One of the biggest challenges is to make sure all 3 campaigns are targeting all the important keywords. The best way to analyze this is to have a chart which compares the traffic for all 3 search campaigns by keyword.

How the Pivot Chart Optimizes PPC campaigns

• In Google Analytics go to Traffic Sources > Search Engines and click on paid
• On the left drop down go to Keyword
• Click on the pivot icon – the 2nd from the right

The pivot chart should be part of your pay per click analytics routine when using Adwords, Bing and Yahoo

• Compare the numbers across the search engines
• If you see a zero in one search engine you are probably missing that keyword or underbidding—because the other search engines shows clicks



The first keyword has clicks on Yahoo and MSN. However Google shows zero clicks. Find out the problem on Adwords

• Next step is to go and optimize those ad campaigns
• Find out if you:
  • Forgot to add this keyword to Adwords
  • If the bid is too low
  • If there is another reason the keyword is not showing

You should check out conversions before you do the optimization. I will show you how to do this in another post.

Google has purchased their 1st Israeli Internet Company

The widgets are developed for iGoogle, iPhone, Yahoo as well as many social media platforms.

Yahoo and Microsoft also have research and development centers in Israel. How long will it be before they start doing some local shopping?

David Gilmour, one of the band members, said something that made me want to jump up and say: Do a usability study!

He was very proud of the album but seemed to be a little bit sad that he would never have the experience of hearing it for the first time (a result of being involved in the album creation).

Abridged version of: Pink Floyd: The Making of The Dark Side of the Moon

This is why we do usability studies. The people in a company see their web site all the time and don’t have the ability to see their website objectively. Listening and watching people see and use a website for the first time is an eye opening experience for them.

So even though Pink Floyd band members could not have the experience of listening to their album for the 1st time they can have the next best thing: Listen to the album with a person who has never heard it and ask them to verbalize what they are thinking.

Maybe I should branch out and offer this service to bands so they can improve their albums before they are released. Do you think it will help?

Rumored Superbowl Google Ad on YouTube

Whether it is true or not I though it would be fun to see how the search engine result page (SERP) is different in Israel. What is interesting is that although the search result is the same, you can see in the screen shot below that in Israel there are ads.

Rumored Superbowl ad SERP in Israel

You might think that there are ads only in Israel. However, if you do the search in the USA you can see that there are even more ads (see screen shot below). Google did not want to show the sponsored search ads in their ad. Could this be because it hurts the search experience?  The ad experience?

To be fair, if Google did include the ads and the clicks were on the ads, some may complain that Google was hinting that people should click on ads. And the ads might distract from their message.

Rumored Superbowl ad SERP in USA

Whether or not the ad will actually run it sure is creating a lot of buzz on the internet. The screen shot below shows just a few reactions to the Google Superbowl ad.

Google Superbowl ad reactions

In order to increase conversions it is necessary to makes changes on the website and Flash presentations are no exception. Unfortunately, this is not possible without access to the source file.

If conversion optimization is important make sure you have all the Adobe Flash source files so you can edit and optimize your website Flash presentations

The Flash source file is usually with the designers or one of their subcontractors. Even if you just want to change one of the links on the presentation, you first need to retrieve the flash source file from the designer.

Our experience shows that it is not always possible to get this file for various reasons.
The web site owner either has to compromise his conversion optimization efforts or pay for a new flash presentation.

In order to avoid this, you should always insist that you receive the Flash source file so changes can be made. Conversion optimization means you control the user experience. Technical and other obstacles have to be removed.

SEO Companies don’t have local listings (right screen shot) whereas plumbers have local listings complete with map and phone numbers.

A Google employee, Joel, H. explained this new policy in Google’s support forums

“Today, we’re intentionally showing less local results for web design / SEO queries. For example, [web design sacramento] doesn’t display local listings today. We believe this is an accurate representation of user intent. In some cases, we do show local listings, however (as NSNA/php-er noted) [web design in bellingham].

I’m sure some of you feel we should be displaying local results for queries like [Web Design Vancouver]. I understand that concern, but based on our understanding of our users, we feel this is the right decision for now.

I’ll give the usual disclaimer that we’re constantly working on improving the user experience and results will vary over time. So, this could change in the future, but I wanted to be explicit about what we’re doing today”.

I am sure that Google is basing this decision on the analysis of users’ click actions. It makes sense that for plumbers the location is critical because they have to come to your house. However for SEO companies it is not important at all.

For example, most of my SEO Company’s clients are in the USA, Europe and the Far East—only a small number are in Israel. The same can be said for many businesses and if you do a search for financial analysts you can see that there are no local search results.

No local search for financial analysts.

If There are No Local Results in Google Should You Optimize Your Site for Localization?

In many cases you should for the following reasons:

• Even though location may not be important, all things being equal there are some people who prefer to work with a company that is close by.
• Google’s results page is localized, even if local results are not shown. All things being equal, an Israeli SEO company will appear higher in Israel than outside of Israel.
• Google changes their algorithms frequently. Today they may not show local results for your business segment and tomorrow they may put it back in as mentioned in the forum post above.

And it’s not like there aren’t any good Internet marketing companies in America, Europe and everywhere else.

I believe that the reason is the people. Israelis are innovative, creative and get things done fast. But what has nurtured these qualities?
Dan Senor and Saul Singer attempt to answer this question and more.

“START-UP NATION  addresses the trillion dollar question:
How is it that Israel — a country of 7.1 million, only 60 years old, surrounded by enemies, in a constant state of war since its founding, with no natural resources — produces more start-up companies than large, peaceful, and stable nations like Japan, China, India, Korea, Canada, and the UK?”

“How is it that Israel has, per person, attracted over twice as much venture capital investment as the US and thirty times more than Europe?”

If I mentioned conversion optimization I could hear their eyes glaze over through the phone.

Recently, we had some calls from companies that wanted us to manage their Google Adwords campaign. However, after a couple of minutes it became clear to me that they need conversion optimization first.

I took a chance and explained that if existing traffic is not converting enough it doesn’t make sense to increase traffic even more.

And they agreed.

People are finally starting to get it. For the first time we are starting with conversion optimization before we work on increasing traffic.

Take a look at your conversion rates

Multiply your average revenue from each conversion. Now take that number and assume you can increase your conversion rate from 3% to 4.5 % which is the same as increasing your revenue by 50%. That is a worthwhile investment—don’t you think?

Airely’s experiment proves that we are easily manipulated by the way price options are presented on the Internet (and offline too)

He found that The Economist had 3  subscription options:

1. Web Subscription for $59
2. Print Edition for $125
3. Print and Web Subscription for $125

When faced with these choices students at MIT chose:

• Web Subscription: 16 students
• Print Edition: 0 students
• Print and Web Subscription: 84 students

This makes sense as the Print Only Edition was the worst deal.

However, When Ariely removed the Print only edition you might expect that rational students would make the same choice as no one chose this anyway. Here are the results:

• Web Subscription: 68 students
• Print and Web Subscription: 32 students

Apparently the decoy Print Edition option was added by The Economist to increase revenues. The take away for conversion rate optimizers and consumers is to understand that: How the information is presented can be used to manipulate buyers. We focus on comparing things that are easily comparable. That is why the students tended to compare option 2 and 3 above  – and ignore option 1.

For more information on the concept of relativity read the book and take a look at this video.

Actually, Google does have an option for this-it is the “I’m Feeling Lucky” button which takes you directly to the 1st web site. Not exactly a button to inspire confidence in Google’s ability to give the Answer. In Hebrew it is worse-the rough translation is “More luck than brains“.

Google’s Hebrew Interface’s “I’m Feeling Lucky” button is roughly translated as “More Luck Than Brains”

Will Search Engines Give Us One Correct Answer in the Future?

I personally don’t think there is one correct answer to many questions, so we will continue to get many results for searches. In any case, I wouldn’t want the search engines to decide for me what the Answer is. That is not to say they can’t do a better job of organizing and filtering the answers. Bing’s search engine results are a step in the right direction.

What Does Google Have to Worry About?

Maney explains how Microsoft worried about companies like Novell and Netscape Communications. Its real competition - Google - was 3 years from starting operations. Google’s real competition has probably not been invented yet. It will be interesting to see if Google is able to buck the trend and reinvents itself when the competition shows up.