine, then Mayday, Google did a poor job with long-tail keywords, because its main algorithm did a poor job with long-tail keywords...
Mayday Winners And Losers
Around April 28th-May 3rd a lot of sites (SEOmoz.org included) noticed a sudden loss of 5-15% of their normal long tail traffic (http://bit.ly/amEcjY). Some e-commerce websites reported losses as high as 90% of its global traffic.
But by the end of May 3rd, there were still ten listings on page one of Google, so for every website that lost, someone else picked up new visitors.
My websites picked up around 10% across the board... However, I was not among Maydays' biggest winners...
Earlier in this article, I mentioned Dave Davis, who is the Managing Director of http://www.RedFlyMarketing.com/
On the RedFly Marketing blog, Davis said, "We have concrete Google Analytics evidence that shows 30-60% increases in traffic to some of our and our clients sites just before and after May. It is important to note that these sites are all eCommerce and forum sites that had a steady flow of long tail traffic and now have a much greater share of this traffic. All this traffic increase is from Google search term referrals with a word length of 4 or over." (http://bit.ly/b4sGKy)
Davis suggested that a lot of AdWords advertisers, managers and experts saw these changes coming long ago...
Sadly though, a lot of webmasters are still waiting for Google to fix its' mistake... Those folks might just be the May Flies of the Internet --- here today, then gone forever...
Conclusions To Be Drawn From Mayday
Davis said, "The majority of those complaining (about Mayday) have relied too much on domain authority and internal linking... Google is now seeing individual documents as their own entities a lot more."
I agree... I have been preaching the value of Deep Links -- inbound links to pages deep within your website -- for a long time... As a result of my practicing what I preach, I am one of the Mayday winners...
Before the Mayday Update, you could build links exclusively to your domains' home page, and use internal linking to support the rankings of your internal pages... But that was yesterday's Google... That strategy will never work again...
Returning to Maile Ohye's comment, one more important distinction can be drawn...
If you have come to understand how to rank your website for Head Queries, then you already have the knowledge of how to rank your website for Long-Tail Queries... You simply have to take that knowledge you already possess, and apply it to your website, one page at a time...
About the Author:
Try the Popular Marketers Free Long-Tail Keyword Research Tool here: http://www.popularmarketers.com/long-tail-keywords.php Get your free profile page at Popular Marketers and consider one of our Premium Membership packages, designed to help marketers sell more products and services... Learn more at: http://www.PopularMarketers.com/ Written by: Hunter Waterhouse
Read more Articles written by Hunter Waterhouse.
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
My Opinion on Google Adwords
Article Presented by:
Copyright © 2010 Scott Bywater
Over the past 5 or 6 years I have made some pretty good cash-flow out of google adwords.
For those of you who aren't aware, here's how it works.
You place links on google adwords.
People click on those links. Those visitors come to your web site.
You convert them into customers.
You make a bundle of cash... if like I said yesterday, your site converts (and if it doesn't you should really check out http://www.copywritingthatsells.com.au/cashflow )
Anyway, the bottom line is never before at any time in the history of advertising has it been possible to toss 10 or 20 dollars at an advertising campaign, write a few very small ads and get instant access to tens of millions of people in less than 10 minutes.
That's right, unlike search engine optimisation you'll be getting traffic to your web site right away.
Sounds simple, right?
Well, not quite.
The reality is it's much harder than it first sounds.
For instance, when I started advertising many years ago I could get clicks for 9c a pop. I even helped set up a few clients campaigns.
It was literally the best value advertising strategy available.
But over the years, just like every new media which gains popularity, things have changed.
The best keywords have become very expensive.
Ads become disabled when you don't set them up right.
And it has become far more difficult than it once was.
So you have to be much smarter. You have to test your ads more closely. And you have to be far pickier with your keywords.
About the Author:
Scott Bywater is an advertising copywriting expert and the author of Cash-Flow Advertising. To gain access to all of his copywriting tips on how to get more customers via his eye opening "Copywriting Selling Secrets" newsletter, simply head on over to his web site at http://www.copywritingthatsells.com.au/
Read more Articles written by Scott Bywater.
Copyright © 2010 Scott Bywater
Over the past 5 or 6 years I have made some pretty good cash-flow out of google adwords.
For those of you who aren't aware, here's how it works.
You place links on google adwords.
People click on those links. Those visitors come to your web site.
You convert them into customers.
You make a bundle of cash... if like I said yesterday, your site converts (and if it doesn't you should really check out http://www.copywritingthatsells.com.au/cashflow )
Anyway, the bottom line is never before at any time in the history of advertising has it been possible to toss 10 or 20 dollars at an advertising campaign, write a few very small ads and get instant access to tens of millions of people in less than 10 minutes.
That's right, unlike search engine optimisation you'll be getting traffic to your web site right away.
Sounds simple, right?
Well, not quite.
The reality is it's much harder than it first sounds.
For instance, when I started advertising many years ago I could get clicks for 9c a pop. I even helped set up a few clients campaigns.
It was literally the best value advertising strategy available.
But over the years, just like every new media which gains popularity, things have changed.
The best keywords have become very expensive.
Ads become disabled when you don't set them up right.
And it has become far more difficult than it once was.
So you have to be much smarter. You have to test your ads more closely. And you have to be far pickier with your keywords.
About the Author:
Scott Bywater is an advertising copywriting expert and the author of Cash-Flow Advertising. To gain access to all of his copywriting tips on how to get more customers via his eye opening "Copywriting Selling Secrets" newsletter, simply head on over to his web site at http://www.copywritingthatsells.com.au/
Read more Articles written by Scott Bywater.
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