Writing Ads Like an Engineer

Dr. Kowalick advocates building ads like machines with a specific purpose.
He uses Takaguchi multi-variate testing (Like split-testing of ads or A/B testing)
to build the best ads. Check this article from Forbes.

This is my attitude about writing in general. Each article and each paragraph
should have a purpose to explain or persuade.

http://www.kowalick.com/news/forbes.html

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25.5 Seconds to Sell the Online Buyer

Fireclicks is a web analytics company that compiles data coverin the behavior of online buyers at many online stores as reported by the FireClick analytic service.
The most interesting part of the buyers' behavior is the average page read time of 25.5 seconds.

25.5 Seconds to Sell

25.5 seconds is a very short time for each page to carry out it's purpose, especially if that page is showing the benefits of the product or making the sales offer to the potential buyer.

Site Metrics	This Week
Average Session Length (pages)	7.70
Average Session Duration (min)	4.60
Average Page Display Time (s)	4.80
Average Page Read Time (s)	25.50

This data comes from a website called FireClick. Or in their own words:

"About the Fireclick Index The Fireclick Index was added to Fireclick's comprehensive web analytics solution in 2003. Fireclick users have access to over 30 key metrics across a number of different segments. Our customers use the Fireclick Index on a daily basis to observe industry trends, and get a complete picture of how their online businesses are really performing relative to their peers. The ability to objectively analyze marketing, merchandising, site traffic, and performance metrics in this context is crucial to the success of any web analytics program. The Fireclick Index is compiled from the live statistics of participating Fireclick customers..."

This is facinating for a marketing and advertising person, because it's a snapshot
of consumer behavior at the moment of the successful sale. It's tough to generalize this data to similar situations like landing pages, but what I learn from this data is that my conversion pages better be short. My landing pages will have to be showing the customer the benefits of the product in the headline, in the product picture on the page, in the product benefit bullet points, and in the copy below the picture.

The FireClick site is chock full of data about online buyers in several industry segments. It's certainly worthy of study.

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The Google Sandbox or Aging Filter Doesn't Always Hurt You...

Scottie Claiborne wrote an article about Google's so-called Sandbox.
This is apparently a "penalty box" that prevents new web sites from ranking well in Google if they rapidly acquire hundreds or thousands of links. Or as Scottie explains it:
"What happens is new sites get indexed, they appear for some obscure queries and they may appear at the top for a week or so, but then they drop to the bottom of the SERP for several months. The page shows a PageRank in the Google toolbar, as well as backlinks. Everything else works fine but it just doesn't rank well for any terms in Google. Many times, not even the company name."

As Scottie says,

"I haven't seen any brand new sites with new domains appear at the top of the search engine results pages (SERP) since early in 2004. There seems to be a delay of about 6-8 months. I've checked with many site owners and SEOs and I haven't found anyone who's gotten a brand new domain ranked well in Google. If there's a magic bullet, no one's spilling the beans."

With 2 of my totally new sites I've seen no indication of the dreaded sandbox effect. My own SEO consulting site, and the Fitness With Jeff site for Atlanta tennis instructor Jeff Michaud, both seemed to rank well for their keywords from the start. The only odd effect I've noticed is that from day to day a search for the keywords seems to show up on some Google searches and then not show up on some other Google searches for the same keywords.

Could it be that because Google has so many servers, that it takes a while for search index results to disseminate to all of Google's many servers?

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The Basics of Learning Tennis and the Basics of Consulting

I like Tennis better than Golf because it's a faster paced game and more physically demanding. Racing back and forth across the court to hit the ball really gets the heart rate up. I haven't played Tennis since my days at Florida State University. So I took lessons to gain some skills. In the course of my training I learned some valuable lessons about tennis coaches. Hiring a tennis coach is like hiring a web marketing consultant, some coaches are good and some coaches are not so good.

I signed up for 4 weeks of lessons at a north Atlanta tennis park. They kept changing coaches. One of the coaches did not explain why or how the Tennis forehand and backhand worked, so I could not improve my Tennis skills.

The third week my friend Jeff Michaud, who is a nationally certified fitness trainer and tennis coach, helped me work on my Tennis technique. The improvement in my skills was immmediate.

So what made the difference? Here is a valuable lesson that also applies to the web marketing consulting that I do.

The crucial difference is the way that my friend and tennis coach, Jeff Michaud, approached learning Tennis. First, Jeff listened to me, when I explained the specific skills that I wanted to improve. For a marketing consultant the first step is to listen to the problems that a business owner is suffering. Business owners are usually very knowledgable about their customers and their products.

In Tennis, I needed to focus on the basics, forehand, backhand, volley and the serve.
In any sport, learning and mastering the basics through practice is crucial to doing well.

Second, Jeff's method of teaching was very effective. Jeff broke down the moves in each Tennis stroke into small manageable parts. Even the most basic Tennis forehand stroke, requires you to start with your side facing the net. It also helps to hold the tennis racket correctly. Once your posture and grip are correct, the complex moves that follow require coordinating the movements of the arm, shoulders, legs and hips to deliver the most power to the ball.

My previous coaches never broke the Tennis moves down into smaller parts that I could understand. They tried to teach the whole Tennis forehand as a complete package, so I learned very little.

The corresponding idea in marketing consulting is to break the business marketing problem down into smaller manageable parts that the business owner can handle.

I have to thank my friend Jeff for helping me become a better Tennis player. It all comes down to breaking the skills down into parts that the student can understand. If you like you can check out Jeff's Fitness with Jeff web site at www.fitnesswithjeff.com .

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