Knowledge is the Foundation To Success  

Windows Market Share Below 90% for the First Time Ever 

For the first time ever, the Windows operating system has dropped below 90% market share, according to recent data released by Net Applications, Inc., a popular Web metrics company. Last month, only 89% of the users who connected to websites did so from Windows powered systems. This drop was the largest dip by Windows in the last two years. Meanwhile, Apple Inc.’s Mac OSX posted its biggest gain, growing to 8.9% market share. This was the third month in a row that Mac operating systems remained above 8%.

My grandfather used to say, “It’s hard to be all things to all people,” and he was most likely correct. This statement also holds true when it comes to online business. Your website needs to be as compatible as possible for every visitor, and this can be hard to accomplish. When it comes to PPC advertising, you’re paying for every visitor. If that visitor can’t use your website due to compatibility issues, you have just wasted your money.

Let me ask you this; What does your website look like on a Mac? How does it work?

Last month Internet Explorer’s market share dropped below 70%, while Firefox increased to 20.8%.

How does your website look and work with Firefox? How about Safari?
(Safari now has 7% market share)

I recently had a PPC management client whose website worked great with Firefox but had problems with Internet Explorer. Unfortunately, the designer only used Firefox and never bothered to check his design work on I.E. He just assumed it would work. Can you imagine? This client was missing out on 70% of his traffic until this issue was fixed.

It’s not uncommon for a shopping cart to work perfectly in Internet Explorer, yet have serious functionality problems in other browsers like Firefox, Safari, Opera, or Chrome (BETA). Different browsers react to code irregularities in different ways. Without checking, you will have no idea how your website behaves on different operating systems and browsers.

Ok, so you basically have two options for checking compatibility; check it out yourself, or use a tool.

There are tools available that will show you how your website looks through different browsers and on different operating systems. A free option is an open source tool called Browsershots.org. It can show you how your website looks on 4 different operation systems with dozens of different browser variations, with the ability to download screen shots for review. Of course, this will only show you how it looks, not how it works.

The best and most accurate solution is to actually check your website out yourself. This can be as easy as downloading the latest versions of these alternative browsers onto your own computer. Of course, you might not have a MAC system at your house, so a visit to a friend’s house might be needed. Your local library might have a token MAC available, or you could always demo one of the cool new systems at your local Apple store.

It doesn’t matter if your visitor is arriving from a Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Marketing campaign, or from a well placed organic listing, if the visitor can’t use your site you are going to miss out on the lead or sale. By checking your website’s compatibility on the different operating systems and browsers you could be opening up your business to a substantially wider audience while providing the best user experience possible to your new visitor.

I have certainly read many PPC advertising articles and blog posts regarding the importance of landing page text and it’s relationship to Sponsored Search keywords. While there is no arguing that the landing page should be highly relevant for the keywords used in order to facilitate the action of a conversion, there has also been some debate regarding the landing pages text and its relationship to Google’s Quality Score, and ultimately the price you pay per click. Let’s set the record straight.

Our friends from Google stopped by the JumpFly offices yesterday and we had a long discussion on the AdWords Quality Score process. So, this information is straight from the source. I’m only addressing the Quality Score and Landing Page relationship today, and will leave the other important aspects of Quality Score for other articles. Trust me, there is a lot to know when it comes to learning about Google AdWords Quality Score.

First, it is important to understand that there are actually two separate Google AdWords Quality Scores: QS1 & QS2

The first Quality Score, QS1, is the score to see if the keyword is even qualified to show. In the Q1 score, the quality of the landing page is factored into this algorithm. The biggest factors being relevant and original content, how you intend to use a visitor’s personal information, and navigability. Mostly, Google is trying to eliminate the type of poor quality websites that have shown a history of consistently providing a poor user experience from advertising on AdWords.

Once the Q1 score is factored and the keyword is able to enter the auction, the process moves along to the Q2 score.

The 2nd Quality Score (QS2) determines AdRank and CPC. I could go into great detail on all of the aspects of this very important Quality Score, however for this topic it is important to note that landing page quality is absolutely NOT a factor in QS2.

This was sure news to us, and I’m sure many of you might also find this to be unbelievable, however it is true. We spent a great deal of time talking about this and even watched a nice PowerPoint presentation to back it all up.

Of course, this new information directly contradicts some of Google’s online help documents. For example, on the Landing Page and Site Quality Guidelines page it says:

Furthermore, following our site guidelines will help improve your landing page quality score. As a component of your keywords’ overall Quality Scores, a high landing page quality score can affect your AdWords account in three ways:

Decrease your keywords’ cost-per-clicks (CPCs)
Increase your keyword-targeted ads’ position on the content network
Improve the chances that your placement-targeted ads will win a position on your targeted placement

So, what does this all really mean?

Well, it doesn’t change the fact that a well optimized webpage that is focused on a particular keyword will definitely help convert that visitor. It doesn’t change the fact that a landing page that falls short of Google’s initial Landing Page Quality guidelines might not even trigger the keyword.

It does mean that no matter how many times you stuff your keyword into a webpage, or change the keyword density, it will not help lower your cost per click for that keyword at Google AdWords. That, I’m afraid, is determined by other factors involved in QS2.

The bottom line here is that a well designed and focused landing page is a very useful and much needed aspect of any Sponsored Search campaign. Nothing will change that fact. All this simply means is that your groovy new landing page is not going to influence the price you pay per click for that keyword.

Google Trends and Google Insights for Keyword and Website Research

There is definitely no shortage of cool tools designed to make Internet Marketing easier, and our friends at Google AdWords certainly have their own fair share of these tools available for your use. Two of these tools that I find myself using more and more are Google Trends and Google Insights for Search.

Google Trends has the ability to show you historical search data for keywords, as well as the popularity for these terms across geographic regions, cities, and languages. It’s quick, it’s easy, and it provides a nice way to see seasonality and other trending factors for your search terms.

Google Trends for Websites, announced last week, not only provides traffic data for popular websites, it also compares and ranks site visitation across different regions, and related websites and searches. I have found this tool useful for evaluating potential websites for placement targeting, as well as finding other optional websites and search terms related to the websites users. Unfortunately, less popular websites with low traffic volume and those that have chosen to not be indexed by Google through the use of the robots.txt exclusion file, simply do not provide enough data to make this tool very useful and will result in the message: “Your websites – do not have data to display”.

Google Insights for Search provides a little more flexibility and functionality than Trends, along with some interesting additional features. For example, Google Insights for Search not only provides volume patterns over time, it also provides top related and rising searches. You can compare this data by different locations, time ranges, and search terms. You can even see a map of your selected regions with hot spots showing search activity in those areas. I prefer to use this tool over Google Trends for search, since it provides much more detailed information.

For example, I have a client who does “basement waterproofing.” By doing a quick search in trends, I was able to see that historically during the 4th quarter search volume for this phrase drops dramatically. Since I can see the trend going back as far as 4 years, it is safe to say that he will experience the same drop in traffic during this time period.

On the same note, I was able to determine that this particular search phrase generates a substantial increase in search volume during the 2nd quarter of each year. With this in mind, we can anticipate this spike in traffic and consider its effect when developing pay-per-click (PPC) advertising strategies.

Since my client’s Google AdWords campaign is regionally targeted, I used Google Insights to compared the trending on “basement Waterproofing” in his location to the rest of the United States. Also, by selecting his region in the drop down, I was then able to see hot spots indicating higher search volumes on the local map.

Google Trends and Google Insights for Search are just two of the many tools that JumpFly PPC Account Managers use to help optimize ROI. A well thought out keyword strategy is just one of the many skills a qualified PPC account manager brings to the table. Contact a professional PPC Management Company today about how these tools can be used to benefit your next campaign.