Internet Marketing Magazine Dec-Jan 2014 by Internet Marketing Magazine

PER S M U B TMA R S I CHR W YEA E & N SSUE! 14 I 0 an 2 Dec

-J

ALSO: SOLO ADS P27

KEYWORD DATA SECRETS P29

INCREASE CONVERSION P34

OPTIMIZING ECOMMERCE SEARCH P37

COVER STORY: SOCIAL STRATEGY FOR BUSINESS

> RESPONSIVE WEB DESIGN

P15

> ONLINE BUSINESS MODELS P18

> HIGH CONVERTING LANDING PAGES

P25

CJ AND MELISSA >> THE ORIGINAL AND BEST INTERNET MARKETING MAGAZINE DESIGNED SPECIFICALLY FOR THE IPAD, KINDLE FIRE, ANDROID AND THE WEB

MEET OUR EXPERT PANEL Todd Lerner

Advertising clients include: Disney, The Financial Times, Rolling Stone, Prudential, Microsoft, Radisson, CondĂŠ Nast, Shopperâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Voice, Time Warner, Hearst, The Danbury Mint, Smithsonian, and others. Feel free to email Todd with any questions or comments about this article: todd@ toddlerneradvertising.com

CONTENTS

1Expert

commentary on what are the big plays that have recently happened online and how they affect you.

Read his article on Responsive Web Design on PAGE 15

Scott Dudley

is a direct response copywriter from Perth, Australia, and he specializes in writing sales letters and emails for his clients. You can find his impressive portfolio at www.scottdudley.net/blog/portfolio. Or you can contact Scott for a free consultation at www.scottdudley.net/blog/contact Read his article on Types of Business Models on PAGE 18

Neil Patel

is the co-founder of Crazy Egg, Hello Bar and KISSmetrics. He helps companies like Amazon, NBC, GM, HP and Viacom grow their revenue. The Wall Street Journal calls him a top influencer on the web and Entrepreneur Magazine says he created one of the 100 most brilliant companies in the world. He was recognized as a top 100 entrepreneur under the age of 30 by President Obama and one of the top 100 entrepreneurs under the age of 35 by the United Nations. Neil has also been awarded Congressional Recognition from the United States House of Representatives. Read his article on High Converting Landing Page on PAGE 25

Eric Welke

is a catalyst for online business success. Eric provides strategies, knowledge and platforms that get results in weeks, instead of months or years. His primary focus is to enable and empower other business owners and entrepreneurs to grow their business and build a better life. Read his article on Improving Online Earnings on PAGE 27

internet marketing magazine december 2013 - january 2014

1Two

Facebook Insiders CJ and Melissa share their social strategy and Facebook secrets in an exclusive interview with Internet Marketing Magazine.

1Gracefully

Responsive Web Design

1Know the Seven Different Types of Online Business Models

1Learn the Anatomy of a High Converting Landing Page

MEET OUR EXPERT PANEL Megan Marrs

s a blogger and copywriter at WordStream, where she writes for the marketing department. She is a regular contributor to the WordStream Internet Marketing Blog, where she covers topics including social media, web news, SEO techniques, content marketing, link building, and search marketing, among others. Read her article on Ways to Get Keywords Data on PAGE 29

Andrew Angus is the founder and CEO of Switch

Video, a North American company that produces simple explanatory videos that help clients clearly explain what they do and engage with their prospects. Angus, a well respected leader in the explainer video industry, spearheads the movement to integrate brain science and web metrics into the production of animated explainer videos. Read his article on Explainer Videos on PAGE 34

Jordi Torras

specialized in Artificial Intelligence and Natural Language Processing in the University of Barcelona. Inbenta is Jordi’s second entrepreneur adventure launched in 2005, a company that that helps clients increase the efficiency of their Call Centre, E-commerce and Social Media platforms through incorporating a patented Natural Language Search technology.

CONTENTS

1Improve Online Earnings Using Solo Ads

1Discover

the 9 Ways to Steal Your “Not Provided” Keyword Data Back

1Know

Why Explainer Videos Increase Conversion Rate by 20%

1Learn

How Natural Language Processing Will Change eCommerce Search Forever

Read his article on eCommerce Search on PAGE 37

internet marketing magazine december 2013 - january 2014

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

his issue is our bumper Christmas/New Years Issue as the Internet Marketing Magazine team will now shut down for a few weeks over the silly season and will focus on life in the sun by the beach for a while.

Internet Marketing Magazine and you can spare 1 minute of your time to click this link to give us a quick honest review that would be greatly appreciated (click ‘view in iTunes’ then scroll down and click ‘write a review’, thanks :).

We added a new team member to the Internet Marketing Magazine Offices – meet Bruce, he’s a 9-week-old Border Collie pup. The intention was for him to be an inside dog but he quickly caused so much destruction and drop in productivity that he is now an outside dog that comes into the office sometimes under strict supervision.

NEW: Send us a screenshot of your review in iTunes (info@internetmarketingmag.net) and we will send you some great Internet Marketing Training resources that I have put together in recent months based on what we are doing in the marketing agency that is working right now. We hope you got great value from Internet Marketing Magazine this year. We will be back next year bigger and better to keep you up to date on a month by month basis on the big plays that are happening online so that you can position yourself ahead of the curve. Steve Jobs was fond of a quote from hockey great Wayne Gretzky. “I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.”

We’ve now re-launched our Android App, which sadly was out of date in terms of issues for a while as we had no easy way of updating it, but that problem is now resolved. We apologise to our Android platform friends for not showing you the love you deserve in recent months. If you haven’t got access to the member’s area please feel free to do at http:// internetmarketingmag.net/become-member/ (it’s free). This month’s complete audio interview with CJ and Melissa has now been added. It has lots of sections in it that were not included in the magazine, so be sure to check it out. A special thanks to those who have left reviews in the apple platforms as it really helps us out. If you are getting good value from

internet marketing magazine december 2013 - january 2014

We’ll help you know where the puck is going to be. We wish you the best of success online and a great Christmas and New Years. Regards,

Greg Cassar Greg Cassar Internet Marketing Strategist & Editor – Internet Marketing Magazine

INTERNET UPDATE

THE STATE OF THE INTERNET In this section of Internet Marketing Magazine our editor Greg Cassar cover’s the facts and provides expert commentary on what are the big plays that have recently happened online and how they affect you. > GOOGLE DART FOR CHROME Back in October of 2011 Google announced Google Dart as a new open source programming language, with the plan for it to ultimately replace JavaScript as the default underlying programming language of the web. Dart is good for the web in some ways because it speeds up both developers and the programs that they write, and it also overcomes a lot of perceived limitations or restrictions of JavaScript as it was developed prior to the current mobile web phase that we are in right now.

it does speed up the web and make the whole development process easier, what are the chances of Mozilla, Apple, and Microsoft rolling it into their browsers for mass adoption? It’s unlikely, but we’ll watch this space and let you know what changes. > THE AMAZON JETSONS?

Google is now building it’s Dart technology directly into the Chrome Browser and its supporting ecosystem. In a recent 60 minutes interview Amazon’s CEO Jeff Bezos announced that he believes Amazon PrimeAir drones will deliver packages to your door step in as little as 30 minutes. Its amazing technology based off Millitary drones that reminds us of the famous cartoon ‘The Jetsons’ with small aircraft buzzing around the skies. As ‘science fiction’ as it sounds - it could be as little as 4-5 short years away from reality. Google Dart is open source meaning that other companies and browsers can also use and enhance the technology. The thing is – even if

The hardest thing with bringing it in could be

internet marketing magazine december 2013 - january 2014

INTERNET UPDATE the aviation laws, as well as how to ensure that the drones don’t drop a parcel on someone’s head or in a customers pool. > RESPONSIVE OF DEDICATED MOBILE SITE FOR SEO? Mobile traffic continues to grow year on year. As discussed previously in this column it’s more important than ever for business owners to have a mobile version of their website - a version of the site tailored to smaller screens and fast load time. Also on the rise is the now wide mass spread adoption of using responsive design for mobile users versus the traditional mobile sites.

leads, physical premises visits, texts and calls than a responsive one. But it does mean that responsive design is easier from an SEO point of view as there is only one version of the site. When implementing a mobile site ensure it is done by a professional who can ensure there aren’t any SEO problems such as split PageRank or duplicate content issues. > 1 BILLION USERS AND SOON TO OVERTAKE FACEBOOK Chances are that headline caught your attention and you would be thinking “who could that be?” It’s certainly not the platforms that immediately come to mind of Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, Google+ or LinkedIn. It’s a company that most people in the Western world don’t know about presently. It’s China’s Tencent and its mobile messaging app WeChat...

Which is better out of responsive and dedicated mobile site really depends on the purpose of the site. But what about for SEO? Google’s Matt Cutts recently answered this question when he stated that responsive design is the smarter way to go for SEO for many businesses because you can have issues when creating a mobile version of the page if you aren’t implementing it correctly. Cutts advises “So in theory, if you do a mobile version of the site, if you don’t handle that well and you don’t do the rel=canonical and all those sorts of things, then you might, in theory, divide the PageRank between those two pages. But if you have responsive design then everything is handled from one URL, so the PageRank doesn’t get divided, everything works fine.” So in summary, this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have a dedicated mobile site, as for many services businesses it will result in more

internet marketing magazine december 2013 - january 2014

Source: WorldOfCEOs, JPMorgan, Credit Suisse, Bloomberg & company announcements

It is now not just restricted to China. WeChat was rebranded from the more Chinese-sounding Weixin to appeal to an international audience, and it’s now virally and socially coming across here. In the four months between May and September 2013, its overseas users doubled from 50m to 100m. It’s got some cool features such as the ability to

INTERNET UPDATE

“hold-to-talk” and send free walkie-talkie style messages that bypass the need for voicemail. The ability to identify “People Nearby” can make going out on the town much more interesting as it will show you how many kilometres or meters any of your friends are away from you. You can “shake” your smartphone, and be connected with other users anywhere in the world who are shaking their phones at the same moment. WeChat has combined together the open approach of social networks such as Twitter, where anyone can follow anybody, and more closed-networks such as Facebook, which rely on friend connections. The share price of this amazing company Tencent continues to rise with it’s value now worth 104 times it’s initial 2004 IPO price. The company is now valued at an amazing $101bn US market cap. IMM

internet marketing magazine december 2013 - january 2014

> COVER STORY:

EXPERT INTERVIEW

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Think very deeply about three things. One is the purchase funnel, like ‘how can I make people more aware of my product?’ Secondly is to look at ‘how can I make them consider my product’. Then we move them into conversion with ‘how does that person stay loyal when advocating my brand?’

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ALL ABOUT CJ HUDSON & MELISSA NOON • CJ and Melissa are are social media strategists with a large track record of success. • CJ and Melissa are ex-Facebook employees, with CJ being Facebook Australia’s first hire. •CJ and Melissa are strong in all areas of social, with CJ focusing on strategic aspects and Melissa very strong in the tactical space. • Having recently left Facebook, they now run Stencil, a social research, content, media, and strategy agency. internet marketing magazine december 2013 - january 2014

> COVER STORY:

EXPERT INTERVIEW

CJ AND MELISSA SOCIAL STRATEGY FOR BUSINESS An Interview by Internet Marketing Strategist Greg Cassar What Roles did you have within Facebook? CJ: I was very fortunate to be the first person working for Facebook in Australia and New Zealand. Previously, I was selling big, ugly adverts on top of the AFL website. It was making a fundamental shift from selling disruptive advertising for companies out there to a brand new way of thinking. People were coming to Facebook to discover information and I could work with brands to help them leverage what people are really doing in the world versus what they’ve been forced to consume. That was a really, really good experience for me. I was able to learn about businesses and help them strategize to leverage what we call the social graph and not necessarily a website called Facebook.

Melissa: My area at Facebook was definitely a lot more of the product and implementation so once that strategic work was done we’d take that idea and implement it. I was a member of the product council. It’s a team at Facebook that comes up with and implements ideas for any new product that is launched across the platform. What do you believe are the essential components of an excellent social strategy for business owners heading into 2014?

internet marketing magazine december 2013 - january 2014

CJ: There’s a couple of things I think are noteworthy. One is that we really encourage businesses not to be on social media, certainly Facebook, just for the sake of having a presence there so they can put a blue and white logo on their website. Social media has moved on in the last four years as well from companies whether big, large, or small, just wanted likes for the sake of likes. For instance, one of my first brands that I worked with was Pringles, and their brief to Facebook was we want 200,000 fans and we want them by Christmas. And the question was, why do you want 200,000 fans? And they said, because it looks good with our CEO. So we ran a competition, and they got to 250,000 fans, but they’re a big company. So the result of that was a really happy CEO, but the truth of the matter was there was probably about 2% or 3% of that fan base that actually cared about the product that is Pringles. So that’s a definite shift in terms of

> COVER STORY: social strategy. In the last year or two there’s been a strong strategy for businesses to just garner as many likes, comments, and shares as possible, which we believe is another weak currency. So you’ll start to see that again, massive corporations such as Gillette or Omo posting pictures of cats and dogs and cute babies just to garner shares and likes with that particular piece of content. Again, this is not a very strong strategy at all, because people are just liking the content but not necessarily liking the product. Greg: It’s all fake core brand message, is that what you’re saying? CJ: Yes. I would never walk into Woolworths and think to myself, ‘Do you know what? Omo posted a picture of that beautiful cat and I think I need that product.’ It’s as simple as that. So a really strong strategy moving into 2014 is to think very deeply about three things. One is the purchase funnel, like ‘how can I make people more aware of my product?’ Secondly is to look at ‘how can I make them consider my product’. Then we move them into conversion, and then ‘how does that person stay loyal when advocating my brand?’ That’s the fundamental pillar’s for any social strategy. Then within that, consideration is the big part, because you need to now evaluate the content that you as a business produce versus what the consumer actually wants. A consumer might look like they want a picture of a fluffy cat, but they want something that’s fun, engaging, and social by design, but the brand needs to actually plug in what they’re about. A good example of that is a company called Mr Vitamins, a New South Wales vitamin

EXPERT INTERVIEW

store. They were previously posting pictures of smoothies and inspirational quotes, but we looked at that and we worked with them to actually shift the definition of what they’re posting about. So it was all about naturopaths working in the store, great prices, and expertise – that’s what we wanted to push out in terms of content. Then the image that accompanied that was healthy lifestyles, or a beautiful green smoothie. The result of that was lots of activity and lots of engagement on every post coming out of that business, but at the same time, the business was also keeping top of mind about what their core values are. One component that we see a lot of businesses ignore is their Facebook Insights. Do you mind explaining just quickly what Facebook Insights is, and how businesses should use that data? CJ: Facebook Insights is the social media version of Google Analytics. It gives you a very basic understanding of your page, which can then lead on to insights into how you should produce content moving forward, and that’s something that should be checked weekly, at a minimum. What you can do with Insights is see a number of measures such as your most engaging posts; your highest reaching posts; your audience; your fan base; people that are actually engaging; how many people like you; how many people are talking about you etc. There’s just so much data, but the important thing is to review it and to map it back to the purchase funnel.

internet marketing magazine december 2013 - january 2014

> COVER STORY:

EXPERT INTERVIEW

Have a look at your posts and with just one click you can organize them into a reach score. Then what you can do is look at the most engaging posts. You don’t need any social media gurus, experts, or agencies out there to understand which of your posts are the most engaging, because the data proves it. You organize by most engaging, and that’s a measure of how many people opened up an image; how many people clicked anywhere in on that post; and then it also counts how many likes, comments, and shares. Greg: There’s a massive learning in that for business owners and entrepreneurs. If you’re not looking at your Insights, then you really need to stop and have a look at that rather than just keep posting blindly hoping to build likes and audience share etc.

and are fans of your page? That’s a really important thing that you can find out in your Insights. So if you think that your consumer base is actually women 25 to 44, but when you check out your Insights, it’s actually a much younger audience, that can really help you change the tone of voice that you use on your page just to make sure that that content is something that those people are going to want to engage with. With the types of posts, what we have found is photos get the highest engagement by far. We have text status posts that occasionally getting more reach, but they get less engagement.

What do you consider to be best practice for posting content on business’s Facebook pages? Melissa: You can Google this and people will say, “Post a photo, ask a question to get engagement.” and there’s even people saying post pictures of cute kittens because it’ll get lots of shares. But you really have to take it back to the strategy stage again. You really have to think, ‘Why am I actually posting this piece of content? what is it actually going to do for me? What am I trying to achieve with it? Am I trying to drive sales? Am I trying to get people to post a comment so that they’re having conversations around my brand?’ You’ve just got to think the ‘why’ before you’re actually thinking the ‘how’.

Another important thing to consider is who is this actually for? Who are your customers? Who are the people that are liking your page

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There are multiple ways to advertise on Facebook. Which methods do you to be effective at this point in time? CJ: There is currently something like 27 different types of ad unit you can run with on Facebook. It needs simplifying, and I believe they’re working on that. But with Facebook Advertising it’s all about your objective again. For our own business, the way in which we think about things is that we need to grow our fan base of people that are particularly interested in what our business is about. So we’ve run straight

> COVER STORY:

EXPERT INTERVIEW

advertise to that person when they go back to Facebook, because 9 times out of 10, they do go back to Facebook. Also advertising in the newsfeed is great as we have found that News Feed advertising is getting much higher click-through rates. We were seeing results of 2% up to 5% and 10%, where the online average for just display advertising is not quite 0.05%. ‘like’ ads targeting people that are interested in social media marketing. There’s a category on Facebook where you can target small business owners. So we give them reasons that they should ‘like’ us on Facebook, then what we kick in with is page post ads. The page post ad is designed to reach all those people that are ‘liking’ you with the actual content that you want to push out. Because as any Facebook marketer knows, every time you post, you reach maximum 10% of your fan base, so the page post ads can help with that. Then as we grow our fan base and now we’re reaching those fans with the content that’s relevant to them, we then feel like there’s a point in time when we want to drive people to convert and consider our products far more. We can use the page post link to drive people to a specific page on our website to convert to leads. Then you’ve got all these other advertising products that you can start to leverage. Custom audiences are effective - you can advertise to your email database and guarantee there’s 100% visibility. You can now start to use the Facebook Exchange and Facebook remarketing. As an example if someone visits a travel booking website and they go to purchase, but then they decide to make a cup of tea and they forget to finish the transaction - we can re-

Greg: Yes, I agree. We’re also getting cheaper advertising as a result of the News Feed. I haven’t advertised on the right hand side of Facebook in months. I find the newsfeed very powerful and much more cost effective. I think also you’re hitting the mobile devices better as well as a lot of those mobile devices are not seeing the right hand side bar, so that could be a big difference too in that space.

What type of businesses and also strategies do you think can really work well for Instagram being a visual medium? Melissa: Well, the ones that instantly come to mind for us are like fashion, retail, travel, hospitality, but it can also go to any business that is telling a story through pictures such as news channels and TV stations. internet marketing magazine december 2013 - january 2014

> COVER STORY:

EXPERT INTERVIEW

A really great example of how this can work for any business is a client that we worked with earlier this year, which is the Department of Border Protection. We worked with them to put together a strategy around Instagram that really allowed them to humanize their brand. There is an element of the public that has a perception that the Department of Immigration is a bunch of people that have no soul; and that they just want to make life difficult; and that it’s so hard to deal with them. So by actually showing pictures of the people that are there answering the phones all day answering everyone’s questions, it gives their brand and company a more human face. And it also helps them celebrate the events that are taking place all the time that the general public wouldn’t necessarily realize unless they knew someone. For example, there’s always Australian citizenship ceremonies taking place. So by taking pictures of these, showing the people that have migrated to Australia, them coming to the country, it’s really celebrating that multi-culturalism which is such a huge part of Australia as well. It’s a really nice, nice way to tell a story through images. Greg: One other thing I was thinking about with Instagram as well is that it’s a great spot to reach a younger audience too, because I hear a lot of younger teenagers are preferring to hang out there rather than Facebook because their parents aren’t on the platform. If you’ve got a younger audience that you’re marketing to, it can be a great spot to get your message out.

For any of our readers, listeners, and subscribers who want more information about you and your agency, where can they best find you online? CJ: Please feel free to check us out at www.StencilHQ.com. We’ve designed our website to be read in under a minute similar to a social platform, because with the Facebook News Feed, you read about 15 articles in a minute, and Twitter is exactly the same. You’ll be able to see what we do; who the team is, and look at some of the work that we’ve done. IMM

internet marketing magazine december 2013 - january 2014

RESPONSIVE WEB DESIGN

GRACEFULLY RESPONSIVE WEB DESIGN Responsive design allows a website to work on a desktop computer as well as on mobile phones and tablets of all sizes — a necessity for today’s multi-device world.

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By Todd Lerner

internet marketing magazine december 2013 - january 2014

RESPONSIVE WEB DESIGN

esponsive design allows a website to work on a desktop computer as well as on mobile phones and tablets of all sizes—a necessity for today’s multi-device world. Responsive websites query the browser for window size and deliver optimized content for varying screen dimensions, but there is an inherent difficulty... The big design challenge How can your web pages look good and function well on a tiny mobile phone and also on a huge desktop monitor, not to mention all the device shapes and sizes in-between? Check out a Responsive website on a desktop computer and observe as you shrink your browser window all the way down—you’ll likely see things abruptly jump around, change size and position, even disappear entirely as the layout transforms to accommodate the diminishing real estate. Enter Gracefully Responsive design Gracefully Responsive web design smooths out the lumps and inconsistencies for a more refined and harmonious viewing experience no matter how someone chooses to engage with your content.

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To be sure, this endeavor involves some creative thinking, forethought and effort. But we like what Ross Perot says: “You can always find ten ways to prove something can’t be done. The trick is finding one way it can be done.” Three ways it can be done. Following, are notions to consider as a start toward more Gracefully Responsive web design. 1. Gracefully Responsive navigation To see how today’s top Responsive sites handle navigation, you can Google “Best Responsive websites”. A quick inspection reveals that navigation links for mobile viewing are often mismatched when compared to the same links on a desktop. For example, the mobile links might use white type on a darkcolored background whereas the desktop links use differentlystyled black type on a light-colored background. Since your website navigation scheme is the main portal through which visitors find and experience your content, why would you ever want it to unexpectedly change in look and style? The example below shows navigation design that is coordinated. The links in a collapsible drop-down menu for mobile (left and center) look the same as when they transform into an expanded view for larger screens (right).

In addition, the above uses animation for an extra graceful transition between vertical and horizontal navigation modes (feel free to see how it works at www.toddlerneradvertising. com). This brings us to our next point... 2. Gracefully Responsive touches of animation In Responsive design, things often vanish and re-materialize elsewhere. This doesn’t merely occur as a desktop screen resizes—it can also happen when someone turns their mobile phone or tablet from portrait to landscape and back again. Touches of animation as things relocate can turn a disconcerting

> negative into an eye-rewarding positive. Below is an example where three page elements (left) slide from a horizontal layout into a mobile-friendly and scrollable vertical format (center and right).

RESPONSIVE WEB DESIGN

To save space, perhaps some detailing can be subordinated and accessed hierarchically. Your material doesn’t necessarily need to be overly stark, but a discerning attempt at simplicity can go a long way toward achieving more Gracefully Responsive web pages. And don’t forget that leaner web pages can load faster, which is especially appreciated on slower mobile connections.

The above animation is fun to watch, but it also exemplifies the very spirit of Responsive design. If this action could speak it would say: “Resize your desktop screen ... rotate your phone or tablet ... I’ll happily and gracefully adapt to your viewing preferences.”

A scenario The following isn’t hard to imagine: A prospect finds your website using her desktop computer ... her screen is sized up and down as she multitasks on other projects ... later in the day while on the move she accesses your site from a mobile phone ... in the evening she’s hanging out on the sofa and shows it to her husband using a tablet.

There are many instances where touches of animation can soften the herky-jerkyness of a Responsive web page. Type can animate as it changes in size, for instance. And objects removed as a layout contracts can gently fade away rather than unexpectedly blip out of existence. 3. Gracefully Responsive overall simplicity If the following makes sense to you, then the virtue of simplicity in Responsive design becomes evident: a. Your website needs to work well on a small mobile screen b. Simpler design fits better on a small screen c. It’s good if your site looks similar on all devices small and large So with the above in mind, instead of starting with a desktop-size website and attempting to cram everything down to the space of a tiny mobile screen, it seems best to begin with a less complex mobile-friendly design. From there you can better scale things up in an agreeable manner.

Now in all of the above situations, don’t you want your brand communication to be predictably consistent? As elegant and appealing as possible? Yes, we are talking about escalating the complexity of a task that is already tricky—but aiming for Gracefully Responsive design can reward you with a website possessing a more integrated and flowing seductiveness. IMM

internet marketing magazine december 2013 - january 2014

BUSINESS MODELS

THE SEVEN DIFFERENT TYPES OF ONLINE BUSINESS MODELS By Scott Dudley

f you are looking to start a business on the internet, you will need to do some research on the various online business models that are out there. Different types of businesses suit different people for different reasons, so it is important to work out what is best for your situation. If you get this first step wrong, then there is a good chance that you will waste a lot of time, money and effort on something that was never going to work in the first place. It is really important that you understand what is involved with the different online business models out there. Let’s take a look at some of the more popular options available to you, and the advantages and disadvantages of each.

1. Affiliate Marketing. Affiliate marketing is basically the process of selling other people’s products in exchange for a commission payment that is an agreed percentage of each sale. Affiliate marketers could be described as independent sales people, who only get paid when an actual sale is made. Websites are able to use tracking codes which identify who referred the sale to them. Some of the most popular affiliate programs out there include Clickbank, Amazon and Commission Junction. You can do a Google

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search to find out more about these. In most cases affiliate marketers get around 50% of any sale (can be anything from 5% to 75%) that is generated. It sounds very appealing to make these commissions on products that you don’t need to store or deliver, but it is absolutely crucial that you pick the right companies and products. You also need to make sure that you have personally used these products and endorse them 100%. Otherwise you are just risking ruining your reputation by selling dodgy stuff to your subscribers. Affiliate marketing is an excellent way for newbies and beginners to start making money very quickly. It is true that you make a lot more money by selling your own products, but everyone has to start somewhere and promoting other people’s products is an excellent platform to start from.

BUSINESS MODELS

To be successful in affiliate marketing you need to build a large list of loyal subscribers who see you as an authority figure. It is extremely important that you learn how to generate leads and build your list.

Usually you are limited to your own local area as well, because freight costs from overseas eat into your profit margins. In some cases you will need to pay freight when both buying and selling the goods as well.

It is not easy, but it is certainly possible. I give affiliate marketing the thumbs up, providing you choose the right products to promote.

Many people have dreams of starting an eBay business, but I would estimate that only 1% of people are able to make a comfortable living from it.

2. Buy And Sell Tangible (Physical) Goods Online Ebay is the biggest website for buying and selling goods online. It is a very straight forward business model, with the idea of buying goods cheaply and selling them for a profit.

To get access to information that teaches people how the 1% make their money is near impossible as well. Be wary of EBay scams and systems that promise easy money.

Whilst the idea is dead simple in theory, it much harder to make decent money in reality. Donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t be fooled into thinking it is easy, as a lot of people are competing in this market. Large companies buy goods in bulk and can afford to sell them at rock bottom prices and still make a margin. They can also afford to store the goods in warehouses as well. You must be extremely good at picking bargains which people will pay you good money for. This can mean a lot of trial and error, and costly financial mistakes.

It can be done, but I would prefer to sell intangible information products myself and give this model the thumbs down.

3. Blogging Blogging is another popular online business that people choose to pursue, mainly because of the extremely low cost to get started (basically free). The idea of a blog is to pick a specific niche topic that is in demand and to create regular valuable content about that niche. A lot of people start blogs, but unfortunately very few are able to make it work. The two biggest stumbling blocks for bloggers are the technical website aspects, and also the challenge of regularly creating quality content to put on the blog. If you donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t know much about web design or html, then you have two choices. Either spend hours getting bogged down learning how it works (which I did), or to pay a web designer to create a nice looking site for you - which can be expensive.

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BUSINESS MODELS Some people say the content is far more important than the design of the site, but I disagree with this. They are both just as important. A website that looks completely horrible makes the blogger look like an amateur straight away. First impressions are important. As far as creating content, for starters you must be motivated to write about the niche topic that you have chosen. For a blog to even have a chance of ranking highly in the search engines, it needs to have regular quality content that people want to read or watch. You may need to look at outsourcing the content creation as well, but this can pose problems also. Most content writers are either very expensive, or there work is very low quality. It is a catch 22 situation. But how do you make money from it? Well the common ways are through advertising and selling affiliate products. But make sure your blog is getting traffic and is established before you even think about promoting products and selling advertising. Trying to make money from a blog with no traffic is close to impossible.

Professional copywriters, search engine optimizers, graphic designers, and web designers are in demand these days with new online entrepreneurs starting businesses every day. If you are really good at your field, you can make a lot of money and be able to get whenever it suits you. The great thing about being a freelancer is that you can work from anywhere in the world. The thing is though, to make good money you have to be an absolute professional and your work needs to exceptional. There is so much competition out there, that anything less than exceptional puts you in the average category. There are millions of freelancers in developing countries who can afford to charge as little as $1 per hour, and their work is just as good as a person from a Westernized country that charges $30 per hour or more. So in order to make it profitable your skills must be worth the money that your clients pay to you.

In general blogging is a worthwhile online business model, but it takes time to see any results. Most people are not blessed with the patience to keep up their commitment to their blog, and quit far too early. Focus on providing your readers with awesome value and build a community from it. Blogging is one of my strategies that I am taking seriously, and I give it the thumbs up.

4. Freelance Writing, Graphic Design Or Web Design. Being a freelancer is more of a job, than a business but it can pay very well if you have talents. It is worth including in this report.

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Freelancing may be the answer for you, but for most people it is just way too competitive. I give this model the thumbs up, but because it classed as a job and not a business, I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t personally do it myself.

> 5. Multi Level Marketing Multi Level Marketing (I will call it MLM in this report) is another hugely popular business model. Most people no longer bother with the old fashioned traditional means of recruiting, and with good reason.

BUSINESS MODELS

The leads are then marketed to with email auto responder messages and other web pages. People can make money in MLM provided they are: • willing to talk to hundreds or thousands of people about their business • willing to wait a minimum of 2 years before their down line is big enough to start paying residual income. Most people are not willing to do either of the above, let alone both, and this explains why 97% of people who get involved in MLM never make any money, or make very little from it.

MLM companies in the past (and some in the present) told people to write out a list of family, friends and acquaintances and to basically approach these people to try and convince them to join your company. This is a horrible idea, because all you do is make people dislike you and think you are an idiot. The success rate of these types of recruiting are extremely low. MLM gurus of the past like to say that it is a numbers game, and all you have to do is talk a little bit to a lot of people. But how many of us want to speak to thousands of people about joining their business? I know I certainly don’t. With the introduction of the internet, things have changed dramatically since about 2007 with online marketing systems popping up everywhere. The idea now is to drive traffic online to your squeeze pages (or landing pages or capture pages - depending on what you like to call it), and to convert a percentage of these people into leads.

If you are still interested in trying out MLM after reading this, then at least choose something that does not require you to store large amounts of product at your house. I don’t personally like MLM and give this model the thumbs down. I have personally tried it and don’t like having to “recruit” people to join a business opportunity. It may be for you though if you like talking to a lot of people.

6. Top Tier Direct Sales Top Tier direct sales is similar in a lot of ways to MLM in that you are recruiting people to join your opportunity. It can best be described as a business model that sells very expensive products that are premium quality, and are supposed to be worth the money that you pay for them. It can cost an absolute fortune to get started, but it does have the potential to pay you very large commissions. The products are very expensive to buy, but they pay very large commissions - ranging from $1,000 to $20,000 per sale.

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BUSINESS MODELS The product line is usually some sort of information product that is of the highest caliber and can not be duplicated or copied. An example could be online education, physical products shipped to your door, or live seminars/ events with A Grade speakers.

any money. Most people are not cut out to be selling expensive products and find that it is just too difficult.

The products are usually sold by taking advantage of cutting edge, professional online marketing systems and strategies that use the high commissions as their main selling point. The concept of marketing is the same as I explained before for MLM, where you need to drive traffic online to landing pages and capture leads. But the big difference to the MLM business model, is that it is possible to start making executive level income in your first few months, not years. And the other difference is that you only need to make a few sales a month to replace your income, instead of having to make 100 sales a month for a product that pays little $30 commissions. Now obviously some top tier direct sales companies are better than others, and not all are as good as they say they are. This is where you need to do your research and find the ones that are good. In my experience with top tier direct sales it is common for some of these sort of companies to go out of business, to change direction, or for the top leaders to defect to the opposition. If you have paid a lot of money to join a business, the last thing that you want is for the company to fold. I have also seen owners of top tier direct sales companies get greedy and try to grow too quickly, and ruin the company in the process. The problem with this model is that unless you are able to make sales, you will not make

internet marketing magazine december 2013 - january 2014

The most successful people that I have seen in this type of business usually have some sort of executive sales experience and have excellent sales and marketing skills targeting very wealthy people or companies. But for the average Joe (97% of the population) they can’t make it work and end up wasting a lot of money. In general this business model is extremely risky, but if you can make it work it is possible to create a 6 or 7 figure business. I give this model the thumbs down, as my personal experience was that it is just too hard to make sales, and most of the companies don’t last for long. Plus I really don’t like the idea of having to “recruit” people into a business opportunity.

7. Create your own information products. Creating your own information products is the most sensible online business model for a number of reasons. • You make 100% profit margins once the products are created • It brands you as an expert in your field • You can easily find hungry markets that are profitable

BUSINESS MODELS

Image Credit: Cover Action Pro

• It is extremely cheap to create the products • You provide solutions to peoples problems • You are not recruiting people in a business opportunity • It is extremely easy to create the products once you know how Now I realize that people that are just getting started are probably not ready to start creating their own information products, but you should not feel like it is too difficult. With the right guidance and knowledge you can easily be creating your information product business in no time. Obviously you need to come up with an idea that people would be prepared to pay money for a solution, but with the right tools that is dead easy as well.

We live in the information age and people that have problems are doing their research on the internet. It is your job to provide them solutions and to make money in the process. You don’t even need to be an expert as you can do things such as interview people that are experts, or you can do your own research to become an expert. Once you have created your product and set up your website (which you can outsource if necessary) you can be making money 24 hours a day, including when you are sleeping. I give this business model the thumbs up because you do the work once, and then get paid forever if there is a demand for what you have created. IMM

internet marketing magazine december 2013 - january 2014

LANDING PAGE

THE ANATOMY OF A HIGH CONVERTING LANDING PAGE By Neil Patel

reating a landing page these days is really easy, especially with all of the landing page tools out there. But whatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s hard is creating one that actually converts well. Why? Because you have to take into account the elements on the page, where to place them, what message your design is going to portray, and how the text is going to affect each visitor. So, instead of telling you how to create a great landing page, I decided to use an infographic to show you the process:

internet marketing magazine december 2013 - january 2014

LANDING PAGE

Conclusion When you are using the elements discussed above to create a landing page, keep in mind that you donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have to use every single one to create a high converting page. Just look at this landing page. It converts at 72%, which is extremely high. I was able to do this without using elements such as trust seals or any sort of video/image. No matter what anyone tells you, there is no cookie cutter formula to create a high converting landing page. What works for one site may not work for another. So you will have to A/B test your landing page to maximize your conversion rate.

I hope the infographic gives you some idea of what you should and shouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t place on your landing page. IMM

internet marketing magazine december 2013 - january 2014

SOLO ADS

IMPROVE YOUR ONLINE EARNINGS USING SOLO ADS By Eric Welke

What are Solo Ads?

olo Ads are a service that you can purchase from an owner of a mailing list. He will send an email on your behalf with an offer and link to your chosen page. Cost is usually based on the number of guaranteed clicks or subscribers on the list. It can become quite expensive to do Solo Ads so its best used when you have an effective landing page and compelling product. Since solo ads are shared through an active mailing list, there is a higher chance that you can get actual subscribers from the same list. It’s all up to you to make sure you can entice

them to sign up to your own list. Solo Ads are great when you’re just starting out with your campaign or building your own mailing list. You really need guaranteed traffic to give your campaign the exposure it needs and solo ads can give you that critical push. Here’s a rough guide and list of tips on how to take advantage of solo ads: 1. Find a solo ads provider. Send him the target URL and ad copy you want to be sent out to his list. internet marketing magazine december 2013 - january 2014

SOLO ADS 2. There are established Solo Ads providers available online and there are also sites where you can see a list of providers. 3. Choose the provider whose list is composed of people who are in your target niche. You will get a better response rate this way compared to using lists that cover wide topics. 4. The target URL sends people to your own website or sales page where they can join your mailing list or buy a product. 5. You’ll need to create an incentive for users to sign up to your own list. This can be anything from a free report, video or product promos. 6. You can get some quick sales from people who sign up by offering them a special “one time” offer that they can only purchase after they sign up. 7. Try to vary your offers each time you send a new ad. You can also use other providers to see which has a more responsive list. It is important to remember that people sign up to your list because they will have the impression that you have something unique to offer. Try to offer special deals or share great content to keep your list engaged. Running Solo ads is one of the best marketing methods I’ve used. I was able to build a decent list of people from my target niche. Since my primary niche is social media marketing, I usually get a significant number of list members interested in my social media campaign support services.

Always remember: once you’ve built a sizable list you should continue to nurture and grow it with new solo ads campaigns. Try to limit the amount of times you post in a week. You don’t want to send to emails too often and end up getting tagged as spam. Don’t waste the money you’ve invested to build your list by giving them reasons to leave it. IMM

internet marketing magazine december 2013 - january 2014

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KEYWORDS

9 WAYS TO STEAL YOUR “NOT PROVIDED” KEYWORD DATA BACK! By Megan Marrs

ver the past year we’ve watched the ranks of the dreaded term “not provided” rise and rise. In September, Google announced that it had begun its mission to encrypt ALL search data, making 100% “not provided” keyword data a reality.

of privacy, to protect the vulnerable users. Some theorize that Google is trying to hinder third-party software that makes use of Google keyword data, and others believe it’s a move by Google to get more marketers to sign up for AdWords (since keyword data obtained through AdWords is not hidden). Whatever the reasoning is, the “not provided” fiasco has a lot of SEO’s enraged, and for good reason. Keyword data about what organic keywords are driving traffic to your site has been essential for online marketers, so they know what’s working and where to go next.

Chart by Not Provided Count shows increase in “not provided.”

What Does Not Provided Mean In Google Analytics? If you log into Google Analytics today, you’ll likely see the term “not provided” eating up the majority of your keyword data.

Yes it stinks. A ton. Instead of crying on our keyboards though, we will remain ever optimistic, providing 9 ways to get your “not provided” keyword data back. Kind of. Alright, well, we’ve got workarounds – tools and techniques that will help you with keyword research and vital marketing data. You know what though, you might not even need that data as much as you thought. We’ll explain. Read on! 1. Google Webmaster Tools: A Handful Of Keywords Google Analytics won’t cough up keyword info, but Google Webmaster tools still provides

Google is choosing not to show you the keywords that have been driving organic traffic to your site. But why Google, why? The official answer is that it’s done in the name internet marketing magazine december 2013 - january 2014

KEYWORDS 2. Enable Site Search: See What Users Search For On Your Site Setting up site search lets you see the queries visitors have used in the search box on your site (assuming you have one).

To set up site search, first go to Google Analytics and select the Account and Web Property you want to work with. Use View to select the view you’d like to use. From there: • Open View Settings • Click “Site Search Settings” • Choose “Do Track Site Search.”

For Query Parameter you need to type in the word that designates an internal query parameter. If this all sounds like a foreign language don’t worry – it’s easy to figure out. To find out what your query parameter is, visit your site and conduct a search with your site search box. Once you’ve conducted a search, you’ll see the URL change to something along the lines of: http://www.reallycoolwebsite.com/ search?q=analytics Whatever comes after the “?” is your query parameter. In this example, the query parameter is “q.” Add your query parameter to

internet marketing magazine december 2013 - january 2014

the Site Search Settings. Next you’ll see the option to “Strip query parameters out of URL.” Choosing this option will prevent your search from showing up in your Content reports. You’ll also see the option to add category parameters, which you can use if your site search engine allows for it. Now you can head over to Behavior>Site Search>Search Terms, and lo and behold, you can see what folks are searching for on your site. This is pretty prime info – you’re learning what users are hoping to find on your site, which can launch a lot of ideas for SEO content you might want to add in the future. For example, imagine you run a mattress company or bedding supply store, and you write a blog post called “Top 5 iPhone Sleep Alarm Apps.” You may peek into your site search report and find that users have searched “android alarm apps.” Maybe they saw your post about iPhone apps and are looking for the same info for Android apps. Suddenly you have a great new topic to write about that you know will resonate with audiences. Very cool! 3. Bing Keyword Data Google may have turned its back on you, but Bing is that awkward kid on the playground who is desperate for friends, so no WAY it’s going to turn you away. Bing doesn’t get nearly as much search traffic as Google, but at least it’s sharing. The only issue here is that because Bing gets so much less search traffic than Google, you’ll only find useful data if you get a lot of traffic, making it an unrealistic option for many smaller businesses. 4. Google Keyword Planner: The New Keyword Tool Google axed the keyword tool that once made it easy to conduct hearty keyword research, and its disappearance has left many SEOers with long faces.

> Not all is lost though – you can still use the Google Keyword Planner for keyword recommendations and brainstorming. Using it is more of a nuisance than the old keyword tool, since in order to use the planner you need to have an AdWords account. Creating an AdWords account isn’t a huge deal though – no credit cards are required. Just choose your Google login, set your time zone, and you’re basically all set.

Once you’ve logged in to AdWords, to find the Keyword Planner, go to Tools and Analysis > Keyword Planner. From there, you’ll have the option to: • Search for new keyword and ad group ideas • Get search volume for a list of keywords • Get Traffic Estimates for a list of keywords • Multiply keyword lists to get new keyword ideas

KEYWORDS

Today we’ll stick with searching for new keywords. Click that option and you’ll be brought to another page where you are prompted to provide some info. The only info you really need to give is your product or service. Feel free to ignore anything else you don’t understand or don’t want to provide. Click “Get Ideas” at the bottom of the box and you’ll soon be swimming in keywords.

Toggle between “keywords” and “ad groups” for further segmenting. Don’t forget to take advantage of the traffic estimator and search volume tools as well – even though Google has robbed us of keyword data, they still offer a handy set of marketing tools for SEOs. 5. Google Related Searches Need more keyword ideas? Never fear – Google’s recommended searches that appear at the bottom of SERPs are the easiest way to discover related keywords.

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KEYWORDS The cool thing about these suggestions is that you are guaranteed that the related searches are popular – that’s why Google is displaying them in the first place! Focusing on those related searches and semantically similar queries will definitely boost your chances of crafting an efficient, searchable, traffic-driving page. 6. Google Trends: Brand Monitoring & Topical Ideas Google Trends is a great tool you can use for brand monitoring. Just type in your brand and see how searches for your business have changed over the months or years.

Google Trends can also be used to research possible timely topics. The “Hot Searches” category shows the popular search topics of recent days.

Use Google Trends to monitor your branded keywords and brainstorm topical blog posts subjects. 7. Google Analytics But wait, I thought we were hating on Google Analytics! What gives? While Google Analytics is no longer a good resource for discovering what keywords are driving people to your site, it still provides a ton of other valuable data – even data that can help you decide what subjects will drive traffic. The landing page report shows your most popular landing pages. What are these pages about? If you create a new piece of content that is related or inspired by a strongperforming landing page, chances are the new content will also do well. You can also add the secondary dimension: source in order to see where that traffic is coming from. That’ll do Google Analytics. That’ll do. 8. Join The PPC Side If you really miss that old keyword data, it can be yours – for a price. Google doesn’t “not provide” data if you participate in paid advertising on Google via AdWords.

Another powerful section of Google Trends is the “Top Charts,” which shows the most popular search topics by category. See top search topics for everything from musical artists and politicians to software technologies and medications.

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Google claims that they’re hiding keyword data as “not provided” for privacy purposes, but it’s hard to support that argument when paid users are given access to that “private” data. Some have gone as far as to label Google as an extortionist, but no matter how you feel about it, the plain truth is that AdWords users get that sweet keyword nectar while others don’t.

> Some reasons to consider switching to PPC: • PPC users get keyword traffic data. • Organic SERPs are getting smaller and smaller, while paid advertising gets increasingly more prime real estate. • Google focuses a ton of effort towards advancing PPC. With awesome ad extensions like Offer Extensions and Click-to-Call Extensions, Google works hard to make PPC work for advertisers. If Google’s focuses on it, chances are you should be too. 9. Use Your Expertise: Create Great Content & Abandon The Keyword Obsession Don’t despair about not having as much keyword data from Google Analytics as in the golden years of days gone by. Maybe we’re trusting technology too much as it is – after all, isn’t your brain the most powerful analytics tool of all? Remember, Googs doesn’t know your audience like you do. What does you audience enjoy? You know this better than anyone else, so take pride in that and use your insider knowledge to your advantage. The web is plastered with articles about why marketers need to focus more on creating great contentthan adhering to old school SEO practices. While the reality

KEYWORDS

is that a lot of SEO work goes hand in hand with creating (and promoting) quality content, some SEO practices are holding marketers back, one being the obsession with keywords. Google has already been moving away from keyword power and instead focusing more and more on semantics and the power of relationships. With Google putting more value into features like author rank, knowledge graph, personalized results, and social sharing, successful marketers won’t be spending all their time focusing on keywords.

Remember, 15-20% of Google searches have never been searched before. This means marketers have to get creative, imaging new queries and audience desires that Google could never give you, even if it wanted to. Ultimately, it will be your know-how and inventiveness that will result in excellent, top-notch content and rankings. So don’t get hung up on the “not provided.” We’re moving past keywords anyhow! IMM

internet marketing magazine december 2013 - january 2014

EXPLAINER VIDEOS

WHY EXPLAINER VIDEOS INCREASE CONVERSION RATES BY 20% By Andrew Angus

hen it comes to internet marketing, there are a lot of standard tools used to increase conversion rates.

All of these work together to increase conversion rates and sell more products and services.

The best marketers know how important a beautiful website is to give people the best first impression of your business or blog. They also know how important excellent copy and headline writing are for sharing clear and compelling messaging. And last but not least, they know how important testimonials are for boosting credibility.

But are these the only tools that companies can use to increase conversion rates? Or is there an even more powerful option that can be considered? Introducing the Secret Conversion Weapon â&#x20AC;&#x201C; The Explainer Video Unbeknownst to many, thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a conversion

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> tactic that many businesses are starting to use to increase conversion rates. It’s known as an explainer video. Explainer videos are short videos that tell a company’s story. They can be claymation, hand drawn, or digital drawings, but no matter what, they provide businesses with a way to clearly and effectively convey their value proposition. Rypple, recently changed to work.com, a social performance management platform owned by Salesforce, recently added an explainer video to their homepage and increased conversion rates by 20%. Approximately 30% of the page visitors watch the video and approximately 50% of those viewers watch the video in its entirety. Dropbox is another startup that has taken advantage of the effectiveness of explainer videos by limiting their homepage to a single video. This video increased conversion rates over 10%, and with the video being viewed 750,000 times in one month alone, the 10% increase resulted in several thousand extra sign ups per day.

EXPLAINER VIDEOS

Why Explainer Videos are so Effective According to a study about web use, the average attention span in 2012 is 8 seconds, down from 12 seconds in 2000. Apparently, technology is affecting us so much that we now have a shorter attention span than a goldfish, which have a 9 second attention span. But more importantly, for marketers, it shows that businesses have only 8 seconds to capture attention with their landing pages. Not only do you need to make sure your hosting is fast enough so you don’t waste those 8 seconds with load times, but you also need content that engages people and engages them quickly. This is where explainer videos come in. Not only are they great at getting customers to learn more about your business, but they’re also great at keeping attention. With the right script, you can maintain attention every 8 seconds which is approximately every 20 words. The average explainer video is watched on average for about 2.7 minutes, compared with 28% of website text shown to be read on average. Other benefits of explainer videos include: Visual and verbal learning A recent study of 221 undergraduate students showed that 105 were visual learners, 105 were bimodal (meaning no preference), and only 11 were verbal. Explainer videos take advantage of this by offering visual and verbal cues for learning. This appeals to all three groups. It’s also been shown that people retain over 50% more information through the use of visual and verbal learning cues.

Here’s the explainer video that Dropbox used to increase conversions. As you can see, explainer videos are great for conversions, but why?

Clear presentation Explainer videos are one of the best ways to clearly convey your business’s value proposition. Persuasive copy is good, but the combination of speech, text and graphics help to communicate even more clearly. Jesse

internet marketing magazine december 2013 - january 2014

EXPLAINER VIDEOS Goldman, VP of Customer Success at Rypple has this to say about explainer videos: “I hear from many people at top companies that say a video communicates a clear story that they can easily relate to. This probably also explains why overall engagement with the app is higher.”

Forced simplification Explainer videos force you to compress your product offering into 60 to 120 seconds and 150 to 300 words. This exercise requires businesses to find the best way to clearly and quickly convey the benefit of their product or service. Video scripts limit the number of words, requiring more to be said with less text. Greater shareability Not only are videos more likely to be consumed entirely with more information retained, they’re also more likely to entertain and impress. Interesting and humorous videos are one of the most shareable types of online content, making explainer videos more likely to be shared with family and friends. Wrap up Explainer videos are a great way to connect with customers, clearly convey your business’s value proposition and capture attention. Other companies that are using these types of videos to increase conversion rates include the following: Google, Crazy Egg and Inbenta and many more. If your business is looking to increase conversion rates, an explainer video may be exactly the secret weapon you need. IMM

internet marketing magazine december 2013 - january 2014

ECOMMERCE SEARCH

HOW NATURAL LANGUAGE PROCESSING WILL CHANGE E-COMMERCE SEARCH FOREVER By Jordi Torras And this is what we got:

earch engines have used Natural Language Processing and semantics for a while now, but marketers have yet to harness the potential of using natural language search on their sites to boost searchto-buy conversions. The latest theoretical frameworks like Meaning-Text Theory and Lexical Functions can lift conversion rates by as much as 400%. The incongruent experience of e-commerce search Let’s take www.sears.com as example. W Sears is an American multinational midrange department store chain headquartered in Hoffman Estates, Illinois. The official name of Sears is Sears, Roebuck & Co. Their website is also their e-commerce and online business branch. We tried two search requests on their website search engine: • tv 22inches • television 22”

... not able to read these screenshots? Don’t worry! Just take a look at the images accompanying the products, and you will see something obvious: they are very different! Another example: PC Mall, Inc. is a value-added direct marketing company that offers computer and electronic products, services, and solutions to individual consumers, small and medium businesses, large enterprises, as well as for government and educational institutions. The company is based in El Segundo, California and their e-commerce website is www. pcm.com

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ECOMMERCE SEARCH In this case, we tried these 2 search queries: • laptop 4gb ram 1tb disk • laptop 4 gigabytes of RAM and 1 terabyte of disk Below are the results we got, at the time of this writing: Again, the actual details of the search results are not important; just pay attention that both are very different.

If you an aficionado to Rock & Roll or Blues music, you will know what an electric bass guitar is, although the bass guitar is used in many styles of music including pop, country, reggae, gospel and jazz. The standard design for the electric bass guitar has four strings, although five strings is also a very common option. We tried these 2 search queries at Amazon: • 5 string electric bass guitar above $1000 • bass guitar with five strings for more than 1,000 dollars And these are the results we got:

But in both cases, wasn’t what we searched basically the same thing? What are the results so different? In both cases, users can actually find results, and some of them will eventually click on of the products and buy them, but: is this what any e-commerce manager would want? Shouldn’t similar search queries have similar results? Should these small differences in actual search terms produce such a different search results? Yet another example, the largest online retailer: Amazon. www.amazon.com started as an online bookstore, but soon diversified, selling DVDs, MP3, software, video games, electronics, apparel, furniture, food, toys, jewelry and even musical instruments!

internet marketing magazine december 2013 - january 2014

Again, just looking at these 2 pictures, you will realize that the search results are very different, although the search query was basically the same. It is worth noting that Amazon recognizes structures like

> “above $1000” or “below $1000”. For example, if you search “guitar below $1500” you will get exactly what you were looking for: guitars that cost less than 1,500 dollars. Similarly, if you search “guitar above $1500”, you will get a list of guitars that cost more than 1,500 dollars. Interestingly enough, if you search “guitar above $1000” you will get as the first result an Apple computer! Along 17,866 more results.

Anyway, e-commerce search experience is far from being a coherent, straightforward experience. The problem of e-commerce search When it comes to e-commerce search, most websites focus on SKU (Stock Keeping Units) to manage their “catalog”, as this is the logical component that can be bought by the user. However, users don’t look for SKU’s: users search for products and services that they need, describing the attributes, features and characteristics that they need like: • screwdrivers 6 inches • car radio with bluetooth compatible with iphone • guns and roses concert in san francisco bay area Search queries with 3 or more words are considered “Long Tail”. And Online Marketers invest a respectable amount of money trying to find the keywords that would deliver ROI. However, this apparent “Long Tail” is really the external form of a much more complex structure, that we could modeled like: “popular product name” + “features”

ECOMMERCE SEARCH

Where “popular product name” would be any combination of words that described the product we need, and features the set of attributes we want the product to comply (price, size, color, voltage, dates, city, .... and an endless list of attributes, all of them ambiguous, expressed in many different units, and unstructured in nature). Needless to say, “features” and “product name” can appear in any order, making ecommerce search particularly challenging. A model for E-commerce Search Engine Instead of considering products in our e-commerce catalog as a sequence of SKU, and let a keyword-based search engine try to solve the problem of search, we should consider the catalog a bi-dimensional matrix, where different products would be rows, and features would be columns.

Features, attributes or characteristics describe how every product is and behaves, and might be of very different nature: • Can be numeric values in a particular unit (price in dollars, length in inches, voltage in volts, resolution in pixels...) • Can be a list of possible values (colors, days of the week, cities in the country....) • Can be a multidimensional values (resolution would be width times height, dates would consist of day, month and year..) • ...and they could be many other things not listed above! With this approach, searching in an e-commerce site will mean find the right product (row) that satisfies the right attributes (columns). The role of Natural Language Processing Ticketmaster Entertainment, Inc. is an American ticket sales and Distribution Company internet marketing magazine december 2013 - january 2014

ECOMMERCE SEARCH based in West Hollywood, California, USA, with operations in many countries around the world. The following example is extracted from www. ticketmaster.es, the website of the company that Ticketmaster has in Barcelona, and that is powered by Inbenta Natural Language Search Engine. In this case, the search query is “theater in barcelona next weekend” and this the search results, at the time of this writing:

That’s an example on how Natural Language Processing is used in conjunction of e- commerce site search to refine search queries and produce relevant results. The “Search to Cart” rate “Search to Cart” rate or S2C rate is computed based on how many search results end up in the shopping cart. It is computed as: s2c = cart / search where “cart” is the total number of products shown in the search results page that where put in the shopping cart divided by the total number of search requests in the product search engine. Using Natural Language Processing we have measured a great increase in S2C rates, which bring the whole ROI. Return on Investment At Inbenta we are devoted to produce a bestclass Natural Language Processing technology that allows our customers to: • Increase revenue online by increasing conversion ratio and “search-to-cart” efficiency • Decrease customer support costs by providing the best self-service application and knowledge base management

Observe how “barcelona” has been interpreted by the Natural Language Processor as a City, so in the “faceted search” shown on the left side, Barcelona is clicked. In the other hand “theater” has been interpreted as a “Category”, selecting all shows that belong to this particular kind of show. Also “next weekend” is interpreted as a range of 2 dates (Friday 4/12/2013 and Sunday 4/14/2013), which is the weekend after the weekend after today (4/4/2013 as I am writing this). Also 2 FAQ are shown among the search results, “How to buy tickets” and “I can’t find an event on your Website”, that would solve the most common questions users have when searching Ticketmaster’s catalog.

internet marketing magazine december 2013 - january 2014

By applying these techniques on e-commerce website search, we have accomplished the following results in the first few weeks. • Increase in “search-to-cart” conversion ratio: +2.42% • Increase average purchase value: +11% As we talk, new features are being implemented in our e-commerce search engine, and new features and attributes are being deployed, so we expect these ratios to be growing in the future. Natural Language Search is a concept that everyone will need to become familiar with in the next few months. By integrating it properly, E-commerce website will be able to provide shoppers the right answers at the right time to improve conversion rates and drive additional revenue. IMM

internet marketing magazine december 2013 - january 2014

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internet marketing magazine december 2013 - january 2014