Bigger Buy Button

Summing It Up

IS 379 is nearing a close, which also means so is my adventure with the EMU Google courses.  I feel very lucky to be apart of a one-of-a-kind curriculum which gave such great real world experience.

These two courses helped me not only develop new skills such as web design, but also brought out creativity in making Adwords Ad's and content on my pages.

I learned that Google is great for Adwords customers if they can develop their site around the ad's.  CNBC showed me that many people share their deepest secrets with the search box and are usually right to the point. 

If your selling something, the landing page can be more powerful than a brick and mortar store.  Take where I work (ACO Hardware).  A customer comes into the store most likely looking for something specific but has distractions to reach the exact location of the product.  The customer looks up and sees aisle signs for Paint, Housewares, Tools, Automotive, Hardware and much more.  In some cases the customer will get distracted and will look in housewares and forget about their original intention.  

So where am I going with this?

In Adwords we're able to read the searchers mind via the keywords they type into that search box (say it's Benjamin Moore Paint).  We then build an Ad tailoring to Benjamin Moore Paint and the customer clicks and is directed to our landing page. 

This class showed that we primed the visitor to do something.  In this case the visitor is in the market for Ben Moore and that is what we need to offer.  The landing page then should tailor to Benjamin Moore paint with pictures and a button saying "Find the nearest Ben Moore ACO Location".  There should not be excessive navigation or anything to distract the customer from zoning in on his/her goal.

Remember the brick and mortar customer?  They may go into the store knowing what they want, but they might not admit it to the associates like they could to the search box. The customer will be distracted by all the aisles of Tools, Hardware, etc... just like they could on your page with sidebar navigation, spilling them out of the funnel.

The web allows users to find exactly what they're looking for. This semester, all of us showed we could give it to them better than what was in place.

Thank you Bud, for all the lessons you've taught us for the past two semesters. I think I've grasped a concept.

-Cam

Google and Climate change

Google is has been facilitating talks between the common man and the world leaders who have congregated at Copenhagen for the Climate change talks. One could post one's opinion and questions on you tube and they would broadcast the video on the CUBE and on youtube's channel COP 15.

This is a novel way to empower the common man and help him raise his voice in the upper echelon. We should make sure that talks just do not end in fancy fine dining. We should raise our voice at the right time. "Going green" has become a big word in vogue. Everyone wants to go green to raise ones credibility. But, are people actually implementing it? Will Big and wealthy nations go green at the cost of the underdeveloped ones? There are so many questions to be answered.

Be More Negative

Here is a blog post that espouses the use of negative kewords, saying that they are as important as the positive ones when guiding the traffic that will be valueable to you to your site.

Individual Contribution for Iteration 3

I added some future recommendations to the slides of Iteration 3. From the discussion in our previous class I was of the opinion that CAHS should tweak their ads itself because the ads do not say anything about coming to the CAHS instead they emphasize more on the online photo gallery. They can use their photo calendar for 2010 as a powerful medium to attract people to their sites. They should find their niche customers and appeal accordingly.

Although our mates did follow Web Design For ROI and Dont make me think and our individual analysis to help more traffic inflow into the get directions link, their efforts did not bear quantum leaps in visits. It is commendable that they increased the traffic to the directions link. The fault lies in the ads as well. Chris in the class suggested ads like "Come Pick me up". There should be such ads suggesting driving down to the shelter and not just "Browse our cute Photographs"

Real Time Searches Are Reality

This morning Google turned on its new real-time search this morning.  Go ahead - search for something that just happened in the news today - or for your latest public Facebook post - and it should be there! 

 

For Firefox Fans

There is a Firefox add-in that will automate copying goals in Google Analytics.  Check out this blog post about it.

Code Wizard!

One thing you can say for sure about Google:  they never stand still.  The new latest-and-greatest feature they are offering is tracking code wizards.  No more trying to figure out if you have the correct code for your pages!  Read more about it here.

Last Contact

I just sent an e-mail to Cindy over at CAHS.  I told her where we were and if she wanted to keep Brian's page with the ad or revert back to their original page. I have a feeling that she might choose the original just because she might look at Brian's page and think "this is too simple" and maker her decision right then.  I did the best I could to explain what we did and the reason we did it, but you can only do so much in an e-mail.

I also hope she gets back to me soon, last time I sent her an e-mail before Iteration 2, I never got a response. Bottom line is that I still have a positive view on our non-profit, it's hard to commute a total of 3 hours in a car in the winter.

MS joins forces with News Corp.

Microsoft has invited News Corp. to leave Google and sign a search contract with Bing.  This will link to a nineteen minute webcast to discuss the possibilities.  Have a nice day.

MS Announces Bing Updates

Bing is being updated with search enhancements to play "catch up" with Google.  Microsoft announced some improvements, referred to as "continuous improvements and updates."  They were reluctant to call them "Bing 2.0",  The improvements involve visual search add-ons, a new Bing mobile search client, and Silverlight-powered Bing maps.