Pittsburgh Internet Consulting

AdWords Location Targeting – PPC Strategy

Michael Bartholow — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 07:00:07 +0000

Google AdWords has updated their location extensions module to make targeting multiple geographic areas with your ads faster and easier. Once upon a time you’d need a separate Campaign for each city or area your business targeted: Camapign & ads for Pittsburgh, campaign & ads for Cleveland. Now, with Zip Code targeting, you can create an ad for every zip code your business services and use dynamic keyword insertion to customize one ad dozens of times.

Dynamic location insertion makes this possible. When using the following code:

Find a {lb.city:Local} Store or Shop Online

a user viewing your ad in Chicago would see: “Find a Chicago Store or Shop Online.” This allows you to target a single ad to multiple markets.

AdWords has also added local business icons to Location Extensions. When configuring your local Extension, you can now select an appropriate service icon to be displayed alongside your ad. You can even upload a custom icon as a 16 x 16 .gif, .png, or .jpg file. These are the icons AdWords currently offers:

It’s never been quicker or easier to reach your target market, no matter where they happen to be. If AdWords Location Extension targeting is right for your business, contact the e-commerce professionals at Pittsburgh Internet Consulting and ask about our free $100 Google AdWords credit offer*. We look forward to expanding your online presence.

*Offer available for qualified new clients only.

Tracking E-Commerce Goals – Custom Reporting

Michael Bartholow — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 08:00:37 +0000

We recommend Google Analytics to track activity on your websites. It’s free, it’s powerful and it works for you.

When Analytics doesn’t present the data you’re looking for, there’s Custom Reports. This high-powered feature allows you to pull and extrapolate specific data from Analytics. Custom Reports allows for specific combinations that provide insight into your business on the web. Want to know if customers who download your PDF brochure come back and use your contact form? Or if visitors who view 5 pages or more are more likely to make a purchase?

Check out this graphic from Google on assembling your own custom report:

Leverage the power of Custom Reporting in Analytics today. Contact Pittsburgh Internet Consulting to discuss tracking e-commerce and taking your online business to the next level.

Tracking B2B E-Commerce Social Media Campaigns

Michael Bartholow — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 08:00:16 +0000

Google Analytics has launched a new Social tab allowing E-Commerce companies to monitor their social metrics and instantly correlate them with conversion dollars.

This goes a long way in connecting the dots between off-page social activity and sales and is valuable for any business with social profiles. Google Analytics can show page stats for visitors coming from Facebook posts and tweets, helping you create and target your posts. It can also monitor social shares; where visitors to your site share share your products on their social platforms.

Look at this example from one of our client’s Analytic report:

Click for full-size

You can see that ShareThis, a popular website plugin, is reporting data to Analytics. It shows which platform a user shared your product page to. In the above example, most users emailed the page, while 8% shared it on Facebook. This information can be sorted by visitor type or based on conversion data. Are people sharing your products before making purchases? Find out!

While this service is a free addition to Google Analytics, it does require some development work to properly implement the social tracking code on top of your existing Analytics code. Contact your e-commerce consulting firm and ask about this advanced website traffic analysis technique.

What You Need to Know When Comparing Prospective Pittsburgh SEO Consultants

Michael Bartholow — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 07:00:43 +0000

While its impact on your site is directly measurable in traffic and conversion data, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is often an art, not a science. You know you need an SEO Consultant to take your site’s numbers to the next level, but where do you start?

Here are some things to look for when interviewing Pittsburgh SEO Consultants:

-How Much Experience Do They Have?
SEO changes all the time, but the overall theories and goals remain the same. Pittsburgh Internet Consulting has been offering SEO services to happy clients since 2001. We’re uniquely positioned to monitor changes in the industry and make sure your business benefits. We also participate in industry events like PubCon<-link

-What Types of Reports Will You Receive?
Pittsburgh Internet Consulting provides clients with simple, easy-to-read reports for our Pay-Per-Click and SEO services. These reports quickly and easily show client’s how their money is being spent, what kind of traffic their site is receiving, and where they show up in search results. Ask your potential consultants for sample reports to see what they provide a typical client.

-How Many Long Term Clients Do They Have?
It’s important to know if a consulting firm’s clients get their projects done and leave or continue to stay with a consultant and make more and more money. We have several long term clients and enjoy the relationships that are built over years of working together. We are very proud of the revenue we’ve created for numerous Pittsburgh-area and Pennsylvania businesses.

-Is Your Potential Group Google Certified?
Google offers training and certification in their AdWords and Analytics products. To be a Google-certified agency, a company must manage at least a US $10,000 AdWords spend over 90 days, and have at least one individually qualified employee. Click here to see our Google AdWords Certification.

When interviewing potential Pittsburgh SEO Consultants, arm yourself with knowledge, a clear business strategy, and realistic expectations. Google even offers it’s own tips for selecting an SEO consultant. SEO is a long-term investment for serious clients, and choosing the SEO consultant is an important part of your businesses success online.

If you’d like a free SEO evaluation and quote, please contact us today.

Pittsburgh PPC Ideas for 2012

Michael Bartholow — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 07:00:02 +0000

Pay-Per-Click advertising platforms like Google AdWords and Microsoft AdCenter can be a great source of traffic for your business’ website. Today we’ll look at a few new features in Google AdWords and how they can help your site get traffic and revitalize your Pittsburgh PPC efforts.

Mobile Device Targeting
If you run a B2C business or a B2B business where you need found by someone on the road, AdWords mobile device targeting may be for you. It allows you to target your existing adwords to users searching on smart phones or tablet pcs. You can target users narrowly by wireless carrier or even Operating System.

Re-Marketing
Re-marketing is one of Google’s best kept secrets. It’s a method of tagging visitors to your site and then showing your ad to them after the leave your website. You worked hard with your ads and optimization to win traffic to your site, and re-marketing lets your ad follow a user around the web, increasing their recognition of your offer and their likelihood of making a click.

Product Listing Ads
Pulled from product feed, Product Listing Ads are inserted into adwords on the upper right side of the results page.

Benefits of PLAs include:

More traffic and leads: Many merchants experience significantly higher click-through rate with product listing ads compared to standard text ads shown in the same location for these shopping queries. In some cases, merchants have experienced 2-3X higher click-through rate.
Better qualified leads: As a merchant, you can increase the quality of your leads by featuring product information directly in the ads to help users make informed purchase decisions. This makes users more likely to complete a purchase on your site.
Easy management: With product targeting, you won’t need to worry about keywords or mapping your campaigns to relevant search queries. Based on the product targets you set up, your product listing ads are matched with the most relevant search queries using information you provide in your Google Merchant Center account.
Broader reach: More than one of your product listing ads can appear for a given user search, and if relevant, a product listing ad and a regular text ad can also appear at the same time. This means your reach with users on a given query may double.

Contact Pittsburgh Internet Consulting today to learn how to use these techniques on your e-commerce site.

WordPress Virus Affects E-Commerce Sites – Internet Consulting

Michael Bartholow — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 14:27:09 +0000

Many of our clients were recently affected by a WordPress trojan virus injection. The malicious code attacked 30,000 websites last week. Sites on older WordPress installations were particularly vulnerable, but the trojan code also attacked some Joomla and OS Commerce sites as well.

Once the code was executed, it would redirect a site visitor to a fake anti-virus scan (pictured below), and offer a download which would in turn give the user the virus. The rogue code was hidden in the Header, Footer and Index PHP files of WordPress. We removed the rogue code, upgraded WordPress installations and plugins, and changed passwords on all affected sites.

At Pittsburgh Internet Consulting, we believe we don’t just provide top-level e-commerce internet consulting, but continued support as well. When this virus hit our clients sites, all projects were put on hold and necessary steps were taken to ensure all of the affected sites were clean, online, and making money for our clients.

Anyone operating E-Commerce sites on one of the popular CMS platforms should be aware of this malicious code. We had trouble finding much information online and did our diagnostics in-house. Read a news report on this breach:

Rogue Antivirus Campaign Tricks WordPress Users, Infects 30,000 Sites

New Facebook Ads for Small Businesses

Michael Bartholow — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 08:00:47 +0000

If you’ve been away from tech news, you may have missed Facebook’s Marketing Conference. Held Feb 29th, this first-ever event’s focus was on Advertising and Marketing on Facebook. The company used the event to unveil several new features for brands and businesses, including Facebook Timeline for Business.

One of the more important features announced was an upgrade to Facebook’s Ads program. In describing the new programs, Facebook’s COO Sheryl Sandberg explained the types of interactions Facebook wants to create: “Most of what you did online before Facebook is talking at your customers, that will no longer work. People don’t expect to be talked at anymore. They want to be a full part of the conversation.”

In fitting with this theme, Facebook unveiled two great new features for small and local businesses: Offers and Reach Generator.

Offers

The best new small business feature is called Offers. Any brand or company can create an Offer to share a discount or promotion with fans just as easily as they can create a status update. After an offer is posted onto your Timeline, fans can claim it and use it online or at your brick-and-mortar store. But wait, the best part is that Offers are free to create, claim and post. Offers make great Sponsored Stories (a form of FB ads that display right in a fans news feed).

Reach Generator

The Reach Generator system lets advertisers pay a fixed rate to guarantee their ad will be seen by 75% of their fans, as opposed to the 15% who engage with a businesses brand page. The flat fee differentiates this program from the standard pay-per-click or pay-per-impression ad service Facebook already offers. Expect to see

There are now more ways than ever to engage with your business’s fans on Facebook. Share your story and become an integral part of your customers lives.

If you’re new to social media marketing, we’d be happy to evaluate your needs and recommend a program that will help your business grow online. Call or contact us today.

5 Facebook Changes Your Business Needs to Make Now

Michael Bartholow — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 08:00:11 +0000

Facebook is changing all Business Pages to it’s Timeline layout on March 30th.

Many business have invested a good bit of time and effort in their Facebook Page as a means of engaging customers or providing industry news. Some Pages feature custom graphics and special application tabs that act as gates, encouraging users to like and follow a brand’s page. Timeline changes many of these features. Changing the following five features will allow any business to stay on top of the recent redesign. Businesses can preview Timeline right now by logging into their Facebook page’s admin page.

1. Cover Photo

The profile pic will no longer be the first thing a visitor sees on your page. Instead, the cover photo will take center stage. Cover photos are 851 x 315 pixels and work best when they are striking images that represent your brand or offer a peek behind the scenes. Take a look at this example Timeline from Toyota and note the multiple points of engagement:

2. Smaller Profile Picture

Now that the old profile pic is gone, your business no longer has 800px of height to display products or a message. The new profile picture size is 180 x 180 pixels. Try using a clean picture of your logo, building or identifying company symbol for your profile picture. Remember, this will display when a customer searches your business name on Facebook. Make sure they recognize you!

3. Update Your ABOUT Information

A new About box directly below your Pic & Cover Photo provides space for you to put a summery of your business, message, or local business information (hours, map). Using this feature lets your customers quickly find the information they are searching for.

4. Application Tabs

You may have previously used a Welcome Gate to encouraging visitors to like your Business Page. Those have vanished in the Timeline update. Applications now reside in the Applications Tabs. Here you can create tabs with special offers or specific features for your visitors.

5. Private Messaging

Business Pages now allow fans to send direct private messages through the Timeline. As a business, you must enable this feature via settings. In the Admin Panel, click Manage, select Edit Page, then choose Manage Permissions. Check “Show “Message” button”. This is a great way for fans and customers to ask questions or interact with your business. Don’t miss out!

After making these five changes, your business will be prepared for the Timeline update. To learn more about this, or to contact us, check out our social media consulting services.

See more great examples of Facebook Timeline Business Pages here: Introducing Facebook Pages

5 E-Commerce Website Planning Tips for 2012

Chris Vogel — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 07:00:11 +0000

It’s the new year and you’re seeing success with your e-commerce website. Search engines are always changing, but the past few months has seen more upheaval than most. How can you continue to build upon your success while playing by Google & Bing’s new rules? These simple website planning tips will get you started:

-Keyword House Cleaning
Eliminating general and low-traffic target keywords from your organic SEO and PPC campaigns is a great first step in readying your store for the new year. You may find that you were focusing on terms that were simply not making any money for your business.

-Get Social With It
Social Media Marketing for e-Commerce is paying off for business who took the plunge early. It can seem intimidating at first, but social media sharing and posting will seem more than worth your time when you see the positive referral traffic and link-building potential. B2C e-commerce sites can benefit greatly from Twitter, Facebook & other new sites, while B2B updates on LinkedIn can prove beneficial for industrial companies.

-Content Is Still King
If your site doesn’t yet have a blog area, you have work to do. Compelling content catches visitor traffic and leaves viewers with something to share. Any type of business will benefit from targeted content creation and recent studies have demonstrated that business blogging dramatically increases lead generation for B2B sites.

-Are You Mobile Friendly?
According to TruAxis, 44% of ecommerce retailers are increasing their mobile efforts. Mobile shopping is expected to grow from 2% of overall retail in 2011 to 7% by 2016. Be ready with a mobile-friendly version of your site and mobile PPC ads.

-Think Local
Reach buyers in your area by planning your site’s marketing around local search. Make sure your site is present on any and all local review boards and directories. Post local promotions on your social portals. Local extensions on your AdWords help carry over the campaign from your on-site efforts.

How To Calculate Your Website’s ROI

Steve Strutt — Tue, 10 May 2011 19:08:21 +0000

You should always be thinking about your website ROI, as generating a return on your investment is the reason you created the website in the first place. You invested time and money creating your website with the goal that it would provide you with some value, whether it’s sales leads, e-commerce sales, or advertising dollars.

Determining your website’s ROI is not as easy as it seems. Your website ROI can change over time—sometimes, very quickly.

There are different methods of determining a website’s ROI, depending if it’s a content website or a sales website. You need to know how to calculate your website ROI correctly and how to improve it.

At first glance, you may decide to use a calculation like this:

Total Internet Sales – Total Website Investment & Costs = Total Website ROI

But, you would be wrong! Even for an e-commerce website with clearly defined sales income, this calculation could seriously overvalue or undervalue your website ROI. A miscalculation of either sort adversely affects your decision making.

Jump to Calculating Website ROI for an E-Commerce Website
Jump to Calculating Website ROI for a Content Website

Calculating Website ROI for an E-Commerce Website

E-Commerce Website ROI %= { [ ( NIS-COGS )-( AORC-RCS ) ] / ADC } * 100

It looks complicated but we’ll define those acronyms below. Keep in mind, all figures are to be calculated for the time period you are trying to analyze, whether it’s your yearly ROI, monthly ROI, or your ROI for the past 30 days.

NIS (Net Internet Sales)

Gross online sales dollars – returns of online purchases

NOTE: You may also want to add any advertising revenue generated by your website as well as the Value of Online Conversions such as new leads, memberships or newsletter subscriptions. The significance of these values vary greatly from company to company.

COG (Cost of Goods Sold)

Original cost of goods
Handling & inventory costs
Packaging & postage (include return postage as needed)
Insurance
Value of damaged returns
Online marketing costs
Offline marketing costs
Online customer service costs
Website updates & maintenance costs
Website hosting fees
Software & e-commerce license fees
Consulting fees

AORC (All Other Related Costs)

Online marketing costs
Offline marketing costs
Online customer service costs
Website updates & maintenance costs
Website hosting fees
Software & e-commerce license fees
Consulting fees

RCS (Related Cost Savings)

This number will be different for every business. Some examples of potential cost saving are:

Reduced catalog printing and mailing costs
Reduced lead time
Reduced long distance phone calls
Reduced marketing materials – printing, updating, waste and mailing
Reduced handling
Reduced inventory
Fewer sales returns
Increased market reach (estimated value)
Fewer bricks and mortar stores

ADC (Associated Development Costs)

Your website development costs, including website design.

Calculating Website ROI for Content Website

Content Website ROI % = { [ ( WIS + AR + VOC + VOI ) - ( ARC - RCS ) ] / ADC } * 100

WIS (Web Initiated Sales)

The dollar value of sales your company can attribute to being initiated on your website. Your company may track this information very carefully and have a precise value you should use. If not, you may want to establish such a practice. Otherwise, you will have to extrapolate this value based on discussions with your sales and customer service managers. You can look at the number of completed contact forms and follow those inquires through to sales to get a feel for how many web based leads convert to offline sales during the period you are analyzing.

AR (Advertising Revenue)

You may have a content rich website to attract “eyeballs” from a particular demographic or the public in general. Once you have established the number of repeat and unique visitors over time, you may be selling advertising space on your website much the same way as TV, magazines and newspapers do.

VOC = (Value of Online Conversions)

the value your company places on: new leads, newsletter sign ups, new memberships, new contact info.

VOI (Value of Intangibles)

The value of increased brand awareness or products & services awareness. This should be expressed as a dollar figure.

ARC (All Related Costs)

Content development costs
Online marketing $$
Online customer service costs
Website updates and maintenance fees
Website hosting fees
Software and e-commerce license fees
Consulting fees

RCS (Related Cost Savings)

This number will be different for every business. Some examples of potential cost saving are:

Reduced catalog printing and mailing costs
Reduced lead time
Reduced long distance phone calls
Reduced marketing materials – printing, updating, waste and mailing
Reduced handling reduced inventory fewer sales returns
Increased market reach (estimated value)
Fewer bricks and mortar stores

ADC (Associated Development Costs)

Your website development costs, including website design.

Get Help Calculating your Website’s ROI

If you want to learn more about your Website ROI, request a free website review from Pittsburgh Internet Consulting. One of our knowledgeable Internet Marketing Consultants will provide you with more information about our valuable website consulting services including the help you need to define and optimize your website ROI.