siimple.com
Good work.
Just Salesmanship. Every time I think too much about a website, copy, the use of graphics, I forget that marketing is just salesmanship. Hopkins says:
The only purpose of advertising is to make sales. It is profitable or unprofitable according to its actual sales.
Advertising is multiplied salesmanship.
A mediocre salesman may affect a small part of your trade. Mediocre advertising affects all of your trade.
One must be able to express himself briefly, clearly and convincingly, just as a salesman must.
Many of the ablest men in advertising are graduate salesmen.
The only readers we get are people whom our subject interests. No one reads ads for amusements, long or short. Consider them as prospects standing before you, seeking for information. Give them enough to get action.
When you plan or prepare an advertisement, keep before you a typical buyer. Your subject, your headline has gained his or her attention. Then in everything be guided by what you would do if you met the buyer face-to-face.
The advertising man studies the consumer. He tries to place himself in the position of the buyer. His success largely depends on doing that to the exclusion of everything else.
This book will contain no more important chapter than this one on salesmanship. The reason for most of the non-successes in advertising is trying to sell people what they do not want. But next to that comes lack of true salesmanship.
I have read this book three times now and this chapter continues to have the most impact on my thinking. This chapter informs everything else to come.
Over the years I have been compiling a list of headlines that I found compelling. I thought I would share them with you so you can keep this list close by when you are coming up with headlines for your blog posts.
Found this well put together review of several class A examples of calls to action. Well explained, to the point. Its brief, clear and compelling, and we like that.
http://boagworld.com/design/10-techniques-for-an-effective-call-to-action
The time has come when advertising has in some hands reached the status of a science. It is based on fixed principles and is reasonably exact. The causes and effects have been analyzed until they are well understood.
Having been working for myself and my clients as an online marketer for about a year now, I feel as though I am moving in the right direction. Claude Hopkins, Scientific Advertising is changing my perspective as well as affirming my work up till now.
I am generally inclined to write and design messaging that is simple and clear. I have often told my clients that if a viewer is unable to discern within a few seconds what services are being offered, then the viewer is likely to leave without taking the desired action. In addition, because my design skills are limited to say the least, I make websites that are simple. I use other peoples work as much as possible and I limit myself to making design tweaks that will have the largest impact. All this is to say that I have much to learn, and that my initial inclinations, while good, need filling out. And this is where Claude Hopkins is making inroads into my thinking.
First, approach marketing with the intention of demonstrating and proving successful methods. Such methods are tested and tested and tested. Successful marketing is informed by methodical process and tracking. Method and tracking are the two most important ingredients. Having a clearly defined process that is able to flex to the results witnessed and a simple method to interpret those results are critical. I know this from my limited experience, and Hopkins makes the case for this quite convincingly. Key points to remember:
Articles :: Advanced Link Building Strategies
Link building requires dedication and consistent effort. It is the most difficult, time-consuming and important task an SEO performs to get a website ranked well. Certain strategies are well known to SEOs, while others are in the realm of the experts or forward-thinkers who puzzle them out. I have attempted to list here many of the link building tactics used by the SEO community.
- Directories
Although it may seem an obvious and tired way to build links, directory use is still valuable and valid. I have compiled an exhaustive list of directories including PR, pages that have been spidered, and submission requirements for directories – see List of SEO Directories. When submitting to directories, make sure to vary anchor text and try to use your keywords in the description and title fields as naturally as possible. A good SEO should be able to obtain between 75-150 unique backlinks just from directories.
- Top Competition
This tactic can help you generate the most visitors to your site. Search Yahoo, Google, MSN and the other search engines for each of your important keyword phrases and make a point of attempting to get a link from each page. Oftentimes a direct phone call to site owners or a very tactful email can go a long way. I’ve even used handwritten letters to attempt to cajole site owners into giving me a link. Use whatever resources you have help persuade – links from other sites you own, money (if you have it), free SEO services, contributions of articles or content, etc.
When I use this technique, I’ll typically make a spreadsheet listing all of the sites I have a shot at getting a link from (i.e. excluding direct, obvious competitors). I then get as much contact information as I can about each one and run down the list. This can be very time-consuming, but also exceptionally worthwhile. Even if your site doesn’t get ranked much higher, each link from a site that ranks in the top 20 will bring direct, targeted traffic.
- Link Searches
This old technique has been honed to a science by many SEOs, but there is always room to improve. The goal is to use Google/Yahoo to search for pages that let you add a link (reciprocal, paid, etc.) that already have your keyword or some closely related content on them. Often these searches turn up smalltime site operators with reciprocal link directories managed by 3rd party software. Don’t overlook these, and make sure you submit. But the real prize is pages that give free links or offer paid links to sites they feel are important – many of the highest PR links can be obtained through this method, especially if you conduct the search at SEOChat’s PR Search Tool.
The following searches are worthy of being tried, but feel free to experiment:
- intitle:add+url “keyword phrase”
- intitle:submit+site “keyword phrase”
- intitle:submit+url “keyword phrase”
- intitle:add+site “keyword phrase”
- intitle:add+your+site “keyword phrase”
- intitle:directory “keyword phrase”
- intitle:list “keyword phrase”
- intitle:sites “keyword phrase”
All of the above searches can be used without the intitle to give even more results. As with other link building processes, these are tedious and time-consuming, but it is critical to stay focused on finding quality, relevant links. When using this method, make sure you note to which other sites the page is linking and what text content is listed. If it fits well with your content, don’t worry if the page is PR0.
- Usurping Competitors’ Links
Although this may sound unseemly, it is one of the most effective ways to build links, and is commonly practiced. The goal is to find as many domains and pages as possible that link to your competitors’ sites and get those sites to link to you as well. This is often easier than it sounds, because the site is already linking out to people in your industry. Money, services, links or simple requests are all used to get the job done.
The most effective ways to find your competitors’ links are listed below:
- At Yahoo! type linkdomain:url.com -site:url.com
- At MSN’s techpreview type link:url.com -site:url.com
- At Yahoo! type link:http://www.url.com
- At Google type “url.com” -site:url.com
These are typically the most reliable way to find the sites and pages that link to your competitors and, incidentally, those sites which link to you. Remember to be as courteous, direct and friendly as possible. Don’t forget how effective non-electronic methods of communication can be – phone, letters, etc.
- Article Writing & Submission
Writing unique, valuable content about your subject matter for your own site is the most critical piece of on-site SEO. But it can also be a fantastic way to generate quality links from other sites. Many existing websites are designed around hosting the content of others and providing links back to them. I have listed some of the biggest 3rd-party article hosting sites below.
General Articles – These cover a wide range of subjects and will accept submission on many topics:
- Idea Marketers – http://www.ideamarketers.com/writers.cfm
- Buzzle.com – http://www.buzzle.com/secure/become-editor.asp
- EBooksnBytes – http://www.ebooksnbytes.com/articles/submit.shtml
- Article Central – http://thewhir.com/find/articlecentral/suggest.asp
- Go Articles – http://www.goarticles.com/ulogin.html
- EzineArticles – http://ezinearticles.com/submit/
- AMAzines – http://amazines.com/
- Article City – http://www.articlecity.com/article_submission.shtml
- BPubs.com – http://www.bpubs.com/cgi/add.cgi
- Business Know-How – businessknowhow.com/newsletter/articleguidelines.htm
- WWIO – http://www.certificate.net/wwio/ideas.shtml
- About.com – http://sbinformation.about.com/library/blsubmission.htm (note, this is just of many places on the site where you can submit articles – choose the subject that best matches your site)
- NetterWeb.com – http://www.netterweb.com/articles/
- Simply Search 4it – http://www.simplysearch4it.com/article/addart.php
- Vector Central Marketing – http://www.vectorcentral.com/articles-form.html
- Learning Folder – http://www.learningfolder.com/SubmitArticle.aspx
- Knowledge Bed – http://www.knowledgebed.com/submission.html
- Article Insider – http://www.articleinsider.com/start.php
- Articles that Sell – http://www.articlesthatsell.com/submityourarticle.htm
- Smart Ads – http://www.smartads.info/articles/
- Writing Career – http://www.writingcareer.com/freearticles-submit.html
These are just some of the thousands of sites that offer the ability to spread your content around the web. Additional sites on your specific topics can be found using the search engines. Especially prevalent are sites offering content in website marketing & technology – there are hundreds of sites that deal in content on these issues.
- Forums & Online Communities Generating links through forums is often considered spam, but forums are valuable tools for link builders as long as the proper methods are employed. The forum signature of a member is certainly a fair place to promote your site, and while doing so may not provide a worthy backlink in the search engines’ eyes, it does offer visitors on the forum a chance to see your site.
The primary goal of joining a forum should be to contribute and learn from the community, but promotion certainly isn’t out of place, as long as it remains on-topic. In SEO forums, people constantly plug their new directories, tools, articles, etc. These are all appropriate as long as they are subtle, relevant and not overdone.
When a specific page, tool or link would provide a great resource or answer to a question in a community, don’t hesitate to provide it. Much of the information used to write this article and the SEO Survey tool was provided in forums through links. Just remember to carefully read the terms of use for the forums you post in – many are harsh if they feel someone is there to spam or advertise.
- Blogging & Comments
Blogging is a very effective way to get natural inbound links, and by having a personal blog at your site, you can more easily make commentary at other sites that link back to you. DO NOT spam blog comments with advertisements; your goal is to create an online reputation you can be proud of. Blog owners and visitors will not take kindly to blog spam. The key to effective blogging for links is to make sure you comment relevantly & intelligently about the specific subject in the blog. A well thought-out response to a relevant blog or article can bring not only search engines, but more importantly other readers of the blog to your site through the link. If your content proves interesting, you could build much more than just a single link through your comments.
Another important thing to remember is that your link in blog comments may not count at all in the search engines. Many blogs prevent access to these comments or don’t provide direct, spiderable links for blog visitors. This, combined with the fact that these comments are buried at least 2-3 links deep from the main page means that you should keep your focus on the visitors you might generate, rather than the search engine optimization you might get.
However, you should still be as SE friendly as possible. If the subject matter deals directly with your keyword phrases, you’re in fine shape, but if they are on related subjects, it can’t hurt to use your keyword phrase(s) once or twice in a longer comment/entry. You should also try to make your ‘name’ – which is typically the anchor text for your link contain at least one of your kw phrases, but remember to keep it varied and never let it overtake the importance of getting visitors, i.e. if your site is about Orange County T-Shirts, having a ‘name’ of OC-Tshirt-Man can’t hurt you, but Orange-County-T-Shirts is probably not as wise.
- Renting Pages from Authority Sites
This tactic is not often mentioned, but can be extremely valuable. The premise is to rent, for a monthly fee, a page hosted on a larger or more authoritative site in your industry. You then add content & links on the page to your own site(s) with the anchor text you choose and in the format you select. These are almost like ‘advertorials’ in magazines, where you provide content that the site links to (hopefully not more than 2 links from the homepage) and then link back to your own site.
The fundamental difference between this tactic and simple article hosting is that you approach a site or company that doesn’t normally host other people’s content about having your information. Although rejection is often likely, the benefits can be phenomenal, as the page itself may rank well for your search terms very quickly.
- Purchasing Online Advertising
Link building through advertising is exceptionally expensive, but it can bring in good returns if properly managed. Make sure as you buy links that you get the click-through rate from the seller for the past 6 months. You should get a lot of other statistics to review as well – make sure to avoid advertising in places where the seller doesn’t have good information on click-through rates, visitors, etc. You’ll also have to work around re-direct scripts, links sent through ad networks (like DoubleClick), etc. As long as you are up front and friendly, you’ll be able to have some success in this arena as long as you have the funding.
- Text Link Brokers
Although initial thoughts about link brokers can give a bad impression, this new industry can actually have a positive value on your link building efforts. I recommend against purchasing sitewide links unless your only goal is to build PR (i.e. directories or SEO related sites, etc.). Sitewide links have come to be associated with “manipulation” of the SERPs by search engines and should be largely avoided. However, purchasing text links on specific, related sites surrounded by the content of your choice can be beneficial, if difficult to find.
The key to a successful text link is that all the components of natural SEO are there:
- Is the page closely related to your site’s topic?
- Is the link placed in a strategic position – i.e. not in an obvious advertising space or footer?
- Is the site related to the topic of your site and the topic of the page?
- Is the site spidered frequently by the search engines and do the pages have visible PR?
If the link meets these criteria, it could be very worthwhile. However, be careful to avoid paying high prices for a particular page or site, simply because of its PR. It is more likely that multiple low PR (3,4 & 5) pages are worth more to you than a single PR7 or 8.
Several lists of text links sellers are available online:
- Link Sellers – List of Text Link Ad Sellers
- Text Link Brokers – Discussion and some links at SearchEngineWatch Forums
Be wary and always do some search research and asking at the major SEO forums prior to buying from text link brokers. The industry is, sadly, rife with scammers & companies that don’t deliver as promised.
- Unique Tools & Services
By offering specific, relevant free Internet tools/services at your site, you can generate naturally built links. My recommendation is to find a tool or service that isn’t currently offered or that you believe you can improve upon. For some industries, this will be much harder than others, but creativity is your best tool. Imagine what automated web service, list of resources or submission-type tool would best benefit you and then build it and offer it on your site.
Some excellent examples are listed below (these come straight from my imagination):
- For a site about animals, a tool that visually diagrams the phylum/genus/species relationships
- For a site about travel, a tool that creates a pre-planned itinerary based on a selection of interests
- For a site about real estate, a tool that estimates property value or gives a % chance of selling for a based on time, region & price.
The possibilities are endless, and there is little doubt that the web can automate and make easier hundreds of tasks in any industry. The key, after you have built your tool, is to promote it with industry leaders – send it to bloggers who discuss your subject matter, ask people to use and evaluate it on forums, etc. You can even try to promote it by writing an article about your findings, development or the simple existence of the tool and submitting it across the newswires.
- Automated Link Building Programs Many SEOs feel that automated link building is a surefire way to get banned/penalized by the search engines. If you are caught practicing this tactic, I would certainly agree. However, for those willing to take risks, the rewards can be substantial. Well-built and well hidden link networks often bring higher rankings in a short amount of time. The key is to select a provider who will offer the following:
- A vastly distributed network that is not interlinked and doesn’t share any C-Block IP addresses
- Linking pages that contain some relevant content that has been well-linked through a sitemap system
- Pages that are as close to naturally-designed and built as possible
- A company that can speak at an expert level about SEO and the tactics they use to avoid detection – call them and talk to them first; their knowledge and competence should be instantly apparent.
- Someone you trust and have researched thoroughly – I DO NOT recommend posting on forums about these companies, as you could damage your chances for success. Just ask for recommendations from trusted members of the SEO community.
- Pages that link not only to your site(s) but to other relevant, related sites as well – even if they are your composition. That way, if you get penalized, at least your competition is suffering as well.
This is one of the riskiest strategies that can be pursued in link building and I recommend it only with extreme caution. You are breaking the search engine’s printed rules by “intentionally manipulating the search results” and you should have a contingency plan in the event of disaster.
- Donations & Charity
Many high PR websites are run by charity organizations, open-source technology groups & the like. Contributions of time, money or resources in exchange for links are commonplace and very worthwhile. For this type of link building, relevancy is still important, but you may not be able to find any link partners in this segment if you focus solely on topic-sensitive sites & pages. It may be very worthwhile to donate regardless and see if the links from PR7 & 8 pages can help to boost your importance.
In order to find sites like these, I use the PR Search tool at SEOChat to search for terms/phrases like donate, contribute, give, etc. Appending your broadest search terms to these types of words can help you find the sites most likely to pass you a good link. Remember that even if non-profits, charities, etc. don’t have a link program in place, they may be more than happy to provide a special link for you if you request it when contributing. If nothing else, these links and the time/money you spend getting them are a great way to sleep better at night.
- Press Releases
Press releases written by an SEO firm can contain a carefully worded title, well placed keywords and a link to the site that is the subject of the article. SEOs have been using press release services for some time, and as with many other things, the more you spend, the better distribution is. Press releases can also rank well on their own, particularly in the first few days/weeks of release as they receive the ‘fresh content’ boost in the SERPs. A particularly interesting or well-written press release may even garner the attention of some larger players in the new market, and if your article is picked up by one or several good sources, it can serve as a great boon to traffic and exposure.
Success relies on the careful crafting of the article itself – providing excellent, factual information in a way that is interesting to read and relevant to the industry. Hiring a journalism student for $100-$200 an article or a more experienced professional for more may well be worth the money. In any case, the press release needs to be sent through a distribution site. The following are popular in the SEO industry because they offer links, serve to a large variety of sites and provide enough flexibility to let an SEO perform well.
- www.prleap.com
- www.prweb.com
- www.free-press-release.com
- www.press-world.com/add
- www.pressbox.co.uk
- www.inthepress.ru
- www.e-xl.com
The top two sites listed are the largest, with the greatest distribution networks, but each site offers its own unique benefits and some are less expensive than others. It is worthwhile, especially if you have the money and are in a competitive arena, to opt for the maximum spend at PRWeb – somewhere around $250 per article. The distribution that is achieved will determine the value of the links and the article. It’s also important to keep in mind that duplicate content penalties may hurt you – DO NOT re-publish the press release on your own site.
- Natural Link Building
Although undoubtedly a difficult and time consuming method, as well as one of the more unreliable ones, natural link building is what powers most of the top sites on the Internet. This method involves developing the most useful, relevant content that provides the best resources, tools, services, prices, etc. in the industry. By offering the web community the best possible site, you can gain natural links through the power of having others on the web link to you.
Sadly, this tactic is somewhat usurped by the search engines, as newer sites often fair exceptionally poorly in the search results, especially for popular terms. In order to build natural links, people must be exposed to your site. At one time natural link building was the very best method to get traffic and links, but in the current state of search and traffic, it is more of a boost that you use to help convert some of the webmasters & bloggers who might visit your site into link builders.
Building valuable content is no easy task, and building an industry-leading resource is even more challenging. However, the long-term benefits can be spectacular, assuming you have the money and time to maintain your resource without proportional income. Remember to ask yourself what someone who comes to your site might want and try to provide the absolute best service/information in your industry in the cleanest, most usable site possible
This WordPress optimization guide is a collection of useful tips and tutorials on how to speed up your WordPress site.
If you ever experienced slow WordPress admin panel, “MySQL server has gone away” message, pages taking forever to load or you want to prepare your site for a major increase in traffic (for example Digg front page) this is the guide for you.
1. Check the Site stats
Most commonly the problem with slow loading sites is just the sheer size of the page. A typical webpage today will be loaded with images, flash, videos and javascripts all which take a significant portion of bandwidth.
If you want to start dealing with this issue seriously you need to get Firefox browser, Firebug extension and Yslow plugin.
Yslow module will allow you to get a performance score from 0-100. Getting your site to 80+ score should be your aim.
Try to keep your page size under 100KB. Try to keep it under 50kb if possible. If you have a lot of multimedia content then by all means learn to use YSlow.
Learn about ways to improve the page loading speed.
2. Check your (Vista) System
In rare occasions when you are loading your and other sites slowly, it can be your Vista system that is causing the slowdown.
If you are running Vista check this article for a diagnosis and a possible solution.
3. Check the Plugins
Plugins are usually the prime suspect for slowdowns. With so many WordPress plugins around, chance is you might have installed a plugin which does not use the resources in an optimum way.
For example such plugins that caused slowdowns in the past have been Popularity contest, aLinks or @Feed.
To check plugins, deactivate all of them and check the critical areas of the site again. If everything runs OK, re-enable the plugins one by one until you find the problematic plugin.
After finding the cause you can either write a message to the plugin author and hope they fix it or search for an alternative.
4. Check your Theme
If it’s not the plugins, and you are troubleshooting slowdown of the site, you should check it with a different theme.
Themes can include code with plugin capabilities inside the theme’s function.php file so everything what applies to plugins can apply to the theme.
Also, themes may use excessive JavaScript or image files, causing slow loading of the page because of huge amount of data to transfer and/or number of http requests used.
WordPress comes installed with a default theme and it’s best used to test the site if your theme is the suspect for poor performance.
If you discover your theme is causing the slowdowns, you can use the excellent Firebug tool for Firefox browser to debug the problem. Learn more about Firebug, your new best friend.
You can also use this site get general information about the site very fast.
5. Optimize Database Tables
Database tables should be periodically optimized (and repaired if necessary) for optimum performance.
I recommend using WP-DBManager plugin which provides this functionality as well as database backup, all crucial for any blog installation.
WP-DBManager allows you to schedule and forget, and it will take care of all the work automatically.
Other alternative is manually optimizing and repairing your table through a tool like phpmyadmin.
6. Turn off Post Revisions
With WordPress 2.6, post version tracking mechanism was introduced. For example, every time you “Save” a post, a revision is written to the database. If you do not need this feature you can easily turn it off by adding one line to your wp-config.php file, found in the installation directory of your WordPress site:
define(‘WP_POST_REVISIONS’, false);
If you have run a blog with revisions turned on for a while, chance is you will have a lot of revision posts in your database. if you wish to remove them for good, simply run this query (for example using the mentioned WP-DBManager) plugin.
DELETE FROM wp_posts WHERE post_type = “revision”;
This will remove all “revision” posts from your database, making it smaller in the process.
NOTE: Do this with care. If you are not sure what you are doing, make sure to at least create a backup of the database first or even better, ask a professional to help you.
7. Implement Caching
Caching is a method of retrieving data from a ready storage (cache) instead of using resources to generate it every time the same information is needed. Using cache is much faster way to retrieve information and is generally recommended practice for most modern applications.
7.1 WordPress Cache
The easiest way to implement caching (and usually the only way if your blog is on shared hosting) is to use a caching plugin.
The most commonly used is WP Super Cache which is easy to install and setup.
If you run our own server you have several more options.
7.2 MySQL Optimization
MySQL can save the results of a query in it’s own cache. To enable it edit the MySQL configuration file (usually /etc/my.cnf) and add these lines:
query_cache_type = 1
query_cache_limit = 1M
query_cache_size = 16MThis will create a 16 MB query cache after you restart the MySQL server.
To check if it is properly running, run this query:
SHOW STATUS LIKE ‘Qcache%’;
Example result:
Qcache_free_blocks 718 Qcache_free_memory 13004008 Qcache_hits 780759 Qcache_inserts 56292 Qcache_lowmem_prunes 0 Qcache_not_cached 3711 Qcache_queries_in_cache 1715 Qcache_total_blocks 4344 Tip #1: If you are expecting a Digg Front Page you are likely to exceed your current limit of maximum concurrent MySQL connections which is among the prime reasons a site failing a Digg traffic spike.
You can prepare by increasing this number to about 200 using this line in the config file.
max_connections = 200
Here is a further read regarding MySQL optimization and another one here. You can also install mytop, a ‘top’ command clone that works with MySQL. Extremely useful mysqlrepot tool will help you tweak that mysql like nothing.
7.3 PHP Opcode Cache
PHP is interpreted language, meaning that every time PHP code is started, it is compiled into the so called op-codes, which are then run by the system. This compilation process can be cached by installing an opcode cache such as eAccelerator. There are other caching solutions out there as well.
To install eAccelerator, unpack the archive and go to the eAccelerator folder. Then type:
phpize
./configure
make
make installThis will install eAccelerrator.
Next create temp folder for storage:
mkdir /var/cache/eaccelerator
chmod 0777 /var/cache/eaccelerator
Finally to enable it, add these lines to the end of your php.ini file (usually /etc/php.ini or /usr/lib/php.ini):
extension=”eaccelerator.so”
eaccelerator.shm_size=”16″
eaccelerator.cache_dir=”/var/cache/eaccelerator”
eaccelerator.enable=”1″
eaccelerator.optimizer=”1″
eaccelerator.check_mtime=”1″
eaccelerator.debug=”0″
eaccelerator.filter=”"
eaccelerator.shm_max=”0″
eaccelerator.shm_ttl=”0″
eaccelerator.shm_prune_period=”0″
eaccelerator.shm_only=”0″
eaccelerator.compress=”1″
eaccelerator.compress_level=”9″The changes will be noticeable at once, as PHP does not need to be ‘restarted’.
Note #1: WP Super Cache and eAccelerator work just fine together showing further increase in performance.
Note #2: If you like cutting edge and even more possibility for performance, check the ultra cool WP Super Cache and eAccelerator plugin.
Note #3: You can easily test changes in your configuration by running a test from your command prompt
ab -t30 -c5 http://www.mysite.com/
and comparing results. I get around 200 req/s on VPS server.
Note #4: Apache optimization is out of scope of this article but you can find extensive information here. Indepth apache compilation tips here, also vps tips here and keep alive tips here.
Note #5: You can find even more tips&tricks on Elliot Back’s site (and he plays DOTA too, how cool is that).
Note #6: Unfortunately eAccelerator won’t work if PHP is run as CGI. You can try using fastcgi which will work with suExec and eAccelerator.
Note #7: More cool resources. Optimizing Page load time and a great series on website performance.
8. “MySQL server has gone away” workaround
This WordPress database error appears on certain configurations and it manifests in very slow and no response, usually on your admin pages.
Workaround for this MySQL problem has been best addressed in this article.
This problem evidently exists, but the suggested fix is valid only until you upgrade your WordPress. Hopefully it will be further researched and added into the WordPress core in the future.
9. Fixing posting not possible problem
If you experience WordPress admin panel crawling to a halt, with inability to post or update certain posts, you are probably hitting the mod_security wall.
ModSecurity is Apache module for increasing web site security by preventing system intrusions. However, sometimes it may decide that your perfectly normal WordPress MySQL query is trying to do something suspicious and black list it, which manifests in very slow or no response of the site.
To test if this is the case, check your Apache error log, for example:
tail -f /usr/local/apache/logs/error_log
and look for something like this:
ModSecurity: Access denied with code 500 (phase 2) … [id "300013"] [rev "1"] [msg "Generic SQL injection protection"] [severity "CRITICAL"] [hostname www.prelovac.com"] [uri “/vladimir/wp-admin/page.php”
It tells you the access for this page was denied because of a security rule with id 300013. Fixing this includes white-listing this rule for the page in question.
To do that, edit apache config file (for example /usr/local/apache/conf/modsec2/exclude.conf) and add these lines:
<LocationMatch “/vladimir/wp-admin/page.php”>
SecRuleRemoveById 300013
</LocationMatch>This will white list the page for the given security rule and your site will continue to work normally.
10. RSS Pings and Pingbacks
Reasons for slow WordPress posting may include rss ping and pingback timeouts.
By default WordPress will try to ping servers listed in your ping list (found in Settings->Writing panel) and one of them may timeout slowing the entire process.
Second reason are post pingbacks, mechanism in which WordPress notifies the sites you linked to in your article. You can disable pingbacks in Settings->Discussion by un-checking option “Attempt to notify any blogs linked to from the article (slows down posting)“.
Try clearing ping list and disabling pingbacks to see if that helps speed up your posting time.
Following are the general Rules for optimizing page loading time
11. Use subdomains to share the load
Most browsers are set to load 2-4 files from a domain in parallel. If you move some files to a different domain (subdomain will work) the browser will start downloading 2-4 more files in parallel.
It is good idea to move your theme image files to a subdomain you create. I have created demo.prelovac.com/images and moved my theme images there. I have then changed the theme style.css to reflect the full url to the new image files. Job done!
12. Minimize the number of HTTP requests
You can lower the number of HTTP requests by using fewer images (or placing all images in one large image and position them with CSS), fewer javascripts, fewer css files (usually meaning fewer plugins).
Good effort has been made by PHP speedy plugin which will merge all your JavaScript and all CSS files in one big file which really helps in lowering the HTTP request numbers. The biggest drawback of PHP Speedy is that it’s not 100% compatible with all plugins.
Also use the CSS Sprite generator to move all your images into one image and then use CSS background-position to display them. This will cut your number of HTTP requests significantly.
13. Compress the content using apache .htaccess
If you have our own server you can chose to gzip all content sent to browsers. This will lower the loading time significantly as most html pages compress very well.
Add this code to your .htaccess
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/html text/plain text/xml text/css application/javascript application/x-javascript application/x-httpd-php application/rss+xml application/atom_xml text/javascrip14. Create expires headers
Expire headers tell the browser how long it should keep the content in cache. Most of the images on your site never change and it is good idea to keep them cached locally.
Here is a recommended setting:
Header unset Pragma FileETag None Header unset ETag # 1 YEAR Header set Cache-Control "public" Header set Expires "Thu, 15 Apr 2010 20:00:00 GMT" Header unset Last-Modified # 2 HOURS Header set Cache-Control "max-age=7200, must-revalidate" # CACHED FOREVER # MOD_REWRITE TO RENAME EVERY CHANGE Header set Cache-Control "public" Header set Expires "Thu, 15 Apr 2010 20:00:00 GMT" Header unset Last-ModifiedUse cacheability engine to check your cache configuration.
15. Cache Gravatars
Many blogs use Gravatars, the little images next to your comments. However gravatars have two big flaws in regards to site optimization:
- Every gravatar image is a new HTTP requests even if same image is loaded (page with 100 comments would have 100 additional HTTP requests)
- Gravatar images do not contain expire headers
What we can do is create a local gravatar cache, where images would be cached and served from our site. Ideally you would place the gravatar cache on a separate subdomain (see first heading).
I use a plugin from Zenpax.com which allows all gravatars to be cached locally.
16. Optimize the images with smush.it
It is often overlooked that your images can be optimized (made smaller) which can significantly reduce loading times.
Wouldn’t it be perfect if you could open a site, press a button in your browser and get all images on the site optimized and made available in a single zip file. That is possible thanks to smush.it and their Firefox plugin. It is amazing how effective this is!
17. CSS on top, JavaScript on bottom
It is golden practice to put CSS files on top of the page so they are loaded first. JavaScript files should be placed on the bottom of the page (when possible). I have created a simple plugin which will move the properly registered JavaScript files to the bottom of your pages. The plugin is called Footer javaScript.
Conclusion
Modern webservers and websites have grown to depend on many different factors.
This article covered various approaches to optimization from system level apache, PHP and MySQL changes to settings within your WordPress.
I hope following this guide will help you create a fast and responsive WordPress based site.
I’m currently working on re-authoring and re-building the Beginner’s Guide to Search Engine Optimization, section by section. You can read more about this project here.
Common Myths & Misconceptions About Search Engines
——————–Unfortunately, over the past 12 years, a great number of misconceptions have emerged about how the search engines operate and what’s required to perform effectively. In this section, we’ll cover the most common of these, and explain the “real story” behind the myth.Search Engine Submission
In classical SEO times (the late 1990′s), search engines had “submission” forms that were part of the optimization process. Webmasters & site owners would tag their sites & pages with information (this would sometimes even include the keywords they wanted to rank for), and “submit” them to the engines, after which a bot would crawl and include those resources in their index. For obvious reasons (manipulation, reliance on submitters, etc.), this practice was unscalable and eventually gave way to purely crawl-based engines. Since 2001-2, search engine submission has not only not been required, but is actually virtually useless. The engines have all publicly noted that they rarely use the “submission” URL lists, and that the best practice is to earn links from other sites, as this will expose the engines to your content naturally.You can still see submission pages (for Yahoo!, Google, MSN/Live), but these are remnants of time long past, and are essentially useless to the practice of modern SEO. If you hear a pitch from an SEO offering “search engine submission” services, run, don’t walk. Even if the engines did use the submission service to crawl your site, you’d be very unlikely to earn enough “link juice” to be included in their indices or rank competitively for search queries.
Meta Tags
Once upon a time, much like search engine submission, meta tags, in particular, the meta keywords tag, was an important part of the SEO process. You would include the keywords you wanted your site to rank for and when users typed in those terms, your page could come up in a query. This process was quickly spammed to death, and today, only Yahoo! among the major engines will even index content from the meta keywords tag, and even they claim not to use those terms for ranking, but merely content discovery. This subject has been covered in great detail by Danny Sullivan of Search Engine Land.It is true that other meta tags, namely the title tag and meta description tag (which we’ve covered previously in this guide) are of critical importance to SEO best practices. And, certainly, the meta robots tag too, is an important tool for controlling spider access. However, SEO is not “all about meta tags;” at least, not anymore.
Keyword Stuffing & Keyword Density
Not surprisingly, a persistent myth in SEO revolves around the concept that keyword density – a mathematical formula that divides the number of words on a page by the number of instances of a given keyword – is used by the search engines for relevancy & ranking calculations and should therefore be a focus of SEO efforts. Despite being proven untrue time and again, this farce has legs, and indeed, many SEO tools feed on the concept that keyword density is an important metric. It’s not. Ignore it and use keywords intelligently and with usability in mind. The value from an extra 10 instances of your keyword on the page is far less than earning one good editorial link from a source that doesn’t think you’re a search spammer.Paid Search Helps Bolster Organic Results
Put on your tin foil hats; it’s time for the most common SEO conspiracy theory – that upping your PPC spend will improve your organic SEO rankings (or, likewise, that lowering that spend can cause ranking drops). In all of the experiences I’ve ever witnessed or heard about, this has never been proven nor has it ever been a probable explanation for effects in the organic results. Google, Yahoo! & MSN/Live all have very effective Chinese Walls in their organizations to prevent precisely this type of crossover. At Google in particular, advertisers spending tens of millions of dollars each month have noted that even they cannot get special access of consideration from the search quality or web spam teams. So long as the existing barriers are in place, and the search engines cultures maintain their separation, I believe that this will remain a myth.Search Engine Spam
——————–The practice of spamming the search engines – creating pages and schemes designed to artificially inflate rankings or abuse the ranking algorithms employed to sort content – has been rising since the mid-1990′s. With payouts so high (at one point, a fellow SEO noted to me that a single day ranking atop Google’s search results for the query “buy viagra” could bring upwards of $20,000 in affiliate revenue), it’s little wonder that manipulating the engines is such a popular activity on the web. However, it’s become increasingly difficult and, in my opinion, less and less worthwhile for two reasons.
First, search engines have learned that users hate spam. This may seem a trivial and obvious lesson, but in fact, many who study the field of search from a macro perspective believe that along with improved relevancy, Google’s greatest product advantage over the last 10 years has been their ability to control and remove spam better than their competitors. While it’s hard to say if this directly influenced their dramatic rise to lead in market share worldwide, it’s undoubtedly something all the engines spend a great deal of time, effort and resources on – and with hundreds of the world’s smartest engineers dedicated to fighting the practice, I’m loathe to ever recommend search spam as a winnable endeavor in the long term.
Second, search engines have done a remarkable job identifying scalable, intelligent methodologies for fighting manipulation and making it dramatically more difficult to adversely impact their intended algorithms. Concepts like TrustRank (which SEOmoz’s Linkscape index leverages), HITS, statistical analysis, historical data and more, along with specific implementations like the Google Sandbox, penalties for directories, reduction of value for paid links, combatting footer links, etc. have all driven down the value of search spam and made so-called “white hat” tactics (those that don’t violate the search engines’ guidelines) far more attractive.
This guide is not intended to show off specific spam tactics (either those that no longer work or are still practiced), but, due to the large number of sites that get penalized, banned or flagged and seek help, we will cover the various factors the engines use to identify spam so as to assist SEO practitioners avoid problems. For additional details about spam from the engines, see Google’s Webmaster Guidelines, Yahoo!’s Search Content Quality Guidelines & MSN/Live’s Guidlines for Successful Indexing.
Page-Level Spam Analysis
——————–Search engines perform spam analysis across individual pages and entire websites (domains). We’ll look first at how they evaluate manipulative practices on the URL level.
Keyword Usage
One of the most obvious and unfortunate spamming techniques, keyword stuffing, involves littering numerous repetitions of keyword terms or phrases into a page in order to make it appear more relevant to the search engines. The thought behind this – that increasing the number of times a term is mentioned can considerably boost a page’s ranking is generally folly. Studies looking at thousands of the top search results across different queries have found that keyword repetitions (or keyword density) appear to play an extremely limited role in boosting rankings, and have a low overall correlation with top placement.The engines have very obvious, and very effective ways of fighting this. Scanning a page for stuffed keywords is not a massively challenging task and the engines’ algorithms are all up to the task. You can read more about this practice, and Google’s views on the subject, in a blog post from the head of their web spam team – SEO Tip: Avoid Keyword Stuffing.
Manipulative Linking
One of the most popular forms of web spam, manipulative link acquisition relies on the search engines’ use of link popularity in their ranking algorithms to attempt to artificially inflate these metrics and improve visibility. This is one of the most difficult forms of spamming for the search engines to overcome because it can come in so many forms. A few of the many ways manipulative links can appear include:
- Reciprocal link exchange programs, wherein sites create link pages that point back and forth to one another in an attempt to inflate link popularity. The engines are very good at spotting and devaluing these as they fit a very particular pattern. See this post for more about reciprocal links.
- Incestual or self-referential links, including ”link farms” and “link networks” where fake or low value websites are built or maintained purely as link sources to artificially inflate popularity. The engines combat these through numerous methods of detecting connections between site registrations, link overlap or other common factors.
- Paid links, where those seeking to earn higher rankings buy links from sites and pages willing to place a link in exchange for funds. These sometimes evolve into larger networks of link buyers and sellers, and although the engines work hard to stop them (and Google in particular has taken dramatic actions), they persist in providing value to many buyers & sellers (see this post on paid links for more on that perspective and this post from Search Engine Land on the official word from Google & other engines).
- Low quality directory links are a frequent source of manipulation for many in the SEO field. A large number of pay-for-placement web directories exist to serve this market and pass themselves off as legitimate with varying degrees of success. Google often takes action against these sites by removing the PageRank score from the toolbar (or reducing it dramatically), but won’t do this in all cases.
There are many more manipulative link building tactics that the search engines have identified and, in most cases, found algorithmic methods of reducing their impact. As new spam systems (like this new reciprocal link cloaking scheme uncovered by Avvo Marketing Manager Conrad Saam) emerge, engineers will continue to fight them with targeted algorithms, human reviews and the collection of spam reports from webmasters & SEOs.
Cloaking
A basic tenant of all the search engine guidelines is to show the same content to the engine’s crawlers that you’d show to an ordinary visitor. When this guideline is broken, the engines call it “cloaking” and take action to prevent these pages from ranking in their results. Cloaking can be accomplished in any number of ways and for a variety of reasons, both positive and negative. In some cases, the engines may let practices that are technically “cloaking” pass, as they’re done for positive user experience reasons. For more on the subject of cloaking and the levels of risks associated with various tactics and intents, see this post – White Hat Cloaking – from SEOmoz.“Low Value” Pages
Although it may not technically be considered “web spam,” the engines all have guidlines and methodologies to determine if a page provides unique content and “value” to its searchers before including it in their web indices and search results. The most commonly filtered types of pages are affiliate content (pages whose material is used on dozens or hundreds of other sites promoting the same product/service), duplicate content (pages whose content is a copy of or extremely similar to other pages already in the index) and dynamically generated content pages that provide very little unique text or value (this frequently occurs on pages where the same products/services are described for many different geographies with little content segementation). The engines are generally against including these pages and use a variety of content and link analysis algorithms to filter out “low value” pages from appearing in the results.Domain Level Spam Analysis
——————–In addition to watching individual pages for spam, engines can also identify traits and properties across entire root domains or subdomains that could flag them as spam signals. Obviously, excluding entire domains is tricky business, but it’s also much more practical in cases where greater scalability is required.
Linking Practices
Just as with individual pages, the engines can monitor the kinds of links and quality of referrals sent to a website. Sites that are clearly engaging in the manipulative activities described above on a consistent or seriously impactful way may see their search traffic suffer, or even have their sites banned from the index. You can read about some examples of this from past posts – Widgetbait Gone Wild, What Makes a Good Directory and Why Google Penalized Dozens of Bad Ones, Google’s Sandbox Still Exists: Exemplified by Grader.com and How to Handle a Google Penalty – And, an Example from the Field of Real Estate.Trustworthiness
Websites that earn trusted status are often treated differently from those who have not. In fact, many SEOs have commented on the “double standards” that exist for judging “big brand” and high importance sites vs. newer, independent sites. For the search engines, trust most likely has a lot to do with the links your domain has earned (see these videos on Using Trust Rank to Guide Your Link Building and How the Link Graph Works for more). Thus, if you publish low quality, duplicate content on your personal blog, then buy several links from spammy directories, you’re likely to encounter considerable ranking problems. However, if you were to post that same content to a page on Wikipedia and get those same spammy links to point to that URL, it would likely still rank tremendously well – such is the power of domain trust & authority.Trust built through links is also a great methodology for the engines to employ in considering new domains and analyzing the activities of a site. A little duplicate content and a few suspicious links are far more likely to be overlooked if your site has earned hundreds of links from high quality, editorial sources like CNN.com, LII.org, Cornell.edu and similarly reputable players. On the flipside, if you have yet to earn high quality links, judgments may be far stricter from an algorithmic view.
Content Value
Similar to how a page’s value is judged against criteria such as uniqueness and the experience it provides to search visitors, so too does this principle apply to entire domains. Sites that primarily serve non-unique, non-valuable content may find themselves unable to rank, even if classic on and off page factors are performed acceptably. The engines simply don’t want thousands of copies of Wikipedia or Amazon affiliate websites clouding up their index, and thus take algorithmic and manual review methods to prevent this.Penalty Signs & Re-Inclusion Procedures
——————–How to Know If Your Site’s Been Penalized
It can be tough to know if your site/page actually has a penalty or if things have changed, either in the search engines’ algorithms or on your site that negatively impacted rankings or inclusion. Before you assume a penalty, check for:
- Errors on your site that may have inhibited or prevented crawling
- Changes to your site or pages that may have changed the way search engines view your content (on-page changes, internal link structure changes, content moves, etc.)
- Sites that share similar backlink profiles, and whether they’ve also lost rankings – when the engines update ranking algorithms, link valuation and importance can shift, causing ranking movements.
Once you’ve ruled these out, follow this flowchart for more specific advice:
While this chart’s process won’t work for every situation, the logic has been uncanny in helping us identify spam penalties or mistaken flagging for spam by the engines and separating those from basic ranking drops. This page from Google (and the embedded YouTube video) may also provide value on this topic.
Getting Penalties Lifted
The task of requesting re-consideration or re-inclusion in the engines is painful and often unsuccessful. It’s also, sadly, rarely accompanied by any feedback to let you know what happened or why. However, it is important to know what to do in the event of a penalty or banning – hence, the following recommendations:
Be aware that with the search engines, lifting a penalty is not their obligation or responsibility. Legally (at least, so far), they have the right to include or reject any site/page for any reason (or no reason at all). Inclusion is a privilege, not a right, so be cautious and don’t apply techniques you’re unsure or skeptical of - or you could find yourself in a very rough spot.
I’m getting pretty excited here. Just one more section to go before the appendices, and then it’s home free!As always, feedback, corrections, suggestions and edits are greatly appreciated.
From GoogleLady
The higher up the search ladder you go, the more potential clicks you will receive since the searcher will see your ad first. This creates an upward spiral which if you can get on the right side of with relevant ad copy from the beginning, you’ll end up paying less per click, and getting more clicks on your ad for the same daily budget.
Click Thru Rate is one of the determining factors to quality score, and hence the success of your campaign. As you can tell by now, writing the best and most relevant ad copy to achieve such high clicks is key. The most important part of writing a good Google Adwords ad is the headline.
The most important part of your Google Adwords ad copy is the headline. A poor headline can make or break an adwords campaign and leave you way out of pocket. Five times as many people read the headline than they do the description lines and display URL, so unless your headline captures the browser, your adwords ad won’t get clicked on.
The simplest way to write headlines is to include the keyword in the headline every time.
When you know every adwords tips and how adwords works you may ask “How the hell I can write a successful ads that clicks and make a sale”. That is one of the most important factors in Adwords, having a good headline that clicks and the most difficult one (for me at least!). Testing and researching over the net I have found many good tips that most affiliate marketers will not reveal.
- Use questions that arouse curiosity or interest. For instance, you can say Want to make $10,000 in one hour?
- You can also offer instructions.. Cure the cold in five simple steps, or How to keep your PC virus clean, would be interesting.
- Tell a story. There’s nothing better to spark interest than to appeal to your audience’s sympathy or empathy. Tell them a story like How I made $10,000 in one hour, or I lost 50 pounds in two weeks.
- Divulge information. Claim something that only you know, such as The Mystery of Google AdWords. People will notice this, especially if they want to learn more about what you have to offer.
- Claim unbelievable stuff! People will be intrigued with Make $10,000 in one hour or Keep thin without exercise. You can make it as absurd and unbelievable as possible, and people will surely notice!
- Create (and maintain) trust. The web is all about trust these days. Recommended by the Queen, would be good.
- Compare People love to go for what’s better. You can say cheaper than Wal Mart or better than Coke. If you are promoting a product that their competition is a big well known company compare it in your ad. For example you are selling a book from a bookstore that is not well-known in the market compare it saying something like this: Amazon vs X name, and say in a few words the one key comparison why x-name is better than amazon
- The Three Dots: Mindvalley Labs found this and was the first to publish it. They made a comparison about adding three dots in the final phrase of each ad, and it worked very well. Why it worked so well this method? it naturally tells people that there is more information waiting behind the add.
- Tiny changes: Small changes can make a huge impact in CTR. Even a word can make your ads to boost in CTR. Again, Mindvalley Labs found this they had the word “Changes” into their ads and they changed to the word “Change” and that tiny change alone resulted in a 180% increase in the Click-Through-Rate.
Mindvalley folks explained why “Change” and “Changes” can cause such a big conversion difference:
The word “changes” insinuates AUTOMATIC change. The word “change” implies the act of doing something yourself. For example, if you were advertising a tool for cleaning for your dog:
“Dog-Clean-O-Matic Washes Your Dog Spotless”
Makes the reader see the machine as an automatic tool. Toss your dog into it and voila – the animal’s now spotless. You don’t have to do any dirty work.
On the other hand:“Dog-Clean-O-Matic: Wash Your Dog Spotless”
Makes it seem like the machine requires YOU to do manual labor. Perhaps it nothing more than a fancy new kind of fur brush.
This distinction is important depending on the product you’re selling. In the ad above, we’re selling a relaxation CD: perhaps this is why the word “Change” relates better to the audience. They want to be in control when they go through this relaxation process. The word “changes” perhaps implies something where the participant losed control – as in hypnosis. It could be intimidating.
For other ads – in the case of software for example – I have seen the word “changes” work better. This could be because, for software, we want stuff that does the work for us automatically.So try testing both phrases on your ad.
- The Power of The “Secret” Keyword: One of the power headlines keywords is the word : Secrets and this resulted a huge boost in CTR +200%!
- “You Need To” a powefull keyword: Another powerfull keyword is “You Need To” it usually makes people clicks less (people don’t like to be ordered) but the convertion is higher because you are visitors what to do. If they want to do it they will click on your ad.
- Keywords in Different orders: If you have an ad group X and a keyword Y will not always work if you use the headline for the keyword Y. Using other extra keywords in the title will work much better. This testing will show you that the keyword Y is “Meditation Music” and mindsvalley used in the title as well but adding extra keywords in the title “Music for meditation” worked much better and if you analyse it is the same keyword but in diffirent order.
- Capitalization: This is one of the most important tip and the easiest one. Capitalize every keyword in your ad but do not capitalize the words: “in”, “and”, “on”, and those 2 words like “up”, etc… This small but powerfull tip can boost your CTR for 80%.
- Repetitive keywords: Repeating words in your ads can decrease your CTR and Conversion. In this example (taken from Mindsvalley “again”) shows that they repeated two keywords in the same ad, one in the title and one in the description “Start to”. Then they changed the title from “Start to” to “Learn to”. This tiny change boosted their CTR to +36%. Learn from this that with Google adwords there is no limit to optimize your ad even tiny changes.
- Think as a Google searcher: Think as one of the visitors that want to search for the keyword that you are advertising. If you are advertising the keyword “Fat loss”, what you are willing to find? I assume that something “How to loss fat”, so the user wants to learn how they can loss fat. Add in your ads “Learn How…” depends in what kind of services, product or site you are promoting. Keep splitting ads and testing to see which ad will work for you.
- The Keyword: Free: The free keyword is one of the most powefull keywords that you can add in your ads if it works with what you are advertising. If you are advertising a product, service or site that give you something free is a MUST to add it on the ad, your CTR will boost up for sure. This is an example from MindValleyLabs:
- Stay away from “Buy” in headlines: Many adwords advertisers believes in this, putting away the word “Buy” in the headlines. It seems that users automatically put an X in your ad when they see the keyword “buy”. In this case is good to add instead of buy, just the company name, product name or service name. For example, if you want to promote a fat loss product which is called XYZ, it will be good to just add XYZ as your headline and in the description line add the scary word “buy”.
- Feel the power of “Download” keyword: Anyone tested the Download keyword in your description or headline? This is a powerfull keyword to add in your ads. Why? The keyword download might give people the idea that they can get something very fast
- Time, Time & Time: You know that most search engine users are lazy and they want to find what they want as soon as possible. So let’s play with keywords that means times: “Today”, “Now”,…
- The Power of “Exposed” Keyword: Adding this little keyword in my headline increased my CTR by 150%. The keyword “Exposed” is a very showy word. I tried this keyword when I am promoting a product review so I add something like this: Product name review Exposed or Product Name Exposed. You can use it in many different ways…
- Include Targeted Keywords In Your Ad: When you create an ad group, the best practice is to use one or two keywords which are similar so you can add those keywords in your headline and description. Adding the targeted keywords in your ad is one of the most important things you need to do. I always add something like this: “Targetted Keyword” + Powerfull keyword (which some are mentioned above, as free, exposed…).
- Sell The Benefits: This is another “old” or “classic tip” that most of the e-books recommends, adding benefits and telling the user why your ad is better than your competitors. Here are 3 examples so you can understand better about the benefits which is important:Example #1:
This is a good example of Weight loss, the benefits are “Lose 15 lbs in 3 weeks” and as mentioned before the advertiser also add time “Quick”. Also remember the #5 tip? “Claim unbelievable stuff!” You can make better adding “40 lbs in 3 weeks”.
Example #2:
Here the benefit is: “Absorb 28% of fat…” That is in the same niche as the first example but different benefit. So if you are searching for weight loss which benefit is the best?
Example #3:
From a different niche, check that the benefit is in the second description, and the first description give the features of the product: “Free 3 months hosting, No setup fee” that I can call it a good benefit for those that are searching for a webhosting solution. Check also that they used the powerfull keyword “Free”.
- Remove Common Words: Remove common words, such as “a, an, in, on, it, of”, etc. Remove every word that does not absolutely need to be in the ad. Make every word count.
- Try to stay away from freebies hunters: I mentioned above that is good to have the keyword “Free” but when your product does not offer anything for free. Try to put away the users that wants free stuffs adding the price of the product. You will receive a lower CTR but we are here to make a sale and not just traffic.
- Call-to-Action Phrases: This is important also depends on which niche you are, that’s why testing is the best thing you can do. Some of the call-to-action phrases: Buy Today (again adding time) – Save 50% – Download Free Trial Now (adding 3 powerfull keywords: download, free and now) – Sale Ends Tomorrow (adding time) – Subscribe – Read – Download Now – Sale Ends Tomorrow . You can see that every step can be mixed with all the tips mentioned above.
- The Power of “How to” keyword: The keyword: “How to” is another powerfull keyword, in my researchers have shown that using this little keyword can increase your CTR.
- Including your company name in the headline (bad advice): The idea behind this is that you are repeating your company name in the headline as well as the URL. These ads have nearly zero clickthrough unless you are a well-known brand name (such as Target, Orbitz, Expedia, and so on).
- Price in case is competitive: If the product that you are advertising is highly competitive in words of price. Add the price in the description of your ad. Sometimes, it works adding the price in the headline after the main keyword that you are bidding.
- Research your niche advertisers: Another general tip or kind of research to know which ads works. Go to google and put the keyword that you want to advertise. Check who are at the top and see how they wrote their ads save it and after 2 hours or 1 day, check again and see who are at the top again, if there is any new advertiser save it do this for 1-2-3-4 weeks as many as you want (if it is longer, will be better) and if you see that there are ads at the top from day 1 you will conclude that those ads are the most usefull ads and the advertiser is really getting results from them. Take a look at the ad and see what are the “key” points that make this ad a good quality ad, make your ads based on the “key” points of your research (in your market). Clear your cookies and temporarly files every time you want to refresh and do the research.
- Friendly Competition: If you have a friend, family member, employee.. that is interested in the product you are promoting or a friend that really knows about the product and he search about it. Ask them to write an ad for you and test them. You can possible see that ad looks terrible but test it and you can see the results.
- Endorsements and Testimonials: These are a powerful form of persuasion. If your product has been written up in a name-brand magazine such as InfoWorld try including that information in your ad: Ranked #1 in Security by InfoWorldâ. This is a very powerful technique for increasing ad clickthrough rates.
Super-Phrases to use for adwords ad-copy headlines!
Astonishing, Instant, Discover, Breakthrough, Critical, No-holds-barred, Unique, Urgent, Unbeatable, Innovative, Incredible, Enhanced, Electrifying, Guaranteed, High-Voltage, Phenomenal, Revealed, Revolutionary, Secrets, Time-Sensitive, Trailblazing, Ingenious, Pioneering, Proven Techniques, Step-By-Step, Unforgettable, In-Depth, Invaluable, Irresistible, Powerful, Shocking, Spectacular, Unlimited, How-to, YOU, Super, Tactics, First, Booming, Amazingly, Appetizing, free, cheap, sale, special offer, time limited offer, tricks, tips, enhance, fact, learn, at last, free shipping,
http://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal
One of the best places to go for keyword research. Also, its free.
http://adlab.msn.com
Great resource provided by MSN.
SEO Book Keyword Suggestion Tool
http://tools.seobook.com/keyword-tools/seobook/
Great people, great tool. Use it often.
http://www.kwbrowse.com
Great tool that provides results from lateral markets.
http://www.quintura.com
Similar to kwbrose.com.
http://www.spacky.com
Allows easy downloading of keyword results.
http://www.google.com/insights/search/
Good Keywords – Free and Paid version
http://www.goodkeywords.com
Traffic Travis - Free and Paid Version
http://www.traffictravis.com
Basically the free version is almost as good as the paid.
Wordtracker.com – Free and Paid Version
http://www.wordtracker.com
One of the oldest keyword research tools around. Good tool, but not the best. Worth using from time to time, also Seomoz uses this tool as a touchstone for some of the tools there.
SpyFu.com - Free and Paid version
http://www.spyfu.com
Spyfu helps you steal your competitors keywords. Expensive though.
http://www.gorank.com/analyze.php
SEO tool that helps determine the relevancy of your web pages for keywords of your choice.
http://ci.trellian.com
This tool compiles and analyzes usage statistics. You are able monitor web sites to identify the traffic sources. You can find out which sites are responsible for sending traffic to their pages, including search engines and the search keywords used.
