Advertise on Yoast, and get to that WordPress crowd

This blog has a very engaged crowd of readers, who are very active with their blogs and sites. Thousands of them will see your ad each day, thousands of WordPress and Magento loving, smart readers, who know or want to learn about SEO, speed optimization and more.

Currently our sponsors are (see their ads on the right hand side):

• Directory Journal
• MailChimp
• Site5
• Directory Maximizer
• inLinks
• BPOVIA
• Hire a Writer

As you can see, there's only 7 right now, which means, indeed, that we've got one open spot! Buying an ad on yoast.com is easy as can be, thanks to Todd Garland and his wonderful team at BuySellAds. You can buy an ad directly through this link, or contact them for a proposal.

Starting next month, I'll do a monthly post highlighting our sponsors to thank them for their sponsorships, it really is the only way to keep this site up and running!

Update: within 90 minutes of publishing this post, Raven Internet Marketing Tools bought an ad, thanks guys, much appreciated!

Thanks to Yoast’s WordPress loving sponsors is a post by Joost de Valk on Yoast - Tweaking Websites.A good WordPress blog needs good hosting, you don't want your blog to be slow, or, even worse, down, do you? Check out my thoughts on WordPress hosting!

Beneath you will find more info the updated Google Analytics plugin for WordPress and a guide on setting up zero result search tracking on your blog, but first we'll go in depth with the marketing and usability perspective of tracking those failed searches.

Identity vs. brand perception

Every website owner can explain in a few sentences why the website is online and why people should visit it.. this is the identity of your website. Each visitor has his own perception of your website (mostly based on, advertisement, design and tone of voice). This is the brand perception.

Within a perfect world the perception your visitors have of your brand and your identity would be a perfect match. Of course this isn't the case for most websites (unless you work for Coca Cola, Google or Apple, and even then). Due to the huge diversity of visitors almost all website are facing the challenge of providing visitors with the correct information to persuade them to take the desired action (buy, read on, interact, subscribe).

In our experience, most website aren't always successful in achieving this harmony of brand and brand perception… But how can you determine whether this is the case on your site? Look at your landing pages with high bounce rates. Visitors leave because they are not interested in your offer or expected something different when they clicked on the link to your website. And, of course, check out on-site search, it's a very valuable metric to look at:

How can internal search tracking help you improve your website?

Going back to the example of the landing page with a high bounce rate, we only know people are leaving the website and can only guess as to what they were looking for. Tracking your visitors searches will give you far more insight in what your visitors are really looking for but can't find.

By combining the (internal) search keywords, possible e-commerce data and the top content of your website you get some basic insight in the most popular content/products of your website. But this (as Justin Cutroni points out in his blog post) isn't including searches visitors made on your site that have zero results.

What does a zero result search mean?

If a visitors performs a search on you website and isn't getting any results it's likely he will keep searching… But there's a big chance this next search will be done on one of your competitors websites. A search query with no results can have quite a few different meanings, all of them useful information to help you improve your website, the most common ones are:

1. Brand Identity Issues
   The visitor has the perception that he can find a certain piece of information on your website but shouldn't have been on your website in the first place (a discrepancy between your identity and the brand perception of your visitor).

   Chances are you are attracting the wrong kind of visitors (or in the wrong stage of a buying process if your are trying to sell stuff). Taking a look at the traffic source in order to determine if you're ranking on the proper keywords or target the right terms with your CPC campaign (maybe you can save some bucks). The referral pages are worth looking at, maybe visitors performing this type of search just didn't look at the right pages which would help them in their quest for information.

2. Keyword Choices
   The words used by the visitor when searching for something are completely different that the vocabulary used on the website. For example: Your visitor searches for "VAT" but the website only contains a section about "goods and services tax".

   This situation is a great chance to improve your website. You will be presented with a list of quickly fixable "issue": keywords used by your visitors which are not present on your website at the moment. Including search terms which resulted in zero search results within related post/pages will make sure people can find what they are looking for (even if it's in their own words) and can make a huge impact on the user-friendliness and the effectiveness of your website (whether you are trying to sell stuff or just get your content read). Looking back at the identity and brand perception matching tone of voice and vocabulary with your visitors could prove a step in the right direction to get more loyal visitors.

3. The Internal Search Engine is Inadequate
   The search engine used on the website can not find content that should have been showing up in the search results, even when you're sure it's there. While this might not be as quick a fix, internal search is, as you will understand by now, hugely important. So you should solve the issues with the search engine and save valuable visitors.

Of course there are many more useful way's of looking at the data (think of the data visualization option of Google Analytics). Justin also points out two interesting way's of looking at it.

How to implement the Zero result search with the Google Analytics plugin for WordPress

Most of the steps Justin describes are covered within the updated Google Analytics for WordPress plugin. After installing or updating the plugin and configuring according to your needs, you're almost done. The tracking is done by default, you only need to perform the actions in step 3 of Justin's post, configuring the Site Search settings correctly within Google Analytics.

Google Analytics Site Search Settings

Configure your Site Search Tracking exactly like the following video:

Click here to view the embedded video.

After this you should be able to track your zero result searches. Do let us know in the comments if this is working for you and what it has helped you find!

So, if you're still here, go and update or install your Google Analytics for WordPress plugin! If you're a Magento user: stay tuned for the Magento extension that implements this same kind of tracking for Magento!

Huge thanks to my colleague Roel Willems for writing the first and awesome draft for this post! If you need help interpreting your Google Analytics results, or in setting up this tracking, you know where to find us!

Searching Without Result is a post by Joost de Valk on Yoast - Tweaking Websites.A good WordPress blog needs good hosting, you don't want your blog to be slow, or, even worse, down, do you? Check out my thoughts on WordPress hosting!

Hey Matthew, could you quickly introduce yourself and a4uexpo?

Sure, I’ve been involved in Affiliate Marketing for over 10 years. I started off by subsidising my university ‘drinking fund’ by developing, optimising sites for Google with a little Arbitrage, Google Adwords, Developing true Content Sites.

I even managed to travel a bit of the world whilst tweaking affiliate websites roving with my laptop through Australia, Asia, Fiji, Canada and the USA – Certainly a great affiliate lifestyle!

Things have become more serious though as I now employ a team of 7 who work from our offices in Bristol in the UK who develop more complex sites such as Pricecuts.

A4UExpo initially grew from our networking events that we organised alongside our forum for many years around the UK, with informal gatherings of affiliates, networks, agencies and merchants. However we realised we must change the format when over 600 people attended an event in London and we had to close registration early and limit numbers from each company!

This gave us the confidence to invest upwards of £100,000 in our first Conference at ExCeL in London back in 2007. Thankfully it was a huge success and we’ve since been back in 2008 and grown attendance by 30% - This April we boldly decided to expand the Conference into mainland Europe with our event at the RAI in Amsterdam.

You've decided to come to Amsterdam and make a "Europe" version of your conference, why?

We just love Amsterdam :-) Seriously though, after both the 2007 and 2008 conferences we were besieged with requests to expand into mainland Europe, and we felt the time was right to take our conference model to a neutral territory for a Pan European Event. We didn’t want to programme a light version of the conference either, which is why we’ve gone for the two full days, brining over 68 Speakers from around Europe to the conference and offering an astounding 46 unique sessions to attend. This is even larger than our show in London last year!

The internet and Affiliate Marketing in particular is also very strong with good broadband penetration in most countries. Our mission with a4uexpo Europe is to spread the word and gain increased publicity for the channel to media planners, agencies, merchants and the press.

It’s time that as a community we all shout to the world just how effective Affiliate Marketing is. That way more budget gets assigned to Affiliate Marketing as a channel and we all win.

Of course we’ll need to show those brands how to embrace the sector effectively to get the most from it – and that’s where we can help.

Affiliate Marketing simply put is not an out of the box solution; it needs hard work and effective management to make it a success.

What's the difference between the UK and the rest of Europe, from an affiliate's stand point?

The UK along with Germany is recognised as being the most mature within Affiliate Marketing. I’d say in fact they are even more advanced that the market in the USA.

This does mean that lessons have been learnt from Publisher and Advertiser activity, and this knowledge can be passed on, and new opportunities can be discovered by knowledge sharing.

Whilst similar opportunities exist in all countries they are at different maturity levels. For instance Cashback or Loyalty, accounts for a huge proportion of affiliate activity in the UK at 25% compared to just 5% in Germany. However what is common across Europe is that SEM remains the key driver within Affiliate Marketing based on both Organic optimisation within Google and Paid Search Activity being conducted on a Performance Basis.

Other than local nuances across sectors and verticals, the opportunities for cross country collaboration, standardisation, and monetisation are immense. This is one of the key reasons to bring the whole of the Affiliate Marketing Sector in Europe together in one place, at one time. The business and relationships that could be formed by pro-active delegates is what makes it all worthwhile.

What do you look forward to the most on A4UExpo Europe?

Everything! The agenda this year is awesome; we’re really proud and honoured to have attracted so many knowledgeable experts from within Affiliate Marketing, Search and Peripheral Channels.

Naturally I’m looking forward to your sessions Joost, and the numerous conversion optimisation and SEO panels we have scheduled, and also the famous networking opportunities that we offer.

This April for instance we have three parties in Amsterdam only open to conference delegates. Our gentle (ish) pre conference bash at the Rosarium, the middle evening party where we’ll be heading to a lively Central Amsterdam Venue and Club and finally our After Show Party where we are planning on hitting the Urban Beach and then offering everyone the opportunity to head once again into central Amsterdam to a special venue that will be announced very soon, just next to the canals for the Queens Day celebrations.

The networking at a4uexpo is what sets us apart, especially in an Industry where relationships really can make the difference between an Affiliate Programme being promoted, or not.

Anything else you'd like to share?

Well, it would be rude not to offer your readers a discount to attend the event, therefore ‘YOAST10’ will give everyone 10% off the delegate rate which starts at just 279 Euros.

An interview with Matthew Wood of A4UExpo is a post by Joost de Valk on Yoast - Tweaking Websites.A good WordPress blog needs good hosting, you don't want your blog to be slow, or, even worse, down, do you? Check out my thoughts on WordPress hosting!

So, to introduce you to the company and to Todd Garland, who runs the company, has been kind enough to answer a series of questions for me. If you've got advertising on your blog and it's either taking up too much time or you're not selling enough, you might want to give them a try! But don't do that before you read on and see how incredibly passionate and smart Todd is about all of this.

Hi Todd, could you introduce yourself and buysellads.com to the readers of yoast.com?

Sure thing, my name is Todd Garland, I live in Boston, MA with my lovely wife and smelly dog and I run BuySellAds.com. BuySellAds.com is a self-funded startup (so far) advertising network targeting the design and development community. We've been around now for almost a year and we are doing very well. Selling a ton of ads, helping publishers make money, and helping advertisers create killer campaigns to target the web design and development niche. I'm young, 27, and have been building websites for what seems like forever now (10 years) and was most recently employed at another hot startup, HubSpot where I was their designer/front-end engineer/SEO guru (one of many SEO guru's in the company I might add).

Why did you start BuySellAds.com?

I started BuySellAds.com because I was frustrated. I was operating two
hobby websites (csselite.com and 13styles.com) and selling ads directly to advertisers. I also bought ads to help promote and grow those sites too -so I was solving a frustration that I experience both as an advertiser and a publisher. None of the well known ad networks could solve my problem... they are a pain to deal with, they don't give publishers enough control, and they take too high of a commission.

You've won me over as a publisher for BuySellAds by providing me with excellent service, and allowing me to do the transition with old advertisers on my own pace. Is that something you try to do for everyone?

Well, yes, everyone gets great service - regardless of how big/small the
publishers/advertiser is. Great service is something none of the other ad networks had (in my experience). It is important to me and I want people to feel like they're getting that great service every time they have a question or need a hand. In terms of helping with transitions, of course... we have transitioned many blogs over to our system who are already selling ads direct and I can proudly say that it's happened seamlessly every time.

What is, in your opinion, your added value to advertisers?

1. Our system is very simple. Fixed 30-day rates on a subscription basis. No other ad network does this, and I can't figure out why - it just makes sense.
2. They can trust us. We always do what is right and we're very reliable. When you buy direct from publishers who are not in a network you never know what you will get.
3. You can manage all of your ads in one central location. Many of our
   advertisers previously had to manage these ad buys individually, site by
   site, publisher by publisher. This was very time consuming. It's now very efficient. You don't have to contact anyone, you don't have to go back and forth on pricing, size, payment, etc. - it's all here in one place and when you are ready to pull the trigger it's done, the
   ads go live, that's it.
4. You no longer need to "discover" new placements. New sites that are
   worth advertising on are always coming into the marketplace and we're always recruiting new publishers. We keep our eyes out for advertisers and make good recommendations to them all the time.
5. We know our inventory. Too often advertisers are stuck dealing with
   people who have no clue where they should be advertising. We know our
   inventory very well and make honest recommendations vs. just trying to spend their money.

And to publishers?

1. Automated. They don't need to waste their time dealing with advertisers, remembering when to put up and take down ads, figure out how to get paid, etc. You install the ad code and you're up and running - it takes only a few minutes to get setup.
2. We don't get in the way. Our ad code is unobtrusive, flexible, and we don't plaster our brand all over your site like the other networks. We just blend in nicely - I bet visitors to your site didn't even notice a change when you switched over to BuySellAds.com.
3. We help you find advertisers. Like I said above, we know our inventory, and when an advertiser comes to us or when we seek out great advertisers we know exactly where their ads should be in our network. We are always sending out proposals, making recommendations, etc. Publishers in this niche NOT in our inventory are missing out these days. You, Joost, went from 4-8 advertisers in how many weeks? A couple I believe... ;) 3 weeks indeed, quite an achievement
4. You can trust us. We do what is right and we're always willing to help and give advice on pricing, placement, etc.
5. Highest payouts of any ad network on the planet. We pay out at 75%,
   which is unheard of and includes credit card processing fees (usually up to 5%), publisher payment fees, ad serving fees, support for the publisher and their advertisers, etc.

How is the online ad market doing at the moment, is it suffering from the recession?

Well, I think we're different. All of the ad networks you see that are
struggling right now are struggling for two main reasons:

1. They rely on targeting to produce results and their targeting is awful.
2. Their prices are inflated and they have been robbing clueless advertisersfor a long time and now it is catching up with them.

BuySellAds.com is very different. We don't do any targeting, the advertisers do this themselves by self-selecting the placements they wish to buy. Our prices are good - they're not inflated or anything, they make sense and are cost effective.

My best take away from all of this? Even in a market that might be shrinking, those who provide excellent service and a good added value will always prevail.

Interview with Todd Garland of BuySellAds is a post by Joost de Valk on Yoast - Tweaking Websites.A good WordPress blog needs good hosting, you don't want your blog to be slow, or, even worse, down, do you? Check out my thoughts on WordPress hosting!