Ever wonder what keywords are the most expensive?

Google makes most of its revenue from online advertising. A whopping 97% of its income in the last 12 months was generated from advertising. Google made $33.3 billion during he last 12 months.

Google AdWords is a popular tool to source keywords for SEO purposes. AdWords works as an auction site that allows marketers to bid on certain keywords to get top ad placements. There is no minimum bid for CPC campaign and AdWords as many other Google tools and programs is really popular.

Search engine optimization is big business at the moment as is PPC and Google plays a huge role in how SEO is applied to websites. WordStream sells hosted software that handles a lot of the manual side of SEO and website design and recently the company decided to look into which keyword categories are the most expensive in AdWords.

The highest costs per click (CPC) on AdWords are interesting to see and the data shows the top 10,000 most expensive keywords in a 90-day period. The list shows different categories according to the theme of a website and the largest categories were determined by looking at the average cost per click for each keyword and the monthly search volume.

Check out the top 20 keywords that demanded the highest CPC:

1. Insurance (example keyword: auto insurance price quotes)
2. Loans (example keyword: consolidate graduate student loans)
3. Mortgage (example keyword: refinanced second mortgages)
4. Attorney (example keyword: personal injury attorney)
5. Credit (example keyword: home equity line of credit)
6. Lawyer
7. Donate
8. Degree
9. Hosting
10. Claim
11. Conference Call
12. Trading
13. Software
14. Recovery
15. Transfer
16. Gas/Electricity
17. Classes
18. Rehab
19. Treatment
20. Cord Blood

It will come as little surprise to many of you that the majority of the top keywords are as a result from people searching for help – help with money-related problems for example. Educational reasons as well as medical aid and to find professional services are also primary search terms.

Interestingly, the study suggests that the top keywords represent industries that are offering services that have a lifetime customer value, ensuring that companies can afford to pay a lot for the keyword to draw in new customers due to the nature of their business. i.e. even if they pay out a lot to secure high rankings for a keyword, they will make it back thanks to the product that they are selling.

When you think about it and really look through these stats, would you really have thought that Google would make $55 per click on the word “insurance”?

What do you make of the findings of this study?

What's your Klout score?

Klout’s scoring system recently added a new influencer – YouTube. Klout now uses YouTube activity when it creates its scoring system for social influence and here’s how it works:

Each Klout user can now sync their Klout account with their YouTube account and once they are synced Klout will then analyze the users YouTube habits and information and use it in the users Klout score. The information that Klout takes will be derived from an analysis of the users comments, likes, subscriber counts and engagement and other handy information.

Klout already uses data from social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter to score each Klout user with a social influence score that will rate from anywhere between 1-100.

Who Cares About Social Media Scores?

Many brands are concerned about their social influence score and more and more businesses are using Klout to identify social media influencers in a bid to hand out freebies and offer perks. A notable addition to the Klout team is Spotify who now offers invitations to users that boast high Klout scores.

In June, Klout added LinkedIn as an influencer on its social media score system and then in July, it also started factoring in Foursquare data. Some of the most interesting news to surround Klout is that it will also add Google+ as an influencer as soon as the search giant announces its social network API.

Klout is proving popular with many investors and Mayfield Fund, Lucid Ventures, Greycroft Partners and Kleiner Perkins are just a few of the most notable names that have helped Klout to raise $10 in funding.

Do you find Klout valuable?

Do you ask your site visitors enough questions?

Do you try and persuade your customers into buying your product by giving them a timeline ultimatum or by telling them to “buy it now”?

Instead of ordering your customers around, you may want to try asking your customers what their intentions are. A new study shows that if you want someone to do something then you should ask them what they are planning on doing as it encourages them to do it.

According to the study conducted by Gavin Fitzsimons and Jonathan Levay, if you ask someone to predict what they are going to do (i.e. will you floss tonight?), they are more likely to do it if they answer yes. The research also showed that if people could visualize the behavior that you want them to do, they will be more likely again to do it.

Interesting stuff…

So, how can you turn these findings into something relevant for your online business?

Easy, all you have to do is start asking your customers questions about what they plan to do with your product. Optimize for phrases that ask a question with your keywords incorporated. For example, if you sell toiletries, you could ask your site visitors the following: “Do you like soaking in a hot bath after a long day at work?” and not only does this make them think “oh yes, that sounds lovely!” but if they say yes, they do like to do that – they will be more likely to actually do it. Of course, the intention is to encourage them to buy your products so they can enjoy their bath even more so maybe ask them if they plan on relaxing in a bath with your bubble bath tonight…

Experimenting for Marketing

Elise Chandon and Chris Janiszewski also performed similar tests to see how people behaved when asked what their intentions were and they came up with similar findings. They proved that when you measure the intention of someone, it increases the likelihood that they will do what they are being asked.

How to Ask Questions to Increase your Revenue

Making comments tangible and visible by pairing the text with a picture is a great way to give the text more context, which makes site visitors more likely to do what you want them to. Here are a few ideas of how you can use questions in order to boost sales and revenue:

• Ask customers if they plan on buying your product
• Ask customers if they plan on doing something with your product (i.e. not specifically your product but an action that would involve your product if they bought it such as floss or feed their dog)
• Get an answer out of them as if people say yes, it makes a huge difference to the likelihood that they will actually do it

Basically, rather than ordering your site visitors around by demanding that they buy your product while it’s still in stock – ask them whether they want to buy it!

How do you ask your customers about buying your products?

Sometimes we all get it wrong!

Do you think that all successful entrepreneurs are successful at everything they try their hand at? It can often feel like that but there is a great article written by Rand Fishkin (CEO and co-founder of SEOmoz) that sheds some light on past funding ventures that didn’t pan out quite how he intended…

You can read all about Fiskin’s failed attempt to raise $24 Million here.

Learn more about how to be a successful entrepreneur

Getting hold of genuinely useful advice about how to be a successful entrepreneur can be hard as finding one who has been successful and who wants to share their secrets  is tricky!

If you want to learn more about how to be a successful entrepreneur from someone who knows, check out this article here.

Google can ALWAYS detect links derived from link networks!

More and more link builders are offering deals on link networks that look too tasty for clients to ignore. This is causing many problems as what look like great deals to new clients on the outside, all still not worth taking the risk of using as Google can still detect links that derive form a network as opposed to organic links.

Remember – there’s no such thing as an undetectable link network!

There is a great article written about link networks that can be read here.

Levie is looking to raise $100 Million!

Aaron Levie is a 26-year-old CEO of an online service that allows users to share and collaborate documents and files. The company is known as Box.net and it was established in 2005.

By 2008, Levie decided to make a choice between his consumers and his business users and he put his money on enterprises.

There is an interesting story written about how Levie plans to take on the giants in the online world such as Microsoft by raising $100 Million.

Check it out here.

In order for us to survive there are a few things that we have to do such as breathe, drink and of course arguably the most fun of them all – eat! A whopping 700 million of us ‘eating’ humans can be found on Facebook making it a great platform to market a restaurant on.

Being the world’s largest social networking site, Facebook attracts many restaurants but there is room for many more and even the ones that are taking advantage of the site are sometimes not doing it properly. We want to help you  understand how to Facebook about food and here are the top 10 things that all restaurants should do when Facebooking about their business:

1. Engage and Respond

As well as concentrating on getting your fans to engage with you, you need to be able to show them that you are engaged as well. This means that you need to do the following on a regular basis:

• Answer questions quickly
• Address problems and concerns
• Acknowledge new fans
• Respond to people posting on your page

These things don’t take long to do but they can make a huge difference. Even if you simply send a quick “Thank you” post, you should never underestimate the power of those two simple words.

2. Showcase your Food

Tell your audience where the origins of a dish came from, post videos of the chefs preparing meals and provide tasty recipes that people will appreciate. People love this kind of stuff so give it to them! Choose to showcase a popular meal that is notoriously tricky to cook such as lobster (prepping is often an issue) or how to make a soufflé and make sure that it is also a dish that you sell and not just a random dish. An in-depth description full of adjectives can make for a great way to make people want to visit your restaurant and words such as “scrumptious”, “tasty”, “mouth watering”, “delicious” and “succulent” always work well…

3. Use More Than Words

If you specialise in organic food or fresh seafood, as well as telling your customers how fresh and natural your food is, show them. Post videos of your delivery trucks turning up or pictures of your vegetable garden, as a visual stimulus goes a long way in marketing. Food should look good, smell good and taste good and as Facebook is not yet that advanced that you can smell and taste food through its pages (watch this space!), you need to ensure that it looks good. Give your audience a taste of food porn – make their mouths water with your pictures and videos and accompany them with a description that makes them want to eat!

4. Don’t Always go for the Hard Sell

While your restaurant is your livelihood and you want to market on Facebook to boost your brand and revenue, the hard sell tactic can get tiring. You can wear your audience out with bombarding demands for your customers to visit your restaurant, so try to keep it more lightweight. Special offers and new dishes should be advertised but any page that comes across as too self serving will tire out its visitors. Find the right balance between, videos, pictures, text, new dishes, special offers, education, engagement and customer service.

If it’s National Chocolate Day or National Oyster Day (yes, they really both exist) and you sell neither product – why not do a special menu for that day only. Rather than telling people they must come and try your fantastic and one-day only chocolate soufflé, you can humanize the brand by putting the idea out there that makes them want chocolate. Post a video of your chef making the soufflé a day or two before and simply mention your upcoming “special chocolate menu” underneath. That way, your customers want the chocolate on their own accord without you force feeding the idea to them.

5. Share your News

If you get a good review, share it! Make your audience talk about you to other as word of mouth is a powerful tool to harness in social media. This is a great way to promote your business without hard selling and by simply being an awesome restaurant – you will motivate others to tell the world for you!

6. Be Digitally Aware

As well as having a Facebook page, you need to get savvy about the digital devices that your customers are using. If you sell takeaway, you need to have an iPhone app that allows you customers to place an order via their super-popular iPhone. Remember that more and more people will access their Facebook via a mobile device rather than a PC or even a laptop and this means that if you run an email marketing campaign alongside your Facebook – you will need to make sure it works well for small, handheld devices.

Blogs are also important to a marketing campaign in 2011 and all of these additional marketing techniques can work well with your Facebook page and here’s how:

• Integrate them
• Promote your Facebook through your emails
• Tweet about your Facebook
• Blog about your Facebook

7. Be Consistent

It is vital that your Facebook page promotes deals that are actually happening as the last thing you want is for a customer to read about a promotion on Facebook only to find out that it is old news when they arrive for a meal. This is especially important when you run more than one outlet and keeping a seamless flow between your Facebook and your actual restaurant is crucial. If you advertise via Facebook a deal on crab cakes that runs from August 30 to September 30 – make sure that your staff are all aware of the deal. Being inconsistent will not only drive customers away but it will lead to bad word of mouth being spread about your restaurant and on a social networking site – bad word of mouth tends to travel faster than good!

8. Don’t Give Away Too Many Freebies

Although we all know everyone loves free stuff, it can be overdone in the restaurant industry to the point of it being detrimental. A restaurant isn’t a single-purchase industry like a car dealership is (after all, how many cars are you likely to buy in one go?). A restaurant sells food – something that we have already established is a necessary part of life! Discounts are great and they work well, but only once in a while.

You can boost your “Likes” with buy one, get one free giveaways but you can’t sustain a business this way. The value of your restaurant will go down if you constantly give away free food as your customers will come to expect great deals that won’t actually earn you any money. Think of your customers as trainable in that if you train them into thinking they will always get a free meal when they visit your restaurant, they will end up disappointed when they have to pay full price when the deal is over.

Give away vouchers, discounts and freebies – just not all the time!

9. Be Unique

Work is hard and often stressful, so when your audience takes a break to check out your age – you want to make them interested in what you are marketing. Rather than asking them to simply click the “Like” button, ask them: “Do you like me?” Flirt with your customers; make them want your food! Having a genuine human voice than comes through your Facebook page is a great way to get people more interested.

10. Facebook vs. Twitter

Don’t use the same posts on Twitter as you do on Facebook as it is a different platform with a different audience. And those audience members who are the same don’t want to read the same information on both sites! Posting the occasional link to persuade your audience to check out your other posts is fine, just don’t overdo the similarities. Facebookers are not always Tweeters and vice versa, so constant encouragement for your audience to visit the “enemy” site may result in you losing customers.

Variety is the spice of life and if any business should know their spices – restaurants should!

How the pyramid approach can work in SEO

Follow the link below to check out an interesting article written about how you can use the pyramid approach to boost your SEO. Mike Mindel talks abut how you should use homepage keywords, category page keywords and content pages for each keyword in a pyramid pattern in order to improve your optimization.

The guide is well written and easy to follow, making it a great read for knowledgeable SEO specialists and an educational read for SEO newbies!

Check it out here.

Shout about your business through your SEO strategy

Google recently removed all third party reviews from Google Places and this move by the search gurus has left in its wake a surge of businesses and SEOs desperately reviewing the way they employ their local search strategies.

However, thankfully although the content of third party reviews and citations has gone from view, it is still being used within Google’s local algorithm. While the change hasn’t been as detrimental as many first feared, it reminds us that Google can do what they want, when they want, how they want and there is nothing us mere mortals can do to stop it!

One things for sure, there wil be more upheaval to come…

Google Places is used by businesses to place their business in local search results on Google Maps and Google Search. It is not the only channel to use but it is a major one and these changes mean that we need to think about what we can do to ensure that our businesses as well as our client’s businesses can continue to prosper from using it.

Be Diverse with your SEO

Using a diverse SEO strategy is important and the algorithms that Google uses for its local and organic is morphing into one. This means that the tactics used as quick win solutions are no longer working  and SEOs will now have to adapt to the change by being more diverse.

You can be more diver with your SEO strategy by doing the following:

• Create unique, fresh and new content all the time: Local businesses will benefit from adding new offers each week as well as news about their business and this can all be done by blogging once or twice a week for an hour.
• Build links and citations: Many SEO professionals have started focusing on citations and while this is effective for Google Places rankings, it is slightly limiting. Make sure you don’t forget to link as well because what happens to your ranking if Google reduce the value of citations?
• Use Bing and Yahoo: While both of these don’t, won’t, never have and never will rival Google, they still capture a large audience. This means that many local businesses solely concentrate on Google which leaves their SEO success up in the air. Expand your horizons and take advantage of ALL SEO channels.
• Be socially interactive: In the future, social media will only continue to impact on rankings. Getting your custoemrs excited about your business on Twitter and Facebook is a great start and then claim your Foursquare listing and you will be ready for any changes that will definitely arise in the near future.

Review, Review, Review…

A good review is still important both for rankings and for conversion. Google Places should still be high on your SEO strategy list and as such, building up great reviews is still important.

What’s the point in providing a great service if no one talks about it?

Diversifying your SEO strategy is vital and all good SEOs understand that getting SEO right takes knowledge, time and effort. Focusing on quick win strategies will always leave you wide open to a Google change of focus!

How do you ensure that your SEO is diverse?