Yesterday I mentioned that I was able to turn the attack on our web server into a positive. Not just any positive, but a breakthrough.

One that may well change the course of our business and, in particular, some of the things I do in this business.

Which leads me to not only share the revelation I had, but to also encourage you to purposely do what I was forced to do…
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It was Monday morning when Simon gave me the awful news. “You’re not going to like this…” I braced myself as he told me that a number of our websites had been disabled by our web hosting company… and a significant part of our business was offline for an unknown period of time.

Simon got in touch with our web host and, after some to-ing and fro-ing, it turned out that a hacker had exploited a vulnerability in one of the scripts we were running on the web server (the computer that hosted our sites). But before I go on, let me say that what I’m about to reveal holds some critical lessons for you.

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Google has introduced the Search-based Keyword Tool (currently in beta). The tool suggests keywords for you to target in your Google Adwords campaign, based on their relevance to your website.

According to Google, you can benefit from the Search-based Keyword Tool in two main ways. Firstly, if you are running a campaign the tool will suggest keywords that are highly relevant to your website, but are not currently part of your AdWords campaign.

Secondly, even if you aren’t currently advertising in Adwords, you can use the tool to discover nuances about your target market. The tool essentially generates keywords often used in association with the keywords you have chosen to target.

Right now, the Search-based Keyword Tool is available to advertisers in the U.S. and U.K., with additional languages and countries to follow in the near future.

Check it out here: http://www.google.com/sktool

Source: Trevor Claiborne, “Announcing the Search-based Keyword Tool”, Inside AdWords, November 18, 2008

Professional social network, LinkedIn plans to cut 36 of its 370 employees, which amounts to just under 10 percent of its workforce. Apparently, LinkedIn will reassign some of the employees, rather than let them go altogether.

LinkedIn isn’t running out of money - it recently closed a $22.7 million funding round, which in turn followed a $53 million venture capital injection in June. However, it’s presumably being cautious in light of the current economic environment and slow-down in online advertising growth.

Source: Jason Kincaid, “LinkedIn Cuts 10% Of Staff,” TechCrunch, November 5, 2008

Google recently added a tool to Webmaster Tools that shows links directed at 404 pages on your website.

Running the tool will generate a report that lists the links pointing to 404 pages. Useful, since (among other things) links to 404 pages don’t pass any ‘authority’ from a search engine optimization (SEO) point of view.

Armed with your report you will be able to contact the sites linking to those 404 pages and ask them to redirect or change those links. Alternatively, you can use 301 redirects to effectively pass the link authority over to one of the ‘real’ pages on your site.

Source: Frank Watson, “Google’s New Tools for Site Link Strengthening”, Search Engine Watch, Oct 17, 2008

Do you run pay-per-click ads in the search engines… or run ads in different ezines, email newsletters or on other marketers’ websites or autoresponder series? Do you have – or want to have - just ONE landing page for the traffic from ALL those ads… but still be able to track the click-throughs from each of those ads?

Well, instead of creating mirror pages of the same landing page (which can be painful) just do this: add a ‘tracking code’ to the end of the destination URL in your ad.

Your tracking code should begin with a question mark i.e. ‘?’ and end in whatever word or code is meaningful for you.

For example, if I was running an ad directing people to the Kikabink News advertising page I might add the following tracking code at the end of the URL:

?knsept08

‘knsept08′ is simply a made-up code to help me identify traffic that derived from the ad in question. I would add this to the destination URL in my ad as follows:

http://www.kikabink.com/news/advertise-with-us/?knsept08

So my ad might read:

Have a product or service aimed at Internet marketers? Advertise it in the Kikabink News email newsletter and reach a growing audience of passionate, entrepreneurial Internet marketers eager for ways to improve their marketing results. Click here to find out how: http://www.kikabink.com/news/advertise-with-us/?knsept08

Now, if people click on that link:

1. They will end up on the right landing page and
2. I will be able to check my web analytics to see how many people clicked on this particular URL, giving me an indication of the effectiveness of the ad.

Nifty, huh?

Have you noticed that some Internet Marketing “gurus” are rather coy when it comes to revealing their non-IM business activities?

They’ll freely tell us about the effectiveness of various strategies and tactics… and they’ll tell us that they get much if not “most” of their money from non-IM niches… but they will not give us actual examples of how they’re using these strategies or tactics in their non-IM businesses…

So why are they so secretive? Why are they so “afraid” of us coming into their niche and competing with them?

Now, I’m NOT talking about keeping specific strategies secret, or keeping secret about a business that hasn’t been launched yet… I’m talking about keeping secret about an operational, profitable business.

I mean, in just about every industry, a successful business person will proudly tell you what business(es) they’re in. It’s no secret how people like Bill Gates or Richard Branson made their billions…

So why are these so-called successful IMers so afraid of telling us what business(es) they’re in?

(Remember, I’m not talking about all successful IMers - just some).

Well, here’s one big reason… and it’s NOT because they’re not actually running any non-IM businesses (I’m going to assume the best here).

This reason is also the reason why YOUR business is vulnerable, if you don’t do anything about it.

And it can be summed up in 4 words:

LOW BARRIERS TO ENTRY

Yes, the best thing about running an Internet business is also the worst thing - it’s relatively easy and inexpensive for anyone to compete in any market.

Compared to most off-line businesses, it’s easy to become an affiliate, to set up an Adsense site or to sell your own infoproducts. You don’t have to do everything yourself - there are plenty of resources and people to help. And the costs of establishing a website and marketing on the Net are also a fraction of those for an off-line business.

That means your competitors can do the same!

So, of course, it’s understandable to keep tight-lipped about your business!

But keeping secret does nothing to help you when the competition eventually finds you… after all, we all have access to keyword tools.

So what do you to build barriers to entry? There are at least five (5) ways to do so. I’ll explain them in the next issue of Kikabink News.

Running a promotion… or making discount coupons available… and wondering whether to state the offer as a percentage off… or dollars off?

You probably have an opinion about which works best (which may or may not be based on experience!) but, as we have and will continue to stress, this is a classic question that can and should be tested.

Evo, an etailer recently profiled by MarketingSherpa, conducted a simple split-test to see whether a “15% Off” or a “$50 Off” email offer would generate the most sales. Evo found that “$50 Off” had a 82 percent greater conversion rate and beating “15% Off” and achieving 170 percent greater revenue. Email open rates and click-through rates were practically the same, at 19-20 percent and 32-33 percent respectively.

Do read the article for more interesting insights (you’ll need to register for free access) but the lesson is clear: no, not that dollars off will always beat percentage off… but this is an area that should definitely be tested.

It’s all about perceived value… and arguably clarity as well. In Evo’s case, “$50 Off” was perceived as offering greater value than “15% off”… but what if the comparison was between “$1.43 Off” and “25% Off”? And what if you tried “1/3rd Off”? Again you probably instinctively have an opinion, but your prospects will give you the true answer. You need to test!

Source: MarketingSherpa, “Dollars-Off Coupon Gets 170% More Revenue: 2 Simple A/B Test Steps”, MarketingSherpa, July 23, 2008

David Rodnitzky makes a good point in the Search Marketing Standard. If the recession starts to bite online publishers reliant on advertising revenues, maybe, just maybe, Google won’t be able to be so picky when it comes to favoring some advertisers over others.

Online advertising has continued to grow, especially as more money has been taken out of off-line budgets and into what is unquestionably a medium that continues to attract more and more consumers. However, the economic downturn occurring in the United States, the United Kingdom and elsewhere means that marketers will have less money to spend overall, resulting in slower growth in online advertising expenditure.

Google, although continuing to perform strongly, missed Wall Street’s first quarter forecasts and is not immune to the effects of slower growth in ad spends.

So… in an effort to save revenues, will it drop its Quality Score standard?

Google’s Quality Score standard was introduced in 2006 to help ensure that landing pages for Google Adwords ads were relevant to the ads being displayed. Advertisers that Google regarded as having landing pages that were NOT sufficiently related to their ads were penalized with substantially higher bid prices - the idea being to deter such companies from running such campaigns.

Mr Rodnitzky points out that it’s all very well for Google to deter “low quality” advertisers when there are plenty of other advertisers willing to replace them. But what if the number of other advertisers starts to wane?

What if falling or stagnating Google Adwords revenues mean that Google will continue missing forecasts UNLESS it attracts more advertisers… such as those companies running lower quality ads that Google previously spurned?

I doubt that Google is anywhere close to relaxing its quality score for now… and it would be loathe to do an “about face” on this… but time - and the economic downturn - will tell…

Source: David Rodnitzky, “Is Quality Score Recession-Proof?”, Search Marketing Standard, July 21, 2008