Well, I just got back from SES (Search Engine Strategies) in NYC and would like to break down some of the things I learned. If you are not familiar with SES take a look at their site to learn more. They run a series of conferences featuring some of the top search engine marketing folks as well as reps from the top search engines. Having been involved in the search marketing world for the past 8 years I was familiar with most of the material but there were a few new products and ideas that were discussed and I would like to pass on some of these to the AR community. Today's discussion will focus on PPC, specifically on the Website Optimizer now being offered by Google AdWords.

Website Optimizer

Google's website optimizer is a new tool that allows AdWords advertisers to easily create and test different landing page versions in their AdWords campaigns. Basically you download an interface and get a couple snippets of code to place on your site. Once the code is in place you can change the way your landing page will look when AdWords users click on one of your listings. It allows you to change headings, image placement, images, and pretty much any on page section of your landing pages. You simply add the different aspects into the free interface and the program will randomly use the different versions of your landing pages. Once you start getting the traffic you can look in the report portion of the interface and it rates the different versions based on CTR, Conversions, improvement, as well as a few other factors. You can see an example here. 

The tool provides an easy way to create hundreds of different landing pages without actually having to create additional pages on your server. There were a few people there who used the Beta version and they discussed how easy it was to use and how it really helped them find the best landing pages as well as create really specific landing pages for seasonal or topical marketing. There is great potential here to develop your AdWords campaigns to perform very well without a lot of time, effort, or the need to an Ad Agency. Once you get the code on your site all changes are made through the interface and you can create hundreds of different versions without taking up server space or angering your webmaster.

I have not been back to the office so I have not started using Website Optimizer but that is number one on my priority list. I have been struggling with my IT department to implement some of the landing pages I have created but with this I will not have that problem and I will be able to run more robust tests with much deeper reporting functionality. Website Optimizer is free from Google and if you are using AdWords I suggest you give it a shot. I will be reporting my experiences with it after I have has sufficient results.

Next Up: Discussion on Links and how to get the right kind of links (as well as what to avoid).