Mobile Keyword Research Strategy

How to conduct a Keyword Research for Mobile Website

Mobile phones are no more a luxurious affair. They have become an integral part of our life. People in the earlier stages used it as a medium of communication and they still do it but with the advancement of technical enhanced features they provide a plethora of opportunities.

Interacting with friends through chat options, checking emails, socializing through networks were some of the features till 2009. In the last 3 years, there has been a significant surge in the sale of smartphones. In fact, the number of searched from mobile devices has gone up 5 fold times in the period 2009-2012.

Thus there is a need for optimization of mobile based website.  Like optimization of website, mobile based website starts with keyword research. Now, you have a tool too to check out the web traffic statistics. If you are running a Google Adwords campaign then follow the steps.

1) Go into Campaign Summary.

2) Choose an ad campaign with a mobile ad. (This is a critical step.)

3) Open the mobile ad.

4) Click on the Keyword tab.

5) Choose the Ad Keywords + sign

6) Then select Add Keywords using the Keyword Tool

7) You will see “Results are tailored to mobile searches“

Now you have the power to leverage mobile-specific keyword insight for optimization when you have content that is likely to have the opportunity to be consumed via mobile devices as well. 

Filtering options available for mobile: 

• All Mobile Devices, 

• Mobile WAP Devices, 

• Mobile Devices with Full Internet Browsers.  

Desktop, Laptop Searches vs. Mobile Searches

You need to understand the behavior of search conducted through mobile devices. The intent and motivation are the two critical factors. In our day to day activity, we tend to focus more on email, updates through twitter or Facebook or a chat with friends or colleagues. How many times have you ever bought a product directly from mobile device? Chances are less. The community as a whole seeks information through mobile devices and gets hooked on to their desktop or laptop or tablet for deciding on the final option and then goes for the ultimate action (Purchase – Conversion).

The scenario changes when it’s a subscription to a newsletter, filling up of a contact form or general surfing. The exit rate is low and conversions are higher. Even a Click-To-Call option works well.

To optimize well for mobile based website, here is a checklist

1. Do you have a mobile based website?

2. If yes, does it perform well in the generic available browser?

3. Which device medium is expected to generate traffic?

4. Target Audience

5. Target Location

6. Goal of your website

7. Identifying the key pages

8. Optimizing the landing page

Once you are done with the checklist you are almost through. You need to analyze the traffic initially Day-to-Day, Week on Week and then Month on Month. The statistics that you should be looking forward to are:

1. Percentage of Traffic through different medium

2. Percentage of Mobile based traffic (Device/Platform)

3. Country and City wise traffic – Mobile

4. Entrance, Exit rate

5. Bounce Rate (Average/Pagewise)

6. Average Pageviews

You can estimate the importance of traffic based on these factors. 

A statement which provides a lot of insight - 

http://googlemobileads.blogspot.in/2011/01/keyword-tool-helps-you-go-mobile.html

Tuesday, January 11, 2011 | 12:09 PM

Mobile Statistics in the Keyword Tool

The Keyword Tool now helps you build a better keyword list to target mobile users. Under "Advanced options," you can now search for keywords for devices with mobile WAP browsers, mobile devices with full Internet browsers (think iPhone and Android phones), or all mobile devices (sum of devices with WAP browsers and devices with Internet browsers).

Read More

How to use AdWords Express

AdWords or AdWords Express which one to go for?

Most of the people know about Google AdWords but very few have heard or used AdWords Express.

What is AdWords Express?

In short is useful in managing local business within some specific radius (Distance in Miles).

Try and understand this point in specific

“ With AdWords Express, you can help these customers find your local business by advertising on Google and Google Maps (including mobile devices) and attract more visitors to your website, Place Page or Google+ Page.”

With Google AdWords you have the option of advertising in Google Search , Search Partners, Display Advertising and Mobile Advertising.

According to Google:

Businesses that are a good fit for AdWords Express:

• Local service providers, such as home or auto repair, physicians, salons
• Local restaurants, cafes, eateries
• Local retail stores, boutiques, markets
• Local hotels, inns, apartment buildings

Note for AdWords advertisers

Any advertiser already publishing ads on Google AdWords need not use AdWords Express as they are already having the Ad Extension feature integrated into the tabs section under Campaign. Use Local and/or Call Extension for the same purpose.

Where AdWords Express is available?


AdWords Express is currently available in the United States, Great Britain, Germany, and France.


It is currently available on a trial basis in some cities in Canada, The Netherlands, Spain, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand.

Read More

How to improve Call To Action

Understanding Calls to Action

Many people in the industry use the Term Calls to Action without actually implementing the same. Calls To Action (CTA) is a term that defines an action that would induce a rationale visitor to follow what you want. Any online marketing activities would aim at the following steps

·         Traffic – Get traffic to your website

·         Retention – Make them understand your value proposition

·         Conversion – Convert them into your customer

·         Acquisition – Make them your repeat customers.

It is believed that (percentage %) of Repeat Customers can do wonder for your business.  How? They are your tools for Viral Marketing. They would indulge in Word of Mouth Marketing which is priceless. Companies invest huge amount of funds into Social Media Marketing nowadays for the same purpose which can be attained to some extent through your repeat customers.

Search Engine Marketing involves:

• Contextual / Audience Buying based on the factors which determine how you get them.
•  Location – Geo Targeting
• Age Group – Determine your way of marketing
• Gender – Buying Decisions
• Audience Behavior - Related some to Age Group and Designations

How do Calls To Action help in Conversion?

As discussed earlier, CTA is a critical tool for conversion.  It can me a Button, a message, an Image, an action like filling up of a form, subscribing to a newsletter, downloading  a document  or simply a mouse over function.

• To increase conversion through any of these means you should have a clear understanding of your GOALS. 
• Remembers there’s a huge difference between a LEAD and a CONVERSION. Every conversion is a lead but not every lead is a conversion. CTA plays an important role in Lead to Conversion.
• Position your action item such that a rationale visitor is induced to follow your action item. Through several cases studies it can be ascertained that Action Items if posted on the right side results in more conversions compared to the left side. 
• Case Study of Picassa from Google can be a great information center for implementation of Call To Action.
• Share your experiences with me.

Read More

Adwords Tips on Quality Score

It’s been a long time that I could actually post some nice information for the newbies in the Digital Marketing world. Almost every day I get emails from people asking me questions related to SEO, SEM and Analytics.

Thus this post goes out to people who are working in Google Adwords. I hope this information will help them in their endeavor to maintain campaigns for their company or for their personal website.

Question 1

How do I lower max cpc for any keyword?

Ans: Very important and very relevant for campaign managers. This is something which most of the people working in the industry look around the web for tips and tricks.

My Suggestions:

Max CPC depends on Estimate Top Page Bid and Estimate First Page Bid. Now, Estimate Top Page Bid and Estimate First Page Bid depend on the Quality Score.

The Quality Score Matrix is simple to understand but complex in implementation. Overall idea of Quality Score Formula:

1. Historical Click Through Rate(CTR) of the keyword in Google (As per their data)
2. Historical CTR of all ads and Keywords in the Account (New accounts tend to get lower CTR)
3. Historical CTR of Display URL’s (you can check with Multi Variate Testing)
4. Quality of the Landing Page (is very important)
5. Relevance of the keyword to the ads. (*)
6. Relevance of the Ad and the Keyword to the Search Query. (Trim down with negative keywords)
7. Performance of your account in the targeted region. (Certain areas fetch better results)
8.  Other factors (this will come with experience)

Note that the CTR criteria for campaign managers are based on:

1.  Keyword Level
2. Ad Group Level
3. Campaign Level and
4. Account Level

The below example of how Ad Rank works will help you understand where to work to get better results.

User  à Search Query

Google àCheck the keyword against Match Type

Google àIgnores (Not Eligible or Disapproved Ads)

Google à Calculates Ad position based on Quality Score and Bid Amount

Google àShows ads on the SERP (Top Section/ Other Section)

Let me know your thoughts on this.

Read More

SEO Training in Kolkata

SEO Training in Kolkata

In the past few months the number of queries for SEO Training has gone up. Most of the calls where related to seo queries and ended up with “why don’t you provide seo training?” Yes, I do impart training on SEO and SEM to my colleagues in my office and sometimes to people who are looking for a job or business but never thought of imparting professional training to candidates. This blog post goes out to all those people who have inspired me to think about this initiative and start Professional SEO Training in Kolkata/Calcutta.

Let me organize the things for you. First, let me answer some of the basic queries asked by visitors to my blog and secondly, how to go ahead with the program.

Q1. Do you train people on SEO and SEM?

Ans: Yes, I do.


Q2. What are the different types of seo courses available?

Ans: There are three types of courses.

1. Basic SEO Strategies
2. Professional SEO Strategies
3. PPC Campaigns


Q3. What is the course duration?

Ans: Basic SEO Strategies – One month.
Professional Strategies – Two months.

PPC Campaigns – One month.

Q4. How about getting a job after completion of the training?

Ans: Once you complete the training and post your resume in the different job portals, I believe you don’t have to look for jobs, they will look for you.

Q5. Do I stand a chance to work on live seo project?

Ans: No seo training is complete with working on live projects. Here, you will not only get a chance to work on live international projects but also you get to know how to handle international clients. This will provide an impetus to your career and your confidence.

Q6. How do I start the training on SEO or Internet Marketing or SEM ?

Ans: You need to send me a mail regarding your intention to join the seo training classes.

Q7. When are the classes held?

Ans: The classes will be held on weekends i.e. Saturdays and Sundays. The reason, I work for a company and thus can devote my weekends to you guys.

I hope I have been able to answer most of your queries. The last and the most important question that remained unanswered is the cost of the training. Well, as I am not opening up a next NIIT or TULEC thus my course fees is always negotiable depending upon the candidate.

I thought of sharing one of my experiences with you. I have been lucky enough to train few people earlier and I am happy that they have been successful in their endeavor to achieve what they wanted. One of the candidates is Mr. Pritam who is running his own online business and the other Mr.Gopal Das who is heading the SEO Department for an Ireland Company.

Your search for a SEO Training Institute in kolkata ends here. Now, you can get trained by me and solve your queries in few minutes.

Happy learning.

Read More

Non-Latin characters are being used for top-level domains

Non-Latin characters are being used for top-level domains

For the first time in the history of the Internet, non-Latin characters are being used for top-level domains. The first IDN country-code top-level domains were inserted in the DNS root zone earlier today. The associated countries and their respective IDN ccTLDs are:

Egypt: مصر (Egypt)
Saudi Arabia: السعودية (AlSaudiah)
United Arab Emirates: امارات (Emarat)

These are the first IDN ccTLDs to appear online as a result of the IDN ccTLD Fast Track Process which was approved by the ICANN Board at its annual meeting in Seoul, South Korea on 30 October 2009.
http://www.icann.org/en/announcements/announcement-05may10-en.htm

Read More

Acquisition of BumpTop by Google

Google has acquired BumpTop - a startup that designs software that creates a 3D interface for your desktop

More than three years ago, we set out to completely change the way people use their desktops. We're very grateful for all your support over that time — not just financially but also through all the encouraging messages from people who found BumpTop inspiring, useful, and just downright fun.

Today, we have a big announcement to make: we're excited to announce that we've been acquired by Google! This means that BumpTop (for both Windows and Mac) will no longer be available for sale. Additionally, no updates to the products are planned.

Read More

TEOMA Search Engine is back

TEOMA Search Engine

Rise from the Ashes. Started operation in 2001, then went off for some period of time and then again refurbished them and now back again in 2010. Probably, they are fascinated by the numbers 0012.

I did a basic search for keywords and could only understand that then need to go a long way to grasp any traffic.

Here are some of my observations:

1. Top - 5 sponsored advertisement.
2. Footer – 5 Sponsored Advertisement
3. The sponsored ads are too large and above the fold.
4. The SERP looks better compared to Yahoo and Bing.
5. Top four results comprises of two domains having an inner page as a part of the SERP.

Let me know your thoughts.

Read More

Google SERP LayOut Change and its effect

Google SERP LayOut Change and its effect

SERP layout changed last week around the first week of May, 2010. What may be the possible consequences?

1. Loss in Google Traffic.
2. New format.
3. Loss in rankings for some long tail key phrases.
4. Ranking shake up.


As Google accounts for most of the traffic, a minor change in traffic signals may cause worries for webmasters across the world.

What are your thoughts?

Read More

Common words new age meanin

The new age meaning of few of the well chosen words. I am sure you are aware of some of the words used below.

DOCTOR:
A person who kills your ills by pills,and kills you by his bills!

Politician:
One who shakes your hand before elections and your Confidence Later

BOSS:
Someone who is early when you are late and late when you are early

FATHER:
A banker provided by nature

MISER:
A person who lives poor so that he can die RICH!

OPTIMIST:
A person who while falling from EIFFEL TOWER says in midway "SEE I AM NOT INJURED YET!"

DIPLOMAT:
A person who tells you to go to hell in such a way that you actually look forward to the trip

EXPERIENCE:
The name men give to their Mistakes

YAWN:
The only time when some married men ever get to open their mouth

OFFICE:
A place where you can relax after your strenuous home life

SMILE:
A curve that can set a lot of things straight!

CLASSIC:
A book which people praise, but never read

TEARS:
The hydraulic force by which masculine will power is defeated by feminine water-power!

CONFERENCE ROOM:
A place where everybody talks, nobody listens and everybody disagrees later on

ECSTASY:
A feeling when you feel you are going to feel a feeling you have never felt before

COMPROMISE:
The art of dividing a cake in such a way that everybody believes he got the biggest piece

CONFERENCE:
The confusion of one man multiplied by the number present

MARRIAGE:
It's an agreement wherein a man loses his bachelor degree and a woman gains her master

CIGARETTE:
A pinch of tobacco rolled in paper with fire at one end and a fool at the other!

In my next post I will try to answer some of the common 2010 questions asked to me by either commenting or by mailing me. Hope it will be fun.

Read More

Microsoft and Facebook to oust Google Docs

Microsoft Office and Facebook partner the new friends

Well, Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg just shared a feature that could give Microsoft a big advantage over competitors. Microsoft and Facebook launched a site called Docs.com this morning, which is all about sharing your documents using Facebook in the cloud. He didn’t offer too many details, but said the document site will work closely with the social network. If you want to share a document on Facebook, you can do so using the connections you’ve already built on the social network.

Here are some quotes from the Microsoft post introducing the site (which is formatted, rather annoyingly, as an online Office doc, making it much harder to copy-and-paste):

Built on Microsoft Office 2010, the Docs app enables Facebook users for the first time to create and share Microsoft Office documents directly with their Facebook friends, using the Office tools they already know. …

Read More

Its website and not web site

When the AP Stylebook announced via Twitter that it was changing the style for "Web site" to "website," some users let out shouts of praise

The reactions aren't surprising, given how many people have asked the AP to change the style from two words to one word, arguing that "Web site" is an antiquated way of writing it.

"We decided to make the change because 'website' is increasingly common," said Sally Jacobsen, deputy managing editor for projects at the AP and one of three Stylebook editors. "We also had invited readers and users of the Stylebook to offer us some suggestions for a new social media guide that we're including in the 2010 Stylebook, and we got a very good response and a large number of people who favored 'website' as one word."

Read More

Local Busniess Center becomes Google Places

The Local Business Center is becoming Google Places. The reason - Millions of people use Google every day to find places in the real world, and we want to better connect Place Pages — the way that businesses are being found today — with the tool that enables business owners to manage their presence on Google.

Google is also adding some new features:-

• Show your service coverage or hide your address.
• Tag Ads added to Austin, Atlanta and Washington, D.C. and to follow in Chicago, San Diego, Seattle, Boulder and San Francisco
• Free business photo shoots service to enhace the profile.
• Customised QR codes from the Places dashboard.
• Running another batch of Favorite places.

To keep track of how your business listing is performing on Google, we offer a personalized dashboard within Google Places that includes data about how many times people have found your business on Google, what keywords they used to find it and even what areas people traveled from to visit your business. With the dashboard, you can see how your use of any of these new features affects interest in your business and make more informed decisions about how to be found on Google and interact with your customers.

As a SEO Consultant working for more than 6 years, I believe that this has more oppurtunities in the future.

Read More

Facebook the new age marketing platform

Are Search Engines the only way of marketing? Think twice before answering.

Social Networking Platforms have given webmasters with more ways to try out their luck in Internet Marketing. Facebook, Myspace, Orkut, Twitter are just a few names. Specially, Twitter and Facebook have grown beyond expectations.

Here are some facts and figures:

Facebook is closing in on the 500 million monthly unique visitors mark. The social network saw 484 million unique visitors worldwide in March, 2010, according to comScore’s latest estimate. That number is up 64 percent from a year ago, and up 22 million from just February, 2010. In other words, it grew by about the size of Twitter.com’s entire U.S. audience in a single month. (ComScore puts Twitter’s worldwide audience at 79 million people).


Courtesy: http://techcrunch.com/2010/04/21/facebook-500-million-visitors-comscore/#ixzz0lpSw9jH5

Read More

Easiest way to add a forum

Now adding a forum to your website is as easy as clicking a web link

If you are not so much a programming geek then this is your first chance to grab a forum and integrate into your website by just clicking a few links.

Tal.ki is a new forum product from Lefora. You can grab the embed link, put it on a website and you’ve added a forum. The best part is users don’t have to create accounts – they can sign in via a variety of services like Facebook, Twitter, Google, Yahoo or OpenID.

Check this site for more details http://tal.ki/

Read More

Growth at Goole doesn't stop

Google : Q1 Financial Highlights 

Revenues : Google reported revenues of $6.77 billion in the first quarter of 2010, representing a 23% increase over first quarter 2009 revenues of $5.51 billion. Google reports its revenues, consistent with GAAP, on a gross basis without deducting TAC.

Google Sites Revenues - Google-owned sites generated revenues of $4.44 billion, or 66% of total revenues, in the first quarter of 2010. This represents a 20% increase over first quarter 2009 revenues of $3.69 billion.

Google Network Revenues - Google™s partner sites generated revenues, through AdSense programs, of $2.04 billion, or 30% of total revenues, in the first quarter of 2010. This represents a 24% increase from first quarter 2009 network revenues of $1.64 billion.

International Revenues - Revenues from outside of the United States totaled $3.58 billion, representing 53% of total revenues in the first quarter of 2010, compared to 53% in the fourth quarter of 2009 and 52% in the first quarter of 2009. Excluding gains related to our foreign exchange risk management program, had foreign exchange rates remained constant from the fourth quarter of 2009 through the first quarter of 2010, our revenues in the first quarter of 2010 would have been $112 million higher. Excluding gains related to our foreign exchange risk management program, had foreign exchange rates remained constant from the first quarter of 2009 through the first quarter of 2010, our revenues in the first quarter of 2010 would have been $242 million lower.

• Revenues from the United Kingdom totaled $842 million, representing 13% of revenues in the first quarter of 2010, compared to 13% in the first quarter of 2009.

• In the first quarter of 2010, we recognized a benefit of $10 million to revenues through our foreign exchange risk management program, compared to $154 million in the first quarter of 2009.

Paid Clicks : Aggregate paid clicks, which include clicks related to ads served on Google sites and the sites of our AdSense partners, increased approximately 15% over the first quarter of 2009 and increased approximately 5% over the fourth quarter of 2009.

Cost-Per-Click : Average cost-per-click, which includes clicks related to ads served on Google sites and the sites of our AdSense partners, increased approximately 7% over the first quarter of 2009 and decreased approximately 4% over the fourth quarter of 2009.

TAC - Traffic Acquisition Costs, the portion of revenues shared with Google’s partners, increased to $1.71 billion in the first quarter of 2010, compared to TAC of $1.44 billion in the first quarter of 2009. TAC as a percentage of advertising revenues was 26% in the first quarter of 2010, compared to 27% in the first quarter of 2009.

The majority of TAC is related to amounts ultimately paid to our AdSense partners, which totaled $1.45 billion in the first quarter of 2010. TAC also includes amounts ultimately paid to certain distribution partners and others who direct traffic to our website, which totaled $265 million in the first quarter of 2010.

Read More

Are you there in twitter

Micro Blogging software Twitter is the buzz word around

Well surely, if you aren’t there yet then you are missing out on a chunck of data and information. At least the statistics suggest that.

Twitter Numbers and Stats Revealed: 19 Billion Searches Per Month [blogs.ft.com]


• 105,779,710 registered users.
• 300,000 new users per day.
• 180,000,000 unique visitors to Twitter.com
• 60 per cent of new accounts are outside the US.
• 75 per cent of traffic is not on Twitter.com.
• 100,000 registered apps
• 19,000,000,000 searches per month.

The choice is yours whether you want to check out who has what for their breakfast or want to check out on real information. The scope of Twitter is evolving faster than we can categorize. Real time reports and those entire sneak peaks into reports are making people going crazy about it.

Is it the perfect time for twitter to bring in contextual ad system?

Follow me on twitter @arnabseo

Read More

Facebook and Twitter the next two big media’s of marketing

The New Age Internet Marketing

Facebook Update

Over the last few months there have been non-stop rumors about Facebook finally launching its location feature (an announcement may well come at f8). But a startup called Glympse has already beaten them to the punch (well, sort of). The service now allows you to share you location with Facebook friends via the News Feed, using a nifty widget that plots your position on a map and updates it in real-time.

Glympse, is a bit like Google Latitude in a way that it allows you to passively share your location with friends. But unlike Google Latitude, Glympse is for granting people temporary access to your location.

Twitter Update

Dealing With Google: Much of the discussion at Twitter meetings throughout the past six months revolved around dealing with Google and Facebook. In a March 13, 2009 management meeting, for example, during a discussion of a search deal with Google, the fear is expressed that “Google would kick our ass at finding the good tweet.” But almost immediately afterwards, someone asks, “Can we do to google what google has done to others?”

In a May 7 management meeting, Twitter’s search syndication strategy with Google is discussed, as is the desire of “every tech company” to gain access to “Hosebird,” an API Twitter is working on to deliver its full stream of Tweets to search partners and others. The attitude towards Google is cautious: “Playing with fire here where we know that Google is building the competitive product.”

But by June 9, things seem to have progressed with Google. After an earlier two hour meeting with Google executives, the Twitter leadership had decided that an “agreement for some period of time makes sense – with our parameters.” But at the same time, they resolved to that Twitter’s own “search results page needs to be great – better than the landing pages on Google.”

Courtesy: www.techcrunch.com

Read More