Addwords campaign, the story so far

Since I’m not an expert in Adwords (and never will be) I was a bit anxious of not getting any results. The tools and information on the web really helped me getting started and improving my campaign.

First results

After 3 days of mediocre results I found out that some of the adds / words where not accepted because of their quality. After reading alot about Adword quality and how to improve I got 300% increase of clicks.  After installing the conversion optimizer I can keep track of real conversions. Clicks do not mean anything without conversions.  We found that the cost per conversion is 30% lower.

Getting better

Since Google is changing their Adwords interface almost every week I noticed the new “possibilities tab”. Here I got almost 16.000 new suggestions and valuable tips. This helps me getting better results every day.Some general tips (by Google) are:

Organize your campaign by theme

In each campaign, create separate ad groups for each of your products, brands, or types of services you offer. Each ad group can then have a highly related set of keywords and ads that match the specific theme. By doing this, your ads can highlight exactly what a customer is searching for.

Choose your keywords carefully

Use specific keywords that directly relate to the theme of your ad group and landing page. Keywords that are too broad can lower your performance by generating many ad impressions but few clicks. One-word keywords are likely to be too generic, so try using two- or three-word phrases. Use the Keyword Tool to generate keyword ideas.

Include keywords in your ad text

Include your keywords in your ad text (especially the title) to show users that your ad relates to their search. If your ad shows when a user searches on a keyword in your ad group, the keyword will appear in bold in your ad text.

Use the right destination URL

Make sure that the destination URL (landing page) you use for each ad is the most relevant page within your website — ideally, a page dedicated to the specific product or service that’s highlighted in your ad.

Track your success

To make informed decisions about how to optimize your campaigns, review your campaign statistics. To measure your success, use conversion tracking to see which ads and keywords bring the most to your business.

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Start with wireframes.

Want to start a project, start with a wireframe! Wireframes are an essential part of the project process. Wireframing has some benefits like: Faster web development, a good project guideline and Better user testing. I can advise everyone to start creating wireframes.

Why using wireframes?

By creating wireframes first, you outline the basic layouts for pages (what goes where)   and functionality (what has pagination, what happens when you click “this”, etc.) . You can easily move elements around and ensure that you’re creating a very usable product, while keeping everyone on the project informed. Some reasons for using wireframes are:

• Users are emotional. Wireframes and prototypes are generally gray or monochromatic in color. This lends itself well to initial user testing. They/You can focus more on actual functionality than users‚Äô reactions to colors, pictures, text, etc. User testing can be hard because people have biased and emotional responses to certain things, this helps alleviate those situations. Wireframes also help you test earlier on in the process. You can see what‚Äôs working and what needs some revising before the design is set in stone.
• Designers can make it too pretty. This will give your designers a place to start, even if you both decide to move things around, it‚Äôs at least a non-blank canvas. Graphic designers typically don‚Äôt want to design forms, am I correct? This lets them do what they do best without wondering what needs to happen on the page.
• Programmers can program. Knowing what functionality needs to exist upfront will make your programmers happy and make teamwork easier for them. This allows them to breakdown what/where/when action happens and how to account for it, as well as how best to delegate the work among themselves.

Wireframing on paper

I started out wireframing with pencils on paper, but it did not quite work out for me. I even have difficulties drawing a straight line. So I stopped with this technique as soon as I found Omnigraffle. Last month I stumbled upon the website of Jason Robb, that gave me again new inspiration to start on paper, so I bought some markers and started again.¬† Wireframes on “real” paper just look better, the counter side is that it’s really hard to edit.

Wireframe software

Ready to start with wireframes? There are some great tools out there that you can use creating them.

• OmniGraffle Pro, Personally I’m using this one. First because it is easy, second because there are tons of ¬†stencils for it, en third.. I own a Mac, so I can’t use Visio. Want to find a stencil, go to Graffletopia. And really, Omnigraffle Pro is worth the money.
  
• Adobe Fireworks. The new Fireworks has loads of rapid prototyping and Wireframe possibilities. Sometimes I like to use it but the bloated possibilities often let you create too detailed wireframes.
• Microsoft Visio. ¬†For a long time Visio has been the standard for diagrams on the PC and a lot of people have continued to carry on with it for wireframing. You won‚Äôt get the same presentation modes that OmniGraffle offers, but you will find more stencils and templates available on the web.

Start today!

I started one year ago with wireframes, and I’m glad I did.¬† I can’t imagine a project without a wireframe. Never used a wireframe? start today and you’ll see how easy it is. You do not have to be an artist to draw one; keep it simple stupid!

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Adwords vs Banner Campaign

The next three months I will run a Adwords¬†campaign¬†for a¬†customer. Normally we won’t do this kind of task, but this time is different.

The customer has a web-portal we’ve build from the¬† ground up. One year ago they where convinced that the only way to attract customers is to give them goodies, prices and games. They have put so much effort in this kind of advertising that they lost their focus.

Visitor increase

Now finally we got them to share their content and offer complete and valuable content to their visitors. They are finally found by Google on relevant searches and they got a visitor increase over 1000% (yes, 3 zero’s). All without giving away prices and Goodies.

Advertising

Most of the visitors now come from their normal Google results. By spending time on¬†meaningful¬†content they got great search results and visitors for free. This meant that there ¬†was money left for advertising. Once again (some people within their organization still do not get is) ¬†they proposed a banner on a flash-games site and a flash-game on their website. I proposed a Adwords campaigns on relevant searches for the content they provide. Now we’ve split ¬†the budget and try both of the solutions. In December,¬† we’lll see who’s the winner.

Setting up Adwords

So I’m busy¬†with¬†a huge Adwords campaign (100+ landing pages, 30000+ search-terms, 500+ adds) and since it’s not my specialty I can use all advise I ¬†can get.¬† I’m really happy with Google’s new Adwords Editor (downloadable) and their new web interface for adwords. It really helps to manage the campaign and increase the relevancy. I’m reading all relevant articles and the Google Help. I’m really happy with all the information I got, since my last Adwords campaign was 2 years ago.

First day

The campaign just had a first testing day. It still needs a bit of improvement and not all adds are approved yet. But the¬† results are promising. A CTR of almost 1% is more then I expected. Let’s see what the web statistics do.

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How JavaScript frameworks contribute to a consistent experience

JavaScript Libraries started out as easy frameworks for web developers.  Why write code that’s already been written and, in most cases, better than home-made JavaScript? It also provides a consistent way of programming throughout a project and a fast way to build applications.

JQuery UI and Ext JS, Prototype,  YahooUI all grew to complete JavaScript platforms with familiar design elements that help programmers build an interface that people are used to.  JQuery even has an own themeroller where programmers can generate a whole css theme for their interface.

Building bridges

The new generation of JavaScript libraries are building a small (but hopeful) bridge between designers and developers. Designers can understand the concept, en have consistent elements to work with. Developers can integrate these elements easily within their projects.

Cross browser, cross OS

The acceptance of these libraries among developers and designers is a great step to a consistent experience of web applications. we all recognize widgets, sliders, tabs,¬† tree’s and we know how to operate them. Consistency is crucial when building rich web-applications. It does not depend on browser or OS, just the library used.

Skepticism

Of course there are some reasons why NOT to use a library. Programmers want to know what’s happening, mainly for debugging reasons, It can be a bit bloated when only using one or two functions and the biggest reason: You shouldn‚Äôt trust the code of others for your professional purposes. The latest versions of the various frameworks take away most of these worries with good debug option and even better performance.

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