That said I can see the future with apps that make it easier to purchase via your phone. Essentially allowing you to not have to fill out a form. The old “Amazon One Click” for your cell phone that works on all sites.

Here is some data from Mojiva:

70% of mobile users report to spend more that $20 on electronic items

40% say they will spend  up to $50 per gift.

It will be interesting to see the results in first quarter on how many holiday purchases where made via a mobile devices such as a cell phone and tablet.

23% of sales leads come from the corporate website

14% come from email campaigns

7% from online ads

3% from social media

I have heard from other lead aggregators that their social and wireless efforts have not paid off so this data seems accurate. There may also be an offset by defining the leads from the online ads compared to the corporate site. Often users follow the ad but do not submit info. Then go back after reviewing other sites from a different URL directly to the site. Bottom line is 23% of sales from corporate websites is significant.

Damandbase conclusion is that corporate sites are still not putting enough content and product / service information to satisfy and persuade the prospective customer. This indicates that the 23% would increase with the correct content and call to action.

“Our goal is simple: to give people the most relevant answers to their queries as quickly as possible…This update is designed to reduce rankings for low-quality sites—sites which are low-value add for users, copy content from other websites or sites that are just not very useful. At the same time, it will provide better rankings for high-quality sites—sites with original content and information such as research, in-depth reports, thoughtful analysis and so on…” – Official Google Blog Feb 24th

Danny Sullivan’s article Number Crunchers: Who Lost In Google’s “Farmer” Algorithm Change? Has some very interesting data on which sites are affected and by how much. I have copied his top 100 sites that are affected below.

There are two effects Google’s changes will have on lead generation.

1. Many of these sites are used as 3^rd party lead gen sites for lead companies that put their lead generation forms and or ads on their site. The immediate effect is less leads will be generated however some of these sites have always delivered poor quality leads some generated by white papers so the effect may not be all that bad for the end user buying a lead and may help the lead industry.
2. Many lead generations sites improve their organic ranking by providing articles to content farms. By doing this they get high quality inbound links. In a short period of time many of the high quality links will be considered low quality links and will drop the lead gen’s site ranking. This will decrease the number of organic leads they receive effecting their profit margins.

What does this all mean? Perhaps lead quality will improve although there will be less leads. Google will provide better quality results… perhaps but certainly in the short term lead gen companies are going to have to increase their Google PPC campaigns to make up for the offset in acquired leads.

In the top 100 most effected sites below you will see all lead categories effected from education, health, business to business etc.

Sistrix: Most Keyword Rankings Lost
Upon request, Sistrix will send people a full list of 331 domains that were found to have lost in its analysis. With Sistrix’s permission, here are the top 100 domains that suffered losses, sorted by total number of keyword positions lost. Also show is the percentage loss. For example, AssociatedContent.com was found to have 216,419 top rankings before the change, which dropped to 53,512 rankings after — a loss of 162,917, or 75%.

From Danny Sullivan’s article Number Crunchers: Who Lost In Google’s “Farmer” Algorithm Change?

There are essentially five lead characteristics that a company buying leads needs to consider. These characteristics have a different value depending on the type of company purchasing the leads.

• Quality of the lead – is it a real buyer, is it targeted to what you sell?
• Quantity of leads – how many leads per day
• Cost per lead – cost per lead or group of leads or cost for specific lead requirements
• Exclusivity – are the leads exclusive or sent out to 3-4 other companies.
• ROI of leads – the cost of all leads purchased divided by revenue from the leads closed

One additional parameter in picking a good lead source is the companies service for example; return policy, background info on the lead origin, real human customer service etc.

There are many types of companies buying leads and therefore different types of lead companies catering to them. We can simplify most lead buyers into two categories, big companies and small companies. Here are some of the characteristics of these companies.

Small companies – could be a 1-10 person shop. They have a limited budget and lack sales resources. Small companies are very concerned about quality of the lead. They can not buy that many and often do not purchase enough leads to truly average enough to calculate their ROI. They usually want high quality leads sometimes exclusive leads and will pay more for them since it is more efficient for them to call fewer leads to close a deal.

Large company – usually have 10 – 100’s of sales people eager to make calls on leads. Have the financial resources to buy a lot of leads and negotiate group lead costs. Understand law of averages to calculate ROI. Can afford extra expenses on testing new leads. Large companies want a lot of leads to feed their sales machine. They will relax quality standards over having their sales people sitting around twiddling there thumbs. But they expect to pay less for leads since they are buying more leads that have a lower quality. In the end the leads have to pass their ROI standards to continue doing business.

Here are some guidelines if you are a small company looking to buy leads:

• Understand the lead return policies
• Ask where the leads are coming from, call center, email, white papers, web sites. If possible ask for examples.
• Ask how the leads are qualified? Do the call them, if they call them do the ask qualifying questions like budget and project time line? Are they scrubbed with other data to make sure the address and phone number and name match?
• Is there a minimum, number of leads that need to be purchased, is there a monthly or annual fee above and beyond the lead costs?

The bottom line is you will have to jump in and try the leads out. Keep a log of the calls you make for each lead. You can use this log if there are problems with the leads. Most lead companies will work something out and a good lead company will want to know if they are selling bad leads. Not closing a lead could also be the sales persons fault. A lead not closing due to competition, price etc. compared to never contacting the prospect are two different issues. Try enough leads to make sure you can get a good average at least 100 leads.

Since Barnes and Nobles released the Nook and with the release of the iPad the publishers got greedy and the new contracts for book prices are in some cases the same as the cost of the book store. This does not make any sense since the cost to create an ebook $0.00 and to distribute $0.00 should significantly reduce the price of a book. I am not the only one upset about this. Online groups are starting a PR war giving best seller authors 1 star on Amazon because the book is over priced for an ebook or released late after the hardbound release.

Think about the effect of  this…a one star reviews on good books just because of the price. This throws the whole online crowdsourced marketing campaign into tail spin with long term effects.

Here is a cost example:

*Data from: http://en.allexperts.com/q/Writing-Books-675/writer-profit-book.htm

So let’s take out the costs if we had an e-book. The bookstore is now Amazon at 30% of list. The wholesaler does not exist. Assuming the publisher still gets 30%, e-books should cost 70% less that list or for a $20 book would be $6.

The publishers have to take note to what happened to the music business. If they increase the price too much piracy will increase. I have found sites where I was stunned to fine compete collections of top authors for free.

I think Amazon is upset about this, you will noticed they now say “ This price was set by the publisher”.

Interestingly Borders is about to go bankrupt and I heard Barnes and Nobles had a 70% increase in digital sales due to the Nook. Not sure what the time frame was but it is clear that the digital book era is well on its way. And everything digital costs less, companies have to be more creative in their business models to survive.

Don’t get me wrong I would happily pay a few extra dollars if I new the author was getting the money… Funny I am starting to rediscover the public library again.

• Just like when you where in school… have your parents or grandparents test your creation. If they can’t figure it out then it is not usable. Note that having your child do it does not count. They often have a higher technical understanding of how something works.
• Make sure the technical abilities needed to use the site match your user audience. For example the abilities of online gamers compared to people getting their online drivers license are very different. Both vocabulary, technical skill and navigation should be at least 60% under the user’s ability.
• Assume nothing
• If you are creating a new navigation system make sure it is taught once and repeats throughout the system. Don’t create a home page with one navigation then internal pages with different navigation.
• For web sites, all important actions should be above the fold of a standard laptop. (the part of the page you see before scrolling)
• Lead the user to an assumed conclusion and action.
• Screens should be self describing even without words when possible.
• Show the user where they are in the process at all times
• Never have the user have to search or hunt for something
• Have multiple ways to reach important functions
• Redirect errors so the user can figure out what they did wrong
• Have the colors, fonts, images align with the brand, ad or previous page, product or service?
• Test, test, test on all user’s browsers and devices.

Simply said on any page these questions should be answered within seconds of landing on the screen:

• Where am I?
• What do I have to do?
• Where do I click to complete the action?
• Where can I get help?

General Shortcuts:

• Sleep/Wake – Slide and release the power button (on top of the K2)
• Power Off – Slide and hold the power button for 4 seconds
• Reset – Slide and hold the power button for 15 seconds
• Screen-shot – Alt+shift+G creates a screen-shot (.gif format) that goes to the Documents Folder of the Kindle 2 which you can view when connected to computer.
• Refresh Display – ALT+G (if you notice any ghosting, try this shortcut) Also useful for refreshing web browsing page
• Jump to page 1 – 5 on Home Screen – Press the number on keypad and then press 5-way Controller
• Display the Time – Press MENU button
• Display Free Memory – Press MENU button
• Display Wireless Network (3G or 1X, if wireless is on) – Press MENU button
• Alt-Shift-0 set current picture as screensaver
• Play Minesweeper – Shift+ALT+M (from home page) (M or enter to mark; R to restart game; 5-way controller to move cursor)
  F toggle fullscreen mode MinesweeperI,J,K,L up,left,down,right (or use 5 way controller)
  M mark mine
  R restart
  Space open cell
  Scroll move cursor up/down
  Alt-Scroll move cursor left/right
  H return to Home screen Text input
• Go to Amazon Kindle Store – alt-home
• Jump to Web – Type in your search terms and move the 5-way controller to the right and then select “google”.
• Search Wikipedia – Select “wikipedia” in search category
• Search Content by Specific Author – Enter @author [author’s name] in the Kindle Store search bar
• Alpha Search – To search for an author or title by first letter, click one letter on the keyboard and press the 5-way controller.  Then go immediately to the place on the list with the first author or title under that letter alphabetically, *but only if that match exists*. So if you have no Q’s, you can’t get to the R’s that way.  This doesn’t work for “Most Recent First” listings but seems to work for title or author sort and could be useful if you have a lot of books on your Kindle 2.
• List Supported Search commands - Type @help in the search string to display other supported search commands like @dict, @url etc.
• Search Kindle Store by Author – When in Kindle Store, type @author in searchbar to limit your search to author names
• Show Diagnostic Data – From Settings Menu, enter 411
• Show Current Radio Diagnostics -  From Settings Menu, enter 411 (constantly refreshes the data)
• Search Amazon Kindle Store for Free Books – From Kindle Store search, type in -domain into the search field.

 Some Kindles have location capability in the CDMA module.
Alt-1 show current location in google maps
Alt-2 find gas station nearby
Alt-3 find restaurants nearby
Alt-4
Alt-5 find custom keyword nearby
Alt-D dump debug info to the log and toggle highlight default item
Alt-Z toggle zone drawing and show log Audio Player

Entering Text – Symbol Shortcuts

• Double Quotes “ – Alt-9
• Colon : – Alt-8
• Comma , - Alt-7
• Question Mark ? – Alt-6
• Apostrophe ‘ – Alt-0

Book or Periodical Viewing:

• Add or remove a bookmark – ALT+B.  Alternate Method: Press 5-way up/down to go to cursor mode, and then press 5-way controller twice.
• Alt+shift+1-9 – changes the spacing and number of lines per page (default is 3)
• List Sections of Periodical – Press the 5-way Enter Button
• Newspaper View Summaries – To view summaries of the articles in a newspaper or magazine, while viewing the newspaper section list, press the 5-way controller to the right to highlight the number showing the number of articles in a section, then press the 5-way select button
• Jump Quickly through Periodical – Move 5-way controller to right to go to next article or to the left to go to the previous article
• Start or stop text-to-speech – Shift+SYM (shift key is the “up arrow”)
• Pause text-to-speech – Spacebar
• Switch Between Male and Female Voices & Change Voice Speed – Alt + Aa keys & then toggle between settings with the 5 way controller
• Start text-to-speech at specific point on a page – To begin the text-to-speech at a particular point on a page, move the cursor with your 5-way controller to the point just before you want the reading to begin.
• Play or stop MP3 Audio – ALT+spacebar
• Skip to the next audio track – ALT+F
• Pause Audible Audiobook – Spacebar

Text-To-Speech Shortcuts:

Audio Controls:

Photo Viewer Controls:

The picture viewer can be activated by connecting your Kindle2 via USB cable to your PC and create “pictures” folder in Kindle USB disk. Create subfolders inside of that and copy the pictures. The subfolders will then become “book” names and the pictures will be pages. *.gif, *.jpg and *.png files all seem to work. Now you disconnect the USB cable and press Alt-Z in the home screen.  Your picture folders should now appear among the books now.

While you are viewing pictures in the Picture Viewer:

• Toggle Actual Size – C
• Toggle Full Screen – F (currently not working properly)
• Zoom In  – Q
• Zoom Out – W
• Rotate – R
• Reset Zoom Level – E
• Pan Photo Larger Than Screen – Use 5-way controller to pan photo

Other Tips and Tricks:

• Save All Words You’ve Looked-up in Dictionary – When you look a book up in the dictionary, highlight the word & the definition and it will save it to “My Clippings.”   You can then track all of the words you’ve looked up.  My Clippings is accessible in a text file when your Kindle is tethered to your computer with the USB cable.  Here’s a step-by-step guide on saving your looked-up words:

1. Place the cursor over the word you want to look up. (or search for the word)
2. A “mini definition” displays at the bottom of the screen.
3. While the mini-definition is showing, press the “return” key.
4. The more detailed definition from the dictionary will appear.
5. Place your cursor at the beginning of the entry and click the 5-way controller.  Then move the cursor to the far-right point of what you want to save to “my clippings” and click the 5-way controller once more to highlight the definition.

• Turn multiple pages at once – Hold down the next/prev page button or click them multiple times causes the Kindle 2 to turn several pages at once.  It’s slow and not ideal, but does work.
• Delete Book from Kindle – Highlight the item you want to delete (navigate with 5-way button), then press left with the 5-way controller to bring up the Delete selection option.  Press select with 5-way controller to confirm deletion.

Advanced Kindle 2 Hacks

How does Google Instant work?

Go to Google and type:
A – the search results show Amazon.com
Now type
Au – your search results show results for Auto

Here is another example:
Type Denver Ski
Your results are mostly skin clinics
But as soon as you put a space after ski you get more ski related results.

Google claims this will save 2-5 seconds per search.

What does this mean?

When you are creating keyword terms and title tags for your page you must consider how a person will be typing in their request. The word order will effect if your ad or list comes up or not.

I suspect in time people will not complete typing there search request and will only type part of it because they find a result below that is close to what they are looking for. If your page is not optimized to rank for a partial word search, for example part of your long tail term, then it may never be seen.

This could also affect your PPC cost since Google ranks your landing page on how many impressions your ad gets. Google has stated that they changed this algorithm so that an impression only counts if:

• User clicks on a result PPC or organic
• User looks at the page more then 3 seconds

There is not enough data to know if this is going to affect the costs of PPC and it is possible that once the system averages out over time it may not have an effect. Time will tell.

What should I do?

• Test your terms and see how they come up.
• Check your title tags to make sure they are optimized to how one would search by word order
• Track your PPC click through rates to make sure they do not jump up unexpectedly.

More information

Google Instant Info

http://www.google.com/instant/

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/search-now-faster-than-speed-of-type.html

Google Instant Complaints

http://www.google.com/support/websearch/bin/search.py?ctx=en%3Asearchbox&forum=1&query=google%2Binstant%2Bsucks

http://search.twitter.com/search?q=google%2Binstant%2Bhate

Polls

http://www.google.com/instant/

http://ipcommunications.tmcnet.com/topics/ip-communications/articles/115909-google-instant-appears-change-search-behavior-users.htm

Google Instant – Bing Type Ahead comparisons

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2368863,00.asp

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/10/google-instant-search_n_712126.html

User behavior changes

http://ipcommunications.tmcnet.com/topics/ip-communications/articles/115909-google-instant-appears-change-search-behavior-users.htm

Consistent Message
The user starts with the ad, once clicked they come to the landing page. The message, color, images, should be the same on the ad as on the landing page. So if you have blue banner with a picture on it the landing page should have the same image and blue color on the page. This reinforces trust to the user and they know they are at the right place that they expected. The offer should be the same, do not bait and switch.

Build user understanding quickly
There are four main pieces of information a user is looking for.

• Where am I -  meet the expectation set up by the ad.
• What do you offer – clearly state what you offer in one sentence
• Why do I care – tell the user what the advantage is of your offer don’t assume they know. Also use You and Your instead of I and We. Using You connects the user faster to their imagination of them using your product or service.
• What do you want from me – You have to ask for the sale. Get, Buy, Sign up, Start today. Only ask for information you really need. You can get additional information later. People are skeptical about providing any unnecessary information. Be up front about any costs or fees.

Simple Layout
Studies show that when people read online they jump around. They often read the first and last sentence of a paragraph, not the middle; they often glance over to an item on the left or right.

• Keep the text simple with plenty of white space so the user is focused on what is on the page and not distracted.
• Use two columns one with the main body of text the other can be a thin call to action form, testimonials etc.
• Use font color and size, and graphics to capture the user’s attention but not distract them.
• Reinforce our call to action in multiple places on the page
• Have a call to action in the upper right above the fold (what you see before scrolling) as well as your main pitch.
• Build trust with Return and Privacy links on the bottom of the page
• Be careful not to have too many links off the page. Many landing page have no navigation and pigeon hole the users into one path others wait until the user has clicked the first button to a series of forms once they are filling out forms there are no other links off that path.

Test and Test again
With each offer you would have a separate landing page this keeps a consistent message. However you will also need to test different ads and different landing page. Some pages would have different layouts others may only have one call to action word changed in the heading. Remember this is an experiment so only change one thing so you can figure out what change worked and what change did not. Track your clicks, acquisitions, time a person spent on a page etc.

Feel free to contact me if you want a free landing page consult. Go to www.OptimalLeadGen.com

In many categories it seems that the minimum bid in Adwords is 40 cents, even if nobody else is biding. Sometimes the actual cost per bid is lower but Google wants you to start at 40 cents. Forty cents may not sound like a lot but it is when you have a small budget.

In the insurance market all the big insurance companies are paying exurbanite amounts of money per click. They can afford this because I think there end game is to get rid of insurance agents and do the majority of insurance transactions on the web. This is especially true in home and auto policies. Even the big insurance lead companies don’t sell insurance leads but just click through to the insurance sites form and charge for the click. So unless you live in a small town it is hard to advertise on Google and have a return on your advertising investment.

Lastly Google is now allowing multiple organic listings on the first top ten results. This means the user does not get 10 different results to look at but often 5 results from the same company and often that company is a larger business that has been focusing its efforts in organic placement for the last 10 years. One piece of good news it that Google is looking to put more efforts toward fresh content not content that is years old. But the reality is do users really want to look at the same company in multiple placements or a variety of companies to review?