89% of Websites that Ranked 7 Years Ago are Not Ranking Now!

“89% of sites that ranked 7 years ago are not ranking now. ” From Marcus Tober of SearchMetrics quoted from the Chicago SEJ Summit earlier this year.  (see tweets)

After I heard this, I had a private chat on Facebook with Marcus about this……he said:

Behind the analysis is our massive 7 year historical Research Cloud

I aggregated all domains that used to have at least one ranking in the past on keywords with at least a search volume of 10.

Then I checked how many of these domains still have at least one ranking

Only 11% are left!

(from checking the top 30 results).

I also asked him,

What do you think % would be if you took just “expensive” commercial phrases and checked ?

and he replied

If you take commercial queries probably the number if domains disappeared is higher

So yea, 89 % of websites that ranked 7 years ago in the top 30 no longer rank for anything in the top 30 today. I totally believe this (and love that it’s backed up with Marcus’s analysis from SearchMetrics historical research data)!

I believe that those 89% of websites were sites that were doing “artificial things” (ie, crappy link building) to get those old rankings, and today they are penalized and fried by Google.

More thoughts on things like analyzing backlinks knowing that 89% of sites from 7 years ago are penalized today…

Internally, at Ninjas, we have some tools that analyze backlinks for projects like doing a disavow analysis, or for services like finding common competitor backlinks that we might want to try to get for our clients as well….and in these link analysis’, we look at Majestic domain backlinks to websites, and we cross reference this with how these sites rank in Google using tools like Spyfu and/or SEMRush…specifically looking at the history of the sites performance for keywords in Google…for example, you can have a backlink from SomeWebsite.com which has backlinks to it from 1000 other sites….but if SomeWebsite doesn’t rank for ANYTHING of ANY Value, then chances are, the site has been penalized in Google. Looking at charts from SEMRush or SPYFU for these sites often show that sites like SomeWebsite.com, at one time, ranked for lots of phrases worth lots of money….and then the site got fried by Google, and now it doesn’t rank in the top 10 for any phrase worth any $.

In any link profile which I analyze, about 2/3 of the links are from sites that are fried in Google (sites that don’t rank for anything worth any value in Google. Google has fried a lot of sites…a lot…actually, 89% to quote Marcus and his data….

Here’s also an area where if you’re focused on Moz, Majestic, ahrefs or other sites “Domain Value” you’re being fooled…this is because they’ll show those sites as high value (lots of backlinks), when in actuality, the site is worthless because it’s been banned in Google for ranking for anything of any value. (For example, it may show a moz domain authority of 50….but if the site is penalized in Google, it should be a domain authority of Zero).

So keep in mind that even most backlinks you may have to your site aren’t worth a damn because they’re from sites that have been fried in Google. Seven years ago someone may have had 1000 links….and today only 11% of those links may count because 89% of those sites are penalized, and thus links from them are probably useless as well….the question in analyzing backlinks really becomes, “What backlinks to you have of Value”?

I should notes that there are exceptions…. lets say you have a backlink from a boy scout chapter websites, or Bob’s Rock Hobby Website….they might not rank for commercial phrases, but that’s ok….the ones you have to look out for are the sites who once ranked for a bunch of phrases, but now they do not….part of that 89%.

Does everyone realize that the majority of websites are worthless today?

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The Meme Regime: A Gallery of Creativity from the Age of the Internet (Infographic)

“The Age of the Internet”: That’s how historians will describe the era we live in.

The Internet is how and where we do everything. Learning, shopping, news, entertainment, you name it: It’s all instantly available at the click of a button. Twenty years ago, that little piece of trivia on the tip of your tongue might drive you crazy all day long. Today, as quickly as you can pull your phone out of your pocket, the mystery is solved. One might argue that all of this convenience is making us lazy, but at Internet Marketing Ninjas, we like to think it just gives us more time for our creativity to flourish.

Since the early days of the Internet, creativity has been something that made it a truly special and unique place. An idea born in San Francisco could be elaborated on by someone in Tokyo and then further improved upon by someone in Sydney; with the power of the Internet, the potential for an idea is endless. This is where memes come in.

Memes certainly existed before the Internet: Remember the “Winnebago Man” outtakes that were copied and passed around on VHS tapes? But it’s with the Internet and websites like Reddit, 4chan, Tumblr, and YouTube that memes became something that are as easily accessible, editable, and shareable as they are today. This infographic, developed by the Ninjas Digital Asset Team, will take you on a stroll down meme-ory lane to examine our favorite memes of all time.

Not sure what memes are? No problem. This infographic will teach you everything you need to know before we get started.

(Click to view full size image.)

The Age of the Internet: That’s how historians will describe the era we live inClick To Tweet

The above infographic was proudly researched and developed by the talented Digital Asset Team at Internet Marketing Ninjas. Our team offers an impressive selection of digital assets, including infographics, quizzes, applications, and widgets that are developed with your goals as a company in mind and are geared toward your ideal potential customers.

We offer a month of dedicated promotion for our digital assets, during which our team works to achieve virality, link acquisition, increased traffic, visibility, and brand recognition. Contact us and see what we can do for you!

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4 Hot Mobile Marketing Trends to Watch in 2016

Few things have had such a profound effect on the way we live, work, play and socialize as mobile devices. From sending emails and texts to incorporating cameras, GPS navigation, menu ordering and entertainment, no one could have predicted that the humble “brick” would evolve to become such an integral part of our digital lifestyle.

But just as devices and technologies change, so too do our marketing methods. 2015 was the first year that mobile traffic exceeded that of desktop users. As marketers, this opens up a whole new field of ideas to try and avenues to pursue in order to reach these customers, create dialogues and forge relationships with them in a way that makes our offer irresistible.

Gone are the days of top-down communications, of intrusive ads and poorly aligned customer outreach campaigns. Today, we have more data than ever, and we’re leveraging it to come up with innovative trends and ideas like these:

Customer-Centric will become Customer-Obsessive

Big Data becomes Meaningful Data in our rush to learn more about our customers.
Image source: Connexia

It sounds like the makings of a horror stalker film, but the fact is, in our race to become more customer-centric, we, as marketers, are already bordering on obsession. We’re finally at the point where we’re not being swallowed up by wave after wave of big data, and can start using it to create more meaningful interactions.

Mobile is the vehicle that makes this happen. Few other things are as pivotal to sealing the deal as a device that the customer carries with them everywhere. Figuring out how to make that impact is something that companies are still working on, but you can bet it will be the customer, not the corporation, that powers how these decisions are made.

Search Engine Results Will Display More than Pages

You got Apps in my SERPs!

Google already displays videos in search results, but they’ve recently been experimenting with video ads as well. Other search engines, as well as other platforms like Facebook and Twitter, already leverage these types of ads in the form of auto-playing videos and Vines respectively – but at the moment Google is still testing the waters to determine how audiences respond to video-based ads.

Assuming users are receptive of the idea, don’t be surprised to see apps also sharing a place at the SERPs table. Sure, we already have app directories and recommendations, but apps as part of search results will take these directories and stores to a whole new level.

Also, don’t be surprised to see big shifts in mobile search. UI and UX specialists are still learning how we gesture, point, flick and tap on our devices, and with a search interface that’s designed for typing and scrolling, you can see how trying to wrangle a process built for computers into a small screen with taps and flicks just becomes an exercise in frustration. With so much data available, and so many past browsing habits to draw from, coming up with a page full of results is no longer going to cut it. It’s very likely we’ll see fully optimized, fine-tuned mobile search that enlists the help of third party apps to not just recommend a particular product, but find it in the customer’s preferred color, size, location, price range and much more.

Brands will Blur the Lines Between Apps, E-Commerce and Social

Well-known social platforms are taking their awkward first steps into becoming shopping centers.
Image Source: Adweek

2016 will be the year of even greater innovation from apps we already know and recognize. More seamless integration between those apps and their corresponding e-commerce and social outlets will become commonplace. Many social platforms are already tying e-commerce features into their networks. From Instagram’s “Shop Now” to Pinterest’s “Buyable Pins”, today’s hottest platforms are looking for ways to blur the lines between web, social, app and e-commerce.

As you might expect, the rallying cry from marketing has been “people don’t shop on social media!” but as mobile, social and e-commerce become more integrated, the possibilities open up to hit the right combination of buying and browsing buttons to turn that notion around.

Apps Become Reflections of our Lifestyles

Apps will evolve to become more feature-full in an attempt to position themselves as a lifestyle choice rather than a novelty.
Image Source: EATT Magazine

The problem so far with consistent app adoption has been nailed down to one singular issue – bandwidth. With caps on data and insane overage charges, brands really can’t get as creative or forward-thinking as they might like to with restraints like those holding them back. These days, you might have one app for weather, one to track your fitness level and food input, and another to remind you when it’s time to pick up the kids from school.

Expect apps in 2016 to become less about individual features and more about becoming an integral part of your life – a fitness journal that displays the weather before your run and reminds you when it’s time to get the kids. Sound a bit far-fetched? Not to app developers. As long as there are forced restrictions on how much you can download, apps themselves play a pivotal role in position themselves as more of a lifestyle attachment than a usable “thing” that can quickly be uninstalled in favor of the next big thing. There’s only so much bandwidth that will fit in a mobile plan – better make sure your app is making the most of it.

What’s more, the apps you choose could very well communicate your values in terms of your lifestyle. Just like Doritos and the Superbowl or Mountain Dew and gamers, the apps you use every day could tell people “I’m proud to be a _______ and that’s why I use (app). The more attuned these apps become to our goals, likes and dislikes in life, the more they’ll find themselves being used likely far beyond what the original developers envisioned.

The Next Big Thing?

2016 is bursting at the seams with mobile potential, and that’s not even counting things like wearable technology and mobile automation systems like Echo, Cortana and Siri. At the end of the next year, we’ll take a look back and see how these trends played out. Did they catch on or fizzle out? Did something new and unexpected take hold of our collective attention? What do you think will be the next big thing? Share your ideas with us in the comments below!

About the Author: Sherice Jacob helps business owners improve website design and increase conversion rates through compelling copywriting, user-friendly design and smart analytics analysis. Learn more at iElectrify.com and download your free web copy tune-up and conversion checklist today!

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What B2B Marketers Can Learn from Black Friday [SlideShare]

Black Friday. Two words you probably don’t want to hear again. With all the hype, deals, discounts, waiting in lines, coupons, flyers, waiting in lines, emails, social ads, waiting in lines again, and the hard push you received in those lines … you’ve seen it all. And Black Friday’s just beginning.

As B2B marketers, we often tend to just steer clear of this B2C-centric holiday. I mean, understandably so: B2C companies have got that covered! Instead, you might make a warm pot of soup, wrap yourself in a fuzzy blanket, and settle in for a long winter’s nap, waiting for it to all blow over.

But hold up a sec, you full, sleepy marketer. There are a lot of things B2B marketers can learn from this crazy time of year. So give this SlideShare a peek before you doze off.

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The Complete Guide to Website Push Notifications for Ecommerce

Website push notifications are clickable messages that are sent by a website to their subscribers’ browsers. They work very similarly to mobile app push notifications (notifications sent by a mobile app that land in your notification tray) except that they work on websites instead of apps and can be accessed on all devices (desktop, mobile, tablet, etc).

In this article, we’re going to take a look at website push notifications in the Ecommerce space. We’re going to discuss why Ecommerce players cannot afford to ignore website push notifications, how they work and how to optimize your push notification campaigns to deliver great results for your online store. Let’s start!

Why use Website Push Notifications

A brief look at the communication channels for Ecommerce

Ecommerce businesses use a variety of ways to grow their traffic i.e. new visitors, as well as engage with their existing traffic i.e. the folks who have already visited your website. These include exploring various communication channels – email, social media, SMS, push notifications (both websites and apps); it also involves employing these channels in different kinds of campaigns to reach and engage users. Let us take a brief look at each of these channels and try to understand where they prove useful.

Email

Email is most commonly used to deliver curated product suggestions, advertise upcoming sales and discount offers, ask for product reviews, recover abandoned carts, deliver transactional information such as order confirmation, tracking details etc.

The main advantage of email marketing is that it has a wide reach – a study by The Radicati Group reveals that there are currently 2.6 billion email users, which means that more than 1 out of 3 people have an email account. Another very important advantage is that an email stays in the inbox, accessible anytime, unlike social media messages and notifications, which are harder to access later (or even impossible). This is particularly useful for delivering important information like order and tracking details.

Where email marketing misses out, however, is the ability to deliver time-sensitive information. According to Zipstripe, the average time for email recipients to view an email message is 6.4 hours. This means that email is not effective for sending time-bound emails, such as coupons with a tight redemption period, or important actionable information such as “Your package is out for delivery”.

Social Media

Social media networks (Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram) work better than email marketing when it comes to delivering short-time offers and discounts since people spend more time on social media websites than on any other online activity. So, what’s the problem? It’s the problem of engagement – only 0.07% of your Facebook audience interacts with your posts and the figure is 0.03% for Twitter. What this means is that social media is not very effective for messages designed to achieve a specific purpose in a specific time, since so few of your audience will actually react to that message. Instead, social media is better employed as a means to establish your brand and build a relationship with your audience.

SMS

SMS is effective if you want your user to read your message very quickly – 90% of SMS messages are read within the first 3 minutes. This makes it useful for communicating important business-information like “Your cab is arriving” or “Your item will be delivered today”.

SMS should not be used for information that the user will need to access later, such as receipts. SMS messages are difficult to search later on. Another disadvantage of SMS messages is that they can only contain a maximum of 160 characters, which drastically limits the kind of communications you can have through SMS.

Push Notifications (Mobile apps)

Push notifications is the default way by which mobile apps communicate. It scores over email for promotional content in that it delivers messages in real-time and it has also reported higher response rates compared to email (Open rates for push notifications are 50 percent higher than for email, and click rates are up to twice as high, according to this survey).

It is tempting to think of app push notifications and SMS as the same but they have crucial differences – the opt-in/opt-out options in app push notifications give the user greater control over what kind of messages he/she wants to receive. SMS on the other hand, often comes unsolicited and it is harder for the user to disable. Because of this, SMS is often perceived to be a lower messaging medium.

Where does Website Push Notifications fit into the picture

Website push notifications fit into a very unique spot in this entire spectrum. It differs from mobile app push notifications in that while app push notifications are limited to mobile devices and tablets, website push notifications also covers desktops. Desktop usage still accounts for 42% of total internet time. Web push notifications deliver the power of real-time push notifications to this 42% of internet users.

Another point which makes website push notifications very important for Ecommerce is the cost factor. Building a quality app is an expensive affair and sometimes the ROI can be difficult to justify. In fact, for small and medium sized companies, mobile websites may reach more people than mobile apps do. This makes website push notifications more critical since it gives businesses the ability to send push notifications without investing in an app.

All in all, it can be seen that website push notifications is an important channel for Ecommerce since it gives websites the power of instant communication via websites and that too on all devices, be it desktop mobile or tablet.

How do Website Push Notifications work

By default, whenever you install a mobile app, you give the app the permission to send you push notifications on your device. Websites, however, have to explicitly take permission from their users to send them push messages. This is how website push notifications work:

1. The first step is getting opt-in from visitors. As soon as someone arrives on a website, an opt-in box is triggered. If the visitor clicks on “Allow”, he/she is added to your subscriber list.
   Opt-in modal box
2. As soon as a ‘visitor’ becomes a ‘subscriber’, you can send them push notifications from your website. The title message and the text message are customizable within certain character limits and a URL has to be specified. These notifications will arrive in real-time even if the browser is not open at that point of time. Clicking on the notification will take the subscriber to the URL specified.
   How the notifications look

Optimizing Push Notifications

Now that we’ve established the importance of push notifications and how they work, it’s time to take a look into how to optimize your push notifications to drive more sales from your existing subscribers. This section is divided into the following subsections – writing great push notification copy, when to send a push notification, how frequently should you send push notifications, using segmentation to send personalized notifications and, lastly, what metrics to track.

Copywriting for Push Notifications

Since push notifications impose character limits on the title as well as the message, the copywriting becomes that much more important since you have to squeeze your message into a small package while still retaining its effectiveness.

Whenever you are writing the title and message text for a push notification, the most important thing to keep in mind is that the purpose of the copy is to get subscribers to click. For that, your copy needs to, above all, provide some value to the subscriber. People will only click on the notification if they find it valuable.

Here are a few tips you can follow:

• Be clear in what you are saying – Your subscribers have busy schedules and do not have time for vague messages. Do not test their patience by making them think. A clear message will have a greater click rate by the very virtue of the fact that it is action-oriented. In a fight between “Have you read Jeffrey Archer’s latest?” and “Jeffrey Archer’s latest novel available for purchase”, I’ll always go for the latter because it is clearer in its message as opposed to the former.
• Be crisp in your copy – Different platforms have different character limits for push notifications but all of them fall in the range of 40-120 characters. Thus, it is very important for you to be very concise in what you are saying. This often means that you need to identify the one most important value proposition of your message and let that shine through in the notification copy.
• Use scarcity to create urgency – According to Dr. Robert Cialdini, author of Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, we are more motivated by the idea of potential loss than of potential gain. That is, if we find that an opportunity is closing, we want it that much more. This is also known as FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out).
  You can use this psychological principle when you write your push notification copy. For example, if you have a sale coming up for your online store, try sending a push notification that says something like, “Flash Sale! 12 hours only”.
• Use Social Proof – IBM’s marketing slogan in the 80s, “No one ever got fired for buying IBM”, is one of the most powerful marketing phrase ever created. This is one of the most powerful examples of social proof, where the company used the tendency of people to go along the established route.
  In push notifications, social proof can be used to increase click rate. For example, you can write something like, “4000 marketers have already registered for this event” if you want people to register for an event or “This post has more than 1000 Twitter shares” if you want subscribers to click through to a blog post.
  Keep in mind, though, that this is not the 80s and internet users have access to all the information they need on their fingertips. Thus, it is important to not go overboard with claims and only write stuff that is credible.

When to send Push Notifications

Website Push Notifications, by their very nature, require an instant response on the part of the receiver. This makes timing all the more important. A classic mistake when sending push notifications is not take into account the time zone your subscribers are located in. To fix this, you need to have a clear understanding of how your subscribers are spread around the globe and be very particular that each time zone receives the message at an appropriate time. It’s definitely more complicated than sending out a notification in a single batch, but that’s the kind of effort that is required in this highly-personalized environment. For example, you don’t want to end up this notification when the stars are twinkling, do you?

A wrong time to send this notification

Another thing that you need to consider is that different kinds of notifications work at different times of the day. If you are sending a promotional message, you want your users to be in a restful state of mind so that they have the mental bandwidth to check out your offer. Choosing to send something funny and light-hearted? Go for the afternoon, when people are feeling bored in the office and want something to crack them up.

How Frequently to Send

Probably the most important thing to consider as you scale up your push notification campaigns is the frequency of your messages. Since push notifications is a high-engagement communication channel, you need to be really careful not to inundate your subscribers with more notifications that they can handle.

Since website push notifications is a fairly new technology, there is no data out there on optimal frequency. At this stage, you need to carefully monitor your click rates, time on page, bounce rate and opt-outs after every push notification to find out which frequency works best for your audience.

Using Segmentation to Send Personalized Notifications

As Ecommerce marketers, personalized messages are nothing new for us. We all know that they work. However, it is doubly critical to not follow the spray-and-pray approach when it comes to website push notifications, simply because opting-out is so easy and there is no way for you to get those unsubscribers back, unless they change their settings. For example, this guy is totally opting-out after receiving this notification.

A poorly personalized push notification

Ecommerce players, therefore, need to categorize their subscribers into different buckets that are as narrowly defined as possible. One way of doing this is to ask subscribers for preferences at the time of opting-in. Another very effective way is to go for behavioral segmentation i.e. putting subscribers into different segments based on their on-page activities like type of pages viewed, number of views of a particular page etc. For example, if I’ve been checking out books in the spy thriller genre lately, the store should mark me as someone who’s interested in the genre and send me a notification whenever something new is published in that category.

What Metrics to Track

The most immediate metric that comes to mind when thinking website push notifications is click rate. This is how many people clicked on the notification as a percentage of the number of people to whom that notification was delivered.

However, just focusing on this one metric can lead your analysis astray. Instead, you should strongly focus on the business goals you deem most important, which in this case would be sales (primary goal) and visits to checkout page, add to cart (secondary goals). Tag your notification links with the proper UTM parameters and then sift through the data in Google Analytics and other analytics tools you are using to find out how many people arriving on your website via push notifications are actually performing the above actions. This is the only way that you will be able to determine whether website push notifications are working for you or not.

That’s it! This covers almost everything you need to know as you start with website push notifications for your online store. Just remember – keep listening to what your audience is trying to say and keep iterating on the basis of that!

About the Author: Anand Kansal works at PushCrew, a tool that enables websites to send push notifications on desktops, mobiles and tablets. He tweets about push notifications and online marketing in general at @PushCrewHQ.

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No Rest for Marketers, Even on Turkey Day…or, Umm, Thanksgiving

Mmm, it’s that tastiest time of year for those who call the United States home. It’s not just about turkey and stuffing and pumpkin pie, but moreso about giving thanks for what you have, cherishing family (even your stupid sibling who always shows up late and kicks you under the table), appreciating all the big and small blessings in your life, and trying to sneak a bit of turkey under the table for the dog.

Are you even listening anymore? Or are visions of candied yams dancing in your head? Okay, I’ll just get right to the point. The holidays, as any wise marketer knows, are perfect opportunities to, well, do some awesome marketing. And when you’re trying to tell a story, share a message, and connect with your audience like they’re family, what works better than video? Nothing, of course!

If you’re looking for some interesting, fun, or touching videos to put you in the Thanksgiving mood, or to inspire your own Thanksgiving strategy for this year or next year, here are a few videos worth viewing.

Mmm, turkey…

Why not just start off with the big bird right from the get-go. The New York Times actively produces amazing content on a variety of topics, even including cooking. For Thanksgiving, they didn’t waste an opportunity to make a well-done how-to video, that’s easy to follow even for the most novice of bird-cooking novices (even I could do this…I think!).

While the New York Times does include recipes in their social media shares, it’s probably not the first thing that comes to mind when you think of the New York Times. But that’s okay; the holidays is a perfect time of year to share some top-of-funnel brand awareness content that doesn’t have to specifically have a hard line back to your product line. It’s okay to have some fun, and share some relevant-to-the-holidays and fun content!

One of the greatest things about this video? It includes demand and lead generation links at the end, driving viewers to subscribe, or check out related content. I tip my pilgrim hat to you, New York Times!

(Oh and by the way, if your brand is maybe a little bit quirkier, or you already have some fun video personalities you want to include in your Thanksgiving video, check out this one. It’s worth a watch!)

Don’t want to do another factual how-to?

Try a silly (or emotional) story. Captain Morgan goes with this approach. While the company is a B2C brand, B2B marketers can take this approach as well. All you need is a little creativity! Feeling a little dry in that area? Maybe a sip of the ol’ Captain first will help…

Can your product relate to the experience of the holidays?

Travel happens every day of the year, but the busiest times of year are, of course, the holidays. And when you think of busy travel times, you think of pain points. That’s where Travelocity made a big splash for last year’s Thanksgiving/holiday season – when pain points are mentioned, and then the solution is handed to viewers in an entertaining why, how can they argue?

Is your product or service not only useful at the holidays, but even more valuable?

While this video is a couple years old, I thought it was worth sharing. British Airways showed everyone how their service is ultra-valuable at this time of year, because they fly to more places. This isn’t just a regular video on a loop with standard copy, either. The information shown on the billboard changes for each plane that flies by!

While the video is more meta than a traditional storyboarded video, it still works – as we know, video is the best thing next to being there in person, so you feel like you’re experiencing the awesomeness of this billboard as though you were standing in front of it yourself. (And, if you have a video marketing platform with built-in analytics, you can see how your campaign performed using insights that you may not be able to get from a billboard!)

Try running a contest

Holiday campaigns are perfect for running contests (especially American Thanksgiving, which is precluded by Black Friday!) Contest campaigns are fun, top-of-funnel, and great for brand awareness. While Old Navy is a retailer, any marketer could think up their own contest. And if that isn’t reason enough to check out this video for inspiration, here’s the only inspiration you need: Julia Louis-Dreyfus.  

And now for the feel-good stories

Your product or service not really relevant to the holidays? Try digging a little deeper, or look for that angle that can help you tell a feel-good story. Humour is fun, of course, but heart-warming emotions are what Thanksgiving is made for!

At first glance, Shaw Communications may not have much to do with Thanksgiving. But they took the approach of bringing people together, and wow, I just couldn’t stop smiling at this one!

Similarly, the Real Canadian Superstore told a Thanksgiving story from the perspective of their employees. This is a perfect angle for any company; we’re all human with wishes, thinks we’re thankful for, and people we want to reunite with for the holidays. Even if you don’t sell food, this video may provide you with some great inspiration.  

You know what else is related to the holidays? Tradition.

Whether you want a serious story or a fun one, starting a Thanksgiving tradition is a perfect way to relate to your audience and help them embrace you during this holiday and, even better, during every year’s holiday. Of course, your story probably won’t have the nationally unifying power of the NFL, but we can dream!

Do you have any Thanksgiving marketing tips, stories, or traditions that you’d like to share? Well…share them! Add your holiday insights to the comments below.

And of course, to all our American friends (or anyone else) celebrating Thanksgiving…have a safe and happy Thanksgiving! Here’s hoping it’s not as traumatizing as this:

…And if you’re looking for seconds, just refresh the page.

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4 Things I’ve Learned from 2,000+ AdWords Audits

In the last 2 years, I’ve audited a lot of AdWords accounts. And, after reviewing thousands of accounts, you start to notice a few trends.

Unfortunately, one of my most consistent observations has been that AdWords is a great way to lose a lot of money.

Now, I’ve used AdWords to grow a client’s company from 25 employees to 250 employees, so I’ll be the first to tell you that AdWords can be an incredibly powerful marketing tool. However, a few common mistakes prevent most companies from realizing their AdWords potential.

So, why do most companies fail at AdWords? The answers are both simple and surprising.

1. Inadequate Tracking

The foundation of any good AdWords campaign is analytics. In fact, according to Hubspot’s State of Inbound report, companies that track their inbound marketing are 17x more likely to see a positive ROI than companies without good analytics in place.

Now, if you’re already effectively using an analytics platform like Google Tag Manager or Kissmetrics, this figure should come as little surprise. After all, you can’t improve if you don’t know whether or not something is working!

The problem is, only about half of AdWords accounts actually have tracking set up for their site and campaigns.

What is this craziness?

Unfortunately, this finding seems to be one that most companies experience with inbound marketing. Referring back to Hubspot’s report, only 53% of companies track their marketing ROI.

I won’t bore you with the math; but, if you run Hubspot’s numbers, the statistics are daunting:

Without good analytics, 97% of AdWords campaigns fail.

Not surprisingly, almost every single account I’ve audited that didn’t have a great analytics solution in place was struggling to turn a profit on Google.

Fixing the Problem

Fortunately, even if your IT expertise is limited, AdWords doesn’t have to be the marketing version of Russian Roulette. With a little bit of time and patience, you can easily set up conversion tracking in AdWords.

Tracking conversions in AdWords is really as simple as placing the right bit of code on the right page on your site. AdWords even generates the code for you, so you really don’t have a good excuse for not setting this level of tracking up for your campaigns.

Why stop there, though? If you’ve got a decent developer, you can implement Google Tag Manager in 15 minutes. Here are some of the basics you should be tracking. Of course, Kissmetrics is also a great way to get at the data you need.

Yes, setting up analytics is extra work, but it enables you to learn from your successes and your mistakes.

2. Keyword Drain

Here’s where things start to get really interesting. Looking at the 1,000 or so companies that had conversion tracking in place, I discovered that—on average—all of the conversions in an AdWords account come from just 12% of the account’s keywords.

Yes, you read that right—all of the conversions.

To put it simply, for every 10 keywords you bid on, 9 of them produce nothing! Absolutely nothing! And here’s the kicker, that useless 88% of your keywords eats up 61% of your ad spend.

Why does this happen?

Most companies take a shotgun approach to their keyword strategy. Yes, this sort of approach increases your likelihood of some keyword being on target, but it also means that your ads show up for less relevant searches and produce less relevant clicks that aren’t likely to convert.

Plugging the Drain

To figure out which keywords are draining your budget, open AdWords and—while viewing “All campaigns”—go to the Keywords tab. Open the “Details” drop down menu and click “Search Terms All.”

From there, export the report into an Excel file. Using Excel, you can filter your data to show only search terms with zero conversions. Sum the cost data to see how much you’re spending on search terms that haven’t produced any conversions.

As a rule of thumb, I recommend pulling at least 3-6 months of data to make sure you really have a good picture of which search terms are truly worthless.

Once you’ve identified your budget-sucking keywords, go back into AdWords and eliminate them!

3. Poor Landing Page Strategy

Another problem with the shotgun approach to AdWords is that it makes implementing an effective landing page strategy a daunting task.

Truth be told, nearly 90% of the AdWords accounts I’ve audited had a poor landing page strategy. In fact, 52% of the accounts were pointing their pay-per-click traffic to their homepage. And, of the 48% with a dedicated landing page, less than 15% were conducting landing page tests!

For example, if someone is looking for a new cat and types in “adopt a cat,” they might see the following ad:

Getting clicks—even the right sort of clicks—to your site, isn’t enough to make your campaigns effective. That’s just the beginning. Research conducted at Stanford has shown that a poor initial website experience can eliminate up to 75% of your potential sales; so, if your site doesn’t convert clicks into leads or sales, you’re just giving money to Google.

Making it Better

If you want to make money on AdWords, your customers need to have a consistent and compelling experience from keyword to ad copy to landing page.

To create this experience, you need to get granular. You need to dial in to the search intent of your target audience and then match your keywords, ad copy and landing pages to that intent.

With the shotgun approach to keywords, it’s very hard to create this level of granularity. Sure, dynamic keyword insertion can help; but, for most industries, DKI doesn’t give you the messaging control you need to match your searchers’ intent.

This ad does a good job of matching the searcher’s intent…until it sends them to this landing page.

Sure, the DKI algorithm put “Cat” in the headline, but the pug hero shot creates an immediate cognitive dissonance that leaves the user thinking, “Wait, what?”

On the other hand, setting up your ad groups with 5 (or less) very similar keywords allows you control what searches trigger your ads. Then, write ads that are highly relevant to those specific searches. Carry that relevance through to the landing page and you’ve just created a very powerful customer experience!

See? Much better.

With this technique, we often see a 50% lift to conversion rates on our first tests with new clients. And that’s before we start optimization testing…

4. Lack of Attention

Ultimately, the biggest reason that most AdWords campaigns fail is a lack of attention.

No tracking? Spend enough time in AdWords and a lack of conversion data will make you crazy enough that you’ll do whatever it takes to get analytics in place.

Bidding on the wrong search terms? Add enough negative search terms over time and you’ll eventually narrow your campaigns down to what really works.

Inconsistent customer experience? Test your ad copy and landing pages for long enough and you’ll end up with a really compelling click-to-close advertising cycle.

However, according to Larry Kim, only about 10% of AdWords accounts are optimized even once a week. Based on the accounts I’ve reviewed, 72% of accounts haven’t been touched in over a month!

If you don’t give your account enough attention, you are setting yourself up to fail.

The Fix

So, how often should you be optimizing your account? The best answer is that it depends on your traffic and budget.

For budgets over $10,000/month, you should be at least giving your campaigns a thorough review at least once a week. However, to really get the most out of your account, I recommend reviewing your campaigns at least 3 times per week.

For a new campaign, you need to be even more involved. I typically check up on the account at least 3 times per day.

As a general rule of them, the more time you spend in your AdWords account, the better it will perform. Of course, you don’t have to make major changes 3 times a day or week, but keeping close tabs on your account will give you the insight you need to really get great performance.

Conclusion

While most companies struggle to make AdWords work, most businesses can succeed by fixing a few common mistakes. Whether it’s setting up a great tracking program, eliminating useless keywords, creating a holistic landing page strategy or simply giving the account the attention it deserves, these problems can be overcome with a little extra effort.

If you feel like you’re struggling with one of these common problems, let me know in the comments below. I’d be happy to help.

About the Author: Jacob Baadsgaard is the CEO and fearless leader of Disruptive Advertising, an online marketing agency dedicated to using PPC advertising and website optimization to drive sales. His face is as big as his heart and he loves to help businesses achieve their online potential. Connect with him on LinkedIn or Twitter.

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(3 videos) Hacksaw Jim Duggan & Jim Boykin vs Panda & Penguin

Enjoy 3 Hilarious Videos with Hacksaw Jim Duggan and Jim Boykin taking on the Penguin and the Panda!

This past weekend we had the honor of hosting WWE Hall of Famer, “Hacksaw” Jim Duggan, at our offices in Clifton Park.

A few months ago Hacksaw had done a promotional video for one of our clients…and man was he awesome in that video! I could see additional future big potential for a man of his entertaining talents! I tried to find him in a Google search, but that got me no where…even for a man with a twitter account with over 100,000 followers (which many of my clients would dream to have this many followers), he could not be found in Google …the real official Hacksaw Jim Duggan website was ranking #45 for his name. That site also needed a lot of work on it…to say the least!

Once I did get a hold of Jim I said, “Hey Jim, I can help you with your website …and for free! You have a lot of untapped online potential that could make you more money.” Shortly thereafter, we invited him to our office for a “Big Event” (you can watch Hacksaw and our own Ninja Sarah on YouTube, as they chat and watch the Survivor Series live…we’ll it’s no longer live ).  During the Big Event Hacksaw Jim Duggan also took questions from Twitter and Reddit and Parascope and YouTube. The event was a huge success all the way around!

While Hacksaw Jim Duggan was here, he was kind enough to have some fun with us in creating some videos of our tag team match featuring

“Hacksaw” Jim Duggan and Jim Boykin (The Internet Marketing Ninjas) vs The Panda and the Penguin (The Penalties of Pain).

FYI, Tomorrow there will be another post with a Q & A about social media and we’ll include another fun Video with Hacksaw Jim Duggan and I…stay tuned for that one too!

(3 Videos)

So stay tuned for an updated Official Hacksaw Jim Duggan website, and more social and online improvement.

If you have been effected by the Panda or the Penguin Google updates, feel free to contact us.

Google Penguin update solutions

Google Panda recover solutions

The post (3 videos) Hacksaw Jim Duggan & Jim Boykin vs Panda & Penguin appeared first on Internet Marketing Ninjas Blog.

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