(This article was originally published in the Belfast Telegraph on 3 June 2010. It’s been modified slightly for this blog.)

In his forthcoming book The Shallows author Nicholas Carr argues that surfing the web has a negative impact on how we think. He quotes research stating that exposure to bite-sized chunks of information, from short videos and blog posts to tweets and Facebook updates, trains our brain to prefer this type of information. As a result we are losing the ability to focus on a single thing for longer periods of time.

This is not a new argument – in an article for The Atlantic magazine in 2008 titled “Is Google making us stupid?” Carr laid out the groundwork for his upcoming book. In a recent blog post Carr outlines a specific aspect of how the nature of the internet affects how we consume information: Links embedded in a text distract us from fully reading and comprehending the text. Instead of linking to other web pages from within the text, Carr wants us to start putting links at the bottom of a piece of online content.

As with his original article for the Atlantic, this latest blog post has not gone unnoticed by his critics. Clay Shirky, another notable author and web guru, stands firmly on the opposite side of the debate, claiming that the internet is a force for good. The web, he argues, allows for a wider spread of information than ever before, and has enabled an entirely new means of engaging with politics and society.

As a web professional spending close to 10 hours a day online, saying bad things about the internet runs counter to my livelihood. Yet I too cannot deny the fact that my mind works differently now than it did 15 years ago when I discovered the internet. Many of the symptoms outlined by Carr are eerily familiar to me, such as the big gaps between short- and long-term memories and an increasing inability to concentrate on a single thing for a long stretch of time.

I’m not sure if this is an entirely bad thing, though. The internet works in a certain way, and perhaps our brains are adapting to this online landscape to allow us to perform better in it. We’re developing new skills and new ways of thinking so we can deal more effectively with a globally connected world. Perhaps this type of hypercharged multitasking mindset is exactly what we need to succeed in modern times.

But at the same time I share some of Carr’s concerns that maybe we are losing something in the process. The question, then, is whether what we stand to gain measures up to what we might lose.

The Internet is rewiring our brains is a post from: The Great Websites Blog

1. Part 1 – Choosing your keywords
2. Part 2 – Writing good ads
3. Part 3 – Create landing pages that convert

In part 1 of this guide to search engine advertising we discussed how to choose the right keywords to advertise on. This second part will talk about making effective ads for your search marketing campaign.

Search Engine Advertising – Step 2: Writing Good Ads

Now that you have a good set of keywords to advertise on, it’s time to write the actual ads themselves. Most search engine advertising is done with text-based ads, so I will focus on those. You can also do more visual ads such as banners, but they’re more difficult to make and you have much less freedom to experiment and fine-tune them. With text ads you can make as many changes as you want, tweaking and optimizing them until you get the best results.

Use The Keyword In The Ad
The first and most important tip for writing good text ads is that your ad should contain the actual keyword you are advertising on. Having the keyword in your ad indicates to a user that your ad is relevant to their search query. This means the user is much more likely to actually click on your ad. Using the keyword in your ad is a vital aspect of writing successful ads.

As a consequence you’ll find yourself writing many different ads, one or more for every set of similar keywords. Sometimes you’ll write ads specifically for one keyword. This isn’t a bad thing – on the contrary, it’s the key to a successful search engine advertising campaign. If you want to save time by writing generic ads, you’ll appeal to no one and your ads will get very few clicks. It’s important to stand out and be relevant, and that means writing ads that contain the keyword you are advertising on.

An example: say you have a furniture company and you advertise on many furniture-related keywords. One of those keywords is the word ‘sofa’. What ad do you think a user is more likely to click on when he’s doing a search for sofas? This one:

High Quality Furniture
Many Different Styles, Very Affordable

Or this one:

High Quality Sofas
Sofas from $99, Many Different Styles

The second one is a more relevant, appealing ad and will attract more attention and generate more clicks. So divide your keywords into small sets (Google Adwords calls them ad groups) and write ads for each ad group that contain the actual keyword itself. Sometimes you’ll find yourself writing ads for one single keyword – this is not a bad thing. In fact, especially for high profile keywords that get a lot of traffic, it’s a very good thing!

Write Compelling Ads
Using the exact keyword in your ad doesn’t just make your ad more relevant, you can also be much more specific in what you offer. That’s  the second aspect of writing good ads: make it compelling.

In your ad you have limited space to make an impact on a search engine user, so you need to draw them in with a compelling offer or call to action. If your business is cost-competitive, try to include a low price in your ad. This will serve two purposes: it will filter out users who aren’t even willing to pay the low price, and it will compel users who are willing to pay that amount to click on your ad and look at what exactly you’re offering. This means the traffic you generate through this ad is more likely to yield actual customers.

Another way to compel users to click on your ad is to include a call to action. Urge users to “learn more”, “act now”, “free download”, or make use of your “limited one-time offer”. These are all classic marketing phrases that work well in search engine ads. Don’t be afraid to use them, as long as you keep one thing in mind: never deceive. Always deliver what you promise.

Proper Use of Language and Punctuation
Few things can lower a user’s opinion of a company more quickly than errors in spelling and grammar. Always make sure your ads are properly written, both in spelling and grammar, and don’t contain any errors. This shows a basic level of professionalism you need to project in order to win the confidence of your prospective customers.

Sometimes you may be tempted to use bad grammar or punctuation to make your ads stand out more. You may want to ad exclamation marks or special symbols to emphasize your text. Don’t. Ads that contain these tricks come across as amateurish, and many search engines like Google maintain strict editorial policies that forbids these practices. Your ad will get deleted and after repeat offenses you may even suffer penalties on your account.

One exception: capitalization of words. Even though technically it may be incorrect, it’s still a good idea to Capitalize Every First Letter in your ad. This makes your text stand out more and helps boost the success of your ads. Only capitalize the focus words, the smaller words like “the”, “and”, “in”, “up” and so on shouldn’t be capitalized.

Test, Test, Test
Once you’ve written a good ad, write another one for the same keyword. And another one. Vary your ads with different headlines, different offers, and different calls to action. The best way of doing this is to duplicate an ad and change only one aspect of it.

Then keep a sharp eye on how these ads perform. After you’ve gotten several hundred clicks on your ads you can see which ad performed the best. Take this ad and use it as the basis for a new set of variations. Take the best ad from this new set and use that for new versions. Once in a while throw in an entirely new ad with an entirely different setup and see how its performance compares.

Never stop testing. Always seek to squeeze that extra bit of performance out of an ad. Sometimes a small change, one different word in the headline or a minor variation in your call to action, can have a huge impact on the success of your ad. Test methodically and consistently and soon you will know exactly which ingredients work and which don’t.

In the next part of this guide we’ll go into creating effective landing pages for your search engine advertising campaign.

Search Engine Advertising: a Step By Step Guide – Part 2 is a post from: The Great Websites Blog

Many small business owners that have a poor website don’t realize they have a poor website. This is often the case when:

A) they’ve put a lot of time and effort into building their website themselves, or…
B) a friend or family member claiming to be a web expert has built the site for them, or…
C) they spent a lot of money on a ‘professional’ web developer.

Due to the investment of time and money and emotional attachment they’re unable to look objectively at their website and see its flaws. When asked about the success of their website they usually answer that they’re quite pleased with it.

Sometimes I get the uncomfortable task of explaining to one of them that no, really, your site could do with some improvement. I usually try to drill down to the core of the issue by asking them what the purpose of their website is. What is the goal? What is your website supposed to be doing for you?

Many business owners haven’t set any goals for their website, they’re just happy to be online. Very few look at their web statistics regularly. Even fewer act upon the information.

A typical conversation on this topic goes something like this:

“So, what is the goal of your website? What do you want to accomplish with it?”
“Well, I want my information to be out there, to show my products online.”
“Okay, so why do you want people to look at your products?”
“To make them aware of what I can do for them.”
“I see. So when they see your products on your website, what do you want them to do with that information?”
“Well, I’d like them to pick up the phone or send me an email or whatever. Get in touch.”
“So your website is meant to generate leads, is it?”
“Yeah, basically, that’s it.”
“And how many leads are you getting from your website every week?”
“… I don’t know. One or two I think, I’m not sure.”
“Okay, let’s assume it’s two leads a week. How many people visit your website every week?”
“Well, eh, I’d have to look that up.”
“I see here on your web statistics package that you get about six hundred visitors a week.”
“Oh, well, that’s good. That sounds like a lot.”
“Only two of them are getting in touch with you. Two out of six hundred, that’s not a very high percentage, is it?”
“… Eh, I suppose not, no.”

That’s the beginning of a slow, painful path from ignorance to denial, anger, frustration, and awareness. Ideally this ends in acceptance of the inconvenient truth that a good website requires constant attention. If you want to make the most of your online presence, you need to commit a certain amount of time and money to it.

The good news is that it doesn’t require countless hours and infinitely deep pockets to maintain a solid website. A lot of things can be done easily and cheaply and can yield tremendous results.

So ask yourself, are you happy with your website? Should you be?

Are You Happy With Your Website? is a post from: The Great Websites Blog

Welcome to my latest blog project, the Great Websites blog. Here I hope to help you make more of your website by providing tips, insights, resources and advice. I will discuss everything: basic web strategy, layout and design, search engine optimization, search marketing, conversion optimization, and analytics.

If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment or use the contact form. If you want to know more about me, read the About page.

Welcome to the Great Websites blog! is a post from: The Great Websites Blog