6 Free Online Tools I love
Today, links to six super-useful free tools:
1. One of the secrets to writing great copy is making it REALLY easy to read. 7th grade reading level or lower = good copy. College level = BAD copy. Bad. (Always!) Most of Gary Halbert's classic letters read at the 4th to 5th grade level. That's why they're so "primal," and so persuasive.
Paste your text into http://www.addedbytes.com/tools/readability-score/ and you'll see what grade level your text is.
The Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level grade level of this blog post is 4.5. 
2. FormatIT – I format my emails 60-65 characters wide. Makes them easier to read. www.formatit.com does this for you while leaving long URL's intact. There's also a "Re-FormatIT" option that removes carriage returns and unwanted characters.
3. Google's Wonder Wheel visually represents the way Google's search engine perceives the relationships between keywords. You only have to play with it for 30 seconds to get the idea. It also illustrates how Google's bot initially chooses sites for ads in the Content Network.
To use it: Go to google.com, do a search and click on "Show Options." Down a few inches on the right side you'll find a link called "Wonder Wheel."
4. Google's keyword based search tool – Seldom talked about but allows you to sift and sort keywords according to all kinds of advanced criteria like bid price, level of competition, ad share, search share, and competitor. www.google.com/sktool
5. Need to send a 100 megabyte audio or video file? YouSendIt is great for sending huge files without using email attachments. YouSendIt.com.
6. Visual Thesaurus – I don't know about you, but for me, thesauruses seldom give me the exact word I'm looking for. VisualThesaurus.com, however, is a graphical tool that's a lot like Google's Wonder Wheel. You can chase strings of words and relationships. The paid version is only $20 per year – CHEAP. www.VisualThesaurus.com
Way Beyond PPC Traffic
Most of you know that I’m a PPC fiend. Even as Google prices have gone through the roof, I’ve defended AdWords as the best place to develop most business messaging and perfect your sales machine.
But did you know there’s traffic available WAY beyond Google, MSN, Yahoo, and PPC? I’m talking several orders of magnitude of traffic … think “how can I add a few zeros to my visitor count each month”
It’s true.
“Enclosed” is a free MP3 interview with my former mentor and friend… the man who originally helped me put the pieces together in PPC has now moved way beyond PPC. He’s been testing and tracking and creating his own formula.
Well worth the listen!
Enjoy,
Dr. G 
PS – Yes, he’s also got a course (and yes, I’m an affiliate). I’ve got the course, I’ve been through it thoroughly, and think it’s extremely worthwhile information. (It’s also not at all expensive). If you’d like to find out more, please visit www.WayBeyondPPC.com
Rational Purchasing Consciousness
One of the marketing principles people always seem to nod their heads about when Sharon and I speak is “rational purchasing consciousness”. More simply put, consumers like to PERCEIVE themselves as smart shoppers.
Makes sense, right? Most people would agree.
The problem comes when people try to IMPLEMENT emotional benefits from the research they’ve done. For example, suppose your surveys and telephone groups for a natural weight loss supplement come back suggesting your audience is most interested in feeling “normal” again, removing the pain of “not fitting in”, particularly while shopping for new clothes.
Here’s what you don’t do.
You don’t say “Just feel normal again when you buy clothes!”
That’s because the consumer doesn’t really want to think they’re going to make purchasing decisions for emotional reasons, no matter how logically you trace the path for them from weight to feeling “abnormal”
Here’s what’s better.
SHOW a reasonably sized woman (not a supermodel) buying something nice while she talks about some more rational benefit or cognitive reason to believe (”I lost 7 pounds this month”, not this week). Or show her eating something absolutely delicious while she’s WEARING something nice and possibly saying something similar.
Get it? The main point is, because so many purchase motivations aren’t socially desirable, and because consumers HATE to think they make purchases for emotional reasons (that would make them “dumb shoppers”, not smart shoppers), you want to SHOW THEM, not tell them, while you give them plenty of rational support for their interest in feeling smart.
People might buy things based on emotion, but they don’t want to feel like a dumb-ass.
Hope this helps.
Dr. G
PS – Here are the concrete steps for executing an effective emotional marketing campaign online. First target your audience based on keywords … one bulls-eye and a small set which surround it on the same “keyword archery target”. Then study the hell out of those keywords using social media, PPC surveys, telephone follow ups, and competitive analysis tools (not keyword spy tools – much more). Then translate those findings into a series of advertising concepts and test them on the same keyword audience until the system buzzes. To learn more, click here now
Video Friday for 11/27/09: All the New Google Videos in One Place
The week has been fairly quiet for new videos with everyone making Thanksgiving plans. However, there are still a few top videos and news for the week.
Google has quietly rolled out a dedicated content network channel.
The top tier videos to watch:
- Episode # 3 – Rapid Fire Web Analytics With Avinash Kaushik and Nick Mihailovski
- If you aren’t up-to-speed with the new adPlanner interface, these are good videos: Ad Planner: Defining an Audience & Ad Planner: Basic Navigation
- If you missed Google’s custom music search announcement, you can see the info here: Music search feature launch highlights
- The possibilities for automatically adding captions to YouTube have far reaching product implications down the road. Initial info: Google Announces Automatic Captions on YouTube
All of Google’s official channels can be seen in one place under our YouTube subscription page. We’re trying to find all the Yahoo ones as well (and adCenter if they ever add any). If you see new official search channels, please let us know.
New Videos from Google Business
- 2009 WPP-Google Marketing Research Awards Summary
- Ad Planner: Defining an Audience
- Ad Planner: Basic Navigation
New Videos from Google Mobile Blog
New Videos from At Google Talks
- Authors@Google: Michael Specter
- Authors@Google: Ray Anderson
- Authors@Google: Jerome Glenn
- Authors@ Google: Christopher McDougall
- Authors@Google: Ken Auletta
- Authors@Google-Dublin – David McWilliams
- Artist@Google: David LeBatard (aka LEBO)
- Authors@Google: Josh Bazell
New Videos from Google
- Music search feature launch highlights
- Google Announces Automatic Captions on YouTube
- Learn how to video chat in orkut
- Google Chrome OS Open Source Project Announcement
New Videos from Google Webmaster Help
New Videos from content network
New Videos from Google tech talks
- Search User Interfaces
- Latency and Cost Tradeoffs for Efficient Peer-to-Peer Assisted Content Distribution
- Languages Matter
- The Truth About Your Food
- How and When Prototyping Practices Affect Design Performance
New Videos from Google privacy
New Videos from Google analytics
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Video Friday for 11/27/09: All the New Google Videos in One Place
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“Show products from this advertiser” – AdWords PlusBox Expansion
Product "Plus Box" in Google Sponsored Links
Google Search Engineer David shows a neat feature on some of our Sponsored Links that gives you additional information about their products.
For E-Commerce product website owners only: how to add multiple images, descriptions and pricing information to your AdWords advertising campaigns – limited UK availability commencing January 2010 by application only
This extension to the normal AdWords service is currently in trial with only a few Agencies in the UK during Nov-Dec 2009 while Google is testing their results.
(If your AdWords Agency is not included in this program and you would like to participate, you can contact us to be considered)
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Click this link to see the above search results example of the PlusBox Beta in action (new window – results will vary).
Then, consider the effect that multiple images, descriptions, and pricing could have on your current AdWords promotion.
To learn more or be considered for the next availability of the AdWords PlusBox expansion, contact us
This article indexed in Google in 3 minutes
Thanksgiving and the Emancipation of an Artist
A decent paying job is always something to be grateful for. But some people hunger for greater things and are destined for more… and they KNOW it.
Do you relate to that?
Awhile back I got this note from a customer, Mr. Ken Heikkila:
"If you or your associates should ever have a dark moment about whether or not you make a difference, call me because of you, my life has changed 180 degrees in just over three months from hopeless despair to the very real possibility of making a living at the dreams and passions that were such a huge part of my lfe 25 years ago but halted abruptly by injury."
Ken's father, an immigrant, was a hard-working man who never understood his son's passion for music and considered Ken a "floating bum." So Ken put himself through music school and went on to master classical guitar and win a national competition.
Shortly after that he was diagnosed with severe tendonitis which forced him to put down his instrument. Meanwhile he and his wife, both artists, were working odd jobs. Barely hanging on, barely paying the bills.
When Ken mastered his instrument, he developed a unique fingering technique that made fast progress possible. Ken was scouring the Internet trying to figure out how to make some dinero when it occurred to him that he might be able to teach his method online.
"I stumbled onto your web site, Perry, offering your free five day course to Adwords. It was like finding an oasis in the desert.
"I couldn't believe what I was reading. I was actually at a point in History where selling information was possible. OK, it will take work and effort but I wasn't afraid of that.
"Now I had to borrow some money from my Parents just to eat. You're probably thinking " money from his parents?" and guessing that that was not a pleasant experience. Remember the floating bum thing? This time it was 'Making money on the Internet ? That's just a hobby that might get you an extra fifty bucks a month for something if you want it. Forget it and go take a REAL job.'
"My response: 'Now I have two reasons to prove my parents wrong.'
"I'll make a living on the Internet *and* with my love of Music !"
Ken adds, "I'll never forget this interview with Paul Simon. The interviewer asked what was the one thing he wished for, what with all the fame and wealth from his song writing, etc., he replied, with tears in his eyes, "That my father would just once, pat me on the back and tell me I did good." I mean, he could barely get the words out.
"Today, I called my parents up and said, "With the 40% increase in my Technical method eBook sales per month over the last four months, I am now netting just enough money to live on and I'm having emotional, life altering conversations with people who have purchased my method all over the world.
"And for the first time in 25 years, feel like I'm doing exactly what I should be doing and making a living at it."
That was 3 years ago.
Ken has gone on to apply musical virtuoso discipline to his PPC campaigns, his landing pages, emails and copy. He's bonded with thousands of aspiring classical guitarists who are also taking old hopes and dreams and breathing new life into them.
In the time since Ken has gone on to make a very comfortable income teaching classical guitar on the Internet. To prove to his parents and to everyone else that his dreams were more than just fairy dust.
Teaching people like Ken to navigate the treacherous waters of entrepreneurship – being entrusted with the honor and privilege of doing that – THAT is what I'm thankful for today. I'm thankful that hundreds and thousands of people are able to share stories like Ken's with us here at Planet Perry.
And I'm thankful for you, dear reader, for being on this strange and dangerous journey with me.
Happy Thanksgiving.
Perry Marshall
Are Long Page Load Times Driving Your Visitors Away?
You're always checking on your landing pages, right? You read the blogs, run experiments, and generally try to make your site as user-friendly as possible.
But chances are, if you're reading the ROI Revolution blog, you're on a high speed internet connection. If your webpages are loading in nanoseconds with your T1, how are they faring for those visitors who aren't as lucky as you? You know, the ones on crappy cable modems and DSL and (gasp!) the dreaded dial-up?
Does it matter? Well, it depends. If you're a gaming website or Internet marketing blog, most of your audience is probably on broadband. But if you're running a site for a retirement community in Florida, then my grandma is hitting your Flash-encrusted site in her AOL browser and she's waiting. And waiting. And waiting. She's a patient old gal, my Meemaw, but she's not going to wait all day. She's going to point her browser and her pension elsewhere.
Aside from your visitors, your site's load time is also important to Google. Not only does page load time affect your AdWords Quality Score, but according to Matt Cutts, it's going to be playing a bigger role in the organic search ranking.
So read on to learn how to optimize your landing pages' load times, and maybe make a few bucks off my Meemaw.
Before you start trying to speed up your site, you should probably find out whether or not it has slow load times in the first place. There's no use beating a dead horse.
First, just log into your AdWords account and check the Keyword Analysis field. From the keywords tab, hover or click on the the status icon (
). You'll get a message about that keyword and its destination URL's Quality Score. It looks like this:
Red text is bad. Green text is good. If the landing page load time has no problems, you're golden. At least as far as AdWords is concerned. But what about your visitors?
You can use Google Webmaster Tools to find the average download time for your site. This will alert you to potential problems with specific pages. Just sign into Webmaster Tools and click your site's URL. If you haven't already set up Webmaster Tools, go ahead and do that. We'll wait for you.
Done? See, I told you we weren't going anywhere. Now go to the Diagnostics area and check out Crawl stats. The third graph on the screen shows your site's average load time.
But if you want to make absolutely sure, you've got to experience your site firsthand. So, go buy an eMachine from 2001, find one of those old AOL floppies, and then...
Haha! Just kidding! You just need to put Charles in charge of your load times.
Charles is a Web Debugging Proxy app for Windows, Mac OS, or Linux. It allows you to all sorts of fun stuff. You can record your Internet traffic, view SSL traffic, and throttle bandwidth. How does this this help us with load times? Well, by throttling your bandwidth, you can simulate slower Internet connections. This means you can browse your site as if you were my Meemaw, on her dial-up connection.
So, after you find out which pages are taking eons to load, what do you do?
Start by minimizing HTTP requests on the guilty pages. This is just a fancy way of saying, "Get rid of excess stuff." According to the Yahoo Developer Network, "80% of the end-user response time is spent on the front-end," and most of that time is spent downloading all the junk on your page. Get rid of that junk and the page load faster. Get rid of the images you don't need, reduce the image size and quality for those you do. Make it look good, but keep it simple.
There's a bunch of other things you can do to reduce page load time. Check out Yahoo Developer Network's Best Practices for Speeding Up Your Website for the lowdown, and don't forget: a fast page means a happy Meemaw. And you don't want to see Meemaw when she's angry.
2010 Google AdWords Seminar, Maui, Hawaii
On March 1-3, 2010 I'm gathering together the world's top Paid Traffic specialists for an ultra-advanced Google AdWords Summit in Maui Hawaii.
You must document that you are managing at least $5,000 per month in AdWords traffic in order to attend. You will be required to sign a non-disclosure agreement because of the confidentiality of the information.
A maximum of 100 people will be allowed to participate.
If you're intent on staying on the cutting edge of 21st century Direct Marketing, this is THE place to be. And I can hardly think of a more pleasurable place to recover from a long cold winter than Maui.
There has never been an assemblage of this much Pay Per Click and AdWords street smarts in one place than this event. And we'll expand beyond AdWords to other forms of paid traffic, knowing that savvy business people never put all their eggs in one basket.
In particular, you will revel in Bryan and Drew's exposition of "Traffic Source X" as well as Jonathan Mizel's rich expertise in Media Buys.
Plus we have a super-early-bird discount for all who register before December 1, 2009:
http://www.perrymarshall.com/maui
A “Perry Marshall Vault” on iPod?
Here on my office Hard Drive I've archived hundreds and hundreds of hours of audio and video from the last 8 years. Seminars, teleseminars, consultations, interviews, coaching calls, philosophical musings and Mastermind Club sessions.
I call it "The Vault" and only a tiny % of my customers have seen any of this stuff. Collectively it's the equivalent of a PhD in brass-knuckles, street-savvy online direct marketing.
My team came up with this crazy idea of putting some or even all of it on a video iPod and making a limited number of units available for a designated period of time.
Drew, my operations manager, is organizing all the content right now and we do plan on making this available for sale.
This morning Drew said to me, "Perry, do you have any idea how many hundreds of hours of stuff this is? Are you sure people even want all that content?" He may be wrong, but he's not completely sure Apple even makes an iPod that can hold it all.
So for today I just have some real simple questions for you:
- Is this a product you'd be inclined to purchase?
- How much do you think should we sell this for?
- And what kinds of content would you be most interested in?
- How would you want it to be organized?
If you're interested in being notified when this is announced, please enter your information here:
Register Below If You Want to Be Notified When the Vol. 1 of the Perry Lost Files Is Available
I'd love to get your comments, below:
Video Friday for 11/20/09: All the New Google Videos and a few Yahoo ones as well
This Friday there are also a few videos from Yahoo as well. If you know of any good Yahoo (or adCenter – some on Microsoft) YouTube channels, please leave a note in the comments and I’ll add them to the list of subscriptions.
Google UK did a fun video on Organise your account for better results! (You can tell it’s UK by the spelling of Organize. This is why you should have different US and UK campaigns even though we both speak some dialect of English).
My favorite video of the week is Planning and Running your First Experiment with Google Website Optimizer as it has an actual demo of the website optimizer. Multivariate really isn’t a scary word.
If you’re a tech junkie and have been wondering what the Chrome OS would look like, here it is: Google Chrome OS Open Source Project Announcement. I have a lot of thoughts around this one; such as Google Gears needs to be about 100x better before this will truly work; but at least Google realizes this should only be on netbooks at the moment.
And lastly, if you wanted to see the entire Physicians Marketing Webinar that was posted earlier this week; but was missing the last 30+ minutes; the full version is finally live and can be seen here: Connecting with Physicians Online Webinar
New Videos from Google Channel UK
- AdWords: Organise your account for better results!
- Google Local Business Centre Introduction
- Staying safe on YouTube
New Videos from Google Business
- Connecting with Physicians Online Webinar
- Driving International Success: Reaching Auto Consumers Globally
New Videos from Yahoo Ad Buzz’s Favorites
New Videos from Google
- Google Chrome OS Open Source Project Announcement
- Google & Food Network Celebrate Thanksgiving
- Automatic Captions in YouTube Demo
- Text Translation on Google Translate
New Videos from Google Webmaster Help
- Can moving my website to "the cloud" harm my listings?
- Google Search Tips
- Why would an FAQ page rank above a site’s homepage?
- Google’s YouTube Channels
New Videos from website optimizer
- Planning and Running your First Experiment with Google Website Optimizer
- Introducing the Website Optimizer Experiment Management API
New Videos from Google Apps
New Videos from Google Developers
New Videos from Google tech talks
- The Truth About Your Food
- How and When Prototyping Practices Affect Design Performance
- Mainstreaming Psychedelics: From FDA to Harvard to Burning Man
- Learning from Code History
- The MIT Energy Initiative: Sustainable Energy and Terawatt-Scale Photovoltaics
- GTAC 2009 – Closing Panel Discussion
| Learn Advanced AdWords Techniques at Google's Supported Seminar Series | |
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Learn More about the Seminars: |
Video Friday for 11/20/09: All the New Google Videos and a few Yahoo ones as well
Share and Enjoy:
Related posts:
- Video Friday for 11/27/09: All the New Google Videos in One Place The week has been fairly quiet for new videos with...
- Video Friday for 11/6/09. All Google’s New Videos In One Place. In an attempt to showcase all of the new videos...
- Video Friday: All the new Google Videos in One Place Google creates a large amount of videos every week. They...
