Why Does Wording Matter If I'm Using Paid Search?

Wording matters because I'm watching my budget and feeding the online marketing bug can be expensive.  In order to get the most value from paid search you must be careful with the wording in your ad.

Use magnetic poetry for fun...Not for ad word selection.

 

How do I come up with the best words to use in my ad?

There are many different methods you could use. A good place to start is to imagine yourself as your own customer and come up with a list of words or phrases your customer might use to search your product. Then take that list of words and go to Google's AdWords Keyword Planner. The AdWords Key Planner site will provide you with statistics regarding words being entered into Google search so you can find the words that have the most user frequency.  On that site you can also get lists of words that are generated by the site so you can get new ideas.

Is there a site I can use to make sure my words and phrases don't have hidden meanings?

In English, there are many words and phrases that might have multiple meanings that you may not intend or won't serve your brand well.  Online you can go to the site for the Urban Dictionary.  For example, say you sell Halloween products and you want to advertise selling a plastic ghost.  You might want to use the word "boo" and if you look it up in the Urban Dictionary you would find 2 meanings, the first listed meaning is a "boyfriend or girlfriend" and the other is the one that you probably meant which is a "word used to scare people".  So when you write your ad image, try replacing the word "boo" with both meanings to see if the double meaning could cause an ad reader confusion.

Does the type of paid search ad I'm using make a difference for what words I choose?

Yes. Yes. And Yes. If you are using a pay-per-click ad it's best to select words and phrases that define your audiences needs.  In the example above, some words might be "scary", "ghost", "boo", and some phrases might be "Halloween décor", "plastic ghost", and "light up ghost".  However, if you are using a contextual ad you will want to select words and phrases that will help place the ad on a website that has relevance and that will entice a click-through.  In the example above, you might select phrases such as "Halloween costumes", "haunted house", and "Halloween decorating tips".  Note that none of these phrases make you automatically think of a plastic ghost, but if customers are lingering on websites that relate to these phrases they could see your ad for a plastic ghost that might entice them to click on it to purchase it.

Happy word haunting...I mean word hunting!

How Do You Mix Traditional Marketing with Online Marketing?

This week I was bitten by the online marketing bug and it left me itchy.  I like to treat bug bites with traditional medicine...Which got me thinking about mixing traditional marketing with online marketing to help soothe the bite of the online marketing bug.

Online marketing bug impersonator.

 

How does traditional marketing work online?

Your company has to come up with a promotion that would be appealing to an online consumer base, such as a coupon they can only get online or a product price that is only available through online ordering. There are specific things to keep in mind when planning online promotions, such as site traffic constraints and an end date for your promotion.

How do I market a promotion online if I've never done it before?

First off, establish a website (if you don't already have one) in order to establish a presence online.  Avoid designing your site with Adobe Flash and PDF's which are unfriendly to many online search engines such as Google. Put a promotion on your website, such as a coupon for consumers to print or for them to show at your physical location on their mobile phones or mobile devices.

 

Mobile device coupons are increasing in popularity.


How can I increase the odds of consumers near my business to find my online promotion?

After you create your website, you can submit your HTML website to Google Maps if your business has a physical presence. Google most likely will send you a piece of mail with a code on it to verify that you have provided accurate address information. By doing this more local customers will be able to search for you more easily.

What is viral marketing?

Viral marketing in regards to online marketing happens when a person shares your online brand or promotion with others, and then those people share it with others, and then it spreads through a network of people like wildfire. Social media websites like Facebook or YouTube can facilitate viral marketing due to their users being part of networks. If you create a video that represents your brand and post it to YouTube there is a chance it could go viral like Dove's Real Beauty campaign video below.

What can you do if you've caught the online marketing bug? Explore a URL.

Once upon a time, an online marketing bug was crawling beside a university campus.  A graduate student stumbled upon it and caught the online marketing bug.  She has been figuring out what to do with it ever since.

The online marketing bug can transform better than a caterpillar.

The student thought she'd bring the bug home, but to her dismay the bug refused to go home with her until she could tell the bug her home address...Or in other words, what the bug really wanted was a URL.

What is a URL?

URL stands for Uniform Resource Locator and is used to specify an address on the world wide web.  A URL can be made up of 4 parts:
1. Protocol identifier - an identifier for a type of protocol, for example, HTTP
2. Subdomain - a subset of a domain
3. Domain
4. Top Level Domain

What is a top level domain name?

It's a name that can be used by humans instead of using an IP address. There are 3 types of top level domains:
1. Infrastructure
2. Country Code
3. Generic

Can someone have the same URL as me?

No. URL's are governed by domain name registrars. You must choose one that has not already been chosen or has been chosen in the past, but is now available for use.

 

Does the domain name I choose have to be in English?

No. Domain names are no longer as easy as 'ABC'. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has made domain names in other languages and scripts available for selection and registration.

ICANN, which profits from domain registrations, opened up the registrations to include complex scripts in 2009. Since then, 47 country code top-level domains have been approved. That means that instead of “.com” or “.org,” newer websites can end with a label that is specific to a country and that uses non-Latin letters.

If the online world is global, how can I make sure that I'm not picking a domain name that may be offensive or misrepresent my intentions in another language?

You can try entering in the name you wish to select on the site http://wordsafety.com/ to see if there are any adverse foreign meanings.  This method is not guaranteed, but it's worth trying and may be better than trying to use Google Translate in a hit and miss approach.

Any last tips on picking a URL?

Use common sense. Write out your URL and read it aloud to see if you still like it or if you discover you need to make some adjustments so you don't end up with a similar URL fate as the companies in the video below.