The Softnik Blog

The New Google Adwords URL Policy

Google will be enforcing their updated URL policy from April 1, 2008. Probably not an April Fools Joke because it was posted at the Inside Adwords Blog long ago!

The rule is very simple...

Your display URL and the Adwords landing page URL should have the same domain name!

You can continue to use an intermediate tracking URL before redirecting to the final landing page. However the final landing page should use the same domain as your display URL.

If your final Adwords landing page is

http://www.softnik.com/whatever/....

The Display URL should use softnik.com

Sub-domains are allowed. So you can use...

http://help.softnik.com/whatever/.... as the landing page and support.softnik.com as the display URL.

The key thing to remember is the main domain name. As long as both match, you are fine.

Eight Ways To Reduce Your Web Page Bounce Rates

Are too many of your website visitors bouncing away after they see just one page on your website?

If your bounce rate is below 20 or 30% you probably have a very good entry page.

In some cases you may want only a precisely targeted visitor group to proceed beyond the entry page. If not, a bounce rate of over 50 or 60% requires immediate attention. 

Here are eight practical methods to reduce the bounce rates...

1. Improve your web page heading

Most times a wrong web page headline can make the visitor quickly click the back button. Your headline should make the visitor want to continue reading. See the earlier post about creating good headlines.

2. Add Videos, pictures or screen shots that will catch attention

Adding a nice screen shot of your product or a photo will cause visitors to give a second look. Use a good caption below the picture to grab their attention and make them interested.

3. Change your website design

If your bounce rates are way too high, a new web site design may help. Go for a simple, practical but decent looking design.

4. Improve the web page load time

Is your web page loading too slow? Remove unwanted images or optimize the images. Get rid of all unused style elements.

5. Target the right visitors

Are your site visitors coming to your site with the wrong expectation? You may have optimized your web page for the wrong keywords or others may be linking to your site with an incorrect anchor text. Use a software like Keyword Strategy Studio to find better keywords.

If you are using Pay Per Click, make sure that your advertisement text is precisely targeted. Try different ad combinations till your bounce rate improves.

6. Remove Annoyances

Does your web page have anything that annoys your visitors?

What is annoying is highly subjective. So you should have a good understanding of your target customer. A simple rule is to always make everything very easy for your visitors.

7. Change from hard-sell to soft-sell

Are you trying to hard-sell your product when a soft sell is more ideal? This is a very common reason for customers to leave immediately. 

Your product pricing is also an important factor that contributes to a high bounce rate. The way you present your product is very important if it is an expensive product.

8. Provide more choices

If you have other products or services provide links to those. Add a prominent button, make a nice looking graphical banner or stamp that will catch their attention and so on. Be careful with this though. Too many choices can cause visitor confusion and make genuine prospects click away to a different but wrong product.

How To Manage Redirections For Multiple Domains

Are you an affiliate marketer? You may have registered a large number of domain names and made them point to your affiliate URLs.

Do you sell your own products and services?  You may be redirecting many of your registered and unused domains to other web pages.

Do you remember all your domain names and where they point to? Are they all pointing to the right places? Are all the affiliate products you promote still alive?

In reality, it is very difficult to keep track of all these!

A previous blog post explained how you can easily redirect your domains to different web pages using a simple PHP script.  That script will allow you to quickly change any URL for any domain by simply editing a text file.

Once you setup multi-domain redirects you will need to monitor the domains at regular intervals. You can do this using Domain Punch professional or Watch My Domains ISP. These domain name management software products will allow you to add / import your domain names and then monitor various information including expiry dates, DNS (for the corresponding IP address), HTTP page status, PING status, etc.

The details are displayed in a  neat table (see screen shot below)

For each domain you can see the HTTP page status and the destination URL (if the domain is being redirected). There are other screens that show the registrar data, expiry dates, last modified dates, etc. These also support email alerts when the registrar status changes or if the website corresponding to a domain fails a ping test.

Recent Posts Related To Domain Name Management

• Support for the new .ASIA Domains
• Ever lost a domain name because you forgot to renew it?
• Eleven Steps To Safeguard Your Domain Names
• A simple PHP script to redirect multiple domains
• Filtering Large Domain Name Lists

Study Real-Time Visitor Click Patterns (Clickstream) To Improve Your Website Performance

Do you study the real-time visitor clicking patterns on your website?

Observing the visitor browsing patterns is one of the best ways to improve the overall performance of your web pages.  Real time click-stream (or live visitor view) allows you to observe what a visitor does on your website. You can watch as he or she moves around your website clicking on various links. Observe enough and you will start noticing things you can easily fix.

There are a number of third-party services that support click stream analysis. We started testing Clicky Web Analytics recently and have found it to be very good.

Clicky with real-time visitor view is not free. The prices are affordable and allows you monitor up to 10 sites for an annual payment of $60. There is a limit on maximum page views (30,000 per day). If you have smaller requirements they do have a cheaper $24 option.

Cick here to check it out. There is a 21 day free trial!

How To Make Your Web Page or Blog Post Titles Unique and Interesting

Here is a simple tip to make your web page titles unique, interesting and search engine friendly!

Use Keyword strategy studio and do a keyword analysis on the topic you are interested in. Click the Top Titles tab and look through the web page titles of your top competition. You will see all the titles listed along with their strengths (The strength is based on the ranking in top three search engines).

Can you create a better title? You can use the ideas from the previous post on creating good headlines while keeping an eye on the existing titles. Make sure that your title is unique and better.

Looking through these titles will also give you more ideas about keyword phrases and also ideas about topics you may want to discuss in the future.

Support for the new .ASIA Domains

The new ".ASIA" domains will go live very soon!

All our domain name software products available at DomainPunch.Com can be easily configured to support these new domains.

Here is the procedure...

1. Select the Edit > Top level Domain List from the menu.

2. Locate "ASIA" in the list of TLDs and click on it. If you are unable to locate "ASIA", you can add it to the list using the "Add" button after typing ASIA into the appropriate box.

3. Click Settings button

4. Specify the following settings

Whois Server: whois.nic.asia
Query Prefix:
Port: 43
Search Token: NOT FOUND

(The query prefix entry should be blank)

5. Now click "Whois Server Settings...", then "Advanced Setup...". In the drop down box select "Creation Date Tokens". Then type in the following into the box below.

Domain Create Date:

Press OK.

6. Now click "Whois Server Settings..." > "Advanced Setup..." > "Date Format". Select DD-MM as the format. Press OK.

The above is applicable to the following products,,,

• Domain Name Analyzer Pro v4
• Watch My Domains Pro v2
• Domain Punch Pro v1.0
• Watch My Domains ISP v2
• Domain Name Analyzer v4 (freeware)

Learn How To Instantly Create Powerful Headlines!

Your web page headline is the most important factor that determines if your site visitor stays or bounces away. A compelling headline will have him or her wanting to read more. An uninspiring headline will cause him or her to immediately go away!

How do you write good headlines?

The truth is, powerful headline creation ideas are all around you.  It is very easy to improve your existing headline to one that really works!

Before you decide to change your headline, you should

1. Determine the target market the headline is meant for.
2. Write down the most powerful benefit your product or service offers. Think your product has too many benefits? See the types of headlines below to decide which benefit should be highlighted in the headline.

Now use one of the following headline types.

Headlines that enumerate a list (People have an affinity to read lists!)

• Five ideas to improve your ----
• Top Ten Reasons To ...
• Four Things You Absolutely Must Know To ....
• Ten  Reasons Why ----

Headlines that ask about a problem the reader will identify with

• Do you suffer from ...?
• Are you threatened by ...
• Do you often find yourself struggling ...

Headlines that offer to teach you or make you an expert

• Learn How To ...
• Discover The Top ...
• A Guide To ...
• Every Thing You Wanted To Know About ...

Headlines that offer secrets

• They Tried To Ban This ...
• Secrets Uncovered ...
• Exposed For The First Time Ever ...
• The Real Secrets To ...
• The Ugly Truth Behind ...

Headlines offering instant gratification

• Instantly Transform ...
• Instant Strategies To Create ...
• You Can Do This In Five Minutes ...
• Get An Instant 35% Boost ...

Headlines offering to simplify things

• Simple Ideas To ...
• This is Not For The Experts ...
• ... For The Rest Of Us
• ... Any One Can Do In Their Spare Time!

Headlines announcing something

• Releasing Shortly...
• Announcing The...
• Now Available For The First Time ...
• Offer Closing Soon ...

Headlines that offer a guarantee

• .... 100% Money Back!
• Guaranteed To ...

Headlines that contain a testimonial

• I started using ... The results have been fantastic ...
• I could never believe ...
• ... Amazing! Thank You ....

Picture / Graphic Headline

Screen shot with a caption, Illustration etc. Use this if a picture is more likely to immediately grab the attention. However you will still need a compelling sub-heading or caption.

Headlines that shock

• No examples! Just read a tabloid!

More Headline Rules...

• Be specific and avoid generality. A headline that says some thing very general is not going to attract any one because they have seen it all before. There should always be a unique or specific benefit mentioned in the headline.
• A headline should make the reader want to continue. Create multiple headlines and do an A/B test to find the best one. Then create new ones and try to beat the old headline.

Coming Soon! Headline Generator and Swipe File Manager

We will be releasing a new software (stand alone, integrated into IM Toolpad and the upcoming Internet Strategy Studio) for creating good headlines. Watch this blog!

Competition Research - How To Find The Traffic To Your Competing Websites

It is not really possible to find the traffic to your competing sites unless you have access to their log files. This will happen only if your competition is naive enough to make their server logs public!  There are many site owners who  have left their server logs public... But this post is not about that!

You can find the relative (and approximate) data about the traffic to sites using third party resources like Alexa and Compete. These services extrapolate the data based on sample visitor statistics obtained from participating ISPs, browser toolbar logs etc.

If you use Keyword Strategy Studio, you can very easily find the top competing sites for any keyword phrase and then use the Site Link Pop Meter Pro to check the basic site popularity data for the main competitors. You can find Site Link Pop Meter Pro at the IM Toolpad premium download area (available only to registered IM Toolpad customers). A freeware version of Site Link Pop Meter is also available.

Generating Hard Copy Outputs from Keyword Strategy Studio

This blog post is in response to a customer email asking about the hard copy options available in Keyword Strategy Studio.

Direct Printing

Keyword Strategy Studio supports direct printing from within the software. You can print most lists generated and displayed within the software directly from the software itself (the File Menu has a print preview option also).

Export to Text / CSV File and Print From any Third Party Software

You can right click within most lists and select Copy to clipboard and then paste the data to a text file. Now open the file in a spread sheet software and print from there. This option is best when you want more control over the formatting and layout.

Create PDF / HTML Reports and Print

Keyword Strategy Studio (build 032308 or later) supports creation of various reports in PDF / HTML formats. An upcoming enterprise version will support advanced customized report generation.

Keyword ideas from your customer emails and forum posts

How many times have you found it difficult to find the right information on the web? It is no longer easy to find something through a search. You end up doing a large number of searches, always getting thousands of search results, but none with the right answers.

And just when you were about to give up, a post at an Internet forum points you to a web-site that immediately solves the problem!

Is your product or service difficult to find?

Having a product or service that solves a customer problem is very good... but, you also need to let your customers know that you have the solution.  Unfortunately, your web pages may not describe the problem and the solution the same way a prospective customer would describe his or her requirements.

How do you improve your web visibility?

Start looking through the customer emails, third party forum posts and blog comments to see how people phrase their questions. Look for keyword phrases you haven't thought of and then add them to your keyword lists.

Add frequent customer queries to your FAQ section and provide the answers.  This reduces the number of customer support queries and increases your web visibility.