Duncan Jones

This article originally appeared on Web Profits blog.

After a sunny Sunday checking out multi-million dollar yachts on Sydney Harbour, the thought of boat ownership crossed my mind.

Forgetting the fact that I lacked a million dollars, an evening researching boats led me to checking out “boat insurance”… and what I found was quite shocking.

With an estimated cost-per-click (CPC) of around $11 and 3,600 searches per month, there’s no doubt that “boat insurance” is a valuable keyword. And from what I found of the advertisers vying for the top positions, almost all of them are leaking money with Google.

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A citation to my Marmite article in Wikipedia.

A few years ago before the Penguins & Pandas of the online marketing world it was possible to do what you want with your website content and build large volumes of low quality, easy-to-get links and still rank on Google. Unfortunately, those days are gone and it is now harder to rank a site organically for your chosen keywords. These days it is all about quality and once you’ve nailed the content which is in your control, it becomes all about links. Generally the harder the link is to obtain the better quality it will be and the bigger impact it will have on your rankings. Link diversity is also important with Google comparing the proportion of each type of link in each niche as well as nofollow vs dofollow link ratios (which is why I am now happy with either type of link).

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It has been a long time since ive actually sketched on a pad of paper a wireframe or prototype and to say im thankful would be an understatement. A wireframe or prototype is essentially an outline of a website, landing page, app or other user interface such as software. The wireframe gives designers and developers a very clear guide on exactly how you want something laid out and gives you time to think about and plan the user experience elements of a design. This is vital if you want to maximise your conversion rates and user satisfaction.

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In a rare move by Google this week they have launched a program which aims to kill or remove ads rather than promote them. In a company which generates almost all of their revenue from ads it is no doubt a controversial move internally which they have named ‘Google Contributor’.
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Whilst the book ‘Confessions of an Advertising Man’ was written back in 1963 before online marketing (and the internet!) was invented, it is still an incredible book that any marketing professional can learn from. The book is written by David Ogilvy who is considered the ‘Father Of Advertising’ by many and a ‘Creative Genius’ by most. At 37 years of age he founded the New York based advertising agency which later became Ogilvy & Mather and through a mix of research, sales copywriting and big creative ideas he cemented himself as one of the most talented marketers of his era. To celebrate the end of 2014 I thought I would give away a copy so one reader can learn from and apply his techniques to improve their online marketing ROI.

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