New Website

To celebrate the new year I have launched a new website utilising Anaglyph technology to provide you a 3D experience.

www.mixedrealitystudio.com

Name Testing Focused on Actions NOT Opinions using Multivariate Testing.

Trying to come up with a great and successful business and or product name?

You know the situation I am about to relate as I am sure you have all been there, whether you are an entrepreneur or marketing guru. Reams of paper with name variations, thesaurus thumbed through that many times the ink is fading off the page. When you think you have hit on the most original name you look it up on the net to see if it has been taken and you find that someone else has. It can be so disheartening.

Let’s say you get past all that and you manage to find half a dozen names that have not been taken and could work. A question now arises:

Which name do I choose?

If you have a team around you, you find yourself pitching the names and see which ones people like. This can cause many issues and normally since this is all subjective, politics, ego or even just guess work comes into play.

As the title of this post suggests I propose a test that is focused on actions not opinions:

Multivariate Testing: Choosing a Domain or Product Name.

So how do you go about the testing?

Typically you could spend around £25,000 for a professional name test and even then the results that come back may not have been determined correctly.

I propose that you use search engines as the testing ground. Not only will they give you immediate results but will save you a fortune. And if you are really pushing it you could have results on your desk with an hour.

Most notably I would use Google Adwords. 

So let’s say you have gone through your list of domain name ideas and found 5 possible potentials.

By rotating a number of ad variations, you take each Google Adword and make it identical other than the domain name. Same copy, same text, same 15 keywords. Same maximum per click bid.

By having all the other elements remain the same the ad with the best click-through rate (CTR) would indicate the best domain name. The higher the click through rate the better the name.

Fictional test results

Domain Name Test
Domain Name	Max. CPC	Avg. CPC	Avg. Position	CTR
InvestorNetwork.co.uk	$0.50	0.33	2.7	0.60%
InvestmentTech.co.uk	$0.50	0.27	2.7	0.50%
DirectStockMarket.co.uk	$0.50	0.26	3.3	0.30%
InvestorSavings.co.uk	$0.50	0.35	2.7	0.30%
StockMarketPavilion.co.uk	$0.50	0.35	2.8	0.20%
TOTAL	$0.50	0.312	2.8	0.40%

An increase in overall CTR or conversion rate can have a tremendous impact on your business, especially at high volumes.

To receive more accurate results do not use strong brands in the URL title or copy.

Also to make sure Google serves all the ads more evenly you will need to login in to your account and disable the optimise, check out the information at https://adwords.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=6128&ctx=tltp

Now that you have chosen the domain that has the best CTR you can work on the product or the landing to get your best ROI.

I wish you all the best with your new business and product names, make sure you drop me an email if you have found this to be useful to you.

Google Analytics Individual Qualification

Google have added an online course for understanding the inner workings of their analytics online software. The course can help you have even more solid Google Analytics skills. This is great especially in today’s climate where making decisions based on data driven marketing has become ever more important.

The exam is $50.00. It is set out as a 90 minute, multiple choice questions. The passing score is 75% and you can take the exam more than once. You will learn a lot from the course.

The Google Analytics exam is and can be very technical so depending on your skills you may have a few challenges.

If you are not technical you may want to get the espresso machine on especially for the sections on cookies and regex etc however by the end of it you will you have a better understanding and more of an appreciation of the work involved for a good implementation.

• How to install the Google Analytics Code and modify the JavaScript.
• Understanding and setting up profiles, adding filters.
• How goals and funnels work and what we can glean from them.
• Tracking your campaigns, ecommerce and events (Flash).
• Track multiple domains and subdomains.
• And much more check out the conversion university.

http://analytics.blogspot.com/2009/03/what-is-your-google-analytics-iq.html

I am the proud 710th person to have passed.

Web revolution in an Economic Collapse

In a recession it is unfortunate that many people lose their jobs. It’s going to be extremely hard for sites that are not getting any traction are going to find it hard to VCs and Angels to invest or give funding for the next round. Facebook one of the highest valued websites of 2008 lost nearly 80% of its value within 12 months, wiping of $14 billion. According to reports YouTube still has not made Google any profit.

During this recession Angels and VC’s are going to hold back on funding especially for “back of napkin” businesses. It will however be a great time for scrappy entrepreneurs to start-up.

Now is the time for scrappy entrepreneurs, it is important to remember that it was scrappy entrepreneurs that started the world of web 2.0. After the dot com crash many people went back to their basements and started on projects that now have become an integral part of the internet today.

Timing is crucial, Digg, Facebook and delicious are all 5 years old and launched before the height of web 2.0. We must remember that with the likes of Flickr, these were started in the basement and have now become the very successful sites they are today. Digg.com is another website that was first started when founder Kevin Rose was still at working a full time job. Social media has for the last 5 years been the major trend in website development.

Web 2.0 came out of the crash will web 3.0 come out of this crash?

In the height of web 2.0 when the likes of Techcrunch was reporting over a dozen new startup a week it became very hard for any of them to gain traction, the reason for this is that they were all competing to get some press. With the lack of funding and a slowdown in the number of start-ups the press are willing to report on a good business that will help you gain tracking.

In the words of Rohm Emanuel’s famous quote regarding the current financial crisis "Never let a serious go to waste"

http://vodpod.com/watch/1177723-never-let-a-serious-crisis-go-to-waste-wsj

The people who are motivated and love the web will take us to the next level and bring us some of the most exciting new start-ups.

Paul Graham wrote an excellent post 6 months back if you have not read it I would suggest having a look.

http://www.paulgraham.com/badeconomy.html

And for anyone that is scrappy digital entrepreneur I wish you all the best of success.

 

Google Alerts help you for Search Engine Marketing

I have spoken to a number of people about Google Alerts and a lot are not familiar with them or some have not even heard of them. So I thought it would be best to write a short blog post on how to use them for SEO.

By Google’s definition:

Google Alerts are emails automatically sent to you when there are new Google results for your search terms.

http://www.google.com/support/alerts/

Watch Google watching you

One of the first ways I would suggest you use alerts for is to tell you when and where Google is finding you. You can watch where Google is finding your website links, your name and business name. You can set Google Alerts to send you a comprehensive email as it happens, so you know when Google is has found the keywords you are watching.

Keep an alert eye on your competition

You can also keep and eye on the competition. Yes that’s right keep your friends close and your competition closer. For example if you are a baker in Birmingham you will want to watch the key phrase "bakers Birmingham" and similar variations. You can then use the information to benefit you by using and improving on some of the tactics your competition is using.

Create valuable links

One other way that I will mention in this post is for creating links back to your website. By visiting the sites that Google Alerts sends to you about your competition you can find out what you need to do to get a link from them. Which for niche markets can be very valuable to you.

Well there something for you to start with let me know your findings.

Google Alerts

Data Protection - Website builders protect yourself

This is my first blog post and I want to keep to an Internet based theme. Last week the ISO9001 audit was done in the company where I am technical director. The audit raised itself a few pointers that I think most people who develop websites and those that run them should be aware of.

Since I started my role here, I have implemented a number of procedures that need to be addressed, we are getting there may I add. Most of the websites that I develop have a database attached to them to collate data of people’s information. The Data Protection Act was a blessing for us consumers who don’t want our data passed onto other companies and being bombarded with sales calls. I sure am grateful. However for us that run websites aren’t lawyers and don’t necessarily know the ins and outs of all the legislation to data management.

So where do we stand as developers and site owners?

We all want to be protected and if you are collecting people’s information you should register with the ICO. www.ico.gov.uk If you are an agency or a developer you need to register because you are handling data. However, now this is where you should be aware, if your client wants access to that data that is collected, and they definitely will, they have to be aware of the implications of using it.

The client, owner of the website needs to be registered with ICO as well. Notification costs an annual fee of £35, no VAT charged. This fee is payable to the Information Commissioner's Office.

So why go to such lengths? At the end of the day, it’s the law, but also if you abide by data protection law, people will feel more comfortable giving you their information and you in turn can then build upon the relationship and provide them a better service and in the long run create more profit.