May 2015

Which is your problem – Marketing or Capacity?

In 1984, a business guru wrote an interesting book.

It was interesting, in part, because it was in the form of a novel. It’s called “The Goal” (by Eliyahu Goldratt).

The novel outlines a number of ideas about business organisation, particularly in manufacturing.

One of these is called “the theory of constraints” and deals with bottlenecks in factory assembly lines.

However, it’s relevant to all types of business.

But, before I explain how it is relevant to you, I’m going to explain it in terms of (more…)

By Steve Gibson, ago

Long copy v short copy

“People don’t like to read”

“People have short attention spans”

“People don’t scroll”

“You need to keep it short, no-one’s going to read ALL that.”

These are the things you’ll hear when the subject of long copy comes up.

Yet, at the same time, direct marketers – people who measure the response to their sales messages – say things like this:

“As a rule, good long copy will always beat good short copy.” (Drayton Bird)

So who is right?

Long Copy Put To The Test

A couple of months ago, I wrote a long copy version of a client’s sales page. This longer version had 1089 words, compared to the existing version’s 360.

Unsurprisingly, there was some resistance (more…)

By Steve Gibson, ago

11 reasons why PPC is better than SEO

When I first started managing PPC accounts – back in 2006 – PPC was seen as SEO’s poor cousin.

At that time, that probably made sense – after all, the ads were just text ads on the right hand side of the search results page.

Nowadays, paid listings take up around 85% of the first fold of Google results. And that – combined with Google’s crackdown on SEO link building – has, in my opinion, turned the tables and made PPC the superior choice.

And here are 11 reasons why…

#1: The Ads Get More Clicks Than Organic

A 2012 study by Wordstream showed that, for highly commercial search terms – the sorts of terms you’d SEO for – sponsored listings take up 85% (more…)

By Steve Gibson, ago