Albeit with a little bit of a spelling problem.

The post Easy E’s Not Dead appeared first on Matt Rhys-Davies.

Google is Everywhere

Calling our mighty search overlord omnipresent may sound a little over the top, but take a second to consider the last place you didn’t encounter Google in some shape or form…

• In your home? Yes – hiding away in your laptop, but still very much there.
• At work? Well of course, otherwise what would you do when you get stuck on something? Go to Bing? Ha! No chance. As it’s assumed you actually want the correct answer.
• In the toilet? If you have a smartphone and it’s in your pocket, well, it’s fair to say the big G is keeping you company there as well.

Assuming you’re not a reader of the Sun (if you are, why are you reading this? The internet is full of naked women, just ask Google) or one of its ilk – then you will doubtlessly encounter some form of article about Google somewhere. Usually to do with data protection laws and flagrant disregard.

Google Can Read Your Mind

Start typing a search query that you actually want answered – go on, I dare you – and Google will predict, admittedly with varying degrees of accuracy, what it is you’re going to ask.

If it gets it wrong, it keeps on trying until it’s correct, or you tell it directly. This is not time wasted, every single character you input into our god helps it to learn. Next time it will do it better, and the time after that will be even better, until it becomes abundantly clear that….

Google Knows Everything

Google started off life by knowing where some things were; you had to be fairly explicit & patient with it whilst it learnt the language, spelling and syntax commonly used. These were the dark, dark days, but in the end you got what you were looking for.

Then the all-mighty being progressed onto knowing exactly where stuff was. If you ask it a question then it will send you to where that question can be answered, which was nearly always Wikipedia. Now it’s improving further – if you ask it something like “weather in London” whilst technically not a question, it knows what you mean and answers you without sending you off elsewhere. Subtle proof that it can read your mind. Well, perhaps not actually that subtle after all.

Google is All Seeing

Well perhaps not yet, although it made a solid effort with the Street car, but it didn’t quite capture everything it wanted. So now we enter round 2 with Google Glass – the crafty little sod (sorry god).

Whilst you will never catch me wearing those glasses, I shall be in the vision of all those who do, and thus tracked regardless of my choice to be…alongside the current tracking done via my phone, search, browsing, email etc.

This has been written on my Chrome Book, whilst checking my Android phone for messages whilst my subconscious has actively been telling me throughout “you’ve used the word ‘Google’ too much, Google will bury your article due to perceived KW stuffing of the word ‘Google’”. All completely true – my subconscious has been totally permeated by the 21st century god.

There we have it, irrefutable proof that Google is indeed god. Any disagreements – come at me, and if I can’t answer, then I shall send Google in to bat for me.

The post Google is God appeared first on Matt Rhys-Davies.

So here you are with your fantastically enormous SQL file, and you need to build a local copy of your website. How exactly do you go about getting this done?

You’ll probably find that no matter what limits you set in php.ini it will time out. You’ll probably find that trying to upload via the command line will also time out (I experienced both of the above), so the only way to progress is to split the file out into smaller files.

Now your time is far too valuable to split out these files by hand, not to mention the difficulty of trying to open an 2GB file in any editor without crashing your computer. This is where SQL Dump Splitter saves your sanity.

This wonderful (free) program allows you to take a file and split it into smaller files in a couple of clicks. The smaller files created for you, are now easily upload-able through either phpMyAdmin or the command line.

There you go – problem solved. Time saved. And an anonymous German programmer to thank. Whilst I am hosting this file to download (as it appears to be woefully scarce on the web), I cannot take any credit for the concept or execution as I had nothing to do with it. Nor any responsibility should something go wrong. Not sure how it possibly could though.

Hope this can help someone as much as the program helped me.

The post Splitting Up Large SQL Files appeared first on Matt Rhys-Davies.

If Google are pinging these vouchers into your inbox or through your letterbox, we’ll assume that you take an interest in digital; you may have your own site, you may have just registered a domain or carried out web searches on specific terms. How Google target you, acquire the relevant data, or the privacy implications of their actions, are neither here nor there for this article, we’ll just labour under the assumption you’re interested in starting the marketing for a web property and don’t yet have an AdWords account.

So now you have your site up, and are busy looking at ways to acquire traffic – I told you I’d make a lot of assumptions. Rather than dive straight into defining keywords for SEO and chasing those terms, or throwing your entire free voucher of clicks at buying adverts that you think will convert well. Stop and think; do not see this as traffic with the sole intention of conversion, see this as funding for a mini-research project.

• Step One
  Work out what keywords are relevant to your site; if you’re selling t-shirts it’s unlikely a keyword such as ‘land rover’ will convert for you, so absolutely no point in chasing it. Think about your product, think about what you would search for when looking to buy that product: funky t shirt, cool t shirt, unique t-shirt etc, create a list of 20 potential keywords to target.
• Step Two
  Take the list created above, and spend some time researching how many searches are completed monthly for them – Google Traffic Estimator – to determine whether the volume warrants targetting them, and how competitive they are. SEOmoz provide an excellent Keyword Difficulty Tool for example if 500 searches are performed globally for a highly competitive keyword, it probably won’t be in your interests to chase that particular one, so select and analyse another one and whittle your list down to ten.
• Step Three
  Now you have ten keywords to approach, setup and define your adverts, do this process slowly and methodically, capping your spend at small quantities so as not to burn through all that credit in a few hours. You want the time to assess performance and tweak appropriately.
  The process of setting up your specific adverts is out of the scope of this article, you can find a great introduction to setting up your PPC adverts at RedFly.
• Step Four
  To get the most out of your adverts I’d advise to consistently assess your data as to what is working well for each keyword. If you find that you are not converting (your conversion metric could be affiliate click out, purchase, data capture etc) from them, take a look at other metrics to draw conclusions. what keywords bounce the lowest, what keywords result in the longest time on site, the greatest page views etc.
• Step Five
  Step five is optional but encouraged. If you feel you have enough data to start shaping the basics of an SEO strategy, go ahead and start your link-building and optimisation. Although I would suggest to consistently run small volume PPC adverts to 1) increase general traffic; and 2) give you – more or less – real time data to work on. So if you have a few £’s / $’s / €’s to spare, then trial, trial ad trial some more.

Why go to all this effort?

SEO can be difficult as the fruits of your labour won’t be seen for weeks or months, so when they are finally revealed how would it feel if the fruit you’ve been striving towards is rotten? Time wasted. What you think will convert, may not be fully or even partially aligned with what the rest of web will convert on, so before going to the time and effort of optimising and link-building, it pays enormous dividends to determine what keywords you need to work towards.

PPC has the advantage of providing *instant* traffic but at a cost, whereas organic traffic can provide consistent (dependent on the effort you put in) targeted traffic for free, and your time will be far more productively spent by doing your research before going to work on organic keywords.

The post Using Google AdWord Vouchers for SEO appeared first on Matt Rhys-Davies.

In essence Tor should be considered the way to browse the Internet. It will ensure what you view, watch and listen to on the web, remains yours to share as you see fit. I follow the law online as I do offline, and take great offence that those very politicians who are supposed to protect our freedom, seem intent on destroying it.

Therefore my advice is go and download Tor, it’s free, it’s safe and provides you with the privacy you hopefully strive for. Let’s send a firm message to the Government – don’t restrict and interfere with that which you do not understand.

Being the ever-helpful person I am, you can read up more on the Tor Project at Wikipedia for further information. I highly recommend it.

The post Protect Your Anonymity with TOR appeared first on Matt Rhys-Davies.

This article won’t really be on the technicalities, or pros and cons of retargeting, or god forbid – on the privacy argument. Rather it’ll focus on commercials, a theoretical test case and hopefully arm you with enough information to make an informed decision.

Background & Commercials

I’m going to dive straight in and assume you’re familiar with the concept of retargeting, if not then as always there’s a Wikipedia article covering it to get you started, or of course – hint hint – my post on it.

When you embark on a retargeting program – depending on the provider you go with – you’ll work to either a CPC (where you’ll pay on the click), or CPA (where you’ll pay a commission of the sale), and never CPM despite what some people declare, this would result in a media company buying on CPM, then selling on CPM which makes little sense in terms of impressive margins, or indeed reargeting as a model at all.

If you’re working to a CPC agreement with a provider such as Criteo or Struq, you’ll pay for the click to drive a user back to your site. This is done on a bidding system with Citeo – similar to AdWords; I’d assume so with Struq as well but wouldn’t like to stake my life on it. Therefore depending on the competitiveness of your sector your Cost Per Click fee will vary.

If you’re working to a CPA with AdGenie or myThings then it’s far easier to arrange commercials through an affiliate network and treat them as any other publisher when negotiating commissions as in traditional affiliate marketing; both providers appear to still be working through Affiliate Window.

One important point to bear in mind on CPA arrangements is that in addition to working with your retargeting provider as a standard publisher on click-throughs, last-click and de-duplication, the provider will also claim everything that falls within a 48 hours post impression window. That is to say if a retargetting advert is served to a user, they don’t click it, they may not even see it, but they find their way back to your site through another means (SEO, PPC etc), the retargeting provider will claim this sale as theirs. It’s tough to swallow, but from their point of view it has to be done, as they’re buying the media on your behalf, therefore need to guarantee a return.

So, let’s build a theoretical case study from which we can explore statistics, the example merchant that I’m going to build is that of a jewellery website.

On a CPC

As you’re paying to get the lead in on the click, you’ll pay every time a user clicks on your creative regardless of whether they buy. As Criteo works on a bidding platform, it all depends on the competitiveness and aggression of the bidding in your sector. With a sector such as jewellery you’d perhaps be looking at about £0.50 CPC, therefore every lead that you’re bringing in to the site will cost you £0.50. Once they’re on-site it’s your job to convert and ensure you make your money back.

If for example you typically convert at 1%, let’s be overwhelmingly generous and say that as the targeted user has already browsed your site they’re likely to convert at higher than average. It’s quite unlikely that users will be converting at twice the average on a retargeting campaign, but for the simplicity of maths here, it’s the assumption we’ll be labouring under, so 2% is what we’re working to.

This means that as the merchant you’ll be paying £25 for every conversion made through retargeting. With CPC commercials, that’s it. You pay no more. No commissions on the sale or tracking / network override fees, just for the clicks. If your AOV is £100, once you take away the cost of bringing in that one conversion at £25 in total, you’re looking at a CPA of 25%. Now whether this is attractive or even acceptable to you, depends on how it stacks up against your other marketing channels, and above and beyond anything else: your margins.

On a CPA

CPA retargeting agreements will more often than not, include a 48 hour post-impression claim. Now there are far too many variables – volume of traffic, frequency capping, different marketing channels etc – in this particular area of retargeting for me to contemplate trying to tackle with solid numbers. Just make a note to keep an eye on how the post-impression claims are legitimally driving sales.

Post impression tracking ensures that if a user that you’re retargeting, is displayed one of your ads, doesn’t see it, doesn’t click on it, but re-enters your site through another channel within 48hours, you will pay the commission for it. So my word of advice is to simply keep a close watch on it.

The CPA retargeting programs that I’ve worked on, have always been through a network. I prefer this as opposed to going direct. Why? Well a network will take the hassle out of the setup, provides account management, and generally acts as an impartial third party between the merchant and the publisher – adding an extra degree of trust to the relationship.

What you – as the merchant – will pay will largely be defined by you. You will set the commission rate that you are prepared to pay, and perhaps have to negotiate with the publisher over it. Once this has been firmly established you will not pay another penny until a sale is made.

If the commission rate agreed is 10% and the sale made through retargeting is £100, then the commission payable is £10, taking into account the network override (typically 30% of commission paid) then you’ll be paying £13 for a sale, as it’s all CPA this seems more attractive than Criteo’s CPC.

Although as always – there’s a caveat. As mentioned above, CPA agreements will claim all post impression sales made within a 48hour window, making this fall into somewhat of a grey area. Throw in the added variable of the CPC networks – Criteo & Struq – being larger, therefore having better buying power for media and thus giving you a larger reach. It’s truly a minefield and requires trialling, tweaking and consistent analysis. Also, never forget the network tracking fees that you’re required to pay, these are usually expensive so hard to miss.

Round Up

Perhaps you didn’t find the solid figures within this post that perhaps you were seeking to kick off your campaign. If that’s the case then I apologise Although with so many variables that play a part – your conversion, your CPC, your margins etc – it’s impossible to offer useful advice that are guaranteed to work for your business model. Rather I was looking to explain the differences in the commercials you’ll work to.

The key advice I will leave you with, is the same for every facet of web marketing, whether it’s SEO, PPC, affiliates etc: try it. You can read and ponder until the end of time, but until you test it, you’ll never know.

The post How Much Does Retargeting Cost? appeared first on Matt Rhys-Davies.

Essentially what was an incredibly useful revelation for me – that in all honesty should have hit me a lot sooner – was don’t try to do everything yourself. It’s remarkably rare to find someone who can design, develop, produce content and market at a professional level. So why waste time in tackling a field that you’re simply not meant for. Particularly when you can pay a few £’s, click a few buttons and have a professional, stylish skin active on your site in a matter of minutes.

I have spent hours upon hours scouring the web hunting quality skins and designs for my beloved WordPress and found ThemeForest to have the best selection of premium themes for the most up to date versions. However if you’re on the hunt for free themes, you can’t really beat the WordPress site itself, more basic but definitely do the job. Oh, also I can’t forget StudioPress – worth checking out and reading up on their Genesis framework alone.

Anyhow, that’s my advice – if you can design, then by all means produce ground-breaking interfaces. Although if your creativity lies elsewhere, save yourself the time and hassle by using pre-made themes. Although if nneither of these appeal to you, there are plenty of sites out there where you can simply buy a website.

Having written this post I realised I’ve only just re-skinned this site with its current (as of 11th March 2012) theme, which I designed and coded myself. What can I say? I’m a fan of minimalism and clean code, and none of the themes out there quite lived up to my needs. How contradictory.

The post Themes, Templates & Realisations appeared first on Matt Rhys-Davies.

A little background – Currys is a consumer electronics retail store that is part of the Dixons store group (DSG), and within their glorious Putney store I purchased a Lenovo ideapad. After registering Windows (hopefully I’ll make the switch to Ubuntu soon), I fired up Chrome and this is where my curiosity was raised. Of course Google was set to be the default site I landed on, but instead of just being dropped onto the URL http://www.google.co.uk it had a tracking ID appended to it as can be seen in the screenshot below.

The web marketer in me kicked in straightaway – this session is being tracked by the id = ‘DSGQ’ which implies it’s being attributed to Dixons Stores Group, what are the financial arrangements here? Are click revenues paid on a split to Dixons for effectively delivering me repeatedly to Google’s money making machine? Is a flat fee being paid? What form of commercials exist here?

Having just quickly tapped out this article, it seems obvious that if all Dixons laptops sold default to Google that Dixons would reap some form of payment as they are effectively delivering repeat leads to a business.

Anyhow, just thought it may be worthwhile to share as every day new revelations are seemingly made over the reach of the dominant search player and penetration into Microsoft’s platform is really quite an interesting development.

The post Just How Far Does Google Reach? appeared first on Matt Rhys-Davies.

I think some advice on PPC strategy may need to be dispensed. Good targeting by Google. Again.

The post Some Incredible Ad-Copy appeared first on Matt Rhys-Davies.

Throughout this fascinating text we are taught everything from early science’s attempts to weigh and give an age to the planet earth, through to academic rivalries that transcend time and geography. Each page delivers new learnings of human and epistemological endeavours that explore every branch of the sciences, whilst remaining entirely accessible to all with a thirst for knowledge.

Bryson’s exploration of time, space and purpose is utterly compelling; whilst new concepts are introduced and expanded upon, they never serve to overwhelm, but simply educate, inform and answer probing questions, such as how the tides of the oceans work, or how the marvel of volcanoes arose. Whilst the book explores the foundations and origins of our universe and our species, we are introduced to some of the most colourful and influential characters of science and history.

An absolute must read for anyone who has pondered where we came from and how we came to be. A Short History of Nearly Everything at Amazon.

The post A Short History of Nearly Everything – Bill Bryson appeared first on Matt Rhys-Davies.