21
Nov 11

Google Commerce Search 3.0

posted by: Eddie O Driscoll category: e-Commerce No Comments

Just watched a great webinar on Google Commerce Search.

Key takeaways are as follows:

  • Smartphones outsold desktop computers for the first time in Q4 2010 emphasising the need to “get mobile.”
  • 43% of all offline sales thought to have been researched online.
  • 70% of visitors to e-commerce sites use the site search facility.
  • Some online retailers are hitting double digit conversion rates.
  • Search as you type allied to instant results aims to bring the interactive experience available offline online – it is as if the site is talking to you!
  • Can be integrated with inventory management system to show local availability of products on the site.
  • Powerful merchandising tools available eg schedule special offers to run on certain dates for pre-defined periods well in advance.
  • Backend functionality facilitates customising results to highlight preferred products.
  • Babyage.com saw 34% increase in conversion rates. WoodCraft.com saw a 28% increase.

This latest update seems like a powerful solution and one that all e-tailers should seriously consider. We are in the process of updating our internal processes to ensure that we can help those e-tailers who decide to implement it.

SEO services

21
Nov 11

Limitation of Google AdWords Call Extension

posted by: Eddie O Driscoll category: PPC No Comments

I posted about a week ago that Google’s call extension whereby every time an advert appears, it is assigned a dynamic, traceable telephone number, would go a long way to helping businesses where conversions take place offline monitor the effectiveness of their AdWords efforts. However, on further investigation, the extension has pretty limited value. The reason for this is that when enabled, a dynamic number shows in the advert and if someone calls this number, it is routed through Google and so can be tracked. However, pretty much everyone will click on the ad as opposed to just calling the number listed in it. For those who do click on the ad’ and subsequently visit the contact page, they see the same number as everybody else. I had expected that there would be some means of feeding the dynamic number through to the website contact page thereby ensuring that the tracking ability is not lost for those who click on the ad’ but this is not the case. I am guessing that it is not beyond Google’s capability to offer this functionality and if they did, then this would be a powerful tool. In its current form where conversions can only be tracked for those who don’t click on the ad’ it has pretty limited use.

SEO Services

14
Nov 11

Do We Still Need Twitter?

posted by: Eddie O Driscoll category: Social Media No Comments

I just “subscribed” to public posts from Mark Zuckerberg on Facebook. So updates that he makes available to the public are available to me in the same way his Tweets are. If I can “subscribe” to Zuckerberg (and I presume soon to all major celebrities and public interest figures) directly from within Facebook, why would I bother logging into Twitter? Google + also offers this subscribe function. Am I missing something or does this essentially render Twitter redundant?

10
Nov 11

Cost Per Call is Here!

posted by: Eddie O Driscoll category: PPC, Uncategorized No Comments

The inability to accurately measure ROI on different marketing spends is a cause of frustration for most businesses. The phrases “half of my marketing budget works just I’m not sure which half!” comes to mind. Google’s latest initiative to give AdWords advertisers greater visibility into offline conversions is what they call “Call Metrics”

www.google.com/ads/innovations/callmetrics.html

The goal is to track those who call a business as a result of seeing an AdWords advert. Advertisers that set up call metrics in their AdWords account get greater visibility inot how many people call them having taken down a number from an advert or after using the click to call function. This works by assigning a dynamic Google telephone number to each advert. If someone calls it, it is directed through Google, who log the call and include in Analytics reports, before immediately forwarding to the advertisers specified number. While this is definitely a welcome initiative, it is somewhat limited in its value for most businesses. The reason for this is that  if the user clicks on the ad’ as most will before making a call, then the dynamic number is irrelevant as the number displayed on the site will be the number that gets called. I don’t think many people call a number direct from an ad “blind” without firstly visiting the website. However, those that do can now be tracked. We have enabled this on some client accounts and will monitor over coming days.

31
Oct 11

If You Can’t Join ‘em, Beat ‘em!

posted by: Eddie O Driscoll category: Uncategorized No Comments

Google seems to have taken the view that if they can’t buy Groupon, it will beat them at their own game with a beefed up Google Offers product. Earlier this year, after Google’s $6bn offer to buy Groupon was rejected, they launched their own deals site using their own sales force to source the deals. However, in what seems like a clever move, Google has taken this a step further and now is offering deals from 15 other deal websites on its site; it is a deal aggregator of sorts. So, by signing up to Google Offers, you get exposure to deals from a number of sites that you hitherto would have had to sign up to individually. This has to be a pretty unwelcome development for Groupon as it is currently in the middle of its IPO roadshow. No doubt many investors will justifiably be asking can Groupon survive in the face of this latest move from Google. Maybe Groupon will rue the day it didn’t sell out to Google as it has instead to compete with it which has to be a daunting prospect.

SEO services

25
Oct 11

Beware Conversion Optimisation “Experts”

posted by: Eddie O Driscoll category: Web Design / Development No Comments

If you are going to spend money driving traffic to your website, you need to do everything that you can to maximize the number of these visitors who turn into paying customers. This makes sense as a website getting 1000 unique visitors per month will win an additional 20 clients each month or about 1 every working day by increasing conversions by 2%. Because of the undoubted importance of conversion optimization, many companies now offer consultancy in this area. As part of my research over the past few weeks, I have been reading many of the articles at http://unbounce.com/conversion-rate-optimization/50-awesome-posts-on-conversions/ My conclusion is that most participants in this area are not adding much value for their clients. In one of the videos http://www.thesaleslion.com/derek-halpren-wrong-debate-web-sidebar-design-conversions/  this guy takes over 5 minutes messing about to explain that if you have a world beating product/service, clients will flock to you. He seems to think this is some profound nugget of wisdom that he is imparting on the lucky attendees. I would caution anyone who has a website that they wish to improve conversion rates on, to firstly engage their own business know-how and common sense before paying a bombast consultant who will talk a lot and deliver very little – did this company need to pay this guy to take over 5 minutes to explain that good looking men attract women and companies with great products or services attract customers? As for any practical advice on how to become a great company, nothing.

I would suggest implementing the measures outlined in our simple guide http://www.dpfoc.com/conversion-optimisation.php will ensure most businesses see substantial reductions in bounce and increase in conversions. If you have implemented these and want to squeeze yet more conversions out of your existing traffic, then a consultant may be worth hiring but beware. Ensure that those you engage have delivered meaningful results for a lengthy list of companies and have the testimonials to back it up. We will soon be introducing our free conversion optimisation service so if you do want to talk to us about this, we’d be delighted to help.

Don’t get me wrong; maximizing conversions is vital just make sure the guy you engage can actually help you do that!

19
Oct 11

DPFOC Australia Almost Ready For Launch

posted by: Eddie O Driscoll category: DPFOC News No Comments

We have been working very hard over the past number of months getting our new Australian partner and MD of DPFOC Australia, Matt King, up to speed on our processes and procedures. Matt has identified some process improvements which is really great to see and he has been busy in the recording studio getting the videos together for the Australian part of the site. These are very impressive and can be checked out at the links below. We are all really looking forward to beginning work down under and count ourselves fortunate that Matt is at the helm down there!

http://www.zshare.net/video/948865880107c2f5/

http://www.zshare.net/video/94886822f79aca02/
http://www.zshare.net/video/94886822f79aca02/

http://www.zshare.net/video/94886822f79aca02/

http://www.zshare.net/video/94887030bccebd0e/

http://www.zshare.net/video/94887109ac99b2a1/

http://www.zshare.net/video/948871861032b53d/

http://www.zshare.net/video/948872501e5f27c5/

http://www.zshare.net/video/948874201b21ba43/

http://www.zshare.net/video/94887450b8cbc937/

http://www.zshare.net/video/94887512a5e9beb8/

http://www.zshare.net/video/948876071bd30a5f/

10
Oct 11

The Difference Between Bounce Rate and Exit Rate.

posted by: Eddie O Driscoll category: Web Design / Development No Comments

When a site starts to get significant traffic, a small increase in conversion rates can have a significant impact on revenue. Conversion optimisers pour over top content reports trying to understand why people are leaving the site at a certain point. One important distinction to understand, when analysing top content reports, is that between bounce rate and exit rate. Bounce rate referes to the percentage of people who landed on this page (this was the first page on the site that they visited) and then went on to visit no other page on the site. Exit rate on the other hand measures the percentage of all those users (both those who landed on the page and those who arrived after previously visiting other pages on the site) who went on to visit no other page on the site after this one. The difference is subtle but important. Obviously, the ideal page to have a high exit rate is the contact page as this indicates that people left the site only after getting your contact details.

2
Oct 11

Multi-Channel Funnels in Google Analytics

posted by: Eddie O Driscoll category: Google Analytics No Comments

There is no doubt that the new Google Analytics Interface is pretty amazing; improving on the previous interface which is intutive, insightful and easy to use, I thought, would be impossible but I was wrong. Perhaps one of the best additions in the new interface is the mult-channel funnel conversion analysis feature. To learn about this check out a video from Google on it at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZ2RbGsuy3U The reason this feature is so helpful is that very often users interact with a website many times before going on to complete a purchase. Previously, the final interaction with the site was the one credited with generating the conversion despite the fact that this interaction may have been as a result of a number of previous research interactions. For example, let’s say you sell men’s watches online. A user goes to Google and types in “best value Rolex watch” and clicks on one of your Google Adwords ad’s promoting a deal that you are offering on a Rolex. The user browses the site, checks out and notes your prices and then leaves the site to browse the deals on offer by some of your competitors. He then returns to your site by typing the URL directly into the address bar at the top of the browser and completes the purchase. Up to now, this conversion would be attributed to the direct source despite the fact that the sale owed its origin to a Google Adwords click. One of the best features of the multi-channel funnel is the ability to conduct a “first interaction analysis.” This lets the site owner see where sales originate. Sales on a site very often do not originate and close from the same source so knowing how people first come into contact with your site is extremely valuable information as it allows the site owner to focus his investment on such media to ensure that more and more people are entering the top of the sales funnel most likely to result in sales. Be sure to check this feature out and if you need any help on this or any other part of Google Analytics, give us a call!

SEO company

27
Sep 11

A Great Video From Home Care Plus Director

posted by: Eddie O Driscoll category: Uncategorized No Comments

At DPFOC, we are always advising our clients of the benefit of a video introduction from a director of the company on the company website. This week Michael Harty of Home Care Plus had his video done and is now live on www.homecareplus.ie – I think it is really great and expect this to increase conversion rates by a number of percentage points.

For more on conversion optimisation, see our conversion optimisation guide.

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