How To Choose A Web Designer

Many Clients Want To Do Paid Search But, They Often Notice Something at the Same Time:

What is it?  Well, they're about to budget money for paid search and someone to create and manage their campaigns and notice the website they are going to be sending that traffic they're paying for is just not up to par.   It either needs a refresh or its just kind of outdated.   

In fact, there has been instances where the site needs that total redesign, and we'll recommend this before starting paid search for them.  We don't want to see them wasting money sending people to a site that is confusing or outdated and the visitor not being able to complete the goals we agreed upon because of this.  Once they get this done, then we can help them.

Note:  We don't do web design, just PPC, conversion tracking and web analytics.  But we know a bunch of good people we can recommend to create a website that not only looks great but is easy for your potential clients to find what they're looking for.  Then you'll get the most return on investment for the money you pay for Paid Search.

With all the above in mind, if you do decide to get a new website, the info below will be a big help in finding someone who will do a good job.  We hope it helps! 

Choosing the Right Web Designer:

A Crucial Step

Were do you start?  To choose a web designer, please read the following:

Here are a few popular and common ways businesses get their websites built:

• Designing the site yourself (unless your a web designer)
• Having your cousin, friend, etc. design it for you.
• Having a company do a "free" site for you as an add on.
• Paying alot for a company to built a site for you.

The best illustration on why its so important to hire a web designer:

How much did you pay for your car or business vehicle?  $5000.00?  $10,000.00?, $20,000 +? 

You likely knew that its a no brainer to spend the money on a reliable vehicle, especially if you use it for work.  You make money with it.

Your website is your "vehicle" to get you more sales, leads and more.  Yet many people cut corners and skimp when having one built.  In a word:  Don't.  Spend the money for a pro to build you a clean, simple, professional looking site that is both easy to navigate, easy to update and search engine friendly.  You'll be glad you did. 

But who should you choose as your web designer?  You've probably heard of horror stories of people dropping $5000-10,000 and getting a bad looking site.  The truth is you don't have to spend a ton for a great looking, great functioning site.

We recommend getting a referral.  Check the site designers website out, check their portfolio out and see if it matches with what look you're going for.

Ask us:  We know of a number of designers that are professional and build sites you will be proud of.

One final question:  What questions should you ask a web designer to make sure you're getting a professional?  Below is an article from Entreprenuer Magazine on this very subject.   Print it out and bring it with you.

5 Questions to Ask Your Web Developer

If you want your site to work--and keep working--consider these factors before you build it.

Entrepreneur Magazine

Jennifer Shaheen | July 30, 2009

URL: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/202862

Building a website can be a lot like putting together a jigsaw puzzle--sometimes the picture looks good, but when you look closely, pieces are in the wrong places. A website might function, but as soon as you make a change or an update, the picture falls apart.

How do you avoid hiring a designer or developer that builds a website like this? Here are some questions you can ask and some feedback to help you understand their answers.

1. What web standards do they follow?

This is a great question that will fluster someone who doesn't have standards. What are web standards? This is the way of designing and coding a website that allows the website to grow with technology and the web visitor. This means using clean code and technologies like:

• CSS (Cascading Style Sheets): a simple mechanism for adding style like fonts, colors, and spacing to web pages
• XHTML (Extensible Hypertext Markup Language): a markup language that has the same depth of expression as HTML, but also conforms to XML syntax
• ECMA Scripts: the standard version of JavaScript used on most web browsers.

You don't have to know how to write the languages; you just have to know what the standards are to understand the answer.

A simple way to help you connect to this question is to remember that people online don't all use the same web browser or operating system. Designing and developing to standards gives your website the ability to look and function the way it should on different platforms.

2. Do they design for SEO best practices?

It's no secret today that everyone wants a website that can be found on search engines. Implementing search engine optimization may not be what you want your designer or developer to do for you; however, how your site is designed or coded can affect your strategy when you are ready. When you interview developers, this is a great question to ask and see if the person you're interviewing is familiar with how to code to meet SEO standards. Here are a few items that affect SEO best practices:

• CSS (Cascading Style Sheets): Designing a website to meet SEO best practices means using style sheets to cut down on the amount of code on your web page. Search engines like text, not code.
• Script files: When you use dynamic items on your site like image galleries or mouse-over menus, usually these are created through JavaScript. To follow proper SEO standards, script files should be created for pages instead of having the script on your web page.
• Web page content: Your text or content should be on the page as much as possible this can even include your website navigation. There are ways to make text visually appealing without having the designer put it inside an image. Images that contain words are not picked up as content by search engines.

If SEO is a strategy you are considering down the line, it's a good idea to make sure your site will be built with this strategy in mind.

3. How do they plan for change or growth?

One of the most stressful lessons learned is that the website you built yesterday will not allow you to grow tomorrow. Being told you have to start over is one of those statements every business owner can't bear to hear. Before you begin, ask the question, "Does the technology you're using allow me to grow or add additional functions?" You may even want to take this further and think about tools you'd want to add down the line. You can also ask designers or developers to provide you with a brief list of tools they have already integrated with sites like yours. This allows you not only the opportunity to see if they are knowledgeable, but also whether they're supportive in providing you with ideas.

4. How do they test their work?

As I mentioned above, not all of your consumers use the same technology. But to ensure things are operating the way they should or displaying correctly, web developer need to test their work. This issue might seem trivial, but you'd be surprised how many firms only test for one web browser. I recommend you ask specifically what web browsers and versions they test for during the development process. If you're building an online community, social or e-commerce website, testing is an important part of your success. Secure payment gateways need to be tested in a real environment. Be sure to get the specifics of what your firm considers to be part of a test phase and what it's being held accountable for after the website has gone live.

5. How do they handle support requests?

After a website has officially launched inevitably there will be a problem--it's technology; it happens. The question you want to know before you put pen to contract is how does your new firm handle support or bugs--technical hiccups with the website? Every firm will approach this differently, so pay close attention to how it phrase its response and commitment.

Building a website depending on the functions you need can be a lot like putting a puzzle together. The key to success is finding the right firm who understands the pieces that need to come together for your business.

Jennifer Shaheen, the e-marketing and Technology Therapist, has more than 10 years experience working with small- to mid-sized businesses on their e-marketing and web development needs. You can learn more about her by visiting her web site, TechnologyTherapy.com

How to Track Adwords Video Remarketing in Google Analytics

Hopefully you're trying and testing out Adwords Video Remarketing.  Adwords for video is right in the main campaign area but Adwords Video Remarketing is separated out a bit.  

About Adwords Video Remarketing:  One of the nice differences with Video Remarketing is you can remarket to people who have interacted with your YouTube channel or page and serve them ads.  For full information, see Google's info and start testing:  

https://support.google.com/adwords/answer/2545661?hl=en

This post is about tracking traffic and engagement from your Adwords Video Remarketing to your site.  Did your Video Remarketing campaigns result in more traffic to your site, more conversions.  

Problem:

After running a number of Video Remarketing campaigns I noticed that I was getting alot of views of the clients videos and even clicks to the site, which is great.  

However, when I went into Google Analytics (GA), I didn't see any stats from these video remarketing campaigns, traffic numbers, or other data.  I contacted Google and they said that, unlike regular Google Adwords where everything is tracked automatically in GA if you have GA and Adwords linked,  at this time the tracking is not really up and running for video remarketing as a source of traffic you can measure in Google Analytics.  

Since its so important to track all your advertising to see if its brings good ROI, there had to be a workaround, and there is.  And in looking around in finding a solution to this workaround I found a couple of other cool things and tips that can benefit your tracking efforts.

Solution:

Use Google's URL Builder: GA has a feature that allows you to track anything on the web you set up and see the data in your GA account.  You use utm tracking parameters to tell GA where the traffic came from.  For example, if you have an ad on a site, you can add info to the link in that add that goes to your page.  So in the ad it goes to perhaps your sites URL:  www.mysite.com when they click on that ad.  If you want to add important information to the ad so you can track it in GA you'd use the utm parameters and add the campaign, ad, and more like this:  www.mysite.com?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=campaign 1&utm_content=new video

It looks confusing but its not.  You use Google's URL builder to set it up, its very easy.  Link here:  https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1033867?hl=en

Use this to track your Video Remarketing Campaigns:  You can then use the URL builder to add the correct tracking tags to your Video Remarketing list campaigns so you can then see them in GA.  

But I thought Google already automatically tags Adwords, won't this mess up the numbers in GA?  Yes, BUT only if you simply dropped in the tagged URL you created, such as the one you see above.  There is a cool workaround that allows you to tag a URL and not have it mess up Google Adwords auto-tagging.  How?  Use a url shortener.  

Use a URL Shortener to Shorten Tagged URLs:   You're probably familiar with URL shortners like bit.ly or goo.gl.  They take a long, ugly URL and make it real short.  Did you know you can take a long URL that is tagged like the above URL, drop it into goo.gl and shorten it?  The coolest part about this is that the tags you set up still work in the shortened URL!  Super cool!  Even better, now you can track your Adwords Video Remarketing campaigns in GA and not have Adwords Auto Tagging mess up.  

So Let's Recap:

To track Adwords Video Remarketing campaign in GA: 

1. Use Google's URL builder to correctly set up a tracking URL. 
2. Drop that tagged URL into goo.gl URL shortener. 
3. Use that shortened URL as your destination URL in your Adwords Video Remarketing ad. 

Questions?

1.  Great I set this up, Now where do I look for my data in GA? 

Good Question!  In GA go to Traffic Sources>Overview>Search>Campaigns:

Then you'll see your Video Remarketing data there.   

Question 2:  Is there an easier way to create the utm parameters and then shorten them?

Well, its really not that hard going to Google's URL Builder then dropping them into goo.gl to shorten them.  But since you asked- yes!

There's a cool tool from savio.no that not only creates the tagged URL but can shorten it on the fly, download it to Excel, make a QR code from it and more.  Check it out here.

Here's a screenshot of the tool with an example URL:   

Of course, you can use this technique to track anything you'd like, Facebook ads and posts, Tweets, anything else you'd like to track.  See this great article to learn all about utm parameters and all the things you can track:  

How To Use UTM Parameters In Google Analytics 5

So, what do you think, will this help you track your Video Remarketing ads in Google Analytics? 

 Update:  I noticed that in Google Analytics (GA), there were a number of keywords showing up as (not set).  I figured out that it was the URLs from the above Adwords Video Remarketing campaigns.  The only way I know to have it not show up as (not set) is to add a utm term or utm keyword parameter.  

You could put it like this (see bold are in URL below):  http://www.mysite.com?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=mycampaignname_video_remarketing&utm_content=my_ad&utm_term=no_keyword_video_ad

Its not a perfect workaround but at least you won't have many visits showing up as (not set) and clients wondering why this is the case.

Google Adwords Image Ad File Size Now 150kb

​Putting together a new Summer Campaign for a client and have been back and forth with them regarding image and Flash Adwords ads for a Display campaign.  

​It used to be those ads had to be 50kb or less or you couldn't upload them to Adwords.  But now it seems the allowable file size has been tripled.  Its now 150kb for regular image, animated image and Flash ads.

​Here's the link:  ​

https://support.google.com/adwordspolicy/answer/176108?hl=en#

Mobile/Desktop URLs In Adwords Enhanced Campaigns: How To

​There's been alot of pluses and minuses to Google's new Enhanced Campaigns.  

One of the major problems is what if you have two different URLs one for people on desktop, sending them to your regular site and one for mobile, sending them to a mobile site or mobile optimized page?  

Before you'd just copy your desktop campaign, set it to mobile only and change all the destination URLs to send people to your mobile site.  But now that mobile, tablet and desktop are all in the same campaign how can you send the mobile people to the mobile page and the desktop people to the desktop page?

Yes, you can create new ads and set the device preference to "mobile", which is correct.  But what if you have hundreds of ad groups with thousands of ads.  Copy each ad in each ad group and then setting them to mobile optimized could take forever.  ​Well, there is an answer!

Thankfully, there's Adwords Editor, Google's desktop PPC management tool.  If you haven't started using this, start now.  ​This is what you'll be using to make the changes en masse.  Here's how to do it:

Setting up Ads for Mobile-Optimized Page using Adwords Editor

Basic Steps:

• Duplicate all the ads in your Campaigns/Ad Groups you want to set to mobile.
  
• Set these new ads all to mobile-preferred and edit the Destination URL.

To do this en mass within Adwords Editor:

• Go to the "Ads" tab for your entire account
• Select all ads you want to be mobile preferred ("Edit" > "Select All")
• Click "Edit" > "Replace text in selected Items"
• Put something generic next to 'Find Text' (e.g. "a"). You can put this same letter next to 'Replace Text'. 
• Make sure to uncheck "Match Case" and check "Duplicate Matching Items..."
• This will essentially duplicate all your ads in their existing campaigns and ad groups!
• Click "Find Matches" > "Duplicate and Replace All" 
• Sort these newly created ads by "All Local Unposted Changes", or clicking on the 'Changed Status' column (there will be a + sign next to all the new ads) 
• Highlight all the newly created ads and change the Device Preference to "Mobile", and the Destination URLs en masse.
• Upload your changes- done!​

Everyone who saved about a months worth fr work on this owes me a coffee!  ; )​

Figuring Out Time Zones in PPC Campaigns Part 2

In Part One I showed how to know how to adjust Adwords campaign scheduling for time zones in the U.S.   But what if your client says:  "Can you show my ads in other countries, but ONLY during their 9am-5pm business hours?"  

Granted, its pretty straightforward to show your ads in other countries.   Simply go into your campaign setting in Adwords, click settings tab and select the countries you want to show up in.  You can also show your ads to only English speaking people in those countries.  

But only showing the ads during a specific time?  That's a little more involved, but no impossible.  Here's a real life example:

I had to show the campaigns in ads in the following countries:  UK, India, S. Africa, Australia, Italy.  English speaking people only, 9am-5pm local time in each country.

1.  Use Adwords Editor and copy the campaigns you want to show in other countries.  This awesome tool allows you to make many changes to your Adwords account.  

2.  Change the name of the campaigns.  For instance if you campaign is Mens Shoes you might add Mens Shoes-UK so you know what country you're targeting.  

3.  Upload the campaigns to Adwords.  

4.  Figure out what 9-5 is in each country.  For little countries like UK, it has only one time zone.  Even bigger countries like India have one.  You may have to do a search for "India time zones" to see if they country you're targeting has one or more time zones, like the U.S. has 4, not sure about AK or HI.  For instance I found that Australia has more than one.  So I found the cities at each end of Australia (Perth to the west and Brisbane to the far East of the continent).

5.  Important!  You can't just make a campaign in Australia and put the scheduling at 9am-5pm.  That won't work because Adwords uses YOUR time zone as the basis.  So you have to use your time zone and then figure our what that time is in the country you want to run ads in.  For example, 9am-5pm in Chicago is 3pm-11pm in the UK.  

How to do this:  Use a cool tool to see what your time zone is in that country.  Here's a cool one:  http://www.worldtimebuddy.com/

Go to that page, put in the city your Adwords time zone is set to.  Look in your billing section of Adwords to find this out.  So for example for Chicago, if that's where you're Adwords time zone was set, enter it as a city.  Then enter the city you want to find the time in.   Let's do Mumbai, India.  Then drag the little green box on 9am-5pm for Chicago.  You'll see that it shows what 9am-5pm is in Mumbai...

Write this down.  Repeat for all the countries you want to target.  

Here's what I got for the countries I wanted to show the client's ads in at only 9am-5pm their time:

Australia:  10pm-11am

UK:  3p-11pm

Italy:  4p-2a

India:  8:30pm-4:30am

S. Africa:  5p-3am

Now in Adwords, go to your newly uploaded campaigns for your countries for each country.  So for UK I'd go to Settings, Advanced Settings, Ad Scheduling, Edit.  I see that I have down that 9am-5pm the clients Adwords account time is 3p-11pm in the UK.  That's what I'd put down then click save.  

That's it!  Too Easy!  That's why they pay us the big bucks.  ; )

Did this help you?  Hope so!