With Google  putting more weight on landing page relevance, it is now more important than  ever for you to optimize your landing pages for improved AdWords Quality Scores.   If getting lower CPC, improving ROI, and gaining greater visibility are  important to you, here are a few things to consider when revamping your landing pages:

Get them to your page!

Tip 1: Make sure your load times are  fast.

According to Google, “Users value ads that bring them to the information they want as efficiently as possible…users are less likely to abandon a site that loads quickly.”[1]

Keep them on your page!

Tip 2: Reduce bounce rates by making  sure the user stays engaged.

There are several techniques you can  employ to keep a user engaged once they hit your landing page.

1. Make it user friendly – provide easy  and obvious navigation so the user can quickly find the information they are looking for. If they can’t easily find it, they are likely to navigate off your page.
2. Have a transparent message – make it  clear to the user exactly what your product or service is about.  Lack of clarity reates doubt in the users  mind and when users doubt, they abandon.  Let them know exactly what you are offering through a clear and easy to  understand message.
3. Provide unique and relevant content –  add value to your landing page by including content that will help the user find the information they want, get your transparent message across, and call  the user to action.  This content can include items such as videos, images, ad copy, comparisons, testimonials, reviews  and more.

Make your page relevant!

Tip 3: Stay true to the ads you are serving.

Your landing page should be relevant  to the ad the user clicked to get there.   The keywords in the ad are what got the users attention and that is the  information they are looking for when they land on your page.  Add relevancy for the user by including those  exact and broad match keywords on your landing pages.  Areas of the page where you could place these  keywords include ad copy, metadata such as title tags and meta description  tags, headers, image tags, link anchor text, and even the URL if possible.  The keywords should not be randomly placed to make it appear that your page is relevant, but rather be placed where they make  sense and actually add value to the user.

If you optimize with these three tips  in mind, not only will you increase your Google Quality Score, but you will  also improve the user experience and increase the likelihood a user will take  the desired action for which your page was designed.

Never fear, help is here!

If you are unsure about your landing  page performance or relevance, Google provides a multitude of information to give you a guiding hand.  Here are a few  resources for reference:

Web Speed Tutorials – a treasure trove of articles with tips on performance best  practices for improved load speed.

Google Keyword Diagnosis – a tool provided in your AdWords  account that will show details about your Quality Score.

Use Google Keyword Diagnosis to understand your quality score.

Page Speed Testing Tools – Google recommended free tools for evaluating the speed of your site.

Google AdWords Tips – general tips for overall AdWords  campaign success including tips for keyword selection and placement.

Relevancy Checks and Balances – Do you have any idea what Google  thinks your page is about?  The Google  Keyword Tool allows you to enter your URL and get insight into how Google interprets  your page theme.  This tool will produce  a list of keywords that Google feels are relevant to the content on your  site.

Little changes can mean big results!

We use these tools often at W3i to determine if our landing pages match up to the ads we are serving.  In one test, we used the data from the Google Keyword Tool to make a few quick  changes to the keywords on our landing page resulting in a quality score jump  from 3 to 7. By doing a quick analysis, determining what Google felt was  relevant, and making some keyword alterations, we were able to drop our minimum  CPC from $.20 to $.05 on highly competitive brand terms.

Keeping up with Google can be challenging,  but if you evaluate your keywords and landing pages regularly, utilize the many tips and tools at your disposal, and implement changes for Quality Score  improvement, you can have much success with your Google Adwords campaigns.

Randi Kucala, Account Development Manager, W3i,  LLC

A proponent for business partner and user satisfaction, Randi endeavors to make  every interaction with W3i a positive one. She specializes in copy writing and  on-page SEO.

W3i is now recommending that its affiliates use the new Ad Sitelink feature in Google Adwords to improve return on ad spends.

Ad Sitelinks allow you to include relevant links to content on your site which is not featured on your main landing page. You can also change the sitelinks whenever appropriate, for example for new marketing campaigns or seasonal products. We found that Ad Sitelinks created a lot of value for our users since they can now quickly find what they’re searching for using the relevant links that we added to our search ads. And let’s not forget the added benefit for you–using Ad Sitelinks gives you more real estate in your search ads.  A surefire way to improve your site’s click-through-rate and improve your quality score! It did for us!

Here is an example of Google’s search results with Ad Sitelinks,

Users Find Content Quicker with Google Ad Sitelinks

What are you waiting for?  Create a new campaign using Ad Sitelinks today!  What results did you get from Ad Sitelinks  Let me know in the comment section.

http://adwords.google.com/support/aw/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=164778

Joan Jones, Account Executive, W3i, LLC
Joan is the guardian of Affiliate relationships at W3i, providing resources and solutions to strategic accounts.

Optimization Tips for Images

Make sure to use keywords in text for optimum SEO.

Okay, maybe “a thousand words” is stretching one picture’s SEO contribution but using the right words in the right places can improve your visibility in search. Search engines do not have the capability to see what a picture is, so you must tell them. Text can be used to translate your images to indexing robots and in turn, have the images appear in search.

The Image

When choosing images to use on a webpage there are a couple things to keep in mind.  Unique and interesting photos will show up more often in image search. However, the theme of the images must also match your pages’ content.

Imbed Keywords in the Source Code

Keywords and phrases can be imbedded into the source code for the image using alt attributes and image title attributes. Alt stands for alternate text; the alt attributes is a phrase that is shown when the graphic cannot be seen. It is also read aloud by text-reading software. Title attributes specifically describe in detail what the image is when a user scrolls over it. Be sure both attributes are rich with keywords that are relevant to the image.

Use Keywords for Image File Names

The file name of the image is also important. This is true of both the image file name and the folder name where the image is stored. Keep in mind when saving images that you should use the relevant keywords you plan to target. Also, there is a common misconception that underscores are read by bots as spaces.  This is not true; instead use a dash to indicate a space.

Captions

Forgive me for the obviousness of this hint but, yes, your captions are important.  Ensure that the captions not only describe the picture well but also make the picture relevant in context to the rest of the information on the page.

 Remember 

Image SEO is nothing without its habitat! Be sure if images are not the main attraction of your page, you optimize the surroundings first.

Heather Schmidt, Account Development Executive, W3i, LLC

Heather provides value to W3i’s partners by continually focusing on optimization and growth strategies.

Google recently made a change on their search results page. This change will help optimize the performance of search ads. Now, instead of trying to get all the relevant information in the Headline about your product in a few short words you will be able to have a second line of your ad show up next to the Headline of your ad.

To make this work make sure that the second line is a distinct sentence and that the sentence ends with proper punctuation. Before, you could not use exclamation points in the Headline. Now with the change you can end that first sentence with a ‘!’ and it will show up next to the Headline.

By putting more information on the first line and making a longer ad for search results, Google found that this resulted in higher click through rates and created a better user experience by highlighting more information about the ad.

One of the easiest things app developers can do to help themselves out in the App Store is spend a little time considering SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and how it can impact an apps ease of discovery. We’ve written in the past about App Store SEO Tips and thought  it was relevant to revisit the topic and put together a deck for your convenience.

Featured on ClickZ, November 30, 2010

In the world of digital media, search engine marketing is so widely adopted that I often find myself explaining to other digital marketers how app marketing compares to search engine marketing. In this post, let’s compare and contrast how to think about marketing your app with an eye toward comparing it to your current search engine marketing knowledge.

Compare Implementation Time

It takes minimal effort to write your first 95 character keyword ad, design a landing page, and start your first promotion using self-service tools provided by Google.

Mobile app development and promotion can be done on a low budget, but it is definitely more complex than launching a search marketing campaign. Third-party app building tools like those from BuildAnApp allow you to build an app for free ($49 to remove banner ads). Once you build an app, there are self-service mobile ad vendors like AdMob, Millenial Media, Jumptap, and InMobi that allow you to acquire traffic quickly.

Compare Pricing Approaches

Search campaigns are priced using cost per click (CPC). App campaigns are priced using cost per install (CPI), cost per click (CPC), and cost per impression (CPM).

CPC rates are all over the board depending on how competitive the search term is and the quality score. For app campaigns, free casual games dominate the top 25 percent in performance, typically having the highest click-through and conversion rate (often two times higher than other free apps). Their conversion rates range from 3 percent to 18 percent (small banner sizes tend to perform lower).

The CPC rate, for free iOS apps in the U.S., is typically $0.05 to $0.30 per click. The cost-per-install for the top performing free games generally backs out to $0.75 to $3.00 per U.S. iOS install for CPC and CPM placements on top ad networks.

The general rule is that if you are looking to achieve any meaningful scale, you should be satisfied with purchasing free U.S. app installs any time they are performing at $1.00 or less.

All of the above figures are for non-incentivized ad placements. Incentivized ad placements are very popular as they can help achieve a higher ranking in the app store and drive meaningful, predictable installs to the app. These app campaigns are priced using cost per install with rates ranging from $0.40 to $0.75 per U.S. install.

Every digital marketer knows what you are saying when you talk about a CPC campaign. Google made cost-per-click advertising famous. Google’s mobile display ad network, AdMob, is continuing what Google did in search and offers CPC pricing for most of their campaigns. This does not work as well for mobile developers. Larger advertisers are typically using CPC ad networks as backfill to the cost-per-install networks (with incentives and without incentives). The top cost-per-install ad networks will reach saturation after multiple campaigns leading to less volume available for a particular app. To maintain effective scale with each subsequent campaign an advertiser will begin to buy more installs from other sources such as CPC networks.

Compare the Landing Page

The landing page is very important in optimizing both SEM and app marketing campaigns.

In SEM, Raquel Hirsch of Wider Funnel advises that with optimization you can lift your conversion rates by as much as 277 percent.

In mobile, what users see when they get to your app store listing is crucial to whether or not they will download your app. For app store submission, prioritize and optimize in the following order for the most impact to your app ranking: icon, name, screenshots, and description. Here are several tips:

• Icon: Make it easy to recognize and tie to your game. Consistent use is also important. The small app icon and the large icon should be visually equivalent. Be careful of trademark violations. Build in a vector-based drawing app to allow for easy resizing.
• Name: Describe the utility of the game in its name. Avoid special characters. Don’t use “device” in the name, like iPhone or iPad.
• Screenshots: Use common sense, take time to capture the images that best depict your app. Never use imagery of the iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad, as they will ensure automatic rejection.
• Description: The first two lines of a description are the most important. Ensure they accurately communicate the app’s value. Use simple, concise words to demonstrate the features in the app. Match your tone to the app experience. Include copy to enhance your credibility. Never include pricing. Maximize the use of copy above the fold (before the “more” button). You are limited to three lines; lines are made up of 120 characters and then they word wrap. Watch out so when the line wraps, you don’t lose precious real estate. In the description, try using shorter lines (less than 120 characters) and a space between them for more readability. Be aware of how word wrap works on the iPhone screen, as many apps are being installed through the iPhone. Long lines can make the text look weird. Do your research. It will pay off with higher conversions.

Compare Conversion vs. Engagement

Search performs for digital marketers because the Web is transactional in nature. It drives a conversion.

When people are sitting in front of their computer, they can easily fill in the required fields in a transaction because they can easily navigate between their keyboard and their mouse.

Keying a transaction in a mobile device is very difficult and, therefore, conversion rates on any kind of complex transaction are going to be low. Mobile apps perform best when they are created with the goal of engaging users, not for converting users to some kind of a transaction. Once the user is engaged, you will find the best transaction possible is using in-app purchases because the native payment platform simplifies the purchasing process.

Consider How Top Search Marketers Use Apps

“PriceGrabber has a family of mobile apps (for the iPhone, iPad, and Android) that allow users to search via a mobile device just as they would in front of a desktop using PriceGrabber.com,” says Mindy Ferguson, senior director, application development, PriceGrabber. “For our mobile apps success is measured by ranking and number of downloads, but more importantly, from the feedback we receive from our user base as it was their word of mouth that pushed our apps to the top of the iTunes charts.”

Both search engine marketing and app marketing have a place in most digital marketers’ advertising mix. Those who have developed a strong expertise in search engine marketing are able to draw upon their expertise as they develop and implement their app marketing strategy.

Rob Weber, Vice President of Business Development and Co-Founder, W3i, LLC
Rob is an Internet marketing pioneer with over ten, profitable years evolving W3i in the consumer application industry.

With the App Store seeing faster growth than Apple’s iTunes due to devices such as the iPhone, iPod, and iPad it’s more important than ever for developers to get their iPhone app found by users in Apple’s App Store.

Enter iPhone App SEO strategies

Developers are recognizing the importance of traditional SEO strategies and how they can utilize some of these simple app marketing tips to gain visibility in Apple’s App Store.

Let’s break down Apple’s app submission form and look at how you can incorporate basic SEO strategies teamed with following good app marketing tips to launch you ahead of the crowd and improve App Store ranking.

Icon:

Think of your app’s icon similar to the Favicon for the web. What sets one Favicon apart from another and makes it recognizable in your favorites list?

You want to incorporate these same app marketing techniques to your iPhone app’s icon. This is a great way to capture the user’s eye and brand your iPhone app.

Title:

The Title should be easy to remember for the user and focus on branding.  If you can incorporate your keyword into the title of your iPhone app, it can help improve your app store ranking.

Description:

The App Store is no longer using your description when matching users search queries to results.

You will still want to incorporate your keywords into the copy because these pages do get indexed and ranked by the major Search Engines (Google, Yahoo! and Bing). This will enable users that are searching via their computer to have a better chance of finding your app.

Keywords:

This has now become the most important tag when submitting to the App Store. Apple started out using your iPhone app’s description in order to match apps to search queries, and has now moved to using the keyword tag.

Unlike traditional SEO where the keyword tag does virtually nothing, it appears that this tag is going to be making a comeback when submitting to the App Store. 

A couple of things to keep in mind:

• Do not use your iPhone app’s Name or your company name in your keyword tag. By default users will be able to search for your app by either one of these, and this will free up some space for you to enter more keywords considering that you only have 100 characters to work with.
• Auto Suggest for targeted keywords. Using the auto suggest feature within the App Store is a great way to discover what users are searching for and improve App Store ranking. Incorporate these into your keyword tag.

Category:

Similar to traditional directories on the web, choosing the right category is key for App store classification and findability of your iPhone app.

Summary:

One thing to keep in mind is that traditional SEO strategies change as Search Engines evolve, and you can be sure that the App Store algorithm will as well. You can already see the first evolution with the introduction of the keyword list.

Improve App Store ranking with these basic app marketing tips and enjoy the fruits of your SEO labor.  See you at the top of the App Store results! 

Michael Liebelt, Sr. Marketing Manager, W3i, LLC
As W3i’s senior media buyer, Michael helps establish the company’s SEO and SEM strategies.

Top search engine placements aren’t usually accidental. There remains a certain mystery related to how apps are ranked in Apple’s App Store search results. Determining what name, description and keywords to use for your iPhone app can make or break your chances for success in showing up high in Apple’s App Store search results. Follow these tips and you can increase your chances for iPhone app success:

SEO for Apps: Select the Most Popular, Relevant Keywords to Target

Since Apple isn’t sharing search data, it is difficult to gauge what users are searching for within the App Store. Thankfully, there are a couple of ways to get some idea of what people might be searching for in the App Store:

Auto-Suggestion Method- When any user begins to enter a search string into the App Store search box, ten auto-suggestion search strings are presented to help a user more quickly complete their search query. For example, when I key in “b” into the App Store search box, I receive the following ten search strings:

backflip studios
bump technologies llc
bump
backgrounds
bolt creative
bubblewrap
bluesky studio
bootant.com
bing
blackjack free

You’ll note that in this case, eight of the ten results are for registered trademarks. That leaves two auto-suggestions which are generic, namely “backgrounds” and “blackjack free”. Presumably these auto-suggestions rank among the most popular search queries within the App Store, and would make great words to target. This process of building auto-suggest lists could be repeated until a very lengthy list of popular generic keywords is compiled.

The auto-suggestion method is more time consuming than I would like, but it does allow you to extract search data from actual Apple’s App Store search functionality.

Google Keyword Tool- Google offers a keyword tool which ranks keywords for all web searches. Google’s tool allows for rapid prioritization and there is a mobile search setting in the advanced options. However, the data is limited and excludes smart phones and handheld digital devices with full Internet browsing capabilities.  Since the statistics are not just App Store mobile search queries, app developers should be cautious about how they interpret resulting data. For example, an app developer using the Google tool may want to throw out longer search strings given the unlikelihood of someone keying in a longer string via their iPhone.

Two additional tips from Apple’s “App Store Quick Reference Guide“:

• Try to avoid overly common keywords that make it harder to locate your app:
  • Game     App     Fun
• Try to use unique keywords that allow your app to stand out:
  • Flight     Galaxy     Starship

Submitting Your App’s Description & Keywords

Now that you have built a list of the most popular, relevant keywords for your iPhone app, you need to incorporate these keywords into your app’s description and keyword on iTunes. This can be done as part of your initial submission to Apple via iTunes Connect or on subsequent updates of your app.

A few additional highlights to consider before you click “submit”:

• Include the Operating System Version as a Keyword- Apple recommends including the version of iPhone’s operating system you developed your app for within your keyword list. For example, 3.1.
• App Name Not Required in Description/Keywords- Apple says in their “App Store Quick Reference Guide” that you do not need to include your app name and company name in your app’s keywords.
• Don’t Do Anything Against Apple’s Policies- As with all items related to your app’s submission, you’ll want to make sure everything you do with your app’s submission meet’s Apple’s guidelines. A few specific policies related to app descriptions and keywords:
  • Do not use registered trademarks.
  • Do not use well-known public figures.
  • Do not use unrelated keywords.
  • Do not use offensive or objectionable words/phrases.

For other ideas, check out Apple’s App Store Tips.

Getting high search placements for your iPhone app within Apple’s App Store is important; especially if you are on a tight budget and are relying on guerilla marketing tactics to generate downloads of your app. If you have a budget to increase distribution volume, you can expand your horizons and consider additional promotional strategies. 

Exciting new iPhone app opportunities from W3i are on the way.  Stay tuned in to the W3i site, blog, and newsletter for the latest iPhone app information.

Rob Weber, Vice President of Business Development and Co-Founder, W3i, LLC
Rob is an Internet marketing pioneer with over ten, profitable years evolving W3i in the consumer application industry.

Affiliates that drive a lot of traffic always expect better rates.  However, quality traffic trumps quantity every time.  It is essential to understand the demographics of your current traffic and how to attract more of the users that actually value the offer.  Advertisers search for traffic that generates high quality leads.

It sounds simple enough, right? Wrong.  The most difficult hurdle I have, as an affiliate manager, is the old school way of thinking, the belief that the higher the lead quantity, the higher the rates.  In reality, it is higher lead quality that garners better rates.

Some of the factors that influence quality are:

1. Know your audience – Niche audiences can perform much better in generating quality leads than mass audiences.  Understanding what drives a niche audience makes it easier to find affiliate offers that match their interests.  If you have mass traffic, try to determine if you can segment the traffic to gain a better understanding of specific target audiences.
2.  Original Content with Specific Key Words - To attract a “niche” audience, it is imperative you have quality content that can be found by search spiders.  Identify what your target audience is looking for and include it on your web site. 
3. Update Content Regularly – Letting a web site with great content go dormant will not grow your business.  Share your passion and update your content continuously to keep the search spiders working to your advantage.

The trick to success is to attract a specific audience with enough scale to be meaningful.  As AOL mentioned in their earnings call, “We have a content plan which is based on hitting very important audiences with content that matters to them,” comments Tim Armstrong, CEO of AOL.  You may never get to the scale of AOL, but build your site on solid marketing principles and you will be on your way to maximizing revenue with affiliate lead quality.

 If fun, downloadable consumer apps interest your audience, be sure to check out the W3i Affiliate Program.  Top performing offers include downloads for music, video, games, social, and desktop entertainment.

 Joan Jones, Account Executive, W3i, LLC
Joan is the guardian of Affiliate relationships at W3i, providing resources and solutions to strategic accounts. 

With the next holiday season right around the corner, it is important for businesses to be prepared and enter the season with an online holiday media buying strategy; so when Santa comes down the chimney at the end of the holiday season he is carrying sacks of money instead of coal.

Every company is unique; and because of this, everyone’s media buying strategies are different. There is, however, some common steps that every media buy should possess to ensure success during the holiday stretch, whether your business is connecting people with applications or selling computers. The holiday season is the highest traffic time period on the net, which means it is important that you have a marketing strategy to best help promote your company or product. If you wait until Black Friday or Cyber Monday to start running your campaigns, you’re going to play catch up and have a tough time being competitive and maximizing your ROI. All this traffic in such a short period of time means there will be a lot of online inventory available. It is important to have a strategy in place so you are putting your product in front of the most valuable and qualified user instead of throwing your money away like leftovers after Thanksgiving.

Below is a graph indicating the increase in traffic during the major holidays. It proves that you need your strategy in place in order to get the best ROI on your media buys because the traffic comes fast and drops off even faster.

 Graph provided by http://www.google.com/trends

Goals
With any good strategy and a holiday media buying strategy in particular, goals must be in place. In order to create accurate goals for your campaign you must set some benchmarks. Do your research and ask yourself these questions: What worked last year? What didn’t? How much was spent? What channels were effective? Was it paid search? Display? An affiliate program? What were the rates? CPM, CPC or CPA? If you can answer these questions, it will not only help you optimize your campaigns with efficiency, it will also help you in determining the precise and most effective window of opportunity when starting and ending your campaigns. The goals you implement into your marketing strategy this year must be based on last year’s results. If you are a startup company and you are approaching your first holiday season, it is important to document and track everything you do this season so you will be firing on all cylinders next holiday season.

Test, Test, Test
Testing is a vital part for any media buy especially during the holiday season. Starting your tests early will give you and your team time to analyze the results and build historical data. It is important to choose which KPI’s (key performance indicators) are important to the particular buy. Once you have chosen which KPI’s to measure you will then need to determine what to test. There are many variations of tests you can run so that’s why it is important to test early.

Deploy and Observe Vigilantly
Deploy and monitor campaigns before the holiday season enters its peak period. This is essential for a variety of reasons, most notably because consumers are beginning to shop online earlier than ever before, according to Shop.org. Prior to the season, identify the newest and hottest trends (examine user browsing behavior, wish list activities, or whatever is important and pertains to your business or product). Observe your buy closely so you can be prepared for any shifts, and you can optimize at a moment’s notice. This is especially important when running display campaigns because they tend to take more time and effort when optimizing.

No Guarantees
There are no absolutes to creating the perfect holiday media buying strategy or any media buying strategies for that matter. These three tips are not the magic bullet and will not guarantee a successful holiday season on their own, but if you add them to your holiday media buying strategy you will definitely increase your chances for success.

Mitch Bain, Marketing Manager; W3i, LLC
Mitch has 4 years experience focusing on Display Advertising, Search Engine Marketing, and Mobile Marketing, in the Integrated Interactive Media industry.